Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [21]
But even more splendid and more enthralling to the trembling child were their horses. Though he could only partly see the jet black horse beneath him, he could sense the huge power of the animal as he sat astride its neck. And as for the horse upon which the Alan sat – it might have been, for all he knew, a god.
It was silver grey, with a black mane, a black stripe down its back, and a black tail. The Alans called this noble colouring ‘hoarfrost’. As he watched this graceful animal move, it seemed to Kiy that the horse stalked over the ground as though it barely deigned to touch it. Such a creature, he thought, would not gallop: it would fly.
And indeed he was right: for there was no fleeter mount in all the Alan’s tribe. He called this noble animal Trajan, after the Roman emperor whose heroic reputation had spread round the shores of the Black Sea and who had been adopted as a minor god even by the far-flung Sarmatians. Three times in battle Trajan had saved the Alan’s life by his extraordinary sureness of foot. Once, when he had been wounded, it was the horse who had got away from his captors and come to search for him. It was as a compliment to the Alan and his horse that men said of him: ‘He loves Trajan more than his wife.’
Trajan was still now; but the faint breeze on the steppe caught the small golden discs that hung from his bridle and made them twinkle. On each disc was incised the tamga – the emblem of the clan of which the horse, like his master, was considered a member. The tamga of the clan was a three-pronged trident – a sacred sign that hung over the hearth in the clan’s ancestral tower, hundreds of miles away to the east.
The Scythian, too, looked at Trajan. And almost sighed. Amongst his native people, such a god-like steed would be buried with his master in the kurgan when at last he had fallen in battle. The Alans, great horsemen though they were, usually were content to go to their rest with only their horse’s bridle and equipage.
His father and the Alan’s had fought together as mercenaries for Rome, and he and the Alan had become blood brothers when they were boys. No bond was more sacred: it could not be broken. For years they had travelled together, fought side by side. Never, in anything, had the Scythian ever failed the Alan. If need be, he knew without a doubt, he would die for his friend.
Yet as his hard eyes rested for the thousandth time on Trajan, they took on a strange, dreamy quality. If he were not my brother, he thought to himself, I would kill him, even a hundred like him, for such a horse. The horse stared back at him, proudly. Aloud the Scythian said: ‘Brother of mine, will you not let me take two of our men, raid the village, and follow you? I will come up with you by sunset tomorrow.’
The Alan gently stroked his horse’s neck. ‘Do not ask this of me now, brother,’ he replied.
The Scythian was silent and thoughtful. Both men knew that the Alan could not refuse his blood brother anything – no gift, no favour, no sacrifice could ever be too great. This was their custom, and their honour. Had the Scythian asked formally for the horse, his brother would have given him Trajan. But a blood brother did not abuse his right: he must know when not to ask. And so now the dark man bowed his head and it was as if the suggestion of the village raid had never been.
Then Little Kiy looked across the grass and cried out.
She came walking towards them in the heat of the day. The long yellowing grass brushed harshly against her bare legs.
Lebed did not know whether they would kill her or not, but she had nothing to lose. As she approached, something told her that the handsome Alan was their leader, but she was not sure. The two men were watching her impassively. Even their horses did not move.
Kiy instinctively struggled to get free, but found that the Scythian’s dark arm that seemed to hold him so carelessly,