Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [23]
The Alan paused. Why should he pause? There was no reason to do so. But since it would be a long journey, and since the boy his blood brother had captured was about to begin a new life, and since he wished to show some small act of kindness towards the little boy to reassure his watching mother, he moved close and drawing it out from his chest, hung a small amulet around the boy’s neck. It was a talisman of the magical bird Simrug, whose eyes point in different directions – one to the present, one to the future. Pleased with this gift, he nodded to the Scythian, and the two men wheeled their horses.
As they did so, Kiy’s face began to pucker up. He wrenched himself round, stared back round the Scythian’s unyielding arm.
‘Mama!’
Her body quivered. Every muscle she possessed wanted to move, to rush at the horseman. But she knew that if she did, he would strike her down. For some reason she herself did not understand, she knew that stillness and silence were her only hope.
‘Mama!’ A second time. They were thirty paces away now.
She did not move. Slowly the two men walked their horses into the long grasses, towards the east. Seventy paces. A hundred. She watched the small round face, its eyes very large, looking strangely pale above the dark horse that carried it away.
‘Mama!’
Still she gazed at the face intently. The tall feather grass was starting to obscure him.
The carts were moving now, lumbering after them, accompanied by the other horsemen. They did not even bother to glance at her, as she stood, watching them go.
She had been praying in her mind since the moment she had first seen them; and although her prayers had been to no avail, she continued to pray, nonetheless. She prayed to the god of the wind, whom she felt against her face. She prayed to the god of thunder and lightning, and to the sun god who even now beat down upon them both. She prayed to the god of cattle. She prayed to Moist Mother Earth, who lay everywhere, under their feet. She prayed to all the gods she knew. But the empty blue sky looked down upon her – and gave her nothing. It seemed metallic, hard as the horsemen’s eyes.
The wagons receded through the swaying grasses. After a time she could no longer see even a faint cloud of dust. And now it seemed to her that the blue sky itself was slowly receding from her. And though she continued to pray, after the manner of her people, she bowed her head in tacit acknowledgement – it was fate.
It was mounting a small hillock and looking back that the Alan saw her: a tiny figure in the distance, still standing there, watching after them.
And then he took pity on her. For by chance, that year, he too had lost his only son.
When the Scythian heard what his blood brother asked of him, his eyes shone.
‘Twice today, my brother,’ he replied, ‘you have said to me do not ask – when I desired to raid the village. But that you may know my love for you, ask anything of me and it shall be yours. For did we not put our sword points in the cup of blood together? Did I not swear by wind and scimitar to be yours in life and death?’ With an easy movement, he passed the little boy across to the Alan. ‘He is yours.’
Then he waited.
Had it not been against his honour, the Alan would have sighed. Instead, with a light smile, he answered: ‘My faithful brother, you have journeyed far with me to honour my grandfather, and you have done all that I have asked, not only today but many times. Nor have you ever asked anything in return. Now, therefore, I beg you, ask a gift of me that I may show my love for you.’
He knew a gift was due; and he knew what it would be.
‘Brother of mine,’ replied the Scythian gravely, ‘I ask for Trajan.’
‘Then he is yours.’
It hurt, physically, when he said it. Yet even in his pain he felt a surge of pride: to give such