Apparently the horse boys were expected to do everything. They cleaned the game the hunters brought down with their arrows, washed and groomed the horses at least once a day, sometimes oftener if a warrior became unduly concerned about his mount. They were also expected to search for and carry firewood and dried dung back to the camp.
“And what will the men be doing while we work?” Sargon had wondered about the mission. What did the party expect to find?
“The men will search for any signs of danger to the Clan.” Timmu spoke as if he had vast experience with such things. “They will look for good hunting grounds and possible camp sites. Some riders will range far ahead, searching for anything of value.”
Gritting his teeth, Sargon held back his words. So now he’d become nothing more than a servant to a bunch of barbarians riding over the countryside. Garal’s lessons would have been better than this. Regardless, Sargon knew better than to complain. Several times he saw Garal glancing behind, checking up on how his charge performed his duties. Sargon realized that any mistakes he made would reflect more on Garal and Chinua than on himself.
Swearing under his breath at this new situation, Sargon knew he would just have to endure it for the next two or three days. By then they should be back at the Ur Nammu encampment, and Sargon could resume his lessons with Garal.
Instead, the scouting expedition lasted ten grueling days, at least for Sargon and the other horse boys. Fashod and the warriors appeared to enjoy themselves. They rode in a wide arc to the west, often breaking up into smaller groups. At times, they left the horse boys behind, or sent them on ahead to prepare a camp.
Aside from riding and hunting, and occasionally practicing with their weapons, Sargon noticed the warriors did little work.
“In Akkad, we would be considered slaves,” Sargon said to Timmu at the end of the tenth day. “We’re lucky they don’t beat us every night, merely for their fun.”
Just before midafternoon of the tenth day of the scouting trip, the warriors returned to the main camp. Fashod and the others exhibited the usual signs of excitement and eagerness to be home. Sargon and Timmu were so tired that they could scarcely guide their horses to Chinua’s corral. Timmu explained that they were no longer expected to take care of the other animals. Once the group returned to the camp, the warriors’ kin would see to that.
The moment he’d finished with his horse, Sargon threw himself into the stream, luxuriating in the chance to get clean again. Timmu had to call him several times before he climbed out of the water, ignoring the chill in the air.
Chinua’s household prepared a small feast for Garal and the returning horse boys. The family’s largest pot was filled with rabbit meat, along with leftovers of a deer taken in yesterday’s hunt. The women added a generous helping of wild vegetables, whatever they had managed to find. It all went into the pot, along with a handful of spices, some of which Sargon recognized as coming from Akkad.
By the time Sargon got back from the stream, the tempting odors wafted over Chinua’s camp site. Sargon gratefully took his seat on the fringe of the fire, next to Timmu, who had already started recounting each day’s adventure to his father.
Sargon understood that for Timmu, the ride was one of several rites of passage the boy would be required to complete before he could consider himself a warrior. For Sargon, the trip had accomplished nothing.
“And you, Sargon, did nothing exciting happen to you?” Chinua’s interest appeared sincere.
“I did kill a rabbit with a rock.”
Everyone smiled at that. “Fashod says that you did well, that you rode as well as any of the warriors.”
So Chinua had sought out the trip’s leader as soon as he returned. Or perhaps Fashod had come to Chinua’s tent.
“My backside is not as sore as it usually is,” Sargon admitted.
Chinua chuckled. “Then tomorrow Garal will continue your training.” He turned to one of his daughters, a girl of eight or nine seasons and nodded. She scrambled to her feet and ran inside the tent, to reappear almost at once. In her hands she carried a bow and a quiver of arrows, which she handed to her father.
Chinua passed them to Sargon. “Now that you have learned to ride, you must learn to shoot a bow and arrow.”
Sargon ran his hands over the bow, his excitement plain. To hold a real weapon in his hand after so many days with nothing but a wooden sword or knife. He’d seen the warriors practicing their archery as they rode, often taking time to charge a particular tree or hill, shooting arrows as they rode at a gallop and shouting their war cries. A deadly weapon indeed in the hands of a skilled marksman. Of course, the horse boys were forbidden to touch any of the warriors’ weapons.
“Even your father admits he never mastered the bow from horseback,” Chinua said. “Though I saw him charge the Sumerians with a lance in his hand.”
Sargon felt pleased to hear of his father’s weakness. “He told me once that he left the Clan too soon, before he’d had time to master the bow. And that he was too tall and broad to use one efficiently from the back of a horse.”
“Then you will have something to show him when you return,” Chinua said. “It is always well when a son exceeds his father.”
20
For the first time since he’d reached the Ur Nammu camp, Sargon fell asleep looking forward to the morning. He slept with the bow at his side that night. As usual, Garal awakened him just after dawn. Sargon climbed to his feet, rested and refreshed. Perhaps Garal’s foolishness about keeping the bow close mattered after all.
They washed up at the stream, then returned to the tent, where the women handed each of them a strip of dried meat. The sun had scarcely cleared the horizon when Garal led the way to the farthest end of the camp, far enough from the tents so that they would be undisturbed. The warriors had established an area there, to practice their bowmanship.
Sargon took stock of the barbarian archery range. Unlike the large targets used in Akkad, he found a series of tall stakes driven into the ground. A thick sack full of dried grass and weeds hung from each one, dangling about the height of a man on a horse. Each stake stood apart, at least twenty paces from its neighbor.
Examining the ground, Sargon saw the tracks of many horses, and realized the warriors must use this place regularly. This early in the morning, however, the field remained empty.
Under Garal’s direction, Sargon started by shooting at a stationary target. He had drawn the powerful Akkadian long bows on many occasions, but he’d never mastered the weapon. He was just tall enough, but the stiffness of the bow taxed his strength. His father’s archers spent a good part of every day drawing and loosing at least a hundred arrows.
That built powerful muscles in their arms and chests. As the trainer often declared, a bowman must be able to stand and draw his shafts all day long, if necessary, and in the heat of day and the thick of battle. That onerous requirement explained why most of the Akkadian archers were tall, with broad chests and well-muscled arms and legs.
The shorter horseman’s bow Garal had given him, however, with its horn tips, thickened grip, and sharply curved limbs, was a different matter all together. Meant to be used from the back of a horse and at close range, its draw was much shorter than that of the longer bows of the city. Sargon knew he could use this weapon well enough, especially after the last twenty days of riding and training.
Garal carried his own bow as they walked up to the nearest target, but Sargon struggled under the weight of four quivers of arrows.
“We will lose some shafts,” Garal explained. “Once an arrow flies into the grass or sand, it often disappears. Others will break when they impact the target, or shatter if they strike a rock. These shafts are not the best our old men and women make. Those are kept for battle. But these will do well enough for us.”