The Woman Who Rides Like a Man Read online

  “I just don’t know enough,” she told Alanna one night, as Kara and Ishak argued nearby over the use of a scroll of spells. “I was little when I was taught, and I haven’t practiced for a long time.” She sighed, looking discouraged. “You remember Hakim Fahrar, the man you fought?” Alanna nodded. “His mother is the best weaver in the tribe. I’d ask her to teach me, but—” She made a face. “The women think Kara and I have forgotten our place because we sit with the men.”

  “And it doesn’t help that I wounded Mistress Fahrar’s son,” Alanna said shrewdly. Kourrem nodded; Alanna tousled the girl’s hair. “I’d give anything to help you, but I don’t know how to weave.”

  All three apprentices—even Ishak—stared at her. Finally Kara whispered, “You don’t know how to weave?”

  “Warriors don’t learn such things,” Ishak told the girls scornfully.

  Kourrem stood abruptly. “I’ll be right back.” She hurried from the tent.

  “I just thought—all the girls are taught when we are very young,” Kara explained. “You don’t know how to card wool, or spin thread, or—” She stopped, baffled.

  “I don’t know how to bake, either,” Alanna confided. “The only cooking I know is the kind soldiers do on the march.”

  Kara shook her head. In many ways she was a very proper Bazhir maiden; Alanna often puzzled her. She was trying to explain the process of weaving when Kourrem returned, bearing a lap-sized model of her big loom. The girl knelt beside Alanna. “I can teach you the simplest kind of weaving, if you want to learn,” she offered. “You couldn’t do anything like stripes, but it would be a start.”

  “I’d love to learn,” Alanna admitted. “It looks like fun.” Kourrem grinned. “It is fun when it goes right,” she said. “I really shouldn’t start you weaving right away. We always had to learn to card wool—you know, comb out all the dirt and tangles—and spin a good thread before we were let near a loom.”

  Alanna laughed. “It’s just like every fighting art I studied,” she explained to her surprised audience. “We had to learn how to make our weapons before we got to use them.”

  “You have to understand how a thing is made before you master it,” Kara said wisely. Suddenly her face brightened. “That’s what you’ve been teaching us about magic!”

  “So if you know how the crystal sword is made, you can command it!” Ishak added.

  Alanna fought down a trace of alarm. “That’s not all of it, Ishak.” She fixed his eyes with her own grim ones. “To command things of nature, you need to understand how they are made, and you must want to command them. With things of magic, you develop your will until you are stronger than your Gift. Otherwise the power will turn on you. Do you understand me?” she demanded.

  Ishak met her eyes defiantly, then looked away. “Of course I understand.”

  Alanna frowned, worried for him, but there was no sense in pursuing the matter now. She examined the loom she held. “What do I do with this thing?”

  Kourrem explained the device, naming the different parts and describing what they did. When she finished, she worked the shuttle until a row had grown on the threaded loom. Then she handed it to Alanna. “Your turn.”

  The loom was clumsy and awkward-feeling to the knight, who was far more used to weapons. At last she drew a breath and started the shuttle.

  The moment the thing began to move, she realized she didn’t understand what was supposed to be happening. Within seconds the threads were impossibly snarled. Kara choked back laughter; even Kourrem had to smile. Ishak looked bored.

  Alanna put the loom down, feeling younger and more ignorant than she had in years. “Perhaps I need to learn the other things first. My teachers were right—for real skills, there aren’t any shortcuts.”

  “I’ll teach you,” Kourrem offered, “if you still want to learn. Though it seems silly for you to go to such trouble when the things you do are more important.”

  “What’s more important than the clothes I wear?” Alanna wanted to know.

  “Kourrem’s right,” Ishak remarked scornfully. “Why should you fool with looms and women’s things when you can fight and do magic?”

  Alanna didn’t miss the scorn in Ishak’s voice, or that both girls had flushed with embarrassment and begun to finger their veils. He needs a lesson, she thought, picking up a thread. This time I’m going to give him one. “So you think weaving is stupid?”

  “Women’s work.” Ishak yawned, very much a Bazhir male. “It’s all right if you have nothing better to do.”

  Alanna swiftly tied a knot in the thread. Ishak fell as the carpet he stood on yanked itself out from under his feet, dumping the young man on the ground. The carpet then sailed around the tent frantically. “Did I understand you correctly?” she asked as the girls ducked and Faithful hissed and spit. “Is working with thread less important than talking to demons and seeing the future?”

  When Ishak opened his mouth to reply, Alanna swiftly tied a second knot. The carpet stopped its mad journey, coming to a halt directly over Ishak’s head. “While I have your attention,” Alanna went on, “I’d like to say a few things about thread magic. I’ve never used it; I learned what I know from our village healing-woman, when I was young, and from the palace Healers. I do know that a woman with a bit of string in her hands can bring down a troop of armed knights, if her will is strong enough. Men—Healers, mostly—use thread magic, too; but women acquire it more easily. I guess that’s because most women know how to weave and spin and sew. You owe your fellow apprentices an apology, Ishak.”

  She loosened the second knot, and the carpet began to lower itself onto Ishak’s head. “You can’t treat Kara and Kourrem as the men of the tribe treat the women. These women are your equals. What they do—what they learn—is just as important as what you do and learn. Frankly, in some areas they’re better at it than you are.”

  She untied the first knot, and the carpet whisked itself around the tent, stopping in front of Ishak this time. Alanna undid what remained of the second knot, and the carpet trembled. “You’re in its way,” she told the young man. Startled, he moved aside, and the carpet settled gently into its former spot. “I hope I’ve made myself clear.”

  Ishak gasped, his eyes alight with discovery. “Will you teach me how to do that?” he demanded. “I want to learn—women’s magic or not!”

  A hand painfully squeezed Alanna’s heart: for a moment he sounded exactly like her willful brother. “I believe I mentioned an apology.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ishak told the two girls. “I keep forgetting.”

  Kara was looking at the thread in Alanna’s hands with awe. “You mean Kourrem and I could do magic while we are weaving and sewing? Just by making knots?”

  Alanna sighed, suddenly feeling tired and old. “I’ll teach all of you in the morning,” she promised. “For now, let’s turn in.”

  Obedient as always, they left, chattering eagerly. Once they were gone, Faithful jumped onto Alanna’s left shoulder (his favorite perching-spot). That was an interesting display of temper, he commented. Why don’t you pick on someone who can fight back?

  “He’s got to learn,” Alanna replied, dousing the lamps. “Otherwise he’s going to insult some little old wrinkled lady shaman who will tie him in knots.”

  Perhaps, the cat replied.

  “Not just ‘perhaps,’” Alanna demurred. “You know as well as I do that there are traps for sorcerers in the strangest places. At least I know I mean no harm. Someone else might not be kind.”

  You won’t always be able to stand between another person and his fate, Faithful warned. You mustn’t think you can look after the world.

  Alanna chuckled and tugged her pet’s long black tail. “Who will look after it if I don’t?”

  Faithful gave a disgusted mutter and stuck his cold nose into her ear, surprising a laugh from her.

  To the new lessons in knot magic, Alanna added the names and powers of herbs, stones, and metals. Ishak and Kara complained
about the added memorization, but they studied hard. Ishak now kept Alanna up at night; he was quicker than the other two, and he had a feel for the Gift, but his eagerness to learn dangerous things frightened her. He did not have the self-discipline of the girls. Was it because he had been more accepted by the tribe? Often Alanna caught him staring at her crystal sword; she feared one day he would ignore her command and try to wield it.

  As an apprentice weaver, Alanna was all thumbs; the girls were baffled. She reminded herself that she had not been even a passable swordsman when she first began to train; but such thoughts didn’t soothe her hurt pride. Making things worse was the fact that there was no way she could teach Kourrem the advanced skills the girl lacked.

  “I can’t do it!” Kourrem cried while working one night. A mass of knotted threads, like a giant spider, sat on her loom. “I’m stupid and ignorant—”

  “You lost track of the pattern,” a dry voice said from the opening that led to the temple part of the tent. Alanna and her apprentices turned to stare at the tiny old woman who stood there. Alanna recognized her. Halef Seif had pointed Hakim’s mother out to her before, the woman Kourrem said was the tribe’s finest weaver.

  The old lady lifted an unlit stick of incense. “I was about to pay my respects to the Mother when I overheard,” she explained. Walking forward, she thrust the incense at Alanna. “Hold this.” She joined Kourrem at the big loom. “See? Here—and here—you broke the pattern. And here.” She inspected the remainder of Kourrem’s work as the girl clutched Kara’s arm. “Hm. Not bad for someone without much formal teaching. A tight, even weave.” Kourrem beamed at the praise. Perhaps the first she’s had from a woman of the tribe in years, Alanna thought.

  Mistress Fahrar walked over and picked up the cards, scrutinizing Alanna’s work. “Be more patient,” she said, her gray-brown eyes amused. “You’re missing little bits of dirt.” She thrust the pieces of wool back at Alanna. “Start over, and take your time. You’ll be faster as you get accustomed to it.”

  She drew a breath, looking around her. “You’re a promising weaver, young Kourrem, but you should be learning your own craft, not teaching it. I am sure your weaving could become better, Kara.” The tall girl blushed and looked at her feet. “And you should have a teacher who is accustomed to teaching, shaman,” she told Alanna firmly. “You will learn from me, with Kourrem’s permission, and I will show these two young women what more they can study. Doubtless this young man can find something to occupy him while we women work,” she added dryly.

  For the grateful tears and the relief in the girls’ faces, Alanna could have kissed the formidable lady. Instead she nodded, her face properly grave. “I accept your kind offer, Mistress Fahrar, for my apprentices and myself.” At last! she exulted inwardly. One woman in the tribe has acknowledged that we exist; and I didn’t have to ask Halef Seif or Ali Mukhtab to intervene!

  “I am called Mari,” the mother of Hakim replied. “Now, come, you girls. Show me what else you can do.”

  When Coram returned a week later, he found things very different. He had much to say about the changes among the Bloody Hawk. Fortunately, he said all of it in private, to Alanna and Faithful.

  “I think I’m leavin’ ye in a fairly quiet place,” he began as he unpacked in his tent. Alanna was watching as she scratched Faithful’s ears. “Ye weren’t well enough known here that ye could get into any trouble, and I thought they’d stay away from ye. But I come back, and ye’re the Mother-blessed shaman of the tribe, ye’ve adopted three young ones, and ye’re forcin’ the women to accept two of their own sittin’ with the men—”

  “You’re turning purple,” Alanna commented when he stopped for breath.

  “Can’t ye stay out of trouble for a few short weeks?” he bellowed.

  “I didn’t ask for Akhnan Ibn Nazzir to attack me,” she pointed out. “But he did, and I killed him. I can’t leave the tribe without a shaman, can I? Since I have no intention of being killed by the first rival who comes along, or of staying here forever, I picked three apprentices. It’s not my fault that two of them are girls; but they are, and the tribe has to treat them with respect if they’re ever to be good shamans. And no, I couldn’t have chosen just Ishak. What if something happens to him? All three have to be trained anyway, and Bazhir custom—it’s easier to break the king’s law back home than it is to flout Bazhir custom, have you noticed?—Bazhir custom says I have to train them. Besides, having only one shaman when you can have three is silly.”

  Coram sat heavily and accepted the brandy she poured for him. His broad tanned face was wrinkled with concern. “Lass, ye’re settin’ these poor folk on their ears,” he said wearily. “They haven’t changed in centuries, and ye’re forcin’ them to accept things yer own people can’t accept—not easily.”

  “But don’t you see? To the Bazhir, I’m a legend. They take things from me they wouldn’t take from anyone else. I don’t ask them to change for stupid reasons. They know having three shamans might make the difference to their survival. Even the women are beginning to accept the girls. At least, Mari Fahrar is.”

  Coram drained his cup and shook his head when she offered refill. “I’m worried for ye,” he confessed. “I hate seein’ ye a stranger always. Ye’re an odd lass, but ye’re like my own kin, and I want ye t’be happy.”

  Alanna put Faithful down and hugged her friend. “I don’t feel like a stranger here,” she confessed as she wiped her eyes. “It seems to me that I’ve known these people for a long time—all my life, perhaps. I don’t always agree with them, but they make sense to me.”

  Gruffly, touched by her affection, he asked, “Do ye commune with the Voice of the Tribes at sunset, then? All the way t’the city Hakim made us stop every night while he stared into the fire.” He shuddered as he finished unpacking his saddlebags. “’Twas spooky.”

  Alanna lifted Faithful up again, putting him on her shoulder. “That’s one thing I don’t do,” she said ruefully. “It’s too much like letting Ali Mukhtab have a part of me. I don’t want anyone to have a part of me, not yet, anyway.”

  “Not even Prince Jonathan?” Coram asked shrewdly. Alanna blushed a deep red, and he chuckled. “He said t’tell ye he’d be seein’ ye soon, somethin’ about receivin’ instruction from Ali Mukhtab. Oh, I’ve letters for ye, from Lord Thom and Sir Myles.” For a moment the burly man struggled with himself; then he gave in. “There’s another letter for ye as well.” He drew it from beneath his jerkin, handing it to her reluctantly. “I should’ve burned it when he handed it to me. I’d hoped ye knew better than to still be consortin’ with the likes of him.”

  “George!” Alanna said gleefully. “Is he all right? Has he been—well, safe?”

  “He’s flourishin’, that one,” Coram snapped. “And when are ye going t’give over befriendin’ a rogue like him?”

  Alanna laughed impishly. “When you stop drinking.” She laughed as he swore, and returned to read her letters.

  George’s missive was short, but its contents made her blush. She knew her old friend loved her, and she loved him in a more-than-friendly way, but Jonathan had always been first. George knew it and understood, but his words told her that he continued to hope.

  Myles’s letter was long and chatty, giving her the news of everyone at Court, nobles and servants. More than any other high-born person Alanna knew, Myles made friends with everyone, not just his social equals. He was able to tell her about Cook and Stefan the hostler with as much detail as he gave to the king and Jonathan. Only when she reread his letter did she notice that he said nothing about Thom.

  Thom’s own letter more than made up for Myles’s omission:

  Dear Alanna,

  Coram tells me you’ve been adopted by a bunch of uncivilized desertmen. How odd of you! He tells me now you’re a “man of the tribe,” which is what you’ve always wanted, I suppose. No, don’t scowl at me.

  (Alanna was scowling.)

  I am enjoying myself here. Everyone is very
polite, and the library has some classics of sorcery even my Masters didn’t possess. My education grows by leaps and bounds. I have attached some of the late Duke Roger’s followers, including the lovely Delia of Eldorne. I have no interest in the lady as such, but I believe she may know where some of Roger’s most secret manuscripts are hid. She had hinted as much, and I feel that she doesn’t lie.

  I enjoy the luxuries: exotic foods, fine clothing, having servants to wait on me. I will travel at some point, but only when there is nothing more to be learned here.

  Try not to be too disgusted with me.

  Love,

  Thom

  Shortly after Coram’s return, Mari brought Farda, the tribe’s midwife, to make her peace with the new shaman. Within minutes the two were trading secrets of healing. The next day Farda took over instructing the apprentices in herbs: From that moment on, most of the women made their peace with Alanna and her young people. Some would never be won over and would always view the new ways with suspicion, but they were a minority. Knowing to whom she owed the new warmth, Alanna tried to thank Mari Fahrar. The old woman brushed her words aside.

  “All things change,” she told Alanna frankly. “It does not hurt men to know women have power, too.”

  Alanna had to laugh. Until Mari and Farda entered her life, she never realized that the tribeswomen viewed their men not with fear but with loving disrespect. Sometimes she felt that she was the one getting the education, not her pupils.

  Kara was just beginning to work on her control of the wind when the men of the village went hunting for night-raiders: hillmen who carried off a herd of sheep and the boy tending them. Alanna and Coram were teaching the boys archery when the lookouts sounded an alarm.

  Coram swore. “They lured the men off a purpose!” He turned to the boys. “Let’s see what yer marksmanship’s like on movin’ targets.”

  “What about their shamans?” one woman cried. “They attack first with magic!”

  Alanna could feel the unnaturalness of the fierce breeze. “Kara! Kourrem! Ishak!” she yelled, remembering too late they were in Farda’s tent, across the breadth of the village. It would cost precious moments to fetch them—