Gill Alderman - Lilith’s Castle

A footfall disturbed the grass; she heard it clearly, and another, two, three and four. Not a man. A horse. The Red Horse paced calmly into the village, came close to her and laid his head on her shoulder. His warm lips caressed her neck; then, drawing slightly back, he pricked his ears as she might raise her eyebrows, to ask a question, and raised his foreleg so that she could mount. She heard the voice in her mind:

‘Come on! It’s time to go.’

His hooves marked the frosty grass, once, twice. Then he was into his stride and they were away, crossing the village grounds, bounding up the first hills. She expected him to carry her into the Herd, but it was nowhere in sight and they were heading into the barren wastelands beyond the pasture-grass. The Swan spread her starry wings above them and Gry bent forward and spread her arms to hold the Horse’s shoulders, for it was bitter cold up there on his back. Someone said, ‘No hair, no coat!’ or perhaps it was a thought. At least his long mane covered up her hands and arms.

Her mother used to carry her in safety, in front before the saddle, so that she could sit straight and believe she was riding alone, stretch forward and embrace the striding warmth of the mare’s shoulders or, leaning back, nestle into the fur binding of Lemani’s jacket: when they were all young and hopeful, Nandje not yet leader of his people, Lemani a beautiful young woman whose silver and jet jewellery was handed down from the oldest ancestors, perhaps from Hemmel herself; when she had sisters still alive and was herself a child, Garron a little boy, and Kiang an unborn soul in the Palace of Shadows. Those were the days, the Ima at peace with their enemies and with one another, the grass rich, the horses glossy and fat, Nandje himself strong and ardent, but wise. Gry let herself pretend, feeling the white wolf-fur and the cold, hard beads and the sharp-pointed silver stars touch her back. She grew tolerably warm.

The grass flowed like a dark river beneath them, the Horse and herself; but sometimes he made mighty bounds and sideways leaps across streams or into the stretches of gravel that appeared with greater frequency as they neared the wastelands; and always a restlessness or a tensing in her mind preceded these leaps and bounds so that Gry knew she must likewise move back a little way or tense the muscles of her legs to keep her seat on his back. The Horse, it was clear, was trying to confuse anyone who might find and follow his hoofprints.

The low hills of the open country gave way to steeper, rocky hills. Narrow valleys, which the Horse must thread, passed between them; falls of water dropped suddenly, cascading out of the dark; a rustling patch of bushes, which might hide any number of thieves, or lions, appeared on the left. Yet, the Red Horse hardly slowed his pace and, in Gry’s mind, nine words constantly jumped and span,

‘Good. Free. Good Bridle. Free of. It is good to be free of the Bridle.’

In Garsting, Aza, flushed with kumiz and the madness of failed magic, crawled from the Meeting House and squinted at the sky. A flight of cranes passed overhead, marking the ground with their cleft shadows. Aza read what the shadows told him: the Heron is dead. The hoofmarks in the grass told him the rest: the girl has fled with the Horse. He plodded wearily across the village to the storehouse.

It had become a death house during the long night. Aza crouched to examine Heron’s throttled, bloodstained body, primming his thin lips briefly, almost smiling when he saw what carnal conquest the historian had been attempting when he died, his scarlet, double apron cast aside but still attached to his unbuckled belt, his unwound loincloth stained with the tinctures of his last, greedy act and with the bright blood which had spurted from the unstoppable fountain of his heart.

‘She did not have a dagger – she found a dagger? One was lost among the skins, perhaps?’

The shaman puzzled over Heron’s death-wound. As to the throttling, it was all too obvious how that had come about: the iron grey horsehide which was still wound tight about Heron’s head and neck had come from the stallion, Winter, jealous rival of the Red Horse, fast and cunning, if a mite too weak to usurp the rule of the Horse. Both stallions had favoured the white mare, Summer, but the Horse had won and taken her; now she nursed and nurtured the Red Colt while Winter had died in the last Killing, driven over the precipice of the Rock of SanZu. Leal had skinned him; Garron and Kiang had disembowelled and cut up his carcass; Leal’s mother had made him into wholesome food, dried hross, succulent stews, sausages thin and thick, lard – but it had been Heron who spoke the ritual of placation over all the dead horses of the killing-harvest. So.

Aza frowned and struck his forehead with his rattle. None of this explained the heart-wound. None of it made sense. And his head was thick with kumiz-ache, his mouth and tongue parched, longing for a draught of clear river-water.

Heron was dead. Nothing remained of the Ima’s long history but a few fragments in the head of Heron’s successor, Thrush – who had committed only one third to memory. What was left? Gossip and women’s talk; some songs; the Lays, the Tales too – inaccurate fables which praised the ancestors and the deeds of the rare and heroic strangers who strayed into the Plains. Heron was dead. History was dead.

Henceforth, all Ima history would begin with the Red Horse’s Flight.

Why had he gone with her?

Aza trembled then, recalling his accusations in the Meeting House: ‘this daughter of foxes, this sister of the wolf , has stolen the will of the Ima’ and ‘how else but by sorcery could she tame and ride the Horse?’ He had not known fear since he had fought to rid himself of the death-curse of his last wife, and now it visited him, licking the nape of his neck with its long and slimy tongue, laughing and blowing up the skirts of his gown so that he shivered. He wanted to rid himself of it, lie down upon the spirit bear and surrender to the dreams which lived there – he could not. He must discover Revenge, drag her out and parade her before the Ima until they, too, were possessed with her spirit.

Aza closed Heron’s eyes and weighted them with stones. That was all he could do: for rites, for burial, the historian must wait; meanwhile, let him haunt whoever and wherever he would. The shaman crawled into the day, uncovered his drum and began to beat it. He pounded it, walking always about the village, hurrying before the crowd as it gathered.

Leal Straightarrow, Garron and Kiang, Nandje’s sons, ran in a pack with their supporters:

‘Gry is gone!’

‘May Mother Earth protect her.’

The men rushed from their beds, or from their drunken slumber in the Meeting House:

‘Who is dead?’

‘The story of the Ima has been murdered.’

The women came from their milking, wild-eyed and wailing:

‘Where is the Horse?’

‘Search for the Horse! Find our Red Horse!’

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,

and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack

Night stayed a long time in the wastelands where it was hard for the sun to penetrate the valleys and drive away the shadows which dwelt amongst them. The crags seemed to build themselves up about Gry and the Red Horse, towering high, until they resembled buildings made by men. Nandje had told her how the city men, they of Tanter, Myrah, Pargur, made themselves artificial cliffs and tors from stone, great hollow eyries where men and women ate and slept, made love, gave birth and died. Castles, they were called. So, Gry imagined these fabled people as she rode, lords and ladies, sorceresses and magicians, lovely Nemione, evil Koschei.