Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

The riders made swift time over the snow. Marghe hung on, sick and frightened, eyes closed against the thunder of hooves just below her face.

The day wore on. Shock, cold, and hunger impaired Marghe’s control. She could not maintain an even blood flow around her dangling body and drifted in and out of consciousness. Once, swimming out of a daze, she struggled until Aoife struck her a ringing blow to the temple.

The horses’ slowing roused her. One side of her face was scraped raw. The horses came to a halt, pawing and snorting, and Marghe heard Pella’s distinctive whicker. Aoife swung down from the saddle.

Marghe lifted her head. There was no thump, no shout of warning. It was almost dark and she could not see much. She felt a hand on her belt and flinched.

“Dismount.” Aoife pulled, hard. Marghe slid backward onto her feet and crumpled onto the snow. She stared at her legs stupidly. Someone laughed: Uaithne.

Aoife hauled her upright. Standing, Marghe towered above her.

“Open your clothes.” Aoife had a knife in her hand. “Open your clothes or I’ll cut them open.”

Marghe pulled off her gloves. With the tip of her knife, Aoife pointed to the snow; Marghe dropped the gloves. Her fingers were stiff and she fumbled open the ties of her overfurs.

“And the rest.”

The buttons of her fur waistcoast and densely woven shirt were easier.

“Hands on your head.”

Marghe did as she was told. Aoife stepped in close and ran her free hand expertly over, between, and underneath the layers of clothing.

“What’s this?” She pulled back the fur from the wristcom.

“It… I talk to it, and it remembers. Like a mimic bird.” She hoped this tribeswoman had heard of the southern bird.

“Show me.”

Marghe touched RECORD. “Weapon violence is obviously a feature of these people’s lives,” she said. She played it back. The sound was tinny in the cold, thin air, but recognizable.

“Give it to me.”

Aoife felt around it for sharp edges, sniffed it, weighed it in her palm, hesitated, then slipped it into her belt pouch. She stood on Marghe’s boot tips, pinning her to the ground, and palmed her way down the inside and outside of both legs. She found the FN-17. “This?”

Sweat beaded on Marghe’s upper lip. She did not know the word for medicine.

“It stops me becoming sick.”

Aoife tucked it away with the wristcom. Hands back on her head, Marghe struggled to keep her face expressionless. Aoife stepped back and sheathed her knife. Marghe did not see where it went.

“Fasten yourself up.”

The tribeswoman marched her over to a mound of snow, then walked off.

Marghe panicked. Were they going to leave her there without food or horse or vaccine? Wild-eyed, she looked about her. No. They were hobbling the horses.

Relief made her want to grin. She closed her eyes, trying to make sense of what was happening.

“Do you enjoy freezing?”

She jumped. Aoife stood there.

“Here, under the snow—” the tribeswoman bent and brushed at the snow mound,

“a shelter. It’s warmer.” She spoke slowly, as though to a half-wit.

That stung, but it was something Marghe could make sense of, something that had happened before, that she could respond to. “How was I to know you covered your tents with snow?”

Aoife looked at her, then shrugged and walked back to the horses. Marghe wondered if it was her accent the tribeswoman had found difficult to deal with, or her ignorance. She resolved to watch, listen, and learn. Out here, ignorance might be a capital crime.

When she thought no one was watching, she squatted and wriggled through the tiny entrance flap headfirst. It was light, and did not smell, which surprised her, and had room for three or four if they stayed prone. She lay there for a while, grateful for solid ground and a place away from curious eyes.

She breathed in deeply through her nose, exhaled through her mouth. And again.

Her heartbeat began to steady and her fear lessened. The basics always helped.

What was her status: hostage, guest, slave? What would happen to her? She had no idea. She tried, instead, to organize her thoughts around questions she might be able to answer. Where was she? If the stones had not scrambled her compass irreversibly, she might be able to guesstimate her position. If she could get back her map. Where was her pack?

She lay there listening to her heartbeat, reassuring and steady. If she was left here alone, it might be possible to creep out in the night, find her pack and her horse, and leave.

In the dark, a dark without stars or moon?

No. Tomorrow, then. For now, she would have to stay calm, wait and watch.

And think. She spoke the strange words aloud, Eefee, Waith-nee, Lev-ark, Eck-rave

, rolling them over her tongue, tasting them, testing: Gaelic names that had not been used on Earth for thousands of years.

Aoife wriggled into the shelter, followed by two others. Not Uaithne. Marghe accepted the nightbag flung in her direction. Her own, she noted.

“Sleep.”

She followed the others’ lead, stripping off hood and boots and sliding fully clothed into her bag. She thought she saw a look of approval on Aoife’s dark and broken face.

They were up the next day in the thin gray light before dawn. Marghe was not offered food, nor did she see any of the Echraidhe eating. They rolled up their nightbags, donned hoods and boots, and began unpegging and stowing the leather tents. Marghe wondered if Aoife still had the FN-17. She could not escape without it.

The small muscles over her ribs and stomach tightened in dread as Aoife walked a horse toward her. The bruises from yesterday’s journey were just beginning to show and her face was red as skinned meat.

“Hold him.”

Marghe took the rein. She did not know what else to do. Aoife strode off and returned with Pella. The tribeswoman stood by with folded arms while Marghe patted her mare and ran her hands down her neck. Her gear was neatly slung behind the saddle. She checked her pack and found it was all there, her FN-17, her wristcom, her map. Only the knife and the food were missing. Her relief was so great, she nearly turned to Aoife and thanked her.

The tribeswoman mounted and gestured for Marghe to do likewise. The other horses were wheeling and thundering northward.

As they rode, Aoife pulled strips of dried meat from the pouch by her thigh. She handed some to Marghe. They slowed a little to eat and Marghe took the opportunity to strap the wristcom back across the pale skin over her left wrist. With it back in place she sat up straighter, could regard Aoife coolly, and she understood suddenly that her relief at the presence of the wristcom on her wrist was not just the practical comfort of having the compass: while she could record things, she still had a professional persona. She was Marguerite Angelica Taishan, the SEC rep; she was not lost and alone, helpless as any other savage on a horse.

Aoife had the power to take away from her that so-slender thread of identity any time she wished.

She touched the compass function key. It seemed to be working. Good. She turned a casual circle in her saddle. She had horse, vaccine, map and compass.

Aoife’s spear was strapped down securely and her small, shaggy mount was probably no match for the longer-legged Pella at full stretch.

Aoife was watching her. She tapped the sling at her belt. “I can kill a ruk with this at nine nines of paces. You—” she looked Marghe and her mount up and down,

“you I could bring down before that summer mare lengthened her stride.”

Marghe said nothing. Perhaps, if it came to it, Aoife would hesitate to kill.

“A stone can stun a rider, as well as kill,” Aoife said.