The Horse Road (19 page)

Her fingers were light and dry, like dead leaves, as they touched my face. I held very still; perhaps I was dreaming. Perhaps I would awake and find this was all unreal: the enemy assault, the dying city, the threat to Swan, my weakened mother, my anguish and terror.

‘You … are … a warrior,' my mother whispered.

I stared at her between my laced fingers. Her words drifted out through her dry lips, and sweat broke out on her forehead with the effort of speaking. Her fingers fell away from my face and I clasped them on the fine wool coverlet embroidered in scarlet thread.

‘A warrior does not … give up her … freedom.'

I waited, while the lamp guttered and smoked, and the stars climbed westwards, but my mother sank deep into her opium-induced dreams and said nothing more. I lay on the bed beside her with my face against her chest and listened to the light
catch of her breathing, my ringed fingers threaded through hers.

Yes, I thought, a warrior was what my mother had trained me to be. And now, at last, I would become one.

When I awoke, the lamp had sputtered out and darkness filled the room. Faintly, far off, a rooster crowed and I knew that dawn must be seeping over the Tien Shan mountains. My mother's breathing was even and deep. Her cheek was cool when I pressed my lips to it. Then I rose and strode softly into my room, lighting a lamp. In my wall niche stood the rectangular golden casket that my father had brought back for me from a trip to Isfahan; it had a lid decorated with golden grape leaves, and four small feet shaped like a lion's paws. On its shining sides was engraved the white horse, Pegasus, his great wings held above his curving back. The reins hanging from his bitted mouth ran to the hands of a man, and all around them were engraved sunflowers and grasshoppers. Rotating the casket in my hand, I stared at the goddess Athena standing by a spring of water, her arms outstretched towards the white horse as she gave him as a gift to help the man slay the fire-breathing dragon.

I hefted the casket in my hand, and wondered how its weight compared to the weight of a golden chariot harness complete with breastplate, bridle, and crupper. On the trade routes running through
Ferghana, all goods were traded by weight; a thing was worth only its own weight in gold however fine or glorious its craftsmanship might be.

The twisted golden torc that Berta had given me, with its bright blue eyes, still lay against the base of my throat. I fingered it thoughtfully before opening the jewel casket and looking inside. Here were my favourite earrings and forehead jewellery, the silver ones inlaid with lapis lazuli that I had worn to beg at Arash's booted feet. Here were my finest rings, my armbands, my necklaces of amber and coral. My father traded in luxury goods – frankincense from Arabia, precious stones from the Mediterranean, Italian faience glassware, perfumes and ivory and marble statuettes and drinking horns of solid silver – and he had been giving me jewellery since I was a stumbling toddler. I had never considered its value, until this moment.
Thank you, Father
, I thought now, as the early light gleamed in the amber's golden depths and sparked in the facet of an emerald.

There was surely enough wealth here to turn a girl into a warrior; surely enough to purchase an ancient chariot harness, and the life of a white mare.

‘This is madness!' Lila protested, her eyes stretching wide beneath a curtain of shining hair. ‘I am going to tell my parents and they will stop you!'

I stepped closer to her bed and caught hold of her slender hands. ‘No! I must do this because it is the only way I can escape from the city! Come to my house after daybreak, and make sure that Fardad and the other servants will help Sayeh care for the mares and foals while I am gone. Please.'

She stared at me for a long moment while the grey light preceding dawn lapped at the window sill. A shiver ran through her. ‘What will I tell your mother?' she asked at last.

‘You don't have to tell her anything. I have left a piece of parchment beside her bed. You know her tribe had no written language, and she has never
learned to read Persian. So I have drawn pictures on the parchment so she will know I have gone out with the cavalry. And give this to Fardad to buy food for the mares.'

I slid three golden armbands over my wrists and pressed them into Lila's hand.

‘But what will you use to purchase the harness?' she asked.

‘I have my jewel casket here, under my tunic,' I explained. I patted the bulge that lay across my stomach, its weight pressed into my skin beneath the strips of linen that I had used to tie it in place. If I bent over, the corners of the golden box poked uncomfortably into me.

‘May the great angels ride on either side of you!' Lila said fervently, and I turned away on my booted heel and left before the tears rising into her eyes could spill over. Silently, I rushed down the stairs and through the dim garden. In my own courtyard, I dived into the granary where I had assembled my pile of equipment. I pulled leather leggings on over my roughest trousers of dull, worn linen; they were the ones I used when training young horses and they had been washed, and repaired with small stitches, many times. My fingers shook as I fumbled to tie the thongs, holding up the leggings, around my waist. Next I fastened a wide leather belt, with a buckle of red and white stone, over my tunic. To this I fastened
a leather drinking flask filled with water, and a pouch containing a flint for making fires, and a little food: dried apricots stuffed with almonds, dried dates, rings of dried apples, golden raisins.

Then I lifted the light chain mail armour from the dusty floor where it lay shimmering with a dull gleam. It belonged to my brother Petros and he had almost outgrown it before he travelled away trading with our father. The many, finely-wrought rings of iron slipped over me in a cool, hard cascade and the folds shook themselves straight under their own weight. The armour hung from my shoulders, close fitting across the bulge created by the jewel casket tied beneath my tunic, slightly longer than need be, and heavy. I felt braver, just for a moment, although my fingers trembled as I secured my dagger in place, then tugged a leather helmet over my plaited hair.

A cock crowed again, far off, as I ran into the harness room and, closer to home, a dog barked. I was breathless with panic. At any minute, our servants would rise to stir the fire into life in the kitchen and to go out into the street for the morning ration of water. I must not be discovered by them!

Most of my mother's weaponry was stored at our farm in the valley, but I found an old quiver, with a faded pattern of running antelope stitched upon it in red leather, and fastened it around my waist over the chain mail tunic. The strap holding it in place was soft with age and wear; I hoped that it wouldn't break
before this day was over. Bows stood stacked against one corner and I sorted through them, running my palms down their double curves, strumming my fingers over their strings of gut to feel for weaknesses or slackness. I hefted several bows in turn to my shoulder and pulled on them, testing their tension and spring as I notched imaginary arrows. This one would suit me, I thought, choosing a bow with a weight and tension that I knew I could manage to handle whilst fitting arrows to it at a gallop.

I slung the bow over my shoulder and then turned to the basket of woven grass where my mother's supply of arrows was usually stored. My heart lurched. The basket stood empty; only one stray white feather, broken from a shaft, lay in the bottom on the woven coils. Perhaps my mother's horsemen had taken all the arrows to use in the war. Perhaps already their finely polished shafts of willow wood lay strewn across the trampled gardens outside the city walls, or broken in the long grass of the plain. Perhaps they had pierced enemy armour, or were being burned in enemy campfires.

‘What are you doing?'

Surprise jolted through me. I spun on one heel and met Sayeh's blue gaze. For a long moment, we stared assessingly at each other. Would she still serve me, I wondered, now that I was riding out against her mother's people? Would she keep my departure a secret?

‘Sayeh,' I whispered, ‘I need your help.'

‘You're riding to find the golden harness that your betrothed spoke of in his red pavilion.'

Surprise jolted through me for the second time. ‘Help me,' I entreated. ‘I am going to ride Nomad down to the hippodrome and then try to buy a horse. I don't want to take one of my mother's mares to war. After I buy a horse, you can bring Nomad home again. And while I am away, I am entrusting all the mares and foals to your care, Sayeh.'

Her eyes widened in wonder and I heard the quick intake of her breath. ‘Truly?' she asked. ‘All the mares?'

‘Lila will make sure that the servants help you. It is only for a few days.'

‘All the mares,' she repeated, and I knew that she would devote her every waking hour to them; that she would sift the grain with her own hands to remove stones; would brush their flanks with loving strokes; would stagger twice daily into the courtyard to pour the precious rationed water into the stone trough from pottery jars.

‘Hurry!' I whispered. ‘Bridle Nomad!'

Eagerly she snatched at the bridle that I held out, its iron snaffle bit ringing as it swung against my armour, so that in the courtyard the mares pricked their ears and blew through their nostrils. I took another bridle, an old one with plain undecorated leather, and a worn felt blanket, and my own saddle with its dangling toe loops and the handgrip of
leather thong fastened to the wooden supports at the front. We had had fun, my mother and I, experimenting with those thongs and loops as our horses galloped across the training ground, raising puffs of dust as we swung on and off, or hung upside-down from our saddles.

Today, it would not be a game for me. And my mother would not be there to help me if I fell, if I was dragged, if I failed to dodge an arrow.

My heart bounded in my throat as I hurried into the courtyard and slung the saddle on to Nomad's back. My fingers fumbled under her belly, fastening the band, and under her tail with the crupper. Sleepy voices sounded in the kitchen and I led Nomad through the mares, saying goodbye to them with my eyes. Perhaps I would never see them again: black Pearl's whiskered chin, Peony's sleek gleam, or Iris's eyes, huge in her grey face.

Sayeh was at the door ahead of me, dribbling sesame oil on to the bolt so that it slid across without a sound. In a moment, we were in the empty street. ‘Get up behind me,' I whispered and the servant girl swung nimbly on to Nomad's loins as I nudged the mare into a trot. The streets became crowded as we neared the hippodrome, filled with soldiers in armour, horses, strings of goats, wagons carrying the last dwindling supplies of grain, files of servants carrying water.

‘W-when do we ride out?' I called as a band of
horsemen jostled past; although my voice quivered with fear, they barely glanced at me and their faces, beneath their helmets, were hollow and strained.

‘As soon as we are all assembled,' muttered one man; he had a tattoo of antlers across his cheeks.

Nomad snorted as we entered the great arched gateway in the stone wall surrounding the hippodrome for now we were being swept along in a jostling throng of servants and slaves, all rushing with arms filled with harness, armour, boots, and weapons. A sea of battle standards rose near the far side of the hippodrome amongst a clattering expanse of lances, and over a sea of tossing heads. Voices shouted and yelled, horses gave high whinnies of nervous excitement.

A great fist squeezed my heart. For one moment, it stopped beating. Was I truly going to do this? Perhaps Lila was right, and madness had stolen my mind. I licked my dry lips and pulled Nomad to a halt, surveying the chaos all around.

‘A horse … I need a h-horse,' I stuttered.

‘And arrows,' said Sayeh. ‘I am going to walk now, for no warrior would have a servant girl riding behind.'

She slid down into the crowd and caught at my foot loop for balance. As the sun rose, casting brightness upon spears and decorated bridles, I moved as if I was in a terrible dream; I swayed through rushing waves of noise and a babble of tongues, through the
hot dark fear that sucked at me, through the roar of smithy fires and the ring of hammers on glowing spearheads, through the trampling of horses. Dust clogged my nostrils. I couldn't breathe, and the jewel casket was heavier and heavier, flattening my stomach against my spine.

From far away, I heard my young, hesitant voice stammering over requests for arrows, over questions about horses. Warriors' faces blurred in and out of my vision; they all seemed to be dark and lined with fatigue, scowling, shouting through stretched mouths. I stared over their shoulders, shaken by shyness, unable to meet their fierce gazes. I saw that now the cavalry was hundreds of horses deep, massing at the hippodrome's far side in preparation for riding out of the city's southern gate; somehow, I learned from the voices around me that we were riding out against siege engines, just as Lila's father had said the previous evening. Our task was to cut a swathe through the enemy lines and clear a space around the great towers so that they could be set alight and burned.

Now I was pushing my way through the crowd towards a string of kneeling camels being laden with bundles of new arrows; I purchased enough to fill my quiver. Their shafts were of peeled willow but rough, made in great haste overnight in city workshops where men bent their backs to their tasks all through the long hours. All night, in the forges, the smiths had worked by their fires, hammering the iron arrowheads
as slaves worked the bellows, sending hot air fanning across the embers.

Now I was asking for a horse, bartering, bargaining. Searching. I was buffeted, hemmed in. I was going to be sick. I clamped my mouth shut and rode along the lines of tents and picket ropes. Now my voice was raised in a cry, a despairing cry for help, for a horse. At last a tribesman led an animal forward; a rawboned appaloosa with a dark head but a blanket of spotted white across his sides and hindquarters. His eyes rolled wildly, ringed with white.