The Horse Road by Troon Harrison Page B

their high walls. I leaped a covered drain, ran alongside a stone channel carrying fresh water from the reservoir, circled a pool where women could fill wooden buckets. Sobbing for breath, I passed the merchants’ grand entranceways, the courtyards, the walled gardens; passed a fire temple, passed a gymnasium. Now I was turning on to another broad street, lined with elm trees.
    Swan! Swan!
    Here was my father’s high wall, and the great double doors of rare and costly wood, carved with geometric Greek patterns. When I hammered upon it,the wood was solid and heavy under my fist. Slowly, Fardad, our old porter, swung open a small, hinged window in the door and peered out, his wispy grey beard quivering. His eyebrows, bushy as caterpillars crawling across his forehead, twitched in surprise when he saw me, bent over and gasping for breath.
    â€˜Honoured child!’ he cried, rattling aside a bolt.
    The door swung open and I fell inwards, clutching the pain in my side. Then, I straightened. A smile of delight stretched my sweating face.
    Through my misty vision, I saw that the outer courtyard was filled with horses. Their backs shimmered like gold; they turned their long elegant faces towards me and regarded me with their huge dark eyes. I wanted to weep; I wanted to hug each one of them: the golden mares – Honey and Peach, Apricot, Sandy, and Twist. My eyes ran over the greys: Iris, Thunder and Smoke; over brown Mouse; over the bays, River and Rocky and Brocade; over the chestnuts, Peony and Nomad and Pomegranate. Over Swan’s yearling filly, the black Pearl.
    Over Swan.
    My heart stood still. She turned her long neck as I had known she would; her eyes were deep pools. They considered me with calm kindness. The light ran down over her like poured water. Her face gleamed.
    When I ignored Fardad’s urgent questions and thrust my way between the horses, Swan’s nostrils fluttered in greeting. The tail of a foal flapped againstmy arm. The shoulder of a mare pressed against my back. I was deep in a crowd of horses and I was happy for the first time since Batu and I had lain on the ridge, watching the army. I laid my cheek against Swan’s long head, and breathed in her sweet, familiar scent. My mind filled with flowers and grass, with birdsong, with sky.
    The mares and foals turned away from me, jostling to view some new commotion at the door. I craned my neck in time to see Grasshopper push her way inside. For an instant, my eyes refused to believe what they were seeing. Then I accepted the truth of it: Grasshopper had carried my mother home. She lay along the mare’s neck, unconscious, and the broken reins of shagreen leather dangled from the mare’s snaffle bit. Fardad and I rushed to Grasshopper and caught hold of my mother’s body as she slid over the mare’s shoulder to land heavily across our feet.
    â€˜Marjan!’ bellowed Fardad, his voice surprisingly loud despite his age, rising even over my scream of shock.
    When my mother’s body servant pushed her way through the horses, we all lifted my mother and carried her up the outer staircase, and along the dim hallway to her room. Gasping, we laid her on her high and magnificent Greek bed with its veneer of tortoiseshell, its inlays of ivory. Her head lolled against the round pillows, imported from Corinth.
    â€˜Fetch water,’ Marjan said, her firm capable handsalready holding a knife, slitting my mother’s tunic, rolling the fabric back from my mother’s arm and shoulder as Fardad rushed out.
    â€˜What is happening?’ I asked. My hand flew up to grip the amulet around my neck.
    â€˜Look at the wounds, they are festering,’ Marjan said, and she laid a hand upon my mother’s sweating forehead. ‘She is hot; there is strong evil here.’
    I leaned closer, noting the swollen flesh around the leopard’s claw marks, and the red lines that streaked up my mother’s arm and