Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl Read Free Book Online Page B

Chhayan buffalo, swatting it with a thorny stick every few paces to keep it moving, his body aching with every lurch of the great beast’s spine. Five more buffalo were yoked around him, pulling a great covered gurta, a moveable dwelling upon wheels, its walls made of buffalo hides that stank nearly as bad as the living beasts.
    For that moment he was back in the life he had labored so hard these eight years to leave behind. That life which even now reached out from the past and marred him, as though he still reeked of buffalo.
    The moment passed. He returned to the cold city. The beast moved on its way, leaving its smell in its wake, its protesting bellows echoing. Chhayan buffalo never approved of cramped cities, used as they were to the open hinterlands.
    Sunan stood, one foot still clutched in his hands, scarcely daring to breathe. Then he cursed, “Anwar’s elbow!” and started running.
    Chhayans rarely if ever came this far north. They were far too busy wreaking havoc upon their conquerors down south. Not since Sunan’s father led a raid into Nua-Pratut and stole Sunan’s mother away as a victory bride some twenty-five years ago had Chhayans bothered with any of the small northern kingdoms.
    So Sunan knew, even before he turned at last up the incline leading to his uncle’s city home, what he would find when he reached it. He knew, even before he entered the heavy wooden gates, what he would see in the courtyard of his uncle’s house, standing there in all the audacity of its existence, stinking up this fine site as though it hadn’t a care in the world.
    Sure enough, there stood the same Chhayan buffalo harnessed to a miniature of the very gurta in which Sunan had spent his boyhood years. Its side was even emblazoned with the same brilliant tiger in orange and black pigments.
    “No,” Sunan whispered. “No, no, no. Not today. Not now.”
    But the flap on the back of the gurta flew open, and a face, familiar even though it had aged from boyhood to manhood, gazed out at Sunan and burst into a wide grin.
    “Sunan! I’ve come at last!”
    And, just as Sunan knew must happen, out leaped his half-brother. Eight years ago, Jovann had been a scrawny lad, all bone and sinew and that same enormous grin. Now a young man grown, he was still little more than bone, sinew, and grin, but enlarged and toughened by years on the wild hinterlands.
    Sunan, numb and frozen, found himself caught in a long-limbed embrace, and his nose was assaulted almost past bearing by the stink of buffalo. He tried to speak, to make some protest, but the smell seemed to have tangled up his vocal cords. He could only grunt as Jovann pounded his back with both hands then clutched him by the shoulders and stepped back to grin at him from arm’s length.
    “You look a fright!” Jovann said. “Not what I expected of my wealthy, learned, Pen-Chan brother. Hulan’s heel, you haven’t even got a pair of shoes! What are you, Sunan, a slave?”
    The one thing in all the worlds that could overwhelm the overwhelming stench of buffalo took hold of Sunan with a grip he had nearly forgotten to be possible. He shouldn’t have forgotten; after all, this had been as much a part of his life as his own beating heart since that day, all those years ago, when his mother had held him close in the darkness of their own small gurta and whispered: “You have a brother now, Sunan. Your father’s new bride gave birth this morning, and you have a brother. Try not to hate him. Though he takes everything from you, try not to hate him.”
    But of course Sunan hated him. For his mother’s sake. For his own.
    The flame of renewed hatred loosened his tongue, and he found himself suddenly both very warm and very controlled. He spoke in a measured voice and even forced a smile onto his lips.
    “Jovann. You surprise me with this unexpected honor. What brings you to the house of my uncle this spring?”
    Jovann blinked, perhaps taken aback at his brother’s formal tone.