The Foretelling Read online

  When Melek arrived in the field, I was so tired I couldn't speak. I handed him my brother, showed him where the milk rags were for both bear and boy, then fell asleep at his feet. I trusted Melek with everything that was important to me, and maybe I was a fool to do so. All the same, when I woke he was feeding my horse handfuls of tall grass. He had tied the bear cub to a small tree with a leather rope. As for Anto, he was asleep on his blanket.

  Would you like to have a brother? I asked.

  By now, Melek knew much of our language.

  I would like to have you, he told me.

  I laughed, but the laughter sounded sharp, like a rock against both of us, or an arrow, one that could indeed pierce through flesh.

  I know I can't. Melek shrugged. So instead I'll take a brother.

  The bear is his brother as well. So you'll have to take two. But let the one be a boy and the other be a bear.

  Melek came close to me. He knew I was now the Queen. He saw the blue tattoos on my face, so fresh they still stung.

  I will take anything you give me.

  Before I left I gave him myself. Not the way they did at the festival. Not like that at all. There was no koumiss to make me dizzy, no red flower paste to put me into a trance; there was no reason to be together other than what we felt. What that was cannot be put into words. Maybe only that on that day we belonged to each other. That we had found each other in a world where it was nearly always impossible to find what had been lost. I thought of Penthe and my mother and I understood that love went beyond where we were, the snowfields and the grasslands, on into the next world and the world after that.

  I made my choice. I had heard my mother the Queen say to Penthe that a Queen must always abide by her decisions. In that way she finds her strength. In a few weeks, Melek and his people would be gone. They were wanderers and might not return. They would go their way, and I would go mine. That was the way it was meant to be. After all, my dreams were of my own country. There were a thousand horses waiting for me and a thousand warriors as well. I could feel who I was in my blood. I had no need to change my name, to call myself anything other than what I was. Queen Rain.

  In the morning, when I left that place, I knew that I was made of sorrow. But sorrow is strong. It is lasting. You can't deny it or get rid of it.

  I was made out of rain, but nothing could bind me.

  Nothing could stop me from being who I was meant to be all along.

  In the Reign of

  IN THE REIGN OF MY QUEENSHIP my brother saved my life.

  He did that when I went to get him from the priestesses. That was part of the foretelling, the part I hadn't understood: Who you save, saves you as well.

  The decision to murder me was made by those who believed I would betray them, and who betrayed themselves instead. They came to kill me the night that I left; they assumed I would leave in the morning, as I'd said I would. They thought I was sleeping in my blankets, a hard sleep. I did not wake when Asteria and her women put their knives in me. I did not move until they rolled me over and saw my red hair, the henna tattoos on my face.

  They killed my sister Io in my place.

  I knew this because Penthe was waiting for me in a clearing on the far steppe, beneath a flowering tree. With her was a small and loyal group who carried my sister's body. Io was covered with honey and yellow chalk; she was wound in my blanket, sewn up with red thread from her own horse.

  I thought I had no more tears, but that wasn't true.

  I fell onto my knees and wept for the sister who had loved me even when I'd been cruel to her, whose heart was so open, who had always tried to protect me, and even now had taken my place.

  Astella was among the group of mourners, and my aunt Cybelle and all of her women who kept bees. Even Astella, that fierce warrior, had been crying. And not for Io. For her own cousin. The one she knew she must now defeat.

  We have to go back now, Astella told me, even as I grieved. There's no time for anything else.

  I remembered what Cybelle had once said: A Queen has no time for love.

  Now I realized that a Queen had to carry her love with her, and that gave her all the time there ever would be.

  If we don't remove Asteria and her women, anyone will think they have the right to go after you, Astella warned me.

  In my reign would our people fight each other for the first time? Would horses ride against sister-horses? Would women who loved each other, who'd grown up together, cut each other open with scythes?

  J you don't fight back, they'll think you have no courage. A Queen without courage is a worthless thing.

  I turned to my aunt, the keeper of the bees. You must do something, Cybelle agreed. That is your duty.

  I went to sit beside Penthe and mourn Io. I asked if I could see my sister one more time, and Penthe nodded. She wanted that, too. I took my knife and cut along the thread, then opened a small section of the blanket, so I could look into Io's face.

  My sister seemed to be sleeping. I could not see the knife wounds in her back. All I could see was her face, her pale skin, the long red hair that had been braided and combed with honey. I did not understand how I could live my days in this world without Io. I didn't understand why this should happen when she wasn't even in battle, only sleeping, dreaming.

  She had two hundred fathers, Penthe told me. More even than you.

  Penthe spoke partially in our language and partially in her old language, the one she had learned when she was a slave used by any man who wanted her.

  I thought I wouldn't want a daughter born from that. I thought I might drown her. Not just for my benefit, but for hers. That life was not worth living. What good is misery? Maybe I cursed her by thinking that way when she came into this world.

  She wasn't cursed, I said. Nor was I.

  So your mother told me, Penthe said. I wish she had told you.

  Still, hearing that was a blessing to me, whether or not it was true. I sat beside Penthe as she sang Io the lullaby from the north storm country, then I tied the thread back together and closed up the blanket. I would never again see my sister's face, but now it was behind my eyes, a part of me.

  What would my mother have me do? I asked Penthe. Fight our own people?

  She would trust you to know the right thing, since you're now our Queen, as you were always meant to be.

  My sister who was never born was meant to be Queen.

  I was talking to a woman who had lost everything, her daughter, her beloved, her Queen, her country, even her own skin marked with two hundred tattoos that were not of her choosing.

  Even a Queen can be wrong, Penthe said. As your mother was for a very long time. You have nothing of those fifty cowards. As Io had nothing that belonged to anyone else. All of her courage was hers alone. All of your strength belongs to you.

  I went by myself to the place where my bear had been killed and asked for guidance one last time. By now the earth that had been red, then black, was yellow again. I thought that blood disappeared into the earth, just as our life disappeared from this world, but now I believed what we did and who we were was eternal. As Deborah had said.

  I honored my sister the bear by chanting a prayer. Then I made my own decision. I knew what I must do. A Queen must always put her people first. I told Penthe to wait with Io for me, and I rode back with Astella and Cybelle and the others who were true to me, or true to my mother the Queen's daughter, which was the same thing.

  They were waiting for us on the ridge before our city, the renegades. Everyone else was ready to fight as well, but on which side? There was confusion, the idea of sister against sister had made tempers flare. Our warriors were fully clothed for battle, with their shields and their arrows. But would they follow Asteria, or would they choose me?

  Astella rode beside me. I could feel how much she wanted to reach for her bow, but she did not. We rode forward without our weapons raised.

  It was a time of decision for our people. If I turned and ran, my sisters w
ould follow and track me down. But if I faced them, what would happen then?

  I stood on my horse, the way my great-grandmother was said to do whenever she spoke to her people.

  Asteria has killed my sister. She's betrayed your Queen. She's no longer of our people, I said.

  Come forward, Asteria shouted. Make that be true if you can.

  She had pressed her bow to her chest, where she had sacrificed her breast for our people so that her aim would be perfect, as it was.

  We will not fight against our sisters, or even those who had once been our sisters, I called back to her.

  I knew what she would do before she did it. Maybe because she had been my teacher. She shot her perfect arrow, but I had touched my mare with my knee the instant before she did and my mare leapt away. I could feel the arrow, though; it was that close, close as the wind.

  And just as close, Astella's arrow in return, perfect as well, aimed to stop Asteria, not to kill her.

  When Asteria fell from her horse, her women scattered, and we let them go. They raced off for the east country, not a place I'd wish on anyone, even my enemies. A place of salt and men without courage and the cold Black Sea. The warriors who fled did not hesitate long enough to help Asteria onto her great mare, which took off with the running horses, riderless.

  Our people watched all this and they knew that a Queen must always put her people first. I got off my mare and walked to Asteria, my teacher, the great warrior.

  You can't be our Queen, she spat. You're nothing like your mother. There was blood running down her arm. Our people would pull the arrow out before they sent her off, and I would make certain she was given a mare, a fast one.

  If anyone wishes to go with Asteria, then go, I shouted to my people. We will never kill our own sisters. Go in peace if you wish to.

  A few went with her. I did not look to see who or how many. I did not wish them ill or hope that the winter in the east would be any colder than ours. I had begun to think about peace and what it might feel like to a warrior.

  Before I returned to where Penthe waited, I went to the smith. I asked him to put the image of one of Io's eyes on the scythe she'd returned to me, and he did so. I wanted my sister to see all that I saw each and every day I was in this world.

  When he was through I asked if I could look once more into the fire.

  There is nothing in this fire for a Queen, the smith said, humble before me. He was afraid of me now. I was no longer just a girl.

  Then for a woman, I said.

  He picked up some earth and threw it into his fire, where he magicked metal into knives and scythes. I saw so many images in the flames that I did not know which to believe.

  I asked the smith if he remembered where he came from and what his life was like before he was captured in battle.

  Only in my dreams, he said.

  You can go back if you want. In exchange for my scythe and for Io's. You have your freedom, I said.

  The smith then gave me a gift; it was heartfelt, unasked for. A small musical thing he had made out of brass, like the one I'd seen in Melek's village; when you breathed into it, music came out.

  I rode to where Penthe was waiting. There were kurgans close by, burial places for our people, but I was taking Io to the kurgan of the Queens. Penthe leaned and kissed her daughter good-bye through the wrapped felt blanket, then we lifted my sister onto my mare, and I got on behind her. I rode to the place of the Queens and as I did I wept. I would not cry again. I wept all the rest of my tears at one time, and they were well spent on my sister.

  I first brought Io to the cave where Deborah was, so that Deborah's chanting could help Io find her way in the next world.

  I could see that Deborah was leaving our world bit by bit. She was so old she could no longer move. There were three ravens in the cave. I saw that they were becoming her sisters and that when she left our world she would be a raven in the endless sky.

  Still, Deborah used what was left of her strength to chant over Io. She did not ask what had happened, and perhaps she did not need to. She had the augury after all. Greeya made us the ritual funeral dinner, some of the horsemeat I had brought with me.

  What happened to the Black Horse? Deborah asked me.

  He ran across the fields to people who would take care of him.

  Deborah smiled and motioned me closer when Greeya went to gather wood for the fire.

  You won't see me again.

  I could tell this was true from the sound of the priestess's voice. It was barely a whisper, as though she were already leaving.

  If you want anything, ask now.

  Perhaps we were not meant to know what our fortunes would bring, but I asked for the augury one last time. When Deborah agreed I went to get the box of bones and shells and stones. The truth was inside that box, if you knew enough to understand it.

  I helped Deborah to sit up and she threw the augury. It fell like rain at our feet.

  Everything will change. All we can do is pray for a day when there are no warriors and no wars for them to fight.

  That was all the priestess could tell me, but it was enough.

  To protect me from evil, Deborah made a spell of my own blood, which she took from a gash in my arm and mixed with some of her herbs. She painted my face with it. Two stripes of red beneath each eye, mixing with the blue of our people. Then she gave me something she had been saving under her blanket. My mother's pearl ring. The pearl had come from far, far away, in the time of our great-grandmothers.

  She told me to give it to the next Queen. She hoped it would be you.

  I thanked the priestess and bowed before her. I felt the truth in everything she'd said.

  At the mouth of the cave I told Greeya that when the time came, I would return and help her honor Deborah with a funeral. But Greeya said no; it was best for her to do that alone. I understood. I had come here alone with Io, and I went alone with her to the catacombs of the Queens.

  It was late when I got there, so I rode inside and tied my horse up. She stayed steady as I lifted Io, who was now so heavy she might have been turning already to stone. I took her to a small chamber in the house of the Queens. It should have been my chamber, but my sister took my place.

  All that night, I sang the lullaby from the north storm country to Io. I didn't want to leave her in this cold dark place. Because she had no weapons I left the musical instrument the smith had made so that she would enter the next world with the lullaby still with her.

  When I left I knew I would not return to the catacombs of the Queens until my own time came. Our world would be different now; everything was changing. I thought of the well we would build in our city, to ensure we always had fresh water, and the tents we would make, year-round structures with wooden doors and brass bells. To journey back and forth meant to fight constantly; if we stayed in one place our country might be smaller, but it would be easier to protect, especially now that Asteria and her women were claiming the east. The time we had used for traveling we would use for other concerns. We could think of things other than war. We might even think of peace.

  I thought of our breath and our blood, how eventually it would fall on the yellow earth and disappear. I thought of how my mother's pearl ring fit me perfectly, as though it had been made for me. In the end, our people would decide for themselves. Some would follow Asteria, some would follow me. Maybe that's the way it was supposed to be. Each woman makes her own fortune, her own decisions.

  I stopped as I always did at the place of the bear, but I didn't stay long. I had no time to think of Melek, or my brother, or even my sister, Io. My people could not wait for me. My country could not wait.

  As for me, I was ready to return as the Queen. I had made something out of my sorrow. I had stitched it together with a rope made of hair from the tail of my mare; I had used the bones of my grandmothers and my mother and my sister as needles. I chanted my gratitude all the way home. Thank you to my sister the bear, to my sister-horse, to the goddess ab
ove us, thank you for letting me be who I am, for letting me ride into whatever fortune we made together. Thank you for letting me be Rain and no one else.

  It was the ending of something. It was the beginning of something.

  I rode harder.

  I rode faster.

  It was my country, my time, my age, my beginning. I went across the yellow earth, over the black rocks, through the streams where the water was so cold you could never forget winter, into a place where the sky reached on forever.

  References to Amazon women have appeared in literature and art throughout time, most notably in ancient Greece. The remains of warrior women have also been found in graves around the Black Sea; their cultures may be the factual basis for the Amazon myths of the heroic age. In a time when nomads ruled the steppes of Russia and the Ukraine, there appears to have been women who knew war as well as any man. Let us hope they also knew peace.

  Deepest gratitude to my editor, Andrea Spooner, for support, kindness, and wisdom.

  Thank you to Alyssa Morris and Matt Mahurin for their visions.

  Thanks also to Sangeeta Mehta and to Elizabeth Eulberg.

  To my grandmothers, thank you for every word. I listened.

  An Interview with Alice Hoffman

  Question: What inspired you to write a fictionalized account of Amazon culture? Do you see any parallels between Amazon culture and mainstream Western culture, perhaps in terms of rituals or violence against women?

  Answer:I've always been interested in Amazon culture—I think most girls and women wonder what it would be like to live in a world in which women have all the power. I was also wondering about how a war culture would be different or the same from Western cultures in which men were in power—would women be as cruel as men in times of war? As brave? As foolish? Would women be brutal to other women? What would it mean to be a mother and a warrior both? How would love surface in such a culture where weakness and compassion were a burden.