Tim Leach - A Winter War

A voice close by, the breath against the hollow of his neck. ‘What will happen now?’ said Tomyris.

‘It will be a hungry winter, my child.’

‘After, I mean.’

‘A spring, like any other. The herd, the raid, the taming of horses. We shall ride together under the sun – you would like that, wouldn’t you? Why should it be any different than before?’

‘Our home was not burned before. They have never come that far before.’

‘Too far, and we darkened our spears to prove it. You do not need to be afraid.’

‘I am not afraid. Not for me.’ She hesitated, bit at her lip. ‘But what will you do?’

‘I do not know,’ he said. And he did not.

She pressed her face against his chest, and he looped his hand into her hair as though he were stroking a horse’s mane. For they both knew the truth she spoke.

Outside in the campground, Kai saw a dark shape moving, a familiar figure stalking through the snowfall like a wolf. As if his hand was burned he let it fall from the edge of the tent, let the light dim once more. Too late, for the footsteps were quickening, and soon the winter sun was upon them once more.

‘Are you an old woman or a swaddled infant?’ Arite said. ‘Do you mean to lie there all day?’

He answered, stung: ‘Little work for a shamed man to do.’

‘You may put your Roman to work, at least,’ she said. ‘Or do you let him lie idle and wait upon him as though you are his slave?’

Hot words were there upon his lips, ready to be spoken. But as his vision adjusted to the sharp light he saw her hair was still unspooled in mourning and falling free about her shoulders, a wandering madness in her eyes. And so he turned his reluctant daughter from the blankets, and threw the fur cloak across his shoulders, beckoning the Roman like a dog. Soon enough they were all out in the snow, stamping at the ground to keep warm.

Arite was eyeing the Roman, as she might have judged a doubtful horse from the herd. ‘What may he do?’

‘I do not know,’ Kai answered. ‘He is one of their captains. I have heard they cannot even mount a horse without a slave to help them.’

‘And what is his name?’

Kai did not answer.

‘I would not leave a dog without a name,’ Arite said reproachfully.

But at this, the Roman spoke for himself. Gaunt and grey-faced from his wound, he drew himself up tall. ‘Tend horses, I can,’ he said, the accent thick. Then, tapping at his chest, he gave a name: ‘Lucius.’

‘Tend horses, he says.’ Arite grinned. ‘And he speaks a little of our language. Perhaps he will be worth something after all. Tomyris, put him to work amongst the herd. I shall join you soon enough.’

Tomyris set off at once, one arm outstretched and pointing the way, looking for all the world like a miniature cavalry captain signalling the charge. A look of disbelief from the Roman, to be given into the charge of a child half his size, but he followed her nonetheless. When Kai went to follow them, he felt a hand upon his shoulder, bidding him to stay.

‘There are others to keep watch over him,’ Arite said, ‘and besides, she has been tending fiercer beasts than that Roman for a long time now. She does not need you to guard her.’

‘Then what would you have me do?’

She did not answer at first. Her eyes were darting about the camp, to where the women were shaving down the horns of the cattle, and where a hunter tossed scraps to his sighthound. Then she said: ‘You led those riders off the ice when no other could have done it. I always thought you would make for a fine captain.’

‘I did,’ he said. ‘But little that is beautiful lasts for long.’ The words fell from his tongue without thinking, and he felt the twist in the gut, the sharpness at the back of the throat, as he remembered who had taught him that saying.

‘Bahadur used to say said that to me, too,’ Arite said, her voice soft.

‘He always spoke the beautiful words.’ Kai hesitated, scratched at the snow with the toe of his boot. ‘I wish he were here. He would know what to do.’

‘I know what he would say. If it were summer, and we were at peace, he would tell us to feast and dance. Not to think of what had come before, or what would come tomorrow.’

‘And what of winter?’

‘To do what we must,’ she said.

Kai nodded slowly. ‘You want me to go to Laimei.’

‘I do.’

‘You are right, to claim you speak Bahadur’s mind. He asked the same of me, before the battle on the ice.’

‘It was honest advice, was it not?’

‘It was. It did no good then, though. I cannot think that it will now, either.’

‘What else will you do?’

‘There are other captains I might ask a place of. Perhaps another clan, if I took a wife of their people.’

She shook her head. ‘It must be her. None of our clan will have you if she says you nay. And I do not think another clan…’

‘…will take a shamed man.’ Kai knew the truth of her words. Yet still it seemed impossible to him to do what she asked. ‘You know many things, Arite,’ he said, ‘but I think that this is something you do not understand.’

‘Oh, I do know something of shame,’ she said quietly.

‘What do you mean?’ An eagerness then that he was not proud of, to know that there was another who might share that pain.

‘No.’ She shook her head – sharp, insistent. ‘I shall not speak of that today. But if you will not fight for your daughter, then all that they say about you will be true. And this is how you fight for her.’

To that, there was no answer. He remembered the duel with Gaevani – his leg remembered too, the wound aching in the cold. The decision to fight, and die, against the odds.

And so he walked with Arite to the herd, and called his horse. She trotted to him eagerly, for though they were new partnered they were already learning to love one another, that love born of loyalty. For Kai might trade away every scrap of iron he had for food that winter – perhaps his own body, if it came to it, for there was much that was done at night by the desperate in a starving campground. But no Sarmatian would trade away his last horse. Better to choose the quick death of the knife than that.

As he mounted, he saw the eyes of the Roman on him. Unthinking and by instinct, Kai waved to him as he might have waved to any shepherd of the people, and Lucius answered with a solemn nod – a warrior’s salute, perhaps. Good fortune to those who go to battle.

Arite watched Kai go. Once more the shadow upon his face, the captain’s light gone from him. An ache about the heart to see him so diminished.

A shrill chatter, close by, as Tomyris spoke and set the Roman to work. Arite went with Lucius amongst the horses – an escort to protect him, for she saw the rolling lips, and the ears pressing flat as they marked him as an outsider. Even with her there, it seemed most likely they would kick and stamp him to death before they would submit to his touch.

But the Roman knew his trade. Careful and patient, he worked to earn the trust of the herd. She saw Lucius pick out at once the gentlest horse, a placid roan mare that would never make a warhorse, watched as he circled to her and slowly won her trust with touch and whisper. His hands searching for the rubbed wounds that an ill-fitting saddle might leave behind, peering close at the nodding head and hesitant step that spoke of an injury, the foam upon the lips and panic in the eyes that might mean sickness. Lucius moved amongst the herd carefully, almost shyly, a priest at the ritual, and he did not yet dare try to lift a hoof, not yet. He would have to fight hard for such trust.

Arite could hear him speaking as he worked, soft words cast into the air. The babble and chant of a man soothing restless horses, but they were not in a language of his own. It was the Sarmatian tongue he spoke – she started as she heard echoes of her own conversation with Kai, as the Roman mouthed those words over and over as man might when he is trying to unpick a riddle, feeling the weight of the words on his tongue and seeking an answer.