Robert Adams - The Savage Mountains

Pushing herself away from him, she gazed levelly into his eyes. “It is not right that I should toy with you; credit the fact that I have to my woman’s nature.

“On the night of the day the Bahrohnyuhn girl came to me, all bruised and ravaged by the lowlander raiders, I put her to the healing sleep and saw to her hurts. Then I ate the Sacred Plant and sojourned with Our Lady. She allowed me to see the futures She willed, among them my own.

“Kogh Taishyuhn, Our Lady wills that I repay old debts, so far as I now can. I am to remain faithful to all my Vows, save one. She will preserve me in my Powers only if I give the virginity, once pledged to her, to the dehrehbeh of the Taishyuhn Tribe.”

“Zehpoor, child, I am a very old man. That son of mine to whom you were betrothed was the last child ever I sired, and his mother was the third wife I buried. His sister, who has ordered my house and slaves for about fifteen years, is herself almost old enough to be your mother, so it is most doubtful that I can quicken you, as a good husband should.” She just smiled. “That doesn’t matter, Kogh Taishyuhn.”

“Of course it matters, Zehpoor. What use is a marriage if it does not produce children? Our Lady would be the first to—”

She continued to shape her lips in a smile, but her voice hardened perceptibly. “You have often spoken for Her, Kogh Taishyuhn, but you do not now. I speak Her will, Her desires, Her commands, this time. I am to render up to you that which was long ago promised your tribe, not because I so desire, but because I am so bidden. As regards age, I am no spring chicken, Kogh, and I cannot say that I honestly wish to undergo a carriage and birthing, especially not a first one, at my age. But I am Hers and must bow to Her Holy Will. You, too, are Hers, Kogh, by your roan’s rites, and you must add your own submission to mine.”

“But who,” the nahkhahrah demanded stubbornly, “is there to marry us? There now is no Taishyuhn older than ami.”

She nodded once. “True, Kogh, true. But the stahn is wisely become part of a larger stahn. And the nahkhahrah of this Confederation has at least ten times your moons.”

Again would he have spoken, but she raised a finger. “No, Kogh, husband-to-be, hear me out. This Milo of Moral will say the words, taking those words and the proper usages from your mind. We will be joined three days hence, in the splendor of Her Newness.

“And soon, shortly after Her next Newness, you will perform the rites for Pehroosz Bahrohnyuhn and him who is war chief of the Ageless One’s hosts. And the issue of that marriage will heap glory and honor upon both Confederation and Ahrmehnee Stahn, though we two will not live to see.”

And he was too wise a man to think his stubbornness could prevail over the will of the Goddess. He bowed his snowy head and made the Moon-sign. Then he took the woman’s head between his hands and pressed his lips tenderly to each closed eyelid, then to the full lips. Sitting back, he ritually squeezed her two breasts, then thrust his left hand far up beneath her skirt to make the Sacred Sign upon her pudenda.

“Thus, Zehpoor Frainyuhn, are you once more promised to the Taishyuhn Tribe. Your father is dead, child, so to whom should the brideprice be paid?”—“Give it to the dehrehbeh of Frainyuhn, Kogh, and tell him to equally divide it among my living brothers, keeping a share for himself.” She extended a hand to touch him, then slowly and gingerly kneaded the swelling, throbbing flesh beneath her fingers. Smiling again, but now with a hint of mischief, she said, “Ah, Kogh, Kogh, I fear you have exaggerated your aged infirmity.”

He returned her smile, placed his own hand over hers. “You are a lovely woman, Zehpoor, well formed and pleasing to both sight and touch.” He hooked an arm about her waist and drew her closer to him, his other hand commencing another foray beneath her skirt For a moment, she seemed to melt, then she tore away from him and came to her feet in one lithe movement Her face flushed and, her high breasts rapidly rising and falling, her laughter trilled. “Oh, no, my Kogh, there’ll be no sampling of the viands today. You … and I, too… must wait for the feast.”

When informed of the coming nuptials, the younger Ahrmehnee warriors immediately embarked on a full-scale hunt for game. Thoheeks Hwahltuh Sanderz-Vawn and his bored clansmen joined in with a will, as did most of the civilian nobles and such Freefighters as attended them. But Milo doubted they would bag much, the winter having been both long and hard and the environs of the stahn much disturbed through movements of large bodies of troops and endless foragings. Therefore, he contributed a score of the herd of cattle he had had driven up from the lowlands, several hogsheads of wheaten flour, and ten full pipes of wine, plus many sacks of cornmeal and beans, dried fruits and vegetables, casks of cheeses and honey and salt, as well as barrel on barrel of that Confederation Army staple, shredded cabbage pickled with turnip and radish slices and garlic.

On the day before the festivities, Zehpoor called Pehroosz to her. Showing her some dried tubers, the older woman sketched the appearance of the plant whose roots they were and told Pehroosz the growing conditions favored by the plant. Then she gave Pehroosz a small wickerwork basket and a broad-bladed digging knife and sent her off into the wooded hills.

And after the girl was safely out of sight, Zehpoor surrendered to her tears. She had come to love the patient and cheerful, albeit sad-eyed, Pehroosz, and now she anguished at the terror the child would suffer this day. But she consoled herself: terror there would assuredly be, but no harm to Pehroosz, and much lasting good would come of that brief terror; and, besides, it was the Lady’s will.

“It will do you good!” the High Lord had firmly stated, when he had ordered Senior Strahteegos Hahfos Djohnz to take part in at least the last day of the hunting. “You work too hard, Hahfos, and for too long at a time.”

Hahfos thought it an example of the pot defaming the kettle, since there was seldom a night when the High Lord’s pavilion wasn’t brightly lit until well after the midnight hour. But when the High Lord finally lost patience and framed it as an order, Hahfos gave up and set about preparations.

Unlike the civilian noblemen, Hahfos had never been able to afford to maintain two or three horses. His destrier was a fine, well-trained warhorse, but a hunter he was not, so the officer rode up to the village and borrowed a shaggy, bony, piebald pony. He set out early in the day in company with a half-dozen middle-aged Ahrmehnee who thought they had seen signs of wild pigs within easy ride of the main village.

By midafternoon, the men were still sending their big hounds fanning out widely and vainly. But though they had flushed nary a porker, a shrewd cast of barbed dart had netted Hahfos a large, solitary stag. After his hunting companions had exclaimed over the size of the creature and the length and trickiness of the cast and had Hahfos red-faced in embarrassment at their blunt, jovial compliments, they all joined to speedily gut and bleed and clean the trophy and lash it across the back of the piebald gelding.

He rode the straining, overburdened little horse only until he was out of sight of his hosts, then dismounted and began to backtrail the earlier course at a brisk walk. While the pony sucked up water from an icy streamlet, Hahfos stood just downstream in the narrow, twisting defile and, with a wetted neckcloth, did what he could to remove dried sweat and deer’s blood from his skin and clothing. It was then that the scream smote his ears, bouncing from wall to wall of the tiny vale, startling the drinking pony, who threw up his outsize head, snorting through wide-flared nostrils, though he was too tired and heavy-laden to bolt.