A hand found hers, in the shifting crowd. Kai, his face solemn – nothing of the lover there now, only the captain.
‘I will keep him safe,’ he said, speaking so softly that she could barely hear him. ‘I swear—’
She cut him off. ‘There have been enough oaths sworn in haste, I think.’
‘Perhaps so.’ He hesitated, as another man jostled close. ‘I think that I must tell him what has passed between us.’
‘I ask that you do not.’
‘A hard secret to keep.’
‘I ask no oath of you,’ she said. ‘Just to keep it, if you can.’
‘I shall keep it.’
‘If you can,’ she said again.
His head nodded slowly – more in weariness than in accord, she thought, but perhaps it would be enough. And for a moment she had the hope that he would ask no more of her, that she would not have to lie to him. Then he spoke again.
‘What was it that she said to you? Laimei, when I went to search for the others.’
‘I asked her why she chose you,’ Arite said. ‘To go to the west with her.’
‘And what was it that she said?’
This was the time – these were the words that she had practised, over and over again while she waited in the dark, and when it was needed the lie came easily. ‘That you had earned your place.’ And Kai was grinning again, the shy smile of a child, and so Arite tipped her head forward and let the hair fall about her face so that she no longer had to see that smile.
‘Go say goodbye to your daughter,’ she said.
One more touch of his hand against hers, and he was gone. She looked about her, suddenly fearful, for when one lies in such a way it seems the whole world must know. That the wind whispers into every ear, that the chattering streams spill the secrets to all who walk beside them. And there was one who watched her, who had been close enough to hear them speak.
Not Bahadur, for he spoke closely with Saratos, those silver-marked veterans sharing an understanding of their own. Lucius watched her, solemn faced. Perhaps there was something of pity there, and she felt the old killing rage rise within her, to be looked upon in that way.
‘And what is it you think of,’ she said, ‘to stare so at me?’
‘I do not think that I have seen you lie before,’ he said.
She had been ready to speak hot words, to beat him as she might have beaten a stubborn horse. It was her right, when faced with a slave who spoke in such a way. But there was something in the way that he spoke that stole the fight from her.
She turned from him then – one more time, to embrace Bahadur, to feel him close against her. Over his shoulder then, through eyes filmed with tears, she saw the rising of a traitor sun, lighting the path towards death.
19
From the western edge of the camp, Arite watched the riders break away. A fragment of the people, a scattering of men and women and horses cast across the steppe. And as Kai and his company began their journey, they had an escort to see them out of the camp. Not of other warriors, or friends, or lovers. It was the children who followed them, the children of those who rode to the west. Sworn to secrecy, to tell nothing of why their mothers and fathers rode away, but they would not be denied their farewell.
She watched them riding side by side, at a meandering walk. One might have thought it an idle wandering, a clan carelessly drifting from one grazing ground to another, were it not for the war gear the men and women wore, the scales of metal and horse hoof rattling and shining under the sun, the long spears tipped up towards the sky.
Occasionally a pair of riders would break away at a charge – little brief races, fathers letting their sons win one more time. Others rode slow and close, heads bowed together, and Arite could imagine the words spoken, the last pieces of advice to the daughters who rode beside them. They all rode so naturally together that there was a sense that the parting might never happen, that they would ride together to the west.
But then another signal passed through them, a wordless command. A restless horse tossed its head, one warrior tapped the spear of the rider beside him in challenge. And then they were away, the hooves beating against the sodden ground, and even at a distance Arite could hear the old songs of death singing from the lips as they put their horses to the gallop.
The children gave chase, trying to stay with the warband just a little longer, to steal one more word or moment from those about to be lost. But the foals and yearlings they rode were no match for the warhorses, and soon they were left behind. Then they were still, drawn up in a watchful, ragged formation. Eyes deadened and lips moving, making vows and promises of their own. Of memory, and of revenge.
Arite looked about, to see if there were any who noted the warband passing. A few shaded their eyes and looked towards where dawnlight glittered on spears, but they seemed to give it little regard. The word had gone out that the clans were moving, that each was to return to its lands. The truce between the peoples to be marked for one more day, but after that the old feuds would break open and run with blood once more. And there were sheep to herd, mounts to ready, offerings to give to the gods of horse and sky. They would all have far to travel before the sun rested once more, and it was only her, and Lucius beside her, who were still and watchful of those departing figures.
Arite heard Lucius whisper in his own language, some prayer or curse or wish of good fortune. Words of her own burned on her lips unspoken, as she waited until Kai and the others were far outside the camp, a scattering of shadows on the horizon. For she did not trust herself to speak until then, so certain she was that she would call them back, or cry out a warning. For Kai and Bahadur had seemed so young again – men always did, on the day they rode away.
She saw Tomyris and the other children turning back, racing towards those who stayed, to be with what kin remained to them. For a moment it had seemed that the children would not come back, that they would be a second warband following behind the first, to fight and die with their fathers and mothers. But now they returned, and she would have to speak, if she was going to speak at all.
‘I will tell you why I lied to Kai,’ she said to Lucius. ‘I will tell you what Laimei said.’
‘Why would you speak of this to me?’
‘You chose to stay.’ A catch in her voice, and she spoke again, softer than before. ‘And I must tell it to someone, or I think I shall go mad. And I cannot speak of this to another Sarmatian. It must be a secret that dies with me.’
‘I will keep your secret. You have my word.’
She shaded her eyes against the hard sun, seeing if she could pick out Kai or Bahadur, but they were all mingled together and almost beyond the horizon.
‘She said that she would not see him happy. With me. That she wanted him dead before she would see him content. That she would take my lover away from me, my husband too, and leave me alone.’ A closing sensation around the throat, a choking grasp of fear and shame that she swallowed away, to speak again. ‘I told her that it was not such a thing as that between us, that she misunderstood. But she would not believe me.’
‘An evil thing,’ said Lucius, ‘a feud between brother and sister.’
‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘I thought that my killing days were over. But I have killed him, sure enough. I did not know that she could hate him so much.’ She stared out towards the riders once more, and watched the line of the earth swallow them up. ‘I am glad, for he does not know it either.’