The Valley of Horses Read online

  “Of course. You’ll wait right here, won’t you?”

  One person went to get the cups, while the rest made a pretense of watching him. Thonolan and Jetamio made a break for the darkness beyond the fire.

  “Thonolan. Jetamio. I thought you were going to share a drink of wine with us.”

  “Oh, we are. Just need to make a trip outside. You know how it is after a large meal,” Jetamio explained.

  Jondalar, standing close to Serenio, was feeling a strong desire to continue their earlier conversation. They were enjoying the sham. He leaned closer to speak privately, to ask her to leave, too, as soon as everyone tired of the sport and let the young couple go. If he was going to make a commitment to her, it had to be now, before the reluctance that was already asserting itself put him off again.

  Spirits were high—the blue bilberries had been especially sweet last fall, and the wine was stronger than usual. People were milling around, teasing Thonolan and Jetamio, laughing. Some were starting a question-and-response song. Someone wanted the stew reheated; someone else put water on for tea, after pouring out the last in someone’s cup. Children, not tired enough for sleep, were chasing one another. Confusion marked the shifting of activities.

  Then, a yelling child ran into a man who was none too steady on his feet. He stumbled and bumped into a woman who was carrying a cup of hot tea, just as an uproar of shouts accompanied the couple’s dash for the outside.

  No one heard the first scream, but the loud, insistent wails of a baby in pain quickly stopped everything.

  “My baby! My baby! She’s burned!” Tholie cried.

  “Great Doni!” Jondalar gasped, as he rushed with Serenio toward the sobbing mother and her screaming infant.

  Everyone wanted to help, all at the same time. The confusion was worse than before.

  “Let the Shamud through. Move aside.” Serenio’s presence was a calming influence. The Shamud quickly removed the baby’s coverings. “Cool water, Serenio, quickly! No! Wait. Darvo, you get water. Serenio, the linden bark—you know where it is?”

  “Yes,” she said, and hurried off.

  “Roshario, is there hot water? If not, get some on. We need a tisane of the linden bark, and a lighter infusion for a sedative. They’re both scalded.”

  Darvo ran back with a container of water from the pool, slopping over the sides. “Good, son. That was quick,” the Shamud said with an appreciative smile, then splashed the cool water on the angry red burns. The burns were beginning to blister. “We need a dressing, something soothing, until the tisane is ready.” The healer saw a burdock leaf on the ground and remembered the meal.

  “Jetamio, what is this?”

  “Burdock,” she said. “It was in the stew.”

  “Is there some left? The leaf?”

  “We only used the stem. There’s a pile over there.”

  “Get it!”

  Jetamio ran to the refuse pile and returned with two handfuls of the torn leaves. The Shamud dipped them in the water and laid them on the burns of both mother and child. The baby’s demanding screams abated to hiccuping sobs, with occasional new spasms, as the soothing effect of the leaves began to be felt.

  “It helps,” Tholie said. She didn’t know she was burned until the Shamud mentioned it. She had been sitting and talking, letting the baby suckle to keep her quiet and contented. When the scalding hot tea spilled on them, she had only realized her baby’s pain. “Will Shamio be all right?”

  “The burns will blister, but I don’t think she’ll scar.”

  “Oh, Tholie. I feel so bad,” Jetamio said. “It’s just terrible. Poor Shamio, and you, too.”

  Tholie was trying to get the infant to nurse again, but the association with pain was making her fight it. Finally, the remembered comfort outweighed the fear, and Shamio’s cries stopped as she took hold, which calmed Tholie.

  “Why are you and Thonolan still here, Tamio?” she asked. “This is the last night you can be together.”

  “I can’t go off with you and Shamio hurt. I want to help.”

  The baby was fussing again. The burdock helped, but the burn was still painful.

  “Serenio, is the tisane ready?” the healer inquired, replacing the leaves with fresh ones soaking in the cool water.

  “The linden bark has steeped long enough, but it will take a while to cool. Maybe if I take it outside, it will cool faster.”

  “Cool! Cool!” Thonolan cried, and suddenly dashed out of the sheltering overhang.

  “Where’s he going?” Jetamio asked Jondalar.

  The tall man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. The answer was clear when Thonolan ran back, out of breath, but holding dripping wet icicles from the steep stone stairway that led down to the river.

  “Will this help?” he asked, holding them out.

  The Shamud looked at Jondalar. “The boy is brilliant!” There was a hint of irony in the statement, as though such genius wasn’t expected.

  The same qualities in the linden bark that numbed the pain made it effective as a sedative as well. Both Tholie and the baby were asleep. Thonolan and Jetamio had finally been convinced to go off by themselves for a while, but all the lighthearted fun of the Promise Feast was gone. No one wanted to say it, but the accident had cast a shadow of misfortune on their mating.

  Jondalar, Serenio, Markeno, and the Shamud were sitting near the large hearth, drawing the last warmth from the dying embers and sipping wine while they talked in quiet tones. Everyone else was asleep, and Serenio was urging Markeno to turn in for the night, too.

  “There’s nothing more you can do, Markeno, there’s no reason for you to stay up. I’ll stay with them, you go to sleep.”

  “She’s right, Markeno,” the Shamud said. “They’ll be all right. You should rest, too, Serenio.”

  She got up to go, as much to encourage Markeno as for herself. The others stood up, too. Serenio put her cup down, briefly touched her cheek to Jondalar’s, and headed toward the structures with Markeno. “If there’s any reason, I’ll wake you,” she said as they left.

  When they were gone, Jondalar scooped the last dregs of the fermented bilberry juice into two cups and gave one to the enigmatic figure waiting in the quiet dark. The Shamud took it, tacitly understanding they had more to say to each other. The young man scraped the last few coals together near the edge of the blackened circle and added wood until a small fire was glowing. They sat for a while, silently sipping wine, huddled over the flickering warmth.

  When Jondalar looked up, the eyes, whose indefinable color was merely dark in the firelight, were scrutinizing him. He felt power in them, and intelligence, but he appraised with equal intensity. The crackling, hissing flames cast moving shadows across the old face, blurring the features, but even in daylight Jondalar had been unable to define any specific characteristics, other than age. Even that was a mystery.

  There was strength in the wrinkled face, which lent it youthfulness though the long mane of hair was shocking white. And while the figure beneath the loose clothing was spare and frail, the step had spring. The hands alone spoke unequivocally of great age, but for all their arthritic knobs and blue-veined parchment skin, no palsied flutter shook the cup that was lifted to the mouth.

  The movement broke eye contact. Jondalar wondered if the Shamud had done it deliberately to relieve a tension that was growing. He took a sip. “The Shamud good healer, has skill,” he said.

  “It is a gift of Mudo.”

  Jondalar strained to hear some quality of timbre or tone that would shade the androgynous healer in one direction or the other, only to satisfy his nagging curiosity. He had not yet discerned whether the Shamud was female or male, but he did have an impression that in spite of the neutrality of gender, the healer had not led a celibate life. The satirical quips were too often accompanied by knowing looks. He wanted to ask, but he didn’t know how to phrase his question tactfully.

  “Shamud life not easy, must give up much,” Jondalar tried. “Did
healer ever want mate?”

  For an instant the inscrutable eyes widened; then the Shamud broke into sardonic laughter. Jondalar felt a hot flash of embarrassment.

  “Whom would you have had me mate, Jondalar? Now, if you had come along in my younger years, I might have been tempted. Ah, but would you have succumbed to my charms? If I had given the Blessing Tree a string of beads, could I have wished you to my bed?” the Shamud said with a slight, demure bend of the head. For a moment, Jondalar was convinced it was a young woman who spoke.

  “Or would I have needed to be more circumspect? Your appetites are well developed; could I have aroused your curiosity to a new pleasure?”

  Jondalar flushed, sure he had been mistaken, yet strangely drawn to the look of sensuous lechery and the catlike sinuous grace the Shamud projected with a body shift. Of course, the healer was a man, but with a woman’s tastes in his pleasures. Many healers drew from both the male and female principle; it gave them stronger powers. Again he heard the sardonic laugh.

  “But if the life of a healer is difficult, it’s worse for the mate of one. A mate should be a man’s first consideration. It would be hard to leave someone like Serenio, for instance, in the middle of the night to take care of someone who was sick, and there are long periods of abstinence required …”

  The Shamud was leaning forward, talking to him man to man, with a gleam in his eye at the thought of a woman as lovely as Serenio. Jondalar shook his head with puzzlement. Then, with a movement of the shoulders, the masculinity had a different character. One that excluded him.

  “ … and I’m not sure I’d want to leave her alone with a lot of rapacious men around.”

  The Shamud was a woman, but not one that would ever be attracted to him, or he to her, as anything more than a friend. It was true, the healer’s power came from the principle of both sexes but was that of a woman with a man’s tastes.

  The Shamud laughed again, and the voice had no shading of gender. With a level look of person to person that asked human understanding, the old healer continued.

  “Tell me, which one am I, Jondalar? Which one would you mate? Some try to find a relationship, one way or another, but it seldom lasts long. Gifts are not an unmixed blessing. A healer has no identity, except in the larger sense. One’s personal name is given back, the Shamud effaces self to take on the essence of all. There are benefits, but mating is not usually among them.

  “When one is young, being born to a destiny is not necessarily desirable. It is not easy to be different. You may not want to lose your identity. But it doesn’t matter—the destiny is yours. There is no other place for one who carries the essence of both man and woman in one body.”

  In the fire’s dying light, the Shamud looked as ancient as the Earth Herself, staring at the coals with unfocused eyes as though seeing another time and place. Jondalar got up to get a few more sticks of wood, then nursed the fire back to life. As the flames took hold, the healer straightened, and the look of irony returned. “That was long ago, and there have been … compensations. Not the least is discovering one’s talent and gaining knowledge. When the Mother calls one to Her service, it isn’t all sacrifice.”

  “With Zelandonii, not all who serve Mother know when young, not all like Shamud. I once thought to serve Doni. Not all are called,” Jondalar said, and the Shamud wondered at the tightening of his lips and the creasing of his brow that bespoke a bitterness that still galled. There were hurts buried deep within the tall young man who seemed so well favored.

  “It is true, not all who might wish are called, and not all who are called have the same talents—or proclivities. If one is not sure, there are ways to discover, to test one’s faith and will. Before one is initiated, a period of time must be spent alone. It can be enlightening, but you may learn more about yourself than you wish. I often advise those considering entering the Mother’s service to live alone for a while. If you cannot, you would never be able to endure the more severe tests.”

  “What kind of tests?” The Shamud had never been so candid with him before, and Jondalar was fascinated.

  “Periods of abstinence when we must forgo all Pleasures; periods of silence when we may not speak to anyone. Periods of fasting, times when we forgo sleep as long as possible. There are others. We learn to use these methods to seek answers, revelations from the Mother, particularly for those in training. After a time, one learns to induce the proper state at will, but it is beneficial to continue their use now and then.”

  There was a long silence. The Shamud had managed to ease the conversation around to the real issue, the answers Jondalar wanted. He had but to ask. “You know what is need. Will Shamud tell what means … all this?” Jondalar spread his arm in a vague all-encompassing gesture.

  “Yes. I know what you want. You are concerned about your brother after what happened tonight, and in a larger sense, about him and Jetamio—and you.” Jondalar nodded. “Nothing is certain … you know that.” Jondalar nodded again. The Shamud studied him, trying to decide how much to reveal. Then the old face turned toward the fire and an unfocused look gathered in the eyes. The young man felt a distancing, as though a great space had been put between them, though neither had moved.

  “Your love for your brother is strong.” There was an eerie, hollow echo to the voice, an otherworldly resonance. “You worry that it is too strong, and fear that you lead his life and not your own. You are wrong. He leads you where you must go, but would not go alone. You are following your own destiny, not his; you only walk in tandem for a pace.

  “Your strengths are of a different nature. You have great power when your need is great. I felt your need of me for your brother even before we found his bloody shirt on the log that was sent for me.”

  “I did not send log. It was chance, luck.”

  “It was not chance that I felt your need. Others have felt it. You cannot be denied. Not even the Mother would refuse you. It is your gift. But be wary of the Mother’s gifts. It puts you in Her debt. With a gift as strong as yours, She must have a purpose for you. Nothing is given without obligation. Even her Gift of Pleasure is not largesse; there is purpose for it, whether we know it or not …

  “Remember this: you follow the Mother’s purpose. You need no call, you were born to this destiny. But you will be tested. You will cause pain and suffer for it …”

  The young man’s eyes flew open with surprise.

  “ … You will be hurt. You will seek fulfillment and find frustration; you will search for certainty and find only indecision. But there are compensations. You are well favored in body and mind, you have special skills, unique talents, and you are gifted with more than ordinary sensitivity. Your vexations are the result of your capacity. You were given too much. You must learn by your trials.

  “Remember this as well: to serve the Mother is not all sacrifice. You will find what you seek. It is your destiny.”

  “But … Thonolan?”

  “I sense a break; your destiny lies another way. He must follow his own path. He is a favorite of Mudo.”

  Jondalar frowned. The Zelandonii had a similar saying, but it didn’t necessarily mean good luck. The Great Earth Mother was said to be jealous for Her favorites and called them back to Her early. He waited, but the Shamud said no more. He didn’t fully understand all the talk of “need” and “power” and “Mother’s purpose”—Those Who Served the Mother often spoke with a shadow on their tongue—but he didn’t like the feel of it.

  When the fire died down, Jondalar got up to leave. He started toward the shelters at the back of the overhang, but the Shamud was not quite through.

  “No! Not the mother and child …” the pleading voice cried out in the dark.

  Jondalar, caught by surprise, felt a chill down his spine. He wondered if Tholie and her baby were burned worse than he thought, and why he was shivering when he wasn’t cold.

  12

  “Jondalar!” Markeno hailed. The tall blond man waited for the other tall one to catch
up. “Find a way to delay going up tonight,” Markeno said in a hushed voice. “Thonolan has had enough restriction and ritual since the Promising. It’s time for a little relaxation.” He removed the stopper from a waterbag and gave Jondalar a whiff of the bilberry wine, and a sly smile.

  The Zelandonii nodded and smiled back. There were differences between his people and the Sharamudoi, but some customs were evidently widespread. He had wondered if the younger men would be planning a “ritual” of their own. The two men matched strides as they continued down the trail.

  “How are Tholie and Shamio?”

  “Tholie is worried that Shamio will have a scar on her face, but they are both healing. Serenio says she doesn’t think the burn will leave a mark, but not even the Shamud can say for sure.”

  Jondalar’s concerned expression matched Markeno’s for the next few paces. They turned a bend in the trail and came upon Carlono, studying a tree. He smiled broadly when he saw them. His resemblance to Markeno was more apparent when he smiled. He was not as tall as the son of his hearth, but the thin, wiry build was the same. He looked once more at the tree, then shook his head.

  “No, it’s not right.”

  “Not right?” Jondalar asked.

  “For supports,” Carlono said. “I don’t see the boat in that tree. None of the branches will follow the inside curve, not even with trimming.”

  “How you know? Boat not finished,” Jondalar said.

  “He knows,” Markeno interjected. “Carlono always finds limbs with the right fit. You can stay and talk about trees if you want. I’m going on down to the clearing.”

  Jondalar watched him stride away, then asked Carlono, “How you see in tree what fit boat?”

  “You have to develop a feel for it—it takes practice. You don’t look for tall straight trees this time. You want trees with crooks and curves in the branches. Then you think about how they will rest on the bottom and bend up the sides. You look for trees that grow alone where they have room to go their own way. Like men, some grow best in company, striving to outdo the rest. Others need to grow their own way, though it may be lonely. Both have value.”