Free The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar Page B

cattle to their winter pasture. Literally, “to travel without women.”

    In the spring we climbed out of that valley, forcing the animals up the rocky slopes, shouting and clacking sticks behind them, driving them over the sun-touched snow that broke under their hooves into the camp where blankets were hung to dry on lines. Girls ran out, holding up their mantles, embracing their brothers and cows and horses without any kind of order, and crying with happiness. Their faces glittered dark against a landscape covered with mud and dirty snow and they were bright and warm and alive. I was dazzled by them, by their light voices and quick hands, their odor of wood-smoke and roasting coffee and wool blankets, the flash of their heavy silver anklets and the beads in their tangled hair and their bold movements as they shoved one another and hurried to build up the fires. I felt that I had never seen women before. Amlasith approached me, her arms spread out, and I leaned to kiss her shoulder. The fleece of her jacket made me sneeze and she laughed and pulled my head down and kissed my brow and patted my cheek with her warm hand.
    “Did you bring back my Tras and Su?” she asked.
    “Yes,” I said.
    She narrowed her eyes and looked across the snow. “Ah yes, there they are,” she said, and I watched her brightening face as she caught sight of her two favorite russet cows.
    That night a sheep was slaughtered in our honor and we drank stedleihe from a gourd smeared with pitch that usually hung in Amlasith’s tent, passing it ceremonially around the fire, the boys composing their faces into sternness before they drank. The wind came up and the night grew very cold and the sparks flew and all the children were put to bed in the big tent, except for those who insisted on sleeping in the artusa among the cows and went off dragging their blankets over the snow. Rumios sang a part of the Song of Lo and then a girl in a white cloak recited half of the poem, “When Tir Rode Out from Eilam’s Halls.” When she had finished, Amlasith said to me: “Come, Tavis. It is time you sat with the women for an hour.”
    “Tav,” I said, my throat dry.
    She bowed her head slightly, but did not repeat my name. My name is Tav , I thought as I rose to follow her and the girl in white, feeling suddenly heavy and awkward, not wanting to answer or even look at Mantia and the others who called to me across the camp. I stalked silent in my boots, the light of the lantern brushing my dirty herdsman’s trousers. Amlasith’s tent was the largest in the camp. There were several lamps inside it, and girls and women and children lounged about on low beds covered with stretched hide. Some of them sat up when they saw me, curious, ready to laugh. The girl in white set the lantern on the floor, and Amlasith sank down in a clinking of gold, crossing her legs under billows of red cotton that filled the air with a smoky scent. Her wealth of gold flashed in the light of the lantern. She lit an ivory pipe patterned with dragons, a relic from the south. Her hand curved about the bowl, the fingers delicate and smooth, with sharpened nails and many golden rings.
    “Welcome, Tav,” she said.
    “Thank you, sudaidi.”
    Titters pricked the air, and Amlasith threw an amused, warning glance at a clump of girls. She looked at me again and smiled, a coil of smoke at the corner of her lip. “Do you smoke?”
    “Yes, thank you, sudaidi.”
    Another burst of giggles, rough as a fall of gravel.
    The girl in white, the reciter of poetry, passed me a small enameled pipe. She did not raise her eyes; she looked angry and ashamed, like me. She threw off her white cloak to disclose a leather vest, shiny and supple with grease.
    Another girl passed me a tinderbox. I lit the pipe and smoked the heavy Evmeni tobacco, bartered for at the back door of a barn, and Amlasith said, “Seren, give us a tale,” and the reciter of poetry spoke the invocation: “People of the House . . .”