Once a year, when we had eaten well and drunk wine made from roots and berries, when our horses were well fed and groomed, we would launch ourselves into a headlong gallop, continuing for many moons without rest. Our bodies were gripped by such frenzy, our souls overcome by such a longing to fly, that we set off for the farthest limits of the steppes, following our queen to the point of exhaustion. We sustained ourselves on thin air, the rain, and the wind. We knew neither sorrow nor fear. We knew only the freedom that was ours and was the source of our pride. We were like migratory birds summoned by a mysterious force. We raced toward the place where the moon rose, heading for the great annual celebrations that drew together all the peoples of the steppes.
Men and women jostled and barged on the banks of the river Iaxarte. Noblemen could be distinguished by their hats of leather or felt, decorated with feathers, flowers, and animal heads. Lowlier people competed in their techniques for tying turbans. Tribes gathered here to exchange weapons, tents, jewels, and women. Everyone spoke a language the nomads used for trading. The girls of our tribe knew a few words of it, but only the queen and I perfectly mastered this dialect of numbers, exclamations, and exaggerations.
During that month of festivities, we exchanged our horses for leather pouches, painted pots, bead necklaces, and young girls. We gleaned information about the huge world beyond the steppe. That was how we learned that Persia, the vastest empire under the sun, had been brought down by an army from the west. Endless battles had sent the Persians fleeing eastward. Their sumptuous fabrics, elegant plates, and jewelry decorated with precious stones were everywhere in our markets and changed hands for almost nothing. Men and women from all tribes strutted and showed off their Persian tunics and carpets. I, Tania, watched this preening and excitement with a strange sense of foreboding.
The amazons stopped, awestruck, before a display of toys. Then, laughing and crying out in delight, they rushed at the trinkets, reaching out for them: figurines, puppets, automated animals worked by a system of leather straps, pretty ribbons, pouches filled with ravishing stones for board games, gold counters for flipping into the gaping mouths of carved frogs, abacuses with sleekly sliding beads, floating glass fish, imitation birds made with real feathers… in the middle of all this the man struggled to keep order, brandishing toys and waving his hands as he sputtered out his prices. His shouts amused and intimidated the girls, who backed away and stopped their laughing. They could not choose: taking did not come easily to us, we who had nothing.
I ventured over toward the spice trader to make my annual purchases. In a series of earthenware bowls blue, yellow, saffron, orange, purple, violet, and every shade of green mingled with a multitude of different whites. The price of spices had dropped that year: I sensed great changes. I followed my queen into the labyrinth of stalls displaying cloth. Fabrics fluttered over my face and stroked my hand. Rough, soft, fine, thick, transparent, opaque, sparkling, bleached, white, black, green, blue, orange, and red, all undulating in the wind and dancing in the sunlight. Dazzled, I looked away and kept my eyes on my feet: girls of Siberia could only afford the cheapest fabrics.
On the far side of a large tent we came across the pottery market with heaps of brightly colored vases, bowls, and plates decorated with geometric designs. The people of the steppes stood on their carpets, discussing prices and gesticulating with their hands. They used colored pebbles to keep their accounts and only exchanged goods on the last day of the market.
After pottery came the slave market, where near-naked men were exhibited with just a scrap of cloth over their hips. They lay in chains, playing dead. When anyone went near them they snapped open their eyes and watched with loathing, ready to pounce and bite.
The plant market was covered with a roof of fine cloth and provided cool shade and sumptuous perfumes. Exotic flowers with unpronounceable names stopped my queen in her tracks. She moved away and came back again. When she found a plant she liked, she stopped and looked at it so intently it might grow inside her head.
The sun was sinking and we headed back to our settlement still empty-handed but pleased with our walk. We did not allow ourselves anything luxurious, caring only for what was strictly necessary.
Many tents had been set up at the entrance to the market. Newly formed couples could spend the night in one at a price of three black pebbles. Crowds drifted to and fro, buying warm milk, alcohol, and grilled meats. Dogs barked, and goat kids tied to stakes bleated. From that tumult of different accents the language of the steppes reserved for negotiations emerged most clearly.
Men and women fell silent and parted to let the Amazon queen pass. Although small, she was radiant as the sun rising to announce a day of happy hard work. Her thick eyebrows, black eyes, and full lips all expressed her indomitable character. Following behind her, we confronted curious onlookers with our heads held high, clothed in our pride as if it were the most sumptuous of cloaks.
Despite her youth, our queen was respected and feared. Rather than tarnishing her beauty, slander conferred on her all the charm of legend. It was said that we were abductors of men, that we married them only to kill them the following day. It was said that the queen of the Amazons had magic in her belly to make a man invincible, and that was why so many warriors risked their lives to couple with her. Women in the crowds watched us warily, while the more daring men winked and smiled at us. Dusk was spreading; eyes sparkled, glances flitted like so many stars in the darkness, addressing us in a language that needed no words. Any Amazon drawn to one of these signals could leave us and throw herself onto whoever sent out the sign like an eagle swooping on its prey. She could take the man or woman who caught her eye and drag her catch off to a tent for a night's entertainment.
There was no exchange of gifts, nor of hair or blood. An ancestral statute dictated that we could not give a stranger anything that had once belonged to us. We had to leave as we arrived, in the swish of a gallop, with no oaths or promises. There were bound to be weaker girls among us who met up with the same lover-be it a man or a woman-once a year. In those tents they could make love and whisper to each other and weep. Back in our midst they had to hide their pain at being separated as if it were a shameful sickness. We permitted them to suffer in silence. With us they had to laugh even if they wanted to cry, to be strong and full of fight even if their hearts were torn apart.
Some girls disappeared during this annual gathering. We never pursued or punished those who left us. We considered this fall from grace to have been written in their stars. We barely even commented when a girl left: the moment she broke away from us, her name ceased to be heard, her face was erased from our memories. We considered that her soul had simply gone, just as it had once arrived in our midst. We, the daughters of the glacier, formed no attachments, not even to girls who had been our sisters.
The Amazons respected freedom; they were freedom. Anyone who chose suffering was free to live her suffering. None of us could stand in the way of fate. We knew nothing of punishment, we knew only our adoration of the God of Ice who watched over our earthly lives. The tribe's laws could be transgressed, for beyond laws, there was God.
The queen walked on, face veiled and head held high, accompanied by clinking from the weapons fastened to her belt and by her twelve Amazons reputed to be bear-killers. Only innkeepers had the temerity to call out to her and compliment her. The queen replied to their greetings with a slight nod of her head. I sensed that she was suspicious, that she was looking for someone she was due to meet. She quickened her pace and went into a tent with a bouquet of white lilies over the door. She came straight back out again and gestured for us to leave.