The Horsemasters by Joan Wolf Read Free Book Online Page B

of the deerskin rugs that lay on the floor of the hut and gestured to Fali to join her. Moving much more slowly than Arika, the Old Woman seated herself.
    “He has my strength of will and Iun’s charm,” Arika said when at last Fali was settled. Then, in a very low voice, she added, “He frightens me.” She picked up a stick in her left hand and poked cautiously at the ashes of the dead fire. “He has always frightened me.”
    Fali was watching Arika’s hand on the stick. “He reminds me of Mar,” she said.
    At that, Arika looked up from her absorbed poking of the ashes. “Mar? The man of the Horse who kidnapped you?”
    “Sa. He and Ronan do not look alike, but in other ways they are very much the same.”
    “He was a chief, this Mar, was he not?”
    “Sa.”
    Arika returned to poking at the fire, “I have never told this to anyone before,” she said, “but the night before Ronan was born, I had a dream.” A pile of ash collapsed and dust rose into the air over the hearthplace. Arika put down her stick and looked at Fali. “In this dream I saw a herd of red deer browsing peacefully in the forest. A cave panther was stalking them. I saw the sun shining in the sky, reflecting off the panther’s black coat…burnishing it, making it shine. It shone until its blackness was almost as bright as the sun itself. It was as if the sun caressed it, loved it…” Arika’s mouth was thin with pain. “I knew as soon as I saw the boy, saw that black hair, those dark eyes, that he was the panther. And I knew I should have him exposed.” Her eyes were somber. “It is my weakness that I did not.”
    “So that is why you turned your back on him,” Fali said slowly.
    Arika nodded. “I knew it was dangerous to let him think of me as his mother, to let him think he might have any authority at all in this tribe.”
    Fali made a little noise that may or may not have signified agreement.
    Arika continued bleakly, “But these last few years, as I have seen him growing into manhood, I have known that I was wrong to let him live. I was weak, Fali. For so many years I had longed for a child…and then he came…and I could not do it.”
    “It is true he is a leader,” Fali said. “But the men have always had a hunt leader, Arika. What is the danger in that?”
    Arika looked suddenly old. “There is something in Ronan that the other men do not have.” She rubbed her temples as if they ached. She said softly, “He has been asking questions about the Way of Sky God.”
    Fali said nothing.
    Arika dropped her hands. Her eyes met Fali’s steadily. “I am the Mistress of Earth Mother,” she said. “Out of all the tribes of the Kindred, only the Tribe of the Red Deer still follows the Goddess. It is my duty, Old Woman, to hold the tribe to her Way.”
    “Ronan is left-handed,” Fali said. “The left-handed way is the Way of the Goddess. I am thinking that perhaps she has put her mark on him, Arika. Perhaps that was the meaning of your dream.”
    “I do not think so,” Arika said grimly.
    There was silence. Then Fali sighed. “The reason the Tribe of the Red Deer has held to the Goddess for so many ages is that we have always had a Mistress strong in wisdom to lead us. In my own lifetime I have known Lana and Elen and Meli, and you. All understood what it meant to be Goddess on Earth to the tribe.” Fali’s voice changed. “After you, Arika, there will be Morna.”
    Arika’s chin came up. “Morna will be a good Mistress,” she said.
    Fali’s eyebrows, nested in wrinkles, lifted.
    “She is young,” the Mistress said to that obvious skepticism. “Young, and still a little thoughtless. She will mature.”
    “Will she?” Fali said.
    “She is all the daughter the Mother has given me,” Arika said grimly. “She must.”
    * * * *
    While Erek’s wounds were being attended to, the rest of the tribe was busy preparing the feast which formed the second part of the ritual of the Slaying of the Bear. This feast was