The Totem-Maker (part one hundred fourteen)

 

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Ten

Crafter Becomes Maker

(part one hundred fourteen)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I tested with my knees the surety of my seat, crouched low as I could, having seen racers (with…confessing it, some excitement for the mayhem) come a hair’s-breadth from death, barely skimming the undersides of rock shelves. The Prince, high above, rose to give the shout.

The flag dropped. Toish lunged with the other five. This, I thought, barreling and clinging, was my mount’s race, not mine. We flew to a narrow sharp turn. Toish, among stallions, proved a fierce leader, both my miracle and my brush with misadventure. He intended no turning; he brought his rear legs together and flung at the wall. We were up, over, plummeting, the two behind charging hard to meet our landing. Instinct, or divine help, made me shift my weight.

Or… The horse might well have known his own plan, with or without this human burden. Toish kicked again, at a rock curving to the next switchback, and his feet came in touch with earth, one of mine striking a poor rider’s head as we sailed above, no one now in front of us. Toish ran less inspired, while I felt safer at last; feeling too that my frozen limbs would need breaking ever to remove me from his back. Then a tattoo of hooves, a command shrieked in ragged exhaustion, and a scrabbling noise. We’d come to a shallow straightway, that opened before me just where a rider leaped a broad hump of gravel and took the lead.

This was what Toish had needed. My hard fast lesson made me wise enough to lean into his sudden thrust, and I and the other rider rollicked to the waiting flaggers. I won, and I lost, though the horse’s delight could not be diminished because his rider hadn’t known the rules.

And if I had snatched a flag and carried it off, I would have been less the people’s Totem-Maker, of magic too strong for the good Balbaecans. They liked me humble, and even humorous, yet…

The sorcery was none of mine. Toish had won his race. To my aid had come my useful memory for detail, and the gift of certainty in what to leave aside and what to choose. I was alive. But another had died.

I am sorry to say I can never account for that foot of mine. The dead man had lost his seat and been mauled by pounding hooves.

 

 

I beckoned to Jute, before she rode away south and east, to the city of Husdor. I would have jogged down the steps, but she urged the white bridal pony up, the bells of its harness making a song too cheerful, for the melancholy of blood sacrifice and parting. I was aloft with the Prince’s company, gathering gifts, biding to see Tnoch, wife, and entourage, off.

 

 

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The pony came fleetly to the feasting terrace, whereupon a scattering of us stood. But Jute slid from the saddle, not allowing her head above mine.

“You had said to me you would divest your husband of his younger wives. It emerges he is a constant man and desires only one.”

“Nur-Elom, do you chide me?”

“I hope I send you to your joy.”

“I am of the north. This is the height of my joy. I have feared worse things than showed themselves true. A fault the gods mark.”

“Let me intervene. No, this bauble carries no more than its own beauty, do you find beauty in it.”

I had chosen the stone, a pale blue of Pytta’s, asked a jeweler to pry it from the copper setting, ensconce it in gold—a ring once, now an ornament for the hair.

Jute’s eyes filled. Truly, I thought her too haunted by superstition; at fault perhaps, though never would I have chided. “We are bargaining, my dear,” I told her. “You begged me to help you, at a time past, when your pride whispered to you death was better than your sister’s household. You’d feared your age, and the coarseness of servitude, would render you despised, at her mercy…”

“Enough. That child’s mercy is no punishment, no. You don’t mean to comfort me, by reminding the gods how much they hold in balance against me?”

“I mean to quit you of an obligation, if you will quit me. We won’t see each other again. But my hand may gain some reach in the fullness of time. Jute, I will always help an old friend. You, though…you won’t fail to live your life, rely on your new friends? Forget me, have me out of your thoughts. Now and then wear this ornament, and remember in peace.”

Weeping still, she gave me a kiss, mounted and rode to where her husband waited for her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Crafter Becomes Maker

The Totem-Maker (part one)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2018, Stephanie Foster)