One of the women had started a song; the others joined in. Kassandra listened, not knowing the tune or the dialect, but after a time she was humming along on the choruses. She felt tired and lay back to rest, looking up at the great white stars far. above; and the next thing she knew she was being carried through the dark. She woke up, startled, "Where am I?"
"You fell asleep at the campfire; I am taking you to my tent to sleep," said Elaria's voice softly, and Kassandra settled down and slept again, waking only when there was daylight in the tent. Someone had taken off her leather breeches and her legs were chafed and sore. As she woke, Elaria came in. She smoothed some salve on the sore places and gave Kassandra a pair of linen drawers to wear under the leather, which helped a great deal. Then she took a comb carved of bone, and began combing out the tangles in Kassandra's long, silky hair; she braided it tightly and gathered it up under a leather pointed cap like those all the women wore. Kassandra's eyes watered as the comb jerked out the knots, but she did not cry, and Elaria patted her head approvingly.
"Today you will ride behind me," Elaria said, "and perhaps today we will reach our own grazing grounds and we can find a mare for you and begin to teach you to ride. A day will come, and not too far from now, when you will be able to spend all day in the saddle without weariness."
Breakfast was a chunk of leathery dried meat, gnawed upon as she clung to the saddle behind Elaria. As they rode, the character of the land changed gradually from the fertile green of the riverbed to a barren windswept plain rising higher and higher from the low-lying fields. At the edge of the plain were round bald hills, brown all over with great rocks jutting from their slopes, and beyond them sheer-rising cliffs. On the sides of one of the hills she could see flecks moving, larger than sheep; but Elaria turned and pointed.
"There our horse-herds graze," she said. "By nightfall we will be at home in our own country."
Penthesilea was riding beside them. Very softly, she said, "They are not our herds. Look there, and see the Kentaurs, riding among them."
Now Kassandra could see more clearly; among the horses she made out the hairy bodies and bearded heads of men, rising among the herds. Like all city children, Kassandra had been reared on stories of the Kentaurs: wild, lawless men with the heads and upper bodies of men and the lower bodies of horses; like many little girls she had been told that they stole women from cities and villages, and had been admonished by her nurse, "If you are not a good girl the Kentaurs will carry you off."
She murmured, frightened, "Will they hurt us, Aunt?"
"No, no, of course not; my son lives among them," Penthesilea said, "and if it is Cheiron's tribe, they are our friends and allies."
"I thought that the Amazon tribes had only women," Kassandra said, surprised. "You have a son, Aunt?"
"Yes, but he lives with his father; all our sons do," Penthesilea said. "Why, silly girl, do you still believe the Kentaur tribes are monsters? Look, they are only men; riders like ourselves."
Kassandra felt foolish indeed; she should have known better than to believe such a story. Now she could see the advancing riders; men who sat their strong tall horses so naturally that she could imagine now how the story had arisen that they were part of their horses' bodies. Such a tale now seemed no more sensible than stories of mermaids, women to the waist but with fishes' lower bodies and tails for legs. Nevertheless as the riders came closer she shrank away; the men were all but naked, and looked wild and uncivilized indeed; she shrank behind Elaria on her horse where they would not see her.
"Greetings, Lady of the Horsewomen," called out the foremost rider. "How fared you in Priam's city?"
"Well enough; as you see, we are back safe and well," Penthesilea called. "How is it with your men?"
"We found a bee tree this morning and have taken a barrel of honey," the man said, leaning close and embracing Penthesilea from horseback. "You shall have a share, if you will."
She pulled away from him and said, "The cost of your honey is always too high; what do you want from us this time?"
He straightened and rode alongside her, smiling in a good-natured way. "True," he said, "you can do me a service if you will. One of my men became besotted with a village girl a few moons ago, and carried her away without troubling to ask her father for her. But she's no good for anything but his bed, can't even milk a mare or make cheese, and weeps and wails all the time; now he's sick to death of the blubbering bitch, and—"
"Don't ask me to take her off your hands," Penthesilea interrupted. "She'd be no good in our tents either."
"What I want is that you take her back to her father—" the man said, and Penthesilea snorted.
"And let us be the ones to face her tribesmen's wrath and swords? Not likely!"
"Trouble is, the wench is pregnant," said the Kentaur. "Can't, you take her till the babe's born? Seems like she might be happier among women."
"If she'll come with us with no trouble," said Penthesilea, "we'll keep her till the child's born, and if it's a daughter, keep them both. If it's a son, do you want him?"
"To be sure," said the man, "and as for the woman, once the child's born you can keep her or send her back to her village, or, for all I care, drown her."
"I am simply too good-natured," Penthesilea said. "Why should I get you out of trouble you made for yourselves?"
"For a half barrel of honey?"
"For a half barrel of honey," said Elaria, I'll look after the girl myself, and deliver her child and get her back to her village."
"We'll all share it," Penthesilea said, "but next time one of your men gets horny, send him to our tents and no doubt one of ours will satisfy him with no such complications. Every time one of your men goes after a girl out of season and goes into the villages, all the Tribes get the backlash; more tales about how lawless we all are, men and women alike."
"Don't scold me, Lady," the man said, hiding his face briefly with his hands. "None of us is more than human. And who is that, hiding there behind your companion?" He looked around Elaria, and winked at Kassandra; he looked so droll, with his hairy face screwed up behind his matted hair, that she burst out laughing. "Have you stolen a child from Priam's city?"
"Not so," Penthesilea said. "It is my sister's daughter, who is to dwell with us for a few seasons."
"A pretty little thing," said the Kentaur. "Soon all my young men will be fighting over her."
Kassandra blushed and hid behind Elaria again. In Priam's palace, even her mother freely admitted that Polyxena was'the pretty one', while Kassandra was'the clever one'. Kassandra had told herself that she did not care; still it was pleasing to think someone found her pretty. Penthesilea said, "Well, let us see this honey, and the woman you want us to take off your hands."
"Will you feast with us? We are roasting a kid for the evening meal," the Kentaur said, and Penthesilea glanced at her women.
"We had hoped to sleep this night in our own tents," she protested, "but the kid smells savoury and well-roasted, it would be a shame not to take our share." And Elaria added, "Why not rest here for an hour or two? If we do not get home tonight, tomorrow is another day."
Penthesilea shrugged. "My women have answered for me; we will accept your hospitality with pleasure - or perhaps just with greed."
The Kentaur beckoned and rode toward the central campfire, and Penthesilea motioned to her women to follow. A young woman knelt before the fire, turning the spit where a kid was roasting. The fat dripping on the fire smelled wonderful and the crisped skin sizzled. The women slid from their horses, and after a time the men followed.