Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [22]
She called to him: ‘Little Kiy.’
And he replied. How was it, he wondered, that the horsemen were ignoring her?
Lebed looked up at their eyes; the dark eyes of one, the pale blue eyes of the other: both seemed equally hard. The Scythian slowly began to reach across towards his scimitar; but then his hand hovered in front of the child and came to rest on his horse’s mane.
She was only ten paces from them now. She could see Kiy’s expression and understood it – his face first lit up with joy and hope at the sight of her; then puckered up in frustration and misery at his powerlessness to reach out to her. She noticed that some of the men and the horses by the wagons gazed at her curiously, but without stirring. Then Lebed stopped, folded her arms, and stood there with her feet apart, facing the two horsemen.
A breath of wind sent a faint ripple across the tall feather grasses which smelled sweet. The sun shone, heavily, upon their heads. The helmet of the Scythian glittered. No one spoke.
The Alan knew some words of Slavic. Finally, from his great height looking down from Trajan, he addressed her curtly.
‘What do you want?’
Lebed did not look at him. She looked at her son on the Scythian’s black horse, and said nothing.
‘Go back to your village. The boy is ours.’
She looked at Kiy’s round cheeks, not at his eyes. She looked at his small, plump hands that held on to the black mane of the powerful horse. But still she said nothing.
For silence is more powerful than words.
The Alan watched her. What could she know, he thought, of the destiny that awaited the boy, over the horizon? What could she know of the busy Greek and Roman Black Sea ports; of the tall grey cliffs that shone like molten ash upon that southern sea; of the smooth, humpbacked promontories that looked like great bears come to drink the waters? What could she know, this poor Slav woman from the forest’s edge, of the rich grain trade by the Crimea, of the caravans that travelled to the east, of the snow-topped Caucasus Mountains, the forges where men tempered iron in the passes or of the green vineyards on the lower slopes? She had never seen the great herds of magnificent horses, like gods, that dwelt by the mountains, or the proud stone towers of his people.
Soon, in a few years, this boy would be a warrior – ride a horse like Trajan, perhaps. He would be one of them, the radiant Alans, whose charges and feigned retreats the Romans themselves had copied. Had not the emperor Marcus Aurelius himself recently given up his attempts to conquer them? Had not the Romans seemed glad of their help against the fiery Parthians?
There was so much to see and know: he might visit the kingdoms of the Cimmerians, or the Scythians in the Crimea; he could converse with Greeks, Romans, Persians, Jewish settlers in the ports; meet Iranian and Asiatic people from who knew what distant eastern lands. He might win glory fighting the Persians in the east or the troublesome Goths from the north. Above all, he would experience the huge freedom of the mighty steppe – the thrill of the gallop, the comradeship of their brotherhood.
As a Slav, what could he do – live in the forest and pay tribute, or move south and till the land for the masters of the steppe? But as a member of their clan, he would be a lord of men.
With these thoughts he stared down at the woman who wanted her child.
‘The boy is ours.’ Little Kiy heard the words and looked first at the Alan, then at his mother. He tried to see if the Alan meant to kill him. Surely if they meant to, they would have done so by now. Yet what was to become of him? Was he never to see her again? The sharp smell of the big horse and the hot tears that welled up in his eyes seemed to fill the whole afternoon.
The men by the wagons were stirring, harnessing up. The Alan allowed his gaze to wander over the steppe. Lebed stood where she was.
The dark Scythian watched