A Woman of the Horseclans

II

In the close darkness of the horse barn, with straw under her bare feet and the short, wiry, odd-smelling man beside her, poor Bettylou Hanson felt no fear, only a numb, dumb acceptance that what would here befall her would surely befall her. The man still held her arm clasped firmly in one hand, but he did not grasp so lightly as to hurl her. Then she felt his other hand rove lingeringly over her swelling breasts, then move downward, stopping and resting upon the distension of her abdomen.

“Hairless woman,” he hissed into her ear, his warm breath laden with an odor of milk and curds, “how many moons before you foal?”

“Four moons, maybe part of another.” Bettylou answered dully.

Abruptly, there were two more men close beside Bettylou and her captor. One of them, no taller or stockier than he who held her, jammed some kind of rag into her mouth, using his other hand to force and hold open her jaws in order to effect his purpose, then a strip of cloth was knotted tightly behind her head to hold the gag in place, while at the same time another man was behind her lashing her wrists together with a cord or thong of some description.

She was led, bound and gagged, among a group of horses and mules, and strong arms raised her easily to the withers of one of the beasts before a mounted man. Though this rider grasped her tightly with his right arm and hand, she somehow sensed that he meant her no slightest harm, that his grasp was as much intended to steady her as for any more sinister purpose.

The ponderous bar came up with a shrill, protesting squeal, and then the high, broad door swung wide agape, opening the way for the dozen or so raiders to ride out on the choicer of the horses and mules they were lifting this night while leading the rest, these others hurriedly packed with such gear and hardware as had been easy to hand in the stable and adjoining areas. Those equines they were rejecting for one reason or another they drove out before them.

The last raider, before he left the stable, used flint and steel to light a torch, whirled it about his head until it was blazing brightly, then rode up and down the length of the now-empty stable igniting piles of straw, bales of hay and the like before trotting out to join his comrades.

The barking, howling, yelping and snarling of the kenneled dogs had never ceased; and now, as the riders kneed their mounts over to cluster about the man bearing the blazing torch, the shouts and curses of men were added to the canine clamor.

Bettylou Hanson heard the deep-throated thrrruum of bowstrings all around her and saw half a score of fiery red-yellow streaks mount upward from the stableyard to sink into and commence to lick avidly at as many sections of the residence levels of the two nearer buildings. Seemingly directly over her head, a swivel-rifle boomed, throwing a lance of fire for a good five cubits beyond its muzzle. Far back, from the highest porch of the Building of the Father, there were two more reports, and the girl heard close by her ear a humming like that of some monstrous bee.

The raider archers followed the fire arrows with a couple of volleys of shafts aimed at the black silhouettes outlined by the lamps, the torches and the leaping, crackling flames now throwing yellow-white sheets of destruction across whole lengths of wooden wall and nibbling here and there at roofings. Some hideous shrieks and several thuds of fallen bodies testified to the skilled accuracy of these raiders, and Bettylou could not but marvel at how such deadly aim was maintained by men loosing from the backs of nervous and restive horses.

The Hanson girl’s last, departing glimpse of the Abode, wherein she had been born and had lived all of her young life to date, was of smoke billowing out of the emptied stable which was the ground floor of the Building of the Son, while the upper levels of both it and the adjoining Building of the Holy Ghost looked to be completely wreathed in leaping flames. A few more swivel-rifles boomed to no effect as the raiders galloped through the gardens and across the grain fields but all these were from well above ground level.

They rode on at a steady, easy pace for about a mile as the moon emerged from her cloudy shroud to light their way through the last of the farthest pastures and thence into the flat and brushy wilderness toward the line of copses that marked the verge of the prairie.

On the far side of a low hill in the sheep pasture, some score of small, big-headed horses stood about cropping the moon-silvered grass, while a brace of men who looked akin to and were dressed and accoutered like her captors squatted, grinning, one of them holding a sheep, a young ram, by a tether.

Bettylou was amazed at the silence of the raiders. Not a single word was exchanged among any of the men, while the grazing hones ceased to feed almost as one and rapidly ambled over to stand still as girths were tightened and the men mounted them, ready now to lead all of the beasts stolen from the Abode of the Righteous. The ram blatted piteously just before a sharp raider knife slashed open his throat; the blood was carefully caught and shared out equally between all of the men. Bettylou was offered a horn cup, but she paled and gagged; she knew that she would certainly have spewed had there been aught save pure emptiness in her stomach.

Still without a word spoken, the raider drank the hot blood himself and turned away just as another approached bearing a greased hide bag from which he took a lump of whitish-gray and very strong-smelling cheese. This lump he held at the bound girl’s mouth until she finally took a bite of it then a larger bite, then all of the remainder of the lump.

Tied into the saddle of one of the captured horses—Solomon Claxton’s hunting horse, God-sent, she noted—chewing at her mouthful of the delicious cheese. Bettylou saw the pair who had captured the stray ram flop the still-quivering carcass onto its back, open it and rough-dress it, helping themselves while they worked to the raw liver, heart and kidneys of the sheep as well as to the blood that collected in the body cavity. The gutted ram was lashed onto another of the stolen horses, and leading it and all the others, the raiders set out at the same slow, easy pace toward the western prairie.

As dawn began to streak the eastern skyline with muted reds and oranges and yellows, the raiding party and their loot—equine and inanimate and human—had advanced well out onto the endless expanse of grasses. Exhausted by the long ride, Bettylou Hanson drooped, her chin sunk upon her chest, no longer even trying to really ride and letting the hide thongs knotted about her legs and body keep her in the saddle of the big, powerful gelding. God-sent. But tired as she was, she could not sleep for the ache of her bruised, abused bottom and the discomfort of inner thighs rubbed raw and incessantly stung by salt sweat.

She was dimly aware that someone was riding now beside her, did not really take notice of the fact until a rough. callused hand lifted her chin to better view her face, then began to untie the thongs securing her numb hands.

They had been moving steadily southwestward, but then, as soon as her hands were freed, the entire party turned almost due north, coming presently to a trickling watercourse and following this to its confluence with another, larger one some few hundred yards from the marshy shore of a small lake.

In a sizable clearing carpeted in short grass—rare, this far out on the prairie, and of a bright, intense green—and surrounded by a dense stand of trees—cottonwood, elm, elder, basswood, walnut and, nearing the lakeshore, huge, droop-branched willows—the raiding party reined up, dismounted and began to unpack and unsaddle. Their own small horses they left unfettered, free to roam where they would, but those recently lifted from the Abode they made haste to hobble firmly, lest they essay a return from whence they had just been brought at such a cost of long, careful planning and deadly danger.

Bettylou was untied and lifted down from the saddle of the gelding with a rough gentleness, allowed to drink her fill from a skin of fresh, bitingly cold brook water. Then one of the raiders led her over to the shade of an elm, tied her ankle to its trunk with a long rawhide riata, indicated that she should sit there upon the sward, then left her to her own devices along with the waterskin and a leather bag of the strong, tasty, whitish cheese.

Munching at the cheese and sipping from the waterskin, the girl stretched muscles stiff and sore from the long hours in the saddle and watched the smoothly efficient activities of these strange, silent little men. Thus far, the only words she had heard any of them speak had been addressed to her, they never exchanged a single utterance between themselves or to horse or mule, yet they went about the communal-effort tasks of setting up camp without pause or miscue.

After unsaddling but before picketing, all of the captive horses and mules were led in groups down to the brookside and there watered, then briskly rubbed down with handfuls of the bigger, coarser grasses brought in from the encroaching verge of the tall-grass prairie.

This accomplished, the raiders posted guards, gathered wood, built a fire and finished dressing the sheep carcass for cooking. Bettylou noted how carefully the inedible portions of the sheep were retained—The stomach bags and the large intestines emptied of contents, turned inside out and washed in the brook, thicker, longer sinews painstakingly separated from bones and muscles, scraped and washed, then hung up on branches to air-dry; the small, pointed, black hooves were put aside and the inner surface of the hide was scraped clean of clinging bits of fat and flesh.

They set the legs of the sheep aside to roast, but the rest of the carcass was reduced by flashing knives to a pile of meat and fat and gristle which was heaped atop the offal—lung, small intestines, various glands and larger veins and arteries. The defleshed bones were all cracked and placed in a water-filled caldron along with the sheep’s head and the contents of three or four pouches produced by as many of the raiders, plus the partially digested herbiage that had been removed from the stomachs of the beast.

When she watched this penultimate addition, it was all that Bettylou could do to repress the urge to vomit up the fine cheese, and she vowed to herself then and there that come what might, she would never, could never partake of so barbaric, so nauseous a mess.

And, in her eyes. it got worse, While most of the raiders lay snoring or lazed or sat working sporadically a sundry small tasks, and the stew-pot began to send the first tendrils of steam aloft, hunters came strolling in from individual forays in the morning coolness. One bore a small, straight-horned antelope; two others had killed large hares; and these were dressed, skinned, butchered and added to the pot; and so too was a large fish one of the men had caught barehanded at the mouth of the brook. But meaty portions of each slain creature were always added to the pile of mutton and sheep scraps. Bettylou wondered why. Were these for a burnt offering to their false gods? (After all, the gods of these raiders were most assuredly false, for of all living folk, only the Chosen worshiped God Almighty.) But she dared not draw their attention to her by asking.

Once she had been tied to the tree and provided with water and cheese, she had been afforded all the attention and obvious scrutiny they had afforded the hobbled four-legged captives Very soon after the man who had tied her and brought the food had left her, Bettylou had repaired behind the thick trunk of the ancient elm and lifted her worn, torn, filthy scarlet smock—the only garment that such as she were allowed by the Elder and the Patriarchs of the families—and squatted long enough to empty her painfully full bladder. But if her brief absence was noted by her captors, such was not apparent upon her return to view.

Of a sudden. Bettylou recalled that rare visitors from other Abodes of the Righteous had been said to have spoken of fierce, murderous tribes of sinful thieves who called themselves the Folk of the Horse or some such name. Saturated with Sin, they were said to be true Servants of Satan, headhunters, cannibals drinkers of blood rather than water, filthy, stinking folk who never washed and who wore their clothing until it rotted off. These same visitors had averred, she had been told, that the Satanic savages lacked the ability of speech and made no other sounds save screams and roars and screeches like any other wild beasts. Could her captors be … ? Had she, Bettylou Hanson, been taken to provide a cannibal feast? Was this horror the final punishment of God for her Sin?

Briefly, she quivered in newfound terror, but then her keen mind took charge. Yes, the raiders did drink fresh, hot blood, but they drank water, as well; they might be headhunters, cannibals or both, these facts remained to be proved or disproved, but up to now, they had offered no violence or any real ill treatment to Bettylou. Indeed, they one and all had treated her far more kindly than had her own folk of late, at least since she had been proved one of the Accursed of God.

As regarded those other disgusting attributes of the legendary barbarians. Bettylou could not call any she had been near filthy. Yes indeed, they did smell very different from the boys and men around whom she had grown up, but they looked no grubbier and smelled no worse than any farmer or herder or hunter of the Abode might look or smell between his monthly baths.

And as she watched, this particular matter was resolved, as by twos and threes, raiders trooped down to the brook bank, stripped to bare skin and dived in to swim and frolic like boys, shouting and splashing for a while, then squatting in the shallows to wash their dusty, sweat-tacky trousers and shirts.

When the raiders stripped to swim and wash, Bettylou noted that although their faces, hands and other regularly exposed skin was nut-brown from sun and weather, the bodies of most were as fair as was her own, all save one man who was so different in so many ways as to make her think him sprung of a different race than the others.

Where they were fair, he was of a light-olive skin tone. Few of the other raiders were much taller than was she, but this man towered to better than four cubits, she reckoned. His bones, too, were heavier than those of the other raiders, though not quite so heavy as those of the men of the Chosen. And where men of the Chosen all developed thick, round, rolling musculature, this tall man and most of the smaller ones were equipped with flat muscles. Moreover, the tall man’s hair was as black as a crow’s wing, though streaked at the temples with strands of gray. He had not yet come close enough for her to see the color of his eyes.

Bettylou had decided finally that the pile of meat and innards was really and truly a sacrifice of some kind, when those for whom it was intended slipped silently out of the woods behind her to claim it from the heaving, crawling, buzzing carpet of metallic-hued flies.

The girl sprang to her feet, shrieked but the once before an excess of terror froze her throat. Then her eyes rolled upward in their sockets and she slumped bonelessly to the ground.

The bigger, dark man, he who had fired the stable, paced over to where Tim Krooguh crouched over the Dirtman girl, concern writ plainly upon his face. Laying a hand on the shoulder of the wiry clansman he spoke aloud.

“I’m sorry, Tim. I should either have mindspoken the cats to come into camp slowly so that she could come to see that they were not dangerous to anyone here, or beamed assurance into her mind beforehand, as I did on the first part of the ride, last night. But I’m tired and … Oh, well, what’s done is now done. Lets just hope the poor child hasn’t been shocked into premature labor.”

Two huge felines strolled over to stand flanking the taller man, communicating silently, mind to mind, even while licking broad tongues absently at bits of meat and spots of blood on their furry muzzles.

“We, too, are sorry. Uncle Milo. We did not mean to so frighten cat brother Tim Krooguh’s captured female.”

The tall man just shrugged. “As I just told Tim, what’s now done is done, irrevocable. But it was all my fault, really. not any misdeed of yours. What news from our cat-sister? Do the Dirtmen make to follow us?”

The average prairiecat could send its thoughts ranging over far more distance than any human telepath could expect to either send or receive; this was but one of the talents that had made the human-feline alliance of the prairiecats and the Horseclans a very valuable one.

Since first this unique breed of great cats had come to live among the clans some fourscore years agone. they had helped their two-leg “brothers” to either exterminate or absorb the vast majority of other tribes of nomads upon the prairies, plains and high plains, so that now young warriors could be blooded only through means of raiding the permanent settlements of Dirtmen—the despised, alien farmers who had begun several generations ago to encroach upon the prairie here and there, coming from older settlements in the east, the southeast and the northeast to plant colonies, fell trees, erect permanent buildings, burn off the tall grasses, dam or divert streams and bring the dark soil under the merciless sway of their ox-drawn. iron-bladed plows.

The larger of the two cats—a mature, red-brown male, with a pair of upper canines between three and four inches in length—had seated himself close beside the tall man’s leg. With his long, thick tail curled about to rest upon his widespread forepaws, he commenced to lick his chest fur, mindspeaking the while in answer.

No, Uncle Milo, Mother-of-killers says that most of the craven Dirtmen are fighting the fires in their great yurts of wood and stone, they and their females and even their cubs. Some few are trying to round up the stock you two-legs drove out and this cat and flopears scattered so thoroughly last night.

“She wishes to know how much longer she should watch the silly Dirtmen. She says that the noises they constantly make hurt her ears and that the unholy stink of them sickens her.

The tall man scratched his scalp, beaming his thoughts. “Even if the bastards find our trail quickly, the distance we covered last night will take the likes of them close to two full days to traverse, and by tomorrows dawn, well be back safe in the clan camps. Tell our cat-sister that she can now forget the Dirtmen.”

Flopears—an immature male of lighter color than Elkbane, the older male, but with big bones and the outsize paws and head which presaged the growth looming just ahead in time—did not have ears that were at all floppy. But the name was an old and most honorable name, and he had been granted it to replace his cub name of Steakbone. It was most unusual to grant a warrior-cat name to a less than mature feline, but Flopears had earned it in full measure the previous year when, barely more than a big, gangly cub, on night herd guard, he had slain three full-grown wolves.

This youngest cat was the first to notice the signs of returning consciousness in the female Dirtman captive and without order began to beam soothing, formless thoughts into her awakening mind. While so doing, he noted with mild surprise that her mind was that of an incipient mindspeaker, an inexperienced and completely untrained telepath.

Bettylou Hanson opened her eyes to see the freckled face—even more freckled than her own—of the man who had tied her to the elm tree hovering over her, concern and worry evident upon it and shining from the blue-green eyes under the thick auburn brows. Glancing to her left, she could see the bigger, darker, black-haired man squatting between two monstrous long-fanged cats. Although she clearly recalled screaming and then losing consciousness when those two cats had so suddenly leaped into the midst of the camp from out of the woods behind her, she could not now imagine just why she had then been so in fear of them.

it was like last night; in her mind she once more felt that sense of an utter rightness, of comfort, freedom from any danger, total absence of fear of those men and their cats.

The bigger man spoke, his words understandable Mehrikan, but with slight differences in accent and pronunciation of words. “What is your name, child?”

“Bettylou, Honored Elder, Bettylou Hanson,” she replied, rendering him the title automatically, for although he did not appear to be so old as was Elder Claxton, he too radiated that same, silent, unexpressed and inexpressible air of natural leadership. Then she calmly questioned him.

“Honored Elder, are you all of the heathen rovers? Do you cut off folks’ heads and then eat the bodies?”

The tall man smiled fleetingly. “We all are Horseclansmen, Bettylou. I am called Milo Morai. While some few of the more southerly clans do take the heads of and mutilate the dead bodies of their foemen—which practices they learned from an even more southerly people, the Mexicans—Clans Krooguh and Skaht do not, and it is their young men who make up this raiding party of mine.

“Despite all of the half-truths, exaggerations and outright lies that your folk tell of our folk, no one of the clans has yet sunk to cannibalism.”

He jokingly mindspoke, “Unless members of the Clan of Cats are taking to munching manflesh on the sly …?”

Elkbane beamed aggrievedly, “Please, Uncle Milo, don’t think things so unpleasant, so sickening, so soon after I’ve eaten that cold mutton. If you could only imagine just how foul is the taste of two-leg blood, you could not then be so cruel to your cat-brothers.”

“But how …?” Bettylou half-whispered to herself in consternation. Then, aloud, she asked, “Please, Elder Morai, did … could I have struck my head when I fell? Though your lips never moved, I could have … I … I thought heard you talking somehow to that biggest cat and him answering you!”

“She is a mindspeaker, Uncle Milo,” put in Flopears, “though I doubt she ever has used that ability before today.”

Bettylou saw broad smiles appear both on the face of Elder Morai and on that freckled one of the auburn-haired younger man. Then, although his lips were unmoving still, the Elder was once more speaking … no, not really speaking. But she could hear no, not really hear, but she knew exactly what he was saying … no, thinking.

“Just so, my child,” came the Elders beaming. “Thoughts are transmitted far faster and much more accurately by this way, that we Horseclansfolk call ‘mindspeak,’ than by oral means. Also, it is the only really effective way of communicating with prairiecats or horses, and there are a few other animals, wild animals, with whom a strong mindspeaker can converse, as well. I sense that you possess powerful but presently quiescent mindspeak abilities, child. Therefore after we all have eaten, Tim and I and a few others will begin to show you how to bring them to the surface, to properly make use of them.”

By sunup of the next morning, when the returning raiders came in sight of the grazing herds surrounding the two-clan camp, Bettylou Hanson had been mindspoken by all of the raiders, all three of the cats and several of the horses, as well. Moreover, she had discovered to her bubbling delight that she could answer just as silently, so she was feeling safe and comfortable and very much at home among her erstwhile captors even without the reassuring beams of Milo and the cats.

She still wore her red dress. It was somewhat more faded now from a thorough washing in the brook, but one of the raiders had skillfully mended all of the rips and tears. However, that was no longer her only item of attire; her feet and her lower legs were now protected by a gifted spare pair of Horseclans boots, into which were tucked the legs of a pair of baggy homespun trousers. They were the first breeches of any sort that Bettylou had ever worn, and she was not certain that she liked them, although they were, she easily admitted to herself, invaluable protection from the cutting blades of the tall grasses through which they had had to ride for much of the journey from the daylight camp.

By way of the lessons in mindspeak, she had learned many things. She had learned that the freckle-faced, auburn-haired man who had captured her and who now claimed her was called Tim, that he was the third-eldest living son of the Tanist of Clan Krooguh. The title had been strange to Bettylou and the explanation of it had been even more singular.

Tim’s father was the husband of the eldest sister of the present chief of Clan Krooguh, and therefore Tim’s eldest brother would be, by Krooguh Clan custom, the next chief upon the demise of his maternal uncle. Tim’s clan and some others reckoned legal descent through the mother, therefore he was a Krooguh, rather than a Staiklee, his sire’s name.

She had learned that this was Tim’s second raid, Though he had slain two foemen on his first raid—proven, well-witnessed kills, both of them, one with an arrow, one close on, with the saber—he personally had seized no notable loot, although he had of course shared in that loot apportioned to his clan from the proceeds of the raid. He now was immensely pleased at the good fortune he had enjoyed in capturing her, a comely, young and obviously fertile woman.

She had earned that Tim Krooguh was only four years her senior, he being not quite of eighteen winters. She had learned that this was about the average age for most of the men of this particular raiding party. When the general friendliness after they had ridden out at sundown had overcome to some extent her awe of Elder Morai, she had asked him his age. With a tinge of dry humor, he had beamed, “Old as the hills, child.” She had not presumed to press him for a more specific answer, just then.

She was beginning to truly like these strange men, all of them, but especially Tim Krooguh and Elder Morai. Being of an honest nature, therefore, she had tried to make them aware of her Sinful status, of the unholy Evil she harbored, the Sin-tainted seed which had caused her to conceive of Elder Claxton last winter.

Tim had seemed to not understand or really care, while Elder Morai had just shaken his helmeted head and beamed, “Bettylou, you must understand that you are no longer among the Dirtmen. Horseclansfolk do not adhere to that savage perversion of a religion or make claim to worship so cruel and capricious a god.

“Tim will wed you by clan rites, if his chief approves of you. And approve of you Dik Krooguh assuredly will, if only because I approve of you. That babe in your belly will be born one of the freest of men and women, a Horseclanner. Although life may be a bit difficult for you at first among us, I can see that you are made of the proper stuff; you’ll rapidly adapt. Soon you’ll be a full-fledged woman of the Horseclans, and you’ll come to really pity those poor creatures among whom you were born and reared.

“When once your babe is born and is old enough to no longer require constant attendance Tim will take you out to the Clan Krooguh horse herd to introduce you to the senior stallion, who then will conduct you about until you meet a filly you like who likes you. You’ll also be given weapons and taught how to use them properly—saber, spear, dirk, saddle-axe, sling, but especially the Horseclans bow.

“You will abide in the yurt of Tim’s father Djahn, sharing the communal chores with, your sisters-in-law, such other wives as Tim may take unto himself, any concubines the men of the yurt own or may come to own, and all supervised by Tim’s mother, Lainah.”

“I will not then be Tim’s only wife, Elder Morai?” she asked. “How many others will there be?”

Elder Morai had shrugged, beaming. No more than two or three at the time, including you, Bettylou, unless he should become the chief of Clan Krooguh. In that case he might take more wives or a few female slave-concubines. A chief has need of a large household, you see.”

She wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “But, Elder Morai, Tim says that he never will be chief, rather that his eldest brother will be.”

Morai frowned. “You must understand Bettylou, we of the Horseclans lead a life that is most often hard, though more often rewarding. And though we live freer than any other race of folk, our lives are fraught with daily dangers, some of them deadly. Men of the Horseclans do the bulk of the fighting, almost all of the raiding and the larger part of the hunting of bigger, more dangerous animals. Therefore, the attrition of male warriors had always been high, and that is the major reason why men take as many wives as they can support or abide and get on them as many babes as Sun and Wind will give them.”

“Tim has already lost two brothers, One of them drowned as a child while the clan was crossing a river, the other—who was Djahn Staiklee’s firstborn—was slain three years ago while riding a raid. It is easily possible that both of Tim’s remaining brothers will die before their uncle, old Dik Krooguh, in which case Tim would be his successor.”

“But fear you no loss of status in any future. You will be Tim’s first wife and will always be paramount in his yurt no matter what may befall or however many wives and concubines he may take. And that child now in your belly, if it be a boy and live so long, will be the progenitor of a new sept of Clan Krooguh.”

Bettylou shook her head and almost spoke aloud before she remembered and caught herself, then beamed, “But Elder Morai, I still find it hard to credit that this Tim Staiklee will so readily accept, father, give his honorable name to the get of another man.”

“You still don’t understand the Law of Clan Krooguh. child,” Milo replied. “It is a bit complicated if one is not accustomed to the Krooguh variety of matrilineal succession. You see, the first Horseclans all were patrilineal. but a few generations ago, one of the high-plains clans—Clan Danyuhlz, I think it was—lost all of their adult men in some manner or other, including all who possessed direct claim to the chieftainship, and so, rather than see the name of an old and noted clan lost forever, irredeemably, the next tribal council decided that the eldest living son of the late chiefs eldest sister should be chief, taking his mother’s rather than his father’s surname.

“This emergency measure worked very well for that one clan—so well did it work, in fact, that other clans have adopted variations of it over the years, for many and sundry reasons. The majority of the Horseclans remain patrilineal, but these two clans—Krooguh and Skaht—happen to be of the matrilineal minority; but even in these two clans, only the families of the chief and the tanist are compelled to live under the strictures of matrilineal succession; other septs and families are free to choose between matrilineal and patrilineal, and most choose the latter.

“But Tim is of the line of chief, Bettylou, and as such will not pass on his name to any of his children. This babe you now carry and all others he may get upon you will bear your surname, Hanson; rather, they and you will be called Hanson of Krooguh, that is, the sept of Hanson of the Clan Krooguh. That will be your name, too, child; for the rest of your life you will be known as Bettiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh.”

Feeling it to be imperative that Bettylou make the best possible initial impression on Chief Dik of Krooguh and the other Horseclansfolk. Milo and Tim Krooguh conferred in mindspeak and came to the agreement that until the night of the feast that would mark the successful return of the raiders, Tim’s captive woman should be lodged in the home of Milo. Milo was to continue to coach her in mindspeak, educate her in the mores of her new folk—the Horseclans—have her suitably arrayed and clothed for her presentation at the feast and instruct her in the proper responses and bearing for the simple Horseclans marriage rites.

Before the circular dwelling that he called home in the Krooguh-Skaht camp, Milo lifted Bettylou down from the saddle of that gelding which once had been the prized hunter of Solomon Claxton. When he had off-saddled both equines and removed the bridle from the gelding, he mindspoke his own warhorse, telling him to return to the horse herd, taking the new animal with him and introducing him to the king horse.

Through the latticework of laths that made up the sides of the circular dwelling, Bettylou could see that there were three women—two younger, one older—already inside and working at various tasks, though just now all were looking up and calling welcome to Milo.