Chapter Forty-One: Marsh
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From the banks of the river, a multitude of tiny islands was visible out in the marsh. I could ride the horse to the closest of them, but I would leave tracks. Instead, I dismounted and, with a slap to his rump, chased the horse and his frightened companions into the night to throw the boys off my trail. Removing the cloak and holding it above my head, I pulled the dress as high above the current as I could manage and quickly waded into the icy waters, crossing to a tiny island.
Hidden in the reeds, I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of the hunt fading. Across the distance, the faint thrum of the churning rapids reached my ears. Random shrieks, howls, and wild laughter punctuated the lull. Now every rustle in the leaves made my heart shudder, and I trained my thoughts on the soft murmur of the river. Otherwise, the night lay still.
The dagger still in my hand, I pushed through the underbrush and hunkered down at the base of an old willow tree whose bare branches offered no shelter but whose trunk—the biggest thing on the tiny island—provided a buffer from the winds. The haoma’s effects must be fading, and the powers it imparted—the keenness in my vision, the strength in my limbs—seeped away. My heart resumed a more leisurely pace, though my eyelids became a conscious chore. I had to remain alert and not let myself drift.
I wrapped the short cloak close around me. Shivering, heavy-lidded, I saw the world beyond in only bits and pieces, flickers of a heatless flame commingled with the droning roar of the burning pain as the familiar cold gnawed at my wet limbs. I feared one of my spells might intrude at any moment, and I tried to calm my thoughts and hold it at bay. Time seemed to blur as I struggled to capture thoughts too slippery to hold. I drowsed and woke suddenly, like I’d nodded off beside a cozy fire, only to find myself in icy darkness, my limbs numb, my heart racing.
Then I heard a rustling in the brush.
Crouching behind the tree trunk, I squeezed the dagger’s handle. I wasn’t afraid. I was ready to answer for it all.
But when I saw him, I did not fear him, the beast that came ashore. A wolf’s face with gleaming red eyes, riding a horse with flaming horns. Fur matted with burdock and tangled with thorns. Horns casting branching shadows in the moonlight. Skin like the silver-grey bark of a beech.
Dismounting, he approached the tree and named me. Anaiti. A shrill scream in the distance shattered the brief silence, echoed, and faded in the mists of the marsh. Torchlights flickered past as gruff voices roared incomprehensible words beyond the edge of the waters. The snap of a branch nearby froze us both. He searched and smelled the night air but soon took the dagger from my hand and let it fall to the ground. I drifted away like an ember on a breeze.
Rotting leaves, brittle twigs, and vines armed with thorns spoke of things past, things unsalvageable. My thoughts groped for signs of greener things to come. And then the moon overhead ducked behind a dense cloud, and he was gone.
Only his breathing in the night air remained. I bent my ear closer and reached out my hand. We moved together in a kind of dance. Lulled by the music in the vines. The marsh, the brambles, the beast, and I. Beneath starless skies and flitting wings, the night echoed with the howls of men. With the silent, inner wailing of something voiceless, ageless. And the untamed god of the marsh seethed around us, within us.
The cloud withdrew, and, by the moonlight, a shimmering frost clung to the leaves, the bark, the thorns. It clung to us.
It was not yet dawn when I opened my eyes again to see the familiar face of Aric, smeared with wood ash and soot, next to me beneath an ancient willow tree. My head throbbed, and I blinked, hoping my blurred vision would clear. The night Erman had sung his waking song, I was sure I knew the melody, but I couldn’t recall where I had heard it before. I’d hummed the tune to myself a hundred times. The words I didn’t understand, but the melody had haunted me for months. Now I remembered. Aric had sung that same song to me to wake me from my spells. He sang it now.
“It’s not yet morning,” I said groggily. “We don’t have to be going so soon, do we?” The sky was brightening in the east but still dark, and my buzzing head had finally cleared of the wretched haoma. An antlered wolf mask lay at the base of the old willow, and the white cloak hung on a branch above it. But my skin still bore traces of white paint. “Or are you afraid of angry spirits prowling the dark?” I snickered, only half-joking.
“Not when I have you to protect me,” he said, grinning.
I stood, brushing the dried leaves from my torn skirt, which fluttered a ghostly white in the grim cast of pre-dawn, and gaped down at him in disbelief. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Don’t be silly. Why are you acting so strange?” he asked, raising himself with ease to sit with his back against the tree trunk.
Exasperated, I turned away, searching the darkness across the marsh, but saw and heard nothing. I told him what had happened with the boar-headed boy.
“What now?” I asked.
He rose to his feet and paced quietly, methodically as he often did, like a wild beast who’d been confined. “That’s two kills,” he mused absently, his voice raspy with sleep. “But have no fear; you have not yet made your tally.”
“But will I face punishment?” I asked, remembering Tiranes.
He stood before me, and most of the soot had fallen away. Brushing his fingers softly over my hair, he let them rest gently, warmly on my flushed cheeks. “Mayhem always breaks out during the Hunt. All who ride know the dangers. And those farmboys will not dare tell their story in the light of day.” And then he pressed me close to his chest, my face buried in the shaggy black fur of his goatskin coat. “I’m only glad you’re safe.”
I released the breath I’d been holding as he spoke and pulled back just enough and looked into his eye. “I wish we’d never returned to court. We’ve been cursed since the moment we arrived.”
“Now you understand why I had to confess to the king—to temper the judgement of Thagimasad, who punishes oathbreakers.”
“Confess!” I felt the heat of anger and panic rise in my chest. “Are you deranged? That’s not what we agreed!”
“I swore before the king’s fire. I had to make amends. But the only restitution he would allow me was—“
“You will ruin us both with this.” He thought he could please his father, and somehow everything would be all right. But the king would never forget, and neither would I.
“You don’t trust me?”
“Aric, I don’t want to be angry anymore. But I grow weary of this. If the king will not concede, and you will not challenge him, then let it be over.”
He frowned as if my words surprised him. “Is that really what you want?”
I walked across the little plot of land between the brambles, turning away so he would not see me bite my lip and blink away the tears welling in my eyes. He leaned back against the tree for support as he watched me. I swallowed and breathed deeply to calm myself.
“You were right last night,” I said. “I shouldn’t be here. Look at me, here in hiding. I’ve failed.”
“You—we are here because some things in this world are beyond our control. You did nothing wrong.”
I stopped and turned, staring at him with my eyes stinging. “I ran.”
“You survived. The wise warrior knows which fights are winnable.” There was an unfamiliar resignation in his voice. “I am the fool. Thinking, after all I’ve sacrificed for him, that I’d earned some grace with my father. I should’ve known. He will never yield, not for me. He’s a stubborn, overbearing old man used to getting his way. And once Ariapaithi has entered into a covenant, he’ll never be the one to renege on it. This is what comes of trying to do the honorable thing. He used it against me, saying if I was now willing to wed, there was no reason I shouldn’t accept his choice.” He slid down the tree trunk until he sat again where he had begun. He drew in his feet to sit cross-legged, resting his elbows on his knees and his forehead on his palms.
“This tree,” I said, glancing up its length into its bare branches, “reminds me of one from long ago, during my first union. A tree very like this one grew in the center of a grove near the confluence of two sacred rivers in the land of the Rokhalani.” He didn’t look up, his head braced in his hands. I went on talking, more to myself than to him. “It was in this place the hamazon ritual was performed. When it was done, I was made to take water from the stream and pour it over the roots of the tree, which is like the Tree of All Fruits. From that moment onward, I was deemed a woman and permitted to take part in the most sacred rites alongside the elders—in the keeping of the Arta.”
“What are you saying?” There was an edge to his voice that bordered on rage, though I knew where its source truly lay.
I slowly began to pace, as I sometimes did when agitated by my thoughts. “I say only that the moment we come of age, a burden is placed upon our backs, asking us to carry all that has been created by those who came before us. To sustain what gods and men have gifted to us. This is our only purpose—our duty. Arta is the noblest pursuit of mankind. How best to pursue this is our greatest consideration. Of course,” I stopped my pacing and stood looking down at him, “whether we do this in the manner dictated by king or by conscience is another thing entirely.”
Without raising his head, he let forth a low growl. “I have tried to do both, and look where it has gotten me,” he said, frustration mounting—or was it despair? “Why must things be so complicated? Surely there was a time before kings and duty when life was simpler than this?”
“Simpler? Perhaps… The Rokhalani say that, at the dawn of time, before the world began, heaven and earth were unformed, swirling as in a great cauldron where everything began, and everything will end.” I began again to pace. “All were one being then. And this form slept in bliss beneath the waters. Then it stirred from its peaceful slumber. When it awoke, it emerged from the deep and realized it was alone in the chaos. It cried out in longing with such force that it split itself in two; one half male, one half female, one forming the dome of the sky, one the body of the earth.” I stood again before him, and he finally raised his eye to mine. “The sky sent storms—winds and lightning and rain to embrace his mistress, the earth, and through their coupling brought forth all the plants and creatures, giving birth to the abundance of nature. But since then, they and all the wondrous things they’ve made have been diminished—only half-formed creatures, longing to recreate the first—to be whole again.”
“You torment me,” he said, a deep frown distorting his eye.
“I don’t mean to,” I said, suppressing a smile.
Seizing hold of my hands in his sweating palms, he whispered, “Don’t stop,” as he pulled me down onto his knees.
We lay together beneath our cloaks on the hidden island until dawn. Aric’s horse stood tied on the other side of the island, waiting. The sounds of the night had quieted now, and the fires had all gone out. A thin crust of ice had formed over the water, which was readily broken. As I washed the flaking gypsum paint from my face and hands, my thoughts went to Sakha.
“I need to find my horse,” I said. “He fled amid the chaos. Now he is out there, loose in this strange place. I’m worried for him.”
“I’ll help you look,” Aric said as he splashed water from the icy river on his face, scrubbing away the gray soot. “Then we’ll return, and I’ll speak again to the king and tell him there will be no union. If I can’t change his mind, I can at least loosen his grip. Don’t despair; I’ll think of something.” He smiled hopefully, his face red with the cold of the water, his eye shining clear blue in the morning light.
We found Sakha wandering the marshes. Or rather, trying to escape them. Sunk deep in the thick, half-frozen mud, his tendon was bowed again. When he saw me, he whinnied and tried to approach, but he was too lame to walk, and even from a distance, I could see how swollen the leg was. When we caught him, my heart broke to see it. Aric looked at me and shook his head.
“It’s too late,” I said in disbelief. It was my fault. I’d let Sakha go in the tumult of the Hunt. When he needed my protection and guidance, I failed him, and now here he was. Nearly split in two, his tendon was beyond healing. Hot and swollen, it was too painful to even touch. He could bear no weight on it, and I’d be unable to cool or bandage it. Back home, in my father’s stables, I might be able to rest and heal him with enough time and let him live out his days in a sheltered paddock within the fort. Out here, there could be no shelter, no rest. He’d never be able to withstand the demands of a dry summer in long search of pasture, the deep mud of spring, the hardships of winter’s snow and ice, or keeping up with the herd in flight. It was this or leave him to the wolves. In that light, this was a mercy. But for the first time since I’d arrived here, I ached for the comforts of my old home.
We stood him in the marsh. The ground was too frozen to dig a grave for him now, but I’d not leave him for the scavengers.
Aric drew his axe from his belt. “Let me.”
“No. He’s mine. It should be me.”
He nodded. “Be swift and true. As he was.”
I took the sagaris from Aric’s hand and readied myself.
Sakha had been my most faithful friend since I was a girl. He was gentle and kind, honest and loyal, resilient and trustworthy. Whatever I asked of him, he did his best to oblige. Once, out hunting, I fell from his back, and instead of following the field, he waited by my side. And I tried to return his loyalty with my own. But looking at him here, I knew that I’d failed. Once I placed the bridle over his head, my duty was to protect him. And I had not been there. Despite Aric’s generous attempts to bolster my courage, I had proved inadequate to my task and forsaken my duty. I must live with the knowledge of that negligence for the rest of my days.
It was time to say farewell. And offer thanks. Sakha sweated and shook with the pain, and though I longed to embrace him one last time, he wanted no comfort from me. I understood, and I did not weep for him. I had to put down so many horses over the years that, though it seemed harsh, it didn’t upset me. The first one hurt terribly. I cried for hours, then again for days. But, I eventually learned that sentiment didn’t lighten the burden. Other responsibilities remained, regardless of my grief, and I could not honor both. I still missed them but couldn’t let myself become a wretch. There would be time for tears later.
Seldom have we done right by the noble beasts who we make our companions. Few appreciate them as well as they deserve, including me. I could not have survived the steppe without Sakha; indeed, none could survive long in this place without a good horse.
Aric held Sakha’s head; I steadied my hand, swung the axe, and watched him crumple. It was over in the space of a breath. He buckled, and his powerful form sank quietly under the water’s dark surface, sending a sharp surge to lap at our legs and the shore. Just deep enough to keep the animals away. Just enough for a little dignity. I watched until the face of the water became still again, dark with the clouds moving overhead, and I gazed a long while into their reflection, remembering. Then, I hung his studded bridle and bronze bit in the branches of a tree near the shore.
Chapter Forty-Two: Fate