Shadow of the Horsemen (Kalie's Journey) (22 page)

“Kings are rarely served spoiled meat,” said Kariik, sounding more like his usual self. “One of the few things that makes living with this charade worthwhile.”

“But in this weather, it happens quickly.” Alessa did not drop her gaze, as would have been proper. “Your father had the finest cook in the tribe. What happened to her?”

“I sent her back to her family. I don’t like having old women about.” Kalie thought briefly of Kariik’s mother, and for the first time, felt a stab of sympathy. “Shayla said she could run the kitchen.”

“And how has your food been since Shayla took over?” Alessa asked sweetly.

Kariik seemed about to get angry, then laughed. “I will send for Etria, and anyone else she needs.”

“In that case, I think your stomach will soon be much improved,” Alessa said.

Kariik gazed intently at Alessa, with more thought than Kalie would have believed him capable of. “If I could buy you from Nelek, could you keep me safe?”

“From poison?”

“Poison, curses, ill-wishes, my own stupidity...” Kariik rolled onto his back and stared morosely at the tent-poles. “The list is endless.”

Alessa waited until the king turned his head to see her. Kalie, it seemed, had been forgotten. She didn’t care; she only hoped they would continue speaking.

“Haraak will not dispose of you until he has someone to replace you, which he does not have,” Alessa said. “Your people are far too afraid of this journey to accept another such change. For now, your wit serves you best—simply continue to act the fool as you have been doing. When the time comes to make a change in your advisors, you will know.”

“Playing the fool is my one true talent,” Kariik said bitterly. “My father always said so.”

Kalie could tell Alessa was searching for the right thing to say, but Kariik was already drifting into sleep.

Alessa carefully gathered up her tools, then led Kalie outside.

They walked quickly, to avoid listening ears. “It seems you know more than I gave you credit for, old friend,” Kalie said. “What was all that about?”

“Kariik has it in him to be a great king,” Alessa said.

Kalie was certainly surprised by what she had witnessed, but she shook her head. “I saw his greatness when he threw Yasha to the mob to be stoned.”

Alessa nodded sadly. “Compared to the men we are used to, he seems like less than an animal. But considering where he came from, and what has been forced on him…Kariik is weak and frightened, but underneath, there is so much more to him…” Alessa stopped as they reached the edge of Nelek’s camp. “I did not want to admit it, but you’re right,” she whispered in Kalie’s ears while noisy chaos swirled around them. “I might be able to work with Kariik, but not two other kings, and not while Haraak controls him. Meet me in front of Nelek’s tent tomorrow before dawn. Come dressed as a slave.”

“I will,” Kalie breathed back.

Alessa seemed about to slip away. Then she hesitated. “Take this.” She slid a bundle of dull brown plants into Kalie’s hand. “Boiled down to a heavy syrup and mixed with any liquid, they bring forth visions—to those with the training.”

“And those without the training?”

“Drunkenness, stupor, terrifying nightmares, and if too much is consumed—death.”

Kalie’s hand closed tight around the plants. “Alessa—I know I have asked for this, but if it is betraying your oath…you don’t have to—“

“I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t want to,” Alessa said, then hurried through the crowded field back to her master’s tent.

The tent seemed to sag in the still air of late summer. Kalie felt a stab of guilt, and something more, as she realized she had barely seen Brenia since they had arrived at the Summer Gathering nearly half a moon span ago. And now she came, not out of friendship, but because this was the one place where she might find more of the plants that the Holy Women of the west called datura. She squatted down and scratched at the door flap.

Kalie could hear muffled sounds from within: angry words, then the crying of a child. Abandoning propriety, Kalie pushed open the flap and crawled inside. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw nothing to connect this tent with the pleasant, orderly home it had been last winter. Clothing and tent furnishings were strewn about haphazardly, and the remains of several meals were rotting beside the unlit brazier. Over and above it all, the smell spoke of oppression and despair. It was a smell she associated with Altia’s tent.

Brenia lay on her bed. Beside her, Barak sat whimpering.

“Brenia, what’s wrong?” Kalie asked, hurrying to her side. “Are you sick?”

When the older woman didn’t answer, Kalie threw back the tent flap, the fastest way to get light to see by.

“Close the flap!” Brenia shrieked, shielding her eyes with her hands, but careful not to actually touch her face.

As soon as Kalie saw her, she understood why. Brenia’s face was battered almost beyond recognition. Both her eyes were swollen shut. Gently easing Brenia’s robe open, Kalie found more bruising, although the greatest damage was to her face.

 
“Did Hysaak do this?” she asked pointlessly.

“It’s Elka,” Brenia wailed. “She has turned him against me!”

Kalie went to the water bag that hung from the rafters and found it empty. “How long have you been like this?”

“Since yesterday. After he beat me, he took her and rode off, like some sixteen-year-old with his new bride. My little boy has been guiding me, finding things for me, but…” Brenia’s voice trailed off.

“I will take him to my tent,” Kalie said. “Varena will feed him, and watch him for as long as you need.” She scooped up the crying boy, ignoring his feeble struggle at being taken from his mother, and hurried back to her own tent.

Handing the child to the servants with a few curt instructions, Kalie poured half their supply of water into the bag that Riyik had made for her and hurried back to Brenia’s tent.

She got Brenia to drink some of the water, lit the brazier, and used what remained in the bag to make willow bark tea. She then made a poultice by folding some healing herbs that she managed to find in the wreckage into heated felt. Brenia sighed as the poultice took effect.

“Thank you,” she said sometime later, while Kalie sat silently, holding her hand. After a while, she spoke again. “I’ve seen this happen to other women. I never thought it would happen to me. She wants me dead.”

“Why?”

Brenia shrugged, and then winced. “Sometimes they just do. For most, it’s enough to turn the senior wife into a slave; to goad the man into humiliating her. When Hysaak forbade me to use our tent to prepare you for your marriage to my only brother—to force me to leave you with crude strangers who wanted the job simply as fodder for gossip—I thought things had gone as far as they could. Surely, I told myself, she could devise no greater hurt.”

Kalie thought back to her wedding day, the memories already hazy. Suddenly, she saw the strange tent and those women she barely knew in a whole new light. Even in the west, family was a crucial part of the planning and celebrations of joinings. Had it even occurred to her to ask why Brenia wasn’t part of her preparations—something obviously important to these people? Or was she too busy trying to endure the barbaric ritual; to survive her own distress, to think of what it all meant to the one person who actually wanted to welcome Kalie into her family?

Had Brenia been in charge of the preparations, Larren would have been an honored guest, along with anyone else Kalie had wished to invite. They would have spent the afternoon painting each other’s feet with henna, and styling their hair. Kalie might even have enjoyed it; the others certainly would have. Kalie was mortified by her insensitivity.

“But for some,” Brenia continued in a flat voice, “there’s a need to be a man’s only woman. I suppose I should prefer death. There’s no honor in living like this.”

“Honor for who?” Kalie squeezed Brenia’s hand tightly. It didn’t hurt her, since neither her hands nor arms were bruised. “You’re the only person in this tent who’s behaved with any honor at all—by your standards or mine! Why should you be the one to die?”

 
“If I die, I may not die alone,” Brenia said sadly. “She carries his child now. If it is a boy, she will want him to be her husband’s heir. His only heir.”

“Riyik will help you—“

“An Aahken woman does not run to her family and complain to them of every marital problem she encounters.”

Just the serious ones? Kalie stared into the shadows dancing beyond the light of the brazier. “Brenia?” she said at last. “If you were to become a widow, would you consider allowing Hysaak’s second wife—his favorite wife—the honor of accompanying him to the next life?”

Kalie was so surprised to discover that she was serious; that she could actually sanction the killing of a pregnant woman, that she did not at first realize that the noise coming from Brenia was laughter. “You foreign witch!” she cried. “You’ve been seeing into my thoughts!”

Then the laughter turned to tears, and Kalie hurried to freshen the poultice. “Don’t cry, you’re eyes are swollen enough!” she said.

Brenia, like any Aahken woman could control her tears, so she did. “Why did you come here?” she asked.

“I came to ask if you had a certain plant called datura,” Kalie said.

Brenia’s head jerked up and her limited sight sought Kalie. “Datura? What would you want that for?”

Kalie found she couldn’t lie to this woman. “It is time for me to return to my own land, Brenia. And I will take you and your son with me if you will come. But when I leave, I must make sure certain people cannot follow us.”

“Does Riyik know?”

“About my leaving? Yes. He plans to come with me. About the drug I plan to make? No. I cannot ask him to be complicit in the killing of his own kind.”

Brenia moved aside her bedding. A pile of dried plants identical to the one hidden in Kalie’s robe lay exposed in leather wrappings. “I was counting them this morning, just before the dizziness brought me to my bed. Just before you arrived.”

Stunned, Kalie looked from the roots to Brenia, then back again. “Were you going to poison Elka?”

“These plants have other uses besides poison,” Brenia said, telling Kalie what she already knew. “I was going to make a love potion to win back Hysaak.” She snorted, then winced again at the pain it caused. “Foolish thought! It’s far too late for that. So I did, briefly, consider poisoning Elka. Then I thought, perhaps, it might be better to poison all three of us: Hysaak, myself and our child, and leave her to die for the crime!”

Quite without her will, Kalie’s hand shot out to take the plants. She would not realize until later that it was an act borne of the need to remove dangerous objects from a person who might harm herself, and nothing at all to do with Kalie’s need to kill her enemies. And later, she would be proud of that fact.

Brenia set her own hand over Kalie’s. “Take them. It’s obvious I’m not myself; I shouldn’t have such magic around me at a time like this.”

“I will take them, and no one will know where I got them. But when I leave, will you come with me?”

Brenia stared bleakly at Kalie through her swollen lids. “I am a woman of Aahk. I cannot steal my husband’s son from him and flee like a thief in the night. Such things are not done.”

“But a man beating his wife to death for the pleasure of his new bride is done all the time! And what of a husband’s vow to honor and protect his faithful wife? His vow to cherish her for giving him a son? Those remain in effect until the husband finds them inconvenient?” When Brenia said nothing, Kalie pressed further. “And your son? How will he fare once you are dead? Or does his dying with you solve everything?”

“Stop it!” cried Brenia. Strange, Kalie thought, that while she could barely see Brenia’s eyes at all, she could easily see the pain in them. “I have wanted to see your world since before I even met you! You don’t think I’ve dreamed about it at night? You think I haven’t whispered prayers to your Goddess when no one was around? I have! And what’s more, I’ve even heard Her answer!”

“You have? What did She say?”

“Nothing that makes any sense,” Brenia sighed, lying on her bed again. “Then again, nothing in my life makes any sense either.”

“Come with me,” Kalie pleaded, “and we’ll make sense of it together! Brenia, your own brother is going! Isn’t your blood tie to him stronger than your marriage vows to a man who has already broken his vows to you?”

“Such foreign thinking! Yet I would love, just once, to breathe the air of a world where everyone thought as you do. And I would love to feel my body sink beneath a pool of water that never dried in summer, and was hot in the winter—and do it with my clothes off and never fear to be beaten for it. But I won’t leave Barak, and Hysaak would hunt us to the ends of the earth if I took him. And I won’t endanger the rest of you by doing such a thing.”

“You let me worry about that,” Kalie whispered as she gathered up the datura. She waited until Brenia was asleep, then hurried to find Alessa.

It was hard to remember to walk behind Alessa with her head meekly bowed.

It was harder to get used to the scratchy, stained robe of a slave, even though Kalie had worn one just like it until barely a moon span ago. But for this plan to work, she had to play the role of a slave flawlessly.

It was a role she had never mastered, even when she was one.

“Remember to let me do the talking,” Alessa whispered as they reached the enormous tent of the Wolf Tribe’s king. “At least at first.”

Kalie nodded, tried to scrunch herself down even smaller, and followed Alessa into the tent. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw the tent was less crowded than Kariik’s, despite its near equal size. A red haired woman played a stringed instrument and sang for Amaar, the king’s eldest son as he ate his breakfast. A girl of about twelve crouched naked in the blankets, watching him eat, and looking hopeful for scraps.

They crawled through twisted passageways of felt, and came to a dark alcove. There, as Alessa had promised, Valaan, the king’s second son, lay sick from too much drink the night before.

Alessa knelt before him, holding a drinking skull filled with one of the morning after remedies that had made her famous among the king’s warriors. Despite his obvious discomfort, Valaan took his time acknowledging her.

He finally sat up and grabbed the cup from her, gulping down the contents in a single swallow. “Gods! This must be what horse piss tastes like! I told you to find a way to make it taste better!” Valaan muttered. For a moment, Kalie thought he was going to vomit up the medicine, so green did he look. But his stomach must have settled, for soon color began returning to his face, and he seemed to feel better.

Valaan expressed his recovery in the way typical of the men of his people: he slid his hand down Alessa shift and tried to grab her breasts. She moved smoothly out of reach, but did not try to flee. Kalie remained warily behind her.

“Ah, Alessa,” said Valaan. “Your considerable charms are wasted on my father!”

“Someday, I shall be yours, Valaan,” Alessa said in a seductive voice that sounded nothing like her.

“Why wait?”

“I would never tempt a man to betray his father.” Alessa motioned for Kalie to move forward. “But I bring news of another woman who desires your company, and she does not belong to your father and king. Nor any man of your tribe.”

Interest gathered in Valaan’s eyes, making him appear, Kalie thought, almost intelligent. She slowly drew out the red linen scarf she had hidden in the folds of her robe. “My mistress, Barta, wife of Krul of the tribe of Aahk, desires that you return this scarf to her tonight, while her ancient husband sits in council with his king.”

A flicker of suspicion crossed the prince’s face. “Barta? Who is that? Was she ever presented to me?”

“She is beautiful and young,” said Kalie. “Too much so for such an old man to satisfy. She has longed for the touch of a real man for all these moons that she has been married.”

At a nudge from Alessa, Kalie continued. “She has watched you since you arrived with your warriors, and even sent me to discover who you were. My mistress knew at once you were a prince, and was surprised to learn you were a younger son. She has whispered to me that your brother is not nearly so fine a man as you, and surely it is you who shall rule after your father. Barta wants to be part of that future.”

Kalie was afraid she had overplayed her hand, but the flattery had worked. “She wishes to deceive her husband inside his own tent?” Valaan tried to look disgusted, but couldn’t quite manage it. He took the scarf. “I will, of course, do as the lady asks.”

Kalie and Alessa backed slowly out of the tent, letting out long sighs of relief once they were back out in the summer heat.

“It worked!” Kalie whispered, as they walked through the noisy, bustling camp.

“Wait until tomorrow before you start celebrating.” Alessa’s voice was unusually harsh.

“Barta won’t be hurt,” Kalie reassured her. “Valaan expects to find an empty tent and a willing woman. When he sneaks in, she will scream and whoever comes in will find her defending her honor against a thief and an enemy. Her slaves—the real ones— will swear that she did not invite him.”

“We can hope. Kalie, I never doubted we were on the right path this whole time I’ve lived in this land. But now, I’m not so sure.”

“If we had enough time, Alessa, I know that your way would have worked. Eventually. But we only have days to turn a horde of more than a thousand warriors into groups small enough to be managed. The stakes are just too high.”

“Yes, they are,” said Alessa. But Kalie didn’t think they were talking about the same thing.

They parted company, Alessa, to visit a sick child, Kalie to her tent to render more of the drug from the datura plants, and then to practice the story she was working on.

When Kalie had showed her the plants she had gotten from Brenia, Alessa had stressed that if they drugged the kumis—the logical way to assure that mainly warriors were dosed—there would be no way to control the amount or strength any one man received. Some would undoubtedly die, while others would be only briefly incapacitated.

That sounded fine to Kalie, though she knew Alessa was not happy about it.

The next problem to overcome was taste. Fortunately, Kalie had discovered that the women of Malquor flavored their kumis with a strong spice called nutmeg, which—she hoped—would mask the bitter taste of the drug. Kalie had already mastered the art of brewing kumis as the Spears of Malquor drank it.

She set the latest batch to ferment, then turned her attention to her story.

“…And so at last Marik and the other noble warriors saw how they had been tricked; a dishonorable reign bought with their lives. They had believed their prince and he had led them to their doom—“ Kalie broke off, shaking her head. “Why not just hit them over the head with a war club and save everyone the trouble!”

She tried again. “Once there was mighty warrior named Sloak who was strong and true, and high in favor with his king. His only weakness was his lust for his king’s wife…”

Late that night, all three camps were awakened by screams and flaring torches from within the tents of Aahk. Running with the others, Kalie reached the tent of Krul, too far behind the others crowding around it to do more than glimpse the bloody spectacle: Valaan, Krul, and Barta all were dead, along with one unlucky slave. The others were all busy telling what had happened, although no two people seemed to have the same story.

Krul had lived long enough to tell those who first arrived on the scene—guards and neighboring warriors—that he had returned to his tent earlier than he planned due to stomach pains. There he had lain beside his wife, only to be awakened by her screams as a dog—not Wolf—entered the tent and attempted to ravish the pure and faithful woman while she slept beside her husband.

At least her reputation survived, Kalie thought bitterly. Perhaps that will be some small comfort to her family. She stayed focused on the scene before her, fearing to find Alessa’s accusing eyes in the darkness.

The stories swirled around her: how the two men had fought, Valaan foully slandering Barta, Krul defending his home and his honor, how Barta had been struck an unlucky blow by one of the men. No one seemed to know which.

When everyone had had their say, Kariik faced the grieving king of the Wolf Tribe and tried to look intimidating. “Is this how your people—your sons—honor a treaty?”

Kalie rather hoped Nelek would defend his son’s honor by insisting that Valaan would not have been in another man’s tent without an invitation, and thus beginning a fight that would not end until the two tribes depleted each other.

But nothing the old man said would remove the stain on his honor, and by extension, that of his tribe. He simply ordered Valaan’s body be prepared for travel, and set about breaking camp. He would not wait until morning, although Haraak used all of his considerable skill to hold the alliance together. In this endeavor, Haraak was not alone. There were men in all three camps who claimed that honor had been served: whatever the cause, the fight had been a fair one and was now over. The gods could sort things out in the next world, but here on earth, this federation was needed to secure all of their futures in the west.

Nelek, however, would not be moved. He led his tribe from the camp by the light of the gibbous moon and many torches. Kalie barely had time to find Alessa hurrying with the rest of the women to break camp and load all their possessions onto the horses, or their own backs. They exchanged swift farewells and the Goddess’s blessing—then Alessa was gone. For the first time since finding her, Kalie realized that she might never see her friend again.

When the first light of dawn touched the sky, only two tribes remained. The huge camp seemed almost empty to Kalie, as she wandered alone for a few stolen moments. She wanted to revel in the stark evidence of the federation’s diminished numbers, and in her first real feeling of power at having made it happen, but could not. She was sorry about Barta, and the slave, whose name she did not even know, but she had witnessed such things every day since coming here. Kalie had reached the point where it was possible to regard such things as these people’s own choice.

What bothered Kalie, as she sat beside a tiny spring she discovered, hidden in the tall grass that had been part of Wolf Camp, was how it would affect Alessa. Kalie did not possess the shining faith that her friend had, but she knew well how fragile it was. She could only hope this day’s events did not shatter it, even as she prayed they would help secure the safety of her people.