The Birthgrave by Tanith Lee Read Free Book Online Page B

sheep. On the east side a waterfall smoked down, and there was other smoke also—and the glint of cluster upon cluster of cooking fires, outside and around the lanes of leather tents.
    In the black of night, the downward track was hard and treacherous. Men cursed and horses stumbled, and little things ran away skittering, with bright eyes.
    * * *
    Nearer and nearer the fire blur, the smell of food and huddle and closeness. There seemed no way out now up the steep sides of the ravine.
    The track widened out. We were on level ground.
    Darak swung down from the horse, his men following his example. Boys came and took their mounts away to horse pens up against the escarpment, but Darak’s horse was taken somewhere else. The place jumped in the firelight, unsteady and uncertain.
    I sat still on the mule, waiting.
    Darak turned abruptly and came back to me.
    I looked down at his face but it was all one with the moving, twisting light. I could not be sure what his look or his eyes said to me.
    â€œThey’ll put up your tent for you over there, near the waterfall. I’ll send the girl to take care of your wants—a sort of servant, but she won’t say much about it. If you need anything, get word to me. You’re free to do as you like here.”
    â€œOh, yes?” I said softly.
    His narrow eyes narrowed further until they were glittering slits.
    â€œYes.”
    There was a silence between us, through the noise starting up all around. Then he said:
    â€œI’ve work to do, things to get done. You understand.”
    He turned, and began to walk away. A tall slight woman with a cloud of black hair came out of the redness ahead of him. Rings gleamed on her hands and on his as they met. He kissed her in full view of me. There seemed no logical reason why he should not.
    Then she led him into a tent with blue eye-shapes painted on it.
    I slid down from the mule, and the uneasy stares of the bandits flickered, heads turned, as I went by them, into the dark, while behind us all, unseen, the burning in the sky went on and on.
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    So, I might do as I liked.
    This glorious freedom the king had granted me was like a weight around my soul’s neck. He had brought me here—curious about himself, not me—and now, losing interest, he handed me this strange manumission which meant nothing in physical terms, for I was their prisoner in all senses once I knew their stronghold, but meant at the same moment so much: because, by it, he had disowned me. What then had I expected?
    The long sleeps came on me again, after that night of arrival. I lay still, as I had lain in the village temple, my eyes often open, in a kind of trance. I scared the girl who came with food and coals and fresh water. She ran out yelling that I was stiff, hard and icy as a block of stone, and did not breathe. Perhaps this was true, perhaps she imagined it, but none of the women would come in my tent after that. Not that I missed them, nor they me. They were a wild bitch race, on their own among women, as I suppose all breeds of women are. They fought for their men between themselves, but did not then ride to a fight along with these men. They dressed half the time as the men did, but cooked and darned and bore their babies as if they had no other function except to be female and subservient. They had their own mysteries, and something in me shrank from their bright golden stupidity, and the sedentary glamour of their lives.
    * * *
    The dreams came. The shining rooms, the courts with their elaborate paving and fountains, all empty now. In a vast hall, a statue of black marble, glossy like glass. A man dressed simply, with long hair and short beard. Not here that face which haunted me, which later I had met in Darak. This was another stranger.
    Where was this place, the ruin of my home? I must find it. And here I sat in the bandit’s tent.
    There was in me then silent anger at myself. The piece of jade lay cool on my skin, but my