Women of War (39 page)

“They're just tattoos,” Andrasta said, hearing her voice thick and distant, “made to look like blood and claw marks.”

“We know the story. We knew you by those marks, and seeing that you of all people were the lone survivor gave us hope.”

“Hope?”

Andrasta passed into darkness before she could hear the reply.

 

When Andrasta awoke again, the woman seated beside her was a stranger, older than herself, but not as old as Narjin. There was a similarity to Narjin in the woman's features, and Andrasta thought this must be Dmaalyn, the daughter of whom Narjin had spoken. This proved correct.

Dmaalyn looked to be in her thirties. She was less worn than her mother, but showed the same evidence of the hardness of a slave's life. While the Gharebi, Andrasta's people, wandered with their herds, their conquered peoples attended to the less dignified aspects of existence.

Some slaves worked as servants, traveling with the Gharebi. Others labored in agriculture, doing the undignified labor to which no Gharebi—quite literally—would stoop. Narjin's clan looked to be Ootoi. The Ootoi had been among the more difficult Gharebi conquests, but they had been broken just the same. For generations they had grown crops, forbidden on pain of death to mount the horses that were the Gharebi's pride.

Still, apparently, at least some Ootoi had managed to maintain a few warrior traditions. Andrasta felt her jaw lock as she thought of how the patrol of which she had been a member had been slaughtered. Narjin hoped Andrasta would preserve Narjin's clan, but right now Andrasta would be glad to see every drop of Ootoi blood spilled to feed the grass.

Narjin came in response to Dmaalyn's summons. With a respectful inclination of her head, she squatted by Andrasta's pallet to check her patient over.

“Stronger again still,” the slave woman said, satisfied. “Good. We're running low on time, and there is much you should know.”

“Time?”

“Your patrol will be missed. It would be best if you heard what I must tell you before then—so you can make some decisions.”

Andrasta found she could sit up on her own this time, but she accepted the cup of bitter tea Narjin offered her.

“You said something about hope,” Andrasta prompted.

“You remember that? Ah. I got a little carried away. First you must know about the slave uprising. It wasn't us, you see—or not wholly us. In a sense, it's you.”

“Speak sense, woman,” Andrasta said sternly. Then she recalled the kindnesses she had been shown and decided good manners would not be out of line. “Please. My head is better, but my ribs ache, my right arm is very sore, and I am heartsick over the deaths of my companions.”

Narjin nodded. “You probably have some cracked ribs. Your shoulder was dislocated. I put it back, but no wonder it hurts. I apologize for my circumlocutious manner of speech. Perhaps Dmaalyn would explain this next part. She is the one who first learned of it.”

Dmaalyn moved closer, lowering her voice. “Now, to understand this you must first know that our clan is large, and these last ten years has been largely settled in one place. My husband, Beru, is a physically powerful man. Our son—who is a few years younger than you—is already as strong as a grown man. Like many big men, they are often taken as slow-witted, and so when some strangers came looking to stir up trouble, Beru and Utberu were sounded out. Beru would have nothing of it, but he cautioned Utberu to remain silent, feeling it was best that we have an ear near the hornet's nest.”

Andrasta frowned. “Some strangers came?”

Dmaalyn nodded. “As I said, these last ten years our clan has been largely settled. As trade with the road builders has increased, there has been greater demand for grain and other agricultural products.”

“I had heard that,” Andrasta said. “My grandfather Cescu is opposed to this increased trade, saying it makes us weak and dependent on foreign luxuries. He says fermented mare's milk is a man's drink, not wine or beer. Also,” she made her voice deeper, “‘What does a warrior need gold and silver ornaments for when skin can declare his deeds?”

Andrasta smiled a touch ruefully and tapped her own tattooed arm, “Thus I earned this, though Grandfather can reward freely with gold or silver when he chooses.”

“As I said,” Narjin said with a gentle smile, “we knew you by those marks, knew both you and the story of how you earned them seeking a cure for your desperately ill younger brother, though you were but nine years old. There is some value in marking the skin, rather than rewarding with gold and silver.”

“Only nine, though,” Dmaalyn marveled aloud. “You were so young, and yet went into great danger out of love of your brother.”

Andrasta nodded. “Nine, but not so greatly in love with young Cu. My little brother had all the father's and grandfather's love that I had been denied. Still, I realized I didn't want Cu to die—if for no other reason than his death would break my mother's heart, and she had been given enough grief.”

“However,” Andrasta continued, “this diversion into my pitiful history interrupts your much more important report. I beg your apology. Tell on.”

Dmaalyn looked surprised at such courtesy from free to slave. Honestly, Andrasta was a little surprised, as well. She found she was having trouble thinking of these Ootoi as slaves. They seemed too much like people. Then, too, she was remembering her own history and when she remembered what role slaves had played in that she knew not whether to feel gratitude or bitterness.

“Tell on,” Andrasta repeated. “You were speaking of being settled.”

Dmaalyn nodded. “Yes. Our clan had long been trusted with early plantings and such, and when the wisdom of settled farm communities began to be seen, Mother Narjin saw that we were honored with one such.”

Andrasta heard herself interrupting again. “You consider a settled life an
honor?
”

Dmaalyn gave her a curious look. “When one lacks horses and wagons to ease the road, yes, the settled life is preferable.”

Andrasta nodded, then willed herself to listening silence.

“Even though we are a large clan,” Dmaalyn went on, “there are times when our community has not enough hands to work our fields. Planting is one such time, as is immediately after when the seedlings are young and tender. Harvest—like now—is another, for we must get the grain in before the autumn rains. When extra help is needed, gangs of laborers, mostly men, go from farm to farm. It was one of these gangs that raised the question of rebellion.”

Convenient that there be outsiders to blame,
Andrasta thought.

“Beru may be big,” Dmaalyn went on, her voice ringing with pride in her husband, “but he is
not
stupid. He realized something quickly. Some of these who said they were Ootoi were not Ootoi. They showed too much familiarity with horses. A few let slip from things that they said that they knew how to ride—little things, nothing obvious. One man stripped to bathe and Beru saw a small tattoo. Others managed to bathe only in each other's company. For most of the workers this behavior roused only ribald jests, but Beru wondered if these men, too, had marks to hide. Moreover, there were two he overheard speaking to each other in a language he had heard before—and that when as a boy his family had been attached as servants to a family that lived near some road builders.”

It was all making impossible sense. Andrasta had wondered how her patrol, armed, lightly armored, and mounted could have been overwhelmed by mere slave farmers, no matter how enraged, but this ... If warriors had been slipped in to foment rebellion. Yes. It would explain much.

“Why?” she said.

“You yourself have said it,” Narjin said gently. “Warlord Cescu does not like these recent changes. He would have the old ways stay. He is no longer a young man, true, but he is far from elderly. He could continue to lead his allied Gharebi for many years. The road builders are impatient people, and the only ones more impatient than road builders are younger sons.”

“My father, Feneki,” Andrasta said stiffly, “is among Cescu's younger sons.”

“I know,” Narjin said. “I have met him—him and his elder brother, Louks.”

“When?” It was more a demand than a question.

“Sixteen winters past, as winter was turning into spring. You have already mentioned the circumstances, mistress. I met Louks, Feneki, and Telari all on the night you were born, for you were born in this very tent.”

Andrasta had known the truth, suspected it, at least, from the moment Narjin had let drop that she knew Andrasta's mother. The recollection of the ostracism that had followed her inauspicious birth awoke in Andrasta a moment of unexpected, indeed, unwanted sympathy for the Ootoi. What had they done to deserve their state other than being born in a slave tent? The Ootoi and the Gharebi looked enough alike—the same straight, jet-black hair; the same deep brown, almond-shaped eyes; the same ivory skin that darkened to golden brown in the sun—that Gharebi warriors could conceal themselves among Ootoi slaves and only be given away by marks acquired in the years following birth.

Even their languages and religious traditions were much alike, so that Rangest, Andrasta's favorite among the gods, became Rangen, in the Ootoi tongue. She wondered if the Ootoi also told the story about how Rangest had stolen fire from the sun and if in their version of the story he had given it to the Ootoi.

But when at last Andrasta spoke, she did not mention gods or cultural similarities. She spoke from another part of her heart.

“That birth night has been a blight on my life,” Andrasta said bitterly. “Yet I am not so poor spirited as to blame you. Indeed, I owe you thanks. My mother's health has been fragile from that time forward. I think without your care she would have died and I with her.”

It was an ungracious thanks, and Andrasta knew it, but Narjin only nodded with deep understanding.

“Yes. I have kept an ear open for news of the child I midwifed that night. I heard how, though Telari could be the least blamed for being abroad that night, she and her daughter bore the brunt of Cescu's wrath. It is odd how blind a father may be to rottenness in his sons. Cescu chose to overlook the signs then. In time, Louks redeemed his father's opinion of him through deeds of war, Feneki through abject obedience to Cescu's every whim. Yet Cescu might have been wiser to judge his sons based on their earlier ventures, rather than their later actions.”

Dmaalyn asked hesitantly, “Begging your pardon, Dawn Rider, but why did your grandfather resent you and your mother when the transgression committed at the time of your birth was instigated entirely by your father and his brother? You were a babe unborn, your mother a heavily pregnant woman, surely unable to resist her husband's will.”

“As my father,” Andrasta said sadly, “could not resist that of his brother. Their plan was simple—to play upon my grandfather's pride of family by having me born among my grandfather's herds at the season when the mares were foaling. Uncle Louks encouraged my father to believe that I—and therefore in reality my father—would be given every foal dropped that same night. You know the Gharebi's pride in horses. In one night my father would have been transformed from a lesser son to a man of wealth—and with that wealth would come influence that otherwise he might not earn for a dozen or more years.”

“And Louks thought to share in this newly gained fortune and influence,” Narjin said, her understanding of the intrigues of her betters uncomfortably acute. “Younger sons, as Louks and Feneki both are, must often find odd ways to gain power.”

“But I don't understand,” Dmaalyn repeated, “why were you and your mother blamed?”

Andrasta sighed. “I think even if Cescu was fully aware he was being manipulated, he would have rewarded Feneki and Louks for their boldness. What forced Cescu to acknowledge his sons' attempt to effectively steal a fortune from him was the failure of their plan. What caused that plan to fail was my being born that stormy night. It was not so much that I was born among slaves that caused my shame, but that had my mother and I held on a little longer Cescu would have had a reason to brag about his younger sons and those younger sons would have gained a fortune.”

“It doesn't seem right,” Dmaalyn said fiercely. Then her gaze dropped in fear. “I am sorry, mistress. I have spoken out of turn.”

“You have only spoken what I have often thought,” Andrasta said. “Narjin, something you said troubles me. You mentioned having met Louks—surely you did not say this merely to brag that you midwifed at my birth. I have not known you long, but already I know you are not the type of woman who grovels for a few coins. Does this tie into your daughter's tale?”

“Truly the Dawn Rider is perceptive,” Narjin said, sounding for a moment the very type of the groveling slave. “I am certain she would not be surprised to know that some of my clan's younger members hid and watched the apparent slave uprising from a distance. When it had ended, they came home and reported what they had seen.

“Just as I have kept a listening ear for tales of your growing years, so I have kept alert for stories of your father and uncle. It seemed to me that the ambitions that led them to bring a heavily pregnant woman abroad on a stormy night would not have died for being thwarted, only taken other shapes.”

“And ...” Andrasta said when Narjin paused.

“It is only hearsay,” Narjin said, “but my grandchildren said that they were not the only ones who watched the battle. They said a man with one ear mounted astride a chestnut horse with white stockings observed the fighting from a copse where he could not be seen by those who fought.”