Robert Adams - A Woman of the Horseclans

As Bettylou began to shed her outer garments in the warm interior of the yurt, Lainuh looked up and smiled at her, mindspeaking, “You were long at the steam yurt, daughter mine.”

Bettylou returned the smile and beamed, “Yes, I met Ehstrah and Gahbee and we … talked, for a while.”

A frown flitted across Lainuh’s face. “Gossip, no doubt. That Ehstrah, she is never happy unless her sharp tongue is employed at the telling of slanderous tales. Who was she maligning this day, daughter?”

Bettylou thought fast and lied glibly, “Oh. some story about a woman in Clan … ahh, Morguhn, I think. It all was long ago, she said.”

Lainuh wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “Why would she tell you about such old gossip, I wonder? You’re certain that she made no allusions to folk in this camp? To me, perhaps? She owns a completely senseless dislike or me, you know.”

“Well,” said Bettylou, slowly, feeling her way through these treacherous footings, she had begun by telling me of Horseclans customs and the reasons for them …?”

Lainuh’s frown disappeared and she nodded, chuckling. “And so our Ehstrah dredged up a choice bit of slime from her cesspit of a mind to illustrate the point as well as joy her soul in the retelling, I’d assume.

“Well, my dear, here’s a bit more education for you. Come and help me with my bearskin, then Dahnah can go down to the end of the camp and fetch back a load of dung for our night fire.” She had been smiling, but the smile completely vanished as she turned to the other woman, snarling, “You heard me, you slave slut! Get up and go do my bidding. Take the biggest bag and come back with it brimful, if you know what’s good for you! And when you’ve brought the dung back and stowed it as is proper, as you know I like it, you will begin to grind grain for the day. Now, get about it, damn you!”

The two women worked at the bearskin until midday, scraped it with dull wooden spatulas to remove excess fat, then rolled it, and Lainuh laid it atop her bedding rugs. After instructing the widows of Tim’s two dead brothers and seeing them begin preparations for the daily meal, she lit the largest of the fat lamps and took out the cloth and the colored threads and the needles to commence Bettylou’s continuing lesson in the art of Horseclans embroidery.

Then another two hours were spent at the task of stretching fresh sheepskins on the frames, defleshing them and giving them an initial treatment with whey.

Djahn Staiklee returned quite early, well before dark, with his saddle over his shoulder and his other hand and arm filled with his weapons. He moved stiffly, looked to be half-frozen and had concern writ deeply on his weathered face.

After dumping saddle and gear, he stalked over to stand by the firepit, stripped off his mittens and flexed his fingers in the heat beating up from the smoldering dungfire.

Lainuh ignored him, did not even look up from her work. At length, Bettylou levered her swollen body to its feet, took a horn cup from the stack and, after pouring it brimful of herb tea, proffered it to the man.

A concerted hissing gasp of apprehension came from Dahnah and the two widows; all expected a torrent of verbal abuse to spew from Lainuh, but the mistress of the yurt ignored this tableau, too, until Staiklee spoke.

“I thank you, Behtiloo, I thank you kindly.” Then he raised his voice a trifle so that all might hear clearly. “It could get bad, very bad, for us and our beasts. A tremendous pack of wolves is roaming out yonder, fivescore, at the least, probably more. We found a deer yard the devils had visited; there were only scraps of hide, broken antlers and a few well-gnawed hooves left of what had been a sizable number of deer.

“When we reported of it all to the chiefs, they decided that we’ll bring in as many horses as we can fit inside the stockade tonight and we’ll keep watchfires going here and out at the herds, too, all night long.

“Then, tomorrow, as soon as it’s light enough to see, every man, maiden, stripling and matron who’s well and able will hie to the wooded areas and start felling, trimming and dragging or carting back more trees.

The stockade will be enlarged or added on to so that we can protect not only the horses, but the cattle and the sheep, too.

“The herd guards are all exempted, of course, as are the ill, the very young or aged and women close to foaling; therefore, this yurt will furnish one man and four women to the work party, at dawn, tomorrow.”

“One man and one woman!” snapped Lainuh in a voice colder than the icicles festooning the eaves of the yurt. “If you and your stinking, lazy slave slut want to freeze in those damned woods tomorrow, I care not; but I am the mistress of this yurt and, as such, I have a day’s work to do every day here within it and I need the help of my dear daughters-in-law to aid me in performing my many chores. Moreover, I am the eldest sister of a chief and thus the mother of a chief-to-be—unless you, Djahn Staiklee, manage to get Tim, too, killed before his uncle dies … as you got all his brothers and half brothers killed!”

Lainuh’s low voice had risen to a contralto shout that fitted the yurt and must surely, Bettylou figured, be easily audible well beyond the felt-leather—and-wooden walls. Nansee, the widow of Djahnee, went softly, hurriedly, to comfort her babe, who hung in her harness and wrappings from the roof frame and just now was shrieking, Lainuh’s angry shouts having awakened the infant to terror.

Djahn sighed deeply and, ignoring the slanders, said tiredly, “It’s not my choice to make, Lainuh. If you want to argue a case, I suggest that you go over and do so with your brother and the others, although I seriously doubt that such argument will do you a scintilla of good this time, for this work is just too important to every man and woman and child and cat and horse in the camp. They have already refused to excuse nursing mothers, so why do you think they’d excuse a hale, healthy woman who just simply feels herself to be too busy, not to mention too exalted, too highborn, to swing an axe?”

“you superilious, mongrel Tekikuhn!” hissed Lainuh. “You go too far. We all know just what you truly are. What do you think yourself to be? I, at least, am pure Kindred by birth.”

Staiklee threw back his head and laughed. “Pure Kindred, hey? You? Lainuh, it is time, I think, to apprise you of the fact that I knew that yarn of yours to be a wholecloth lie even before I foolishly married you—you, with your airs and laziness and tantrums.

Dik Krooguh’s mother never bore a daughter who chanced to live to maturity, so when one of her husband’s concubines bore a baby girl who proved to be of his likeness and of decent mindspeak aptitude, she raised her as her own daughter. Now, my first Krooguh wife—your half sister, Kahnee—was by your sire on his second wife and was of pure Kindred stock.

“But your dam, Lainuh, was nothing save a Dirtwoman slave, and that is why most of the camp laughs at your pretensions, either behind your back or to your face. Were your half brother not chief and deeply attached to you for various and sundry reasons, you’d have not a friend in this camp. You are more or less tolerated by so many because of the love and respect that all bear for Dik Krooguh, and that is the only reason.

“Now you do as you will, wife. But I much fear me that if you are so unwise as to not heed the summons to work tomorrow for the common weal, not even Chief Dik’s stature in this camp will save you the shunning and overt censure of your peers, your betters and even your inferiors.”

Lainuh leaped to her feet, kicked off her embroidered yurtboots and began quickly to don her heavier outside clothing. “We’ll just hear exactly what my brother has to say about this … this outrage, Djahn Staiklee! Nor do I think that he’ll be one bit happy or amused to hear that you chose to humiliate and degrade his only living sister before her daughters-in-law and your slave. And I’ll not be back under this roof until I hear your full, abject and public apology to me and my dear brother, too!”