Lady of Horses Read online

  This was a favorite, then. But surely not only for her beauty, though that was considerable: skin like milk, face carved as if from ivory, and eyes set wide in it under a swoop of fair brows.

  Wolfcub slipped the tunic from her shoulders. It hesitated over the rise of her breasts, then slid to her waist. She made no move to stop it.

  His manly parts had ascended from ache to pain. But he did not indulge them. He touched her round high breasts. The nipples hardened under his hand. He stroked them slowly. Her breath caught.

  So: she was not as cold as she seemed. “Do you resent me?” he asked her.

  She raised her eyes. They were clear blue, pale as a winter morning, and hardly warmer. “I am my lord’s to keep or to give as a gift,” she said—and yes, her voice was like water falling, low and sweet.

  “I am asking you,” he said, “do you resent me?”

  “I have learned,” she answered, “to resent nothing.”

  “Would you rather I went away and left you alone?”

  “Then my lord would beat me,” she said, “because I had failed to please you.”

  Wolfcub bit his lip. There was no escape, then. Nor should he have wanted one, or been as eager to find it, and yet it was so.

  He sighed before he knew what he did, and shed his leggings and his good tunic that he had put on for the feast. He was nothing to enchant a woman’s eyes, he did not suppose, except that he was young and lithe and honed with all his riding and hunting. She was exquisite as she rose to face him, with her tunic pooling about her feet.

  She too seemed to have resigned herself to this. She did not put on a smile, but he hardly minded; he wanted nothing so false. Her eyes warmed, perhaps, as she took him in. She took his hot and aching rod in her cool hand.

  It burst at the touch, in spasms so fierce he tumbled to his knees. She followed him down, still calm, not laughing at him, nor mocking him for a fool of a boy. But then she had no need. He did it for her, bitterly.

  She laid a hand over his mouth before he had well begun. “No,” she said. “It’s no shame. Here, lie by me for a while. Tell me of your hunt.”

  He stiffened against her when she would have drawn him down. “You don’t want to hear me boast.”

  Her pale brows rose. “No? And why should I not? Men are charming when they vaunt themselves. They say you are more charming than most, and can tell a fine tale when you have a mind.”

  “Who says that?” he demanded. It was rude, but he could not help it.

  She tugged at him. This time he gave way, till he was lying beside her but at a little distance. “Women talk to one another,” she said. “They say you are very pleasant to listen to, and almost as pleasant to lie with.”

  “You see how true that is,” he said.

  She shrugged. “It’s been a long while since the winter fires. You’re young; your blood is hot. You killed a great boar today. Tell me how you did it. Tell me everything.”

  Very well, he thought. Since she insisted, he told her the truth. He even told her of the shaman’s challenge to Linden, which might not have been wise at all, but he did not care. “It was an accident,” he said, “that the boar died. He fell; the spear pierced him. I did nothing.”

  “You stood fast while he came, and you set the spear where it would be most deadly,” she said—very like Linden, indeed. “That was a brave thing you did. And braver yet, what you did to the shaman.”

  Wolfcub flushed. “I’ll pay a price for that. He won’t forget.”

  “Most likely not,” she said calmly. “Still, it was well done. Even a shaman can get above himself, and that one . . .” She trailed off; then shook her head. “Well. That’s as may be. Come now, kiss me.”

  She said it so suddenly and so imperiously that he obeyed her before he thought. It was a long kiss, sweet as if with honey. Her hands did wonderful things in the midst of it, stroking his back and sides, and—greatest wonder of all—rousing his rod anew, far sooner than he would have thought possible.

  She drew back from the kiss, but her hand stroked his rod still. She was smiling. “Youth,” she said, “is a marvelous thing.”

  He could hardly disagree. She opened to him, taking him inside herself, but holding him—reining him in, drawing it out, as long and fully as sweet as her kiss. When he could not bear it for one more instant, when he was ready to scream for release, then at last, and only then, she let him go.

  A cry escaped him, a shout of surprise. She smiled and brought him to the end of it, till he lay gasping, spent, with all his body thrumming like the bowstring after the arrow has flown.

  Gods, he thought. Dear gods. But not for the height of her skill or the strength of the release. No; those were to be expected. The greatest wonder, the one that would remain with him long after his body’s trembling had quieted, was the warmth of her smile. There was something a little sad in it, and something a little wry. It was a wonder, a marvel of a smile.

  And that, he knew, was why she was the king’s favorite. For that smile.

  7

  When Wolfcub came out of the king’s tent in the morning, he had a sheen on him that no one could mistake. Certainly the men could not, either the young ones or the old: they mocked him for it, but lightly, as men will for one of their own. The whole camp knew by then that he had chosen the woman called Fawn, who was the king’s favorite.

  The king himself applauded the choice and bade him share the royal breakfast, seated at the king’s right hand, with Linden the prince on Wolfcub’s other side.

  Already people were circling, watching, weighing this new favorite. Some of his more callow brothers were strutting about in the glory of their kinship, and letting fools even more callow appoint them messengers for this favor or that. His father might have had something to say of such foolishness, but Aurochs was away on a hunt.

  Sparrow hoped that he would come back soon. Aurochs was a level-headed man, as she had thought his son was inclined to be—but Wolfcub was young, and Fawn had a great name among the women for her skill in bending men to her will. She could snatch a man’s wits and turn him into a blind and seeking thing, a rod with eyes, as old Mallard had been heard to mutter. Mallard had no use for Fawn. “She’s not a witch,” the old woman said; “she’s not got the wits for that. But she has the gods’ own gift for bewitching a man.”

  Sparrow thought that perhaps Mallard was jealous. Mallard had been beautiful when she was young, but age had not been kind to her. Fawn had a beauty that would grow old slowly and only become finer, till it was stripped to the fine white bone. She knew it, as she could hardly fail to do, but she was not arrogant about it, nor did she sneer at Sparrow as some of the captives did. She had a calm way about her, a cool acceptance of her place in the world, that Sparrow found rather more pleasing than not.

  But Sparrow was not at all pleased that she had worked her wiles on the Wolfcub. Sparrow had thought better of them both.

  oOo

  It was not as long as she had feared before she could get at Wolfcub. After he broke his fast with the king, he managed to slip away—but not before Sparrow saw where he went.

  It was a hunter’s trick, but she had learned it, and from Wolfcub, no less. One moment he was there, with all eyes on him. The next, he was gone, and people had a vague memory of his murmuring about changing out of his good tunic and then maybe going to swim in the river.

  The tunic was an excuse, but a true one. Sparrow caught him coming out of the young men’s tent, dressed in leggings but no tunic, with a hunting bow in his hand and a quiver on his back, and a bag that held perhaps a tunic and a bit to eat and provisions for a journey, whether long or short. He looked like himself again, awkward gangling Wolfcub with his hair in untidy plaits; the princely creature of the night before was gone, folded away with his best tunic.

  That slowed her enough that he almost eluded her. He was not going to the river; that had been a ruse. He was going to find the horses, and then, she supposed, to hunt as he often did.


  She let him think he had lost her, turning hunter herself, taking another and quicker way to the place where Wolfcub’s ugly little stallion liked to graze. As she had expected, the stallion was there, but Wolfcub was somewhat behind her. She filled the time by brushing out the beast’s dirt-colored coat with a twist of grass, and picking burrs out of its rusty black mane. It had acknowledged her when she came, but gone back to grazing, like the sensible creature it was.

  oOo

  She was ready when Wolfcub came, well and carefully apart from the horses, favoring him with a wide and sunny smile. “Good morning, O lord of hunters,” she said. “Are you well pleased with yourself and your world?”

  He blanched, as well he might, but he was never one to turn and bolt, even from Sparrow in a temper. He stood his ground, and regarded her with exasperating calm. “Is there any reason why I should not be pleased?”

  “None at all,” she said brightly. “Fawn is a marvel, isn’t she?”

  His eyes widened. “You know—”

  “Everybody knows Fawn,” Sparrow said. “Or at least, all the women do. Men only notice women when the women are being of some use to them.”

  He flushed. “Men can lose their jewels for looking at women who don’t belong to them.”

  “Exactly,” Sparrow said.

  He opened his mouth, but shut it again. His eyes narrowed. “You’re jealous.”

  “Oh, you want me to be?”

  “You’re angry,” he said slowly, as if that were a revelation. “You really are jealous. You wish I hadn’t gone into the king’s tent. Don’t you?”

  “If you hadn’t gone in, you would have insulted the king.” Sparrow did not like to say it, but it was true. “Of course you had to go. And of course you chose Fawn. Only an idiot would pass up that chance.”

  “She was the closest,” he said with some heat. “I barely even saw her.”

  “I’m sure,” said Sparrow.

  “It’s true!” And she believed that: Wolfcub did not lie. “I suppose,” he said, “she meant it to happen that way. That’s part of her art, isn’t it? To know such things. To make them happen.”

  “She doesn’t often have to,” Sparrow said.

  “Well,” said Wolfcub. “I’m a fool, if not exactly an idiot. And you’re jealous.”

  “What have I to be jealous of? I don’t incline toward women.”

  That made him blush scarlet, to her considerable satisfaction. He might have bolted then, if she had not been standing between him and his horse.

  “You don’t want me,” he said. “But you don’t want anyone else to want me, either.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Isn’t it?” He stepped round her. He paused for an instant, seeing how clean the stallion was, burrs picked out of his tail and tangles out of his mane. But he seemed not to realize how that had come about. He shrugged and slipped the bridle over his stallion’s ears.

  She thought he would mount and ride away, but he paused. In that pause she said, “I’m not jealous. I’m annoyed. I haven’t been able to get near you since you went on that madness of a hunt. My brother put Linden up to it, didn’t he? That’s why you went.”

  Wolfcub had quicker wits than most men: he could shift the path of his thought without excessive floundering about. “Yes, that’s why I went. If you knew that, why are you asking me?”

  “Because I wanted to be sure. Does Walker want Linden dead?”

  “I . . .” Wolfcub paused, frowning, pondering what she had said. “I don’t think so. I thought he might, but . . . no. He wanted Linden in danger, but he doesn’t want Linden’s life. He’s up to something else.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know,” Wolfcub said.

  “He’s pressing me for visions,” said Sparrow. “He’s plotting something, you can be sure of it.”

  Wolfcub did not ask what she meant about the visions. He knew. He was the only one who did, or who would believe her. “He wants visions?” Wolfcub’s grey eyes darkened. “And he sent the king’s son on an errand that, if it didn’t kill him, would gain him a fine share of honor among the men.”

  “Except that you overshadowed him.”

  “Yes,” Wolfcub said. “I didn’t intend to. All I wanted was to make sure Linden was safe. I never meant to kill the boar.”

  “The gods saw to that,” Sparrow said. And when he stared at her: “What, that’s a great revelation? Of course they did! My brother has to know that—and I doubt very much that he’s happy.”

  “I know he’s not,” Wolfcub said, not as if it frightened him, but he did not make light of it, either. “Whatever he’s doing, I’ll wager it has something to do with the king. Everyone knows Linden’s his favorite son.”

  “And,” said Sparrow, “it’s a ninth year.”

  “Yes,” Wolfcub said. “You don’t think—”

  “I think the king is older than he was, and Linden is young and beautiful and none too quick of wit. And,” said Sparrow, “I think my brother knows this all too well.”

  “That is not a comfortable thought,” said Wolfcub.

  Sparrow set her lips together. No, it was not comfortable. She had not meant it to be. “Go on your hunt,” she said. “Think on this. And if you happen to come across your father . . .”

  “I’ll tell him,” Wolfcub said.

  “Do that,” said Sparrow. “Now go.”

  But he hovered still. “Maybe I should stay. Maybe—”

  “No,” she said. “I’ll keep watch here. Come back as soon as you can. If you bring your father with you—so much the better.”

  He understood. She had known he would. He might have dallied, but she fixed a glare on him, fierce enough that he had caught the reins and sprung onto his horse’s back, perhaps, before he stopped to think.

  “Go,” she said to the stallion. The stallion, like a sensible beast, obeyed.

  oOo

  Wolfcub looked back once as he rode away. Sparrow stood watching him, as he had expected. There was something standing behind her. At first he thought it was a cloud, or a trick of the light; then it moved. It was a horse, grey as a cloud, lowering an elegant head to nuzzle Sparrow’s neck. She did not turn, did not start, but reached up with all the calm in the world, and stroked the pale cheek and the dark muzzle.

  Almost Wolfcub wheeled his stallion about and went charging back, but the horse was not in the mood to listen. Wolfcub gave in, for once. He had enough to think of as it was. Sparrow with a white horse—mare, he would have wagered, and he would have laid his best spear on the herd it came from—seemed, somehow, all of a piece with the rest of it.

  He went on his hunt therefore, hunting not the red deer but a man, his father who could be anywhere in this part of the world. Aurochs was wise, wiser in Wolfcub’s estimation than any shaman. He would know what to make of this. He might even know what to do about it.

  8

  Sparrow had been away from her father’s tent too much since she reckoned it wise to stay out of Walker’s sight. When she came back from seeing Wolfcub off, and then from riding the white mare wherever the mare chose, which had been farther from the herd than Sparrow might have expected a horse to go, every one of her father’s wives seemed to have decided at once that they needed something from her. It was well after sunset before she was done, and they were at her again in the dawn.

  “Do my hair, Sparrow! Nobody else does it as well as you do.” “My best tunic—see, the beading’s all torn out along the hem. Mend it, Sparrow. Mend it quickly. Our lord has asked for me tonight.” “Come here, Sparrow, grind this meal, and be quick! The men will be up before the bread is made.”

  And on and on, through a day that stretched endless, till she ran headlong into an obstacle that grunted but did not give way.

  She blinked stupidly at Keen. Keen smiled at her, a smile that knew no trouble, even in the face of Sparrow’s abstraction.

  Sparrow was running to fetch a basketful of dung for the cookfir
e. Teal had taken it into her head to prepare a delicacy for Drinks-the-Wind, the stomach of a newborn calf stuffed with grain and berries and herbs, and roasted in heaped coals. Of course she must do it this very moment, and of course the supply of fuel had run low; and none of the children happened to be about, to fetch more.

  Keen did not try to delay Sparrow on her errand, but she followed lightly, saying, “It’s been ages since I saw you. Where have you been keeping yourself?”

  “Hither and yon,” Sparrow answered. She could never be rude to Keen, or walk away from her, even knowing what Keen was married to, and what she thought of him.

  Keen did not know the truth of her husband. That much Sparrow was sure of. Whether for fear of Keen’s father, who was a man of wealth and power among the elders, or because it simply amused him, Walker was as kind to his wife as he could be. That he had no other wife, nor gave Keen anyone to help her look after his tent, was a matter for mild scandal among the women, but Keen did not seem to mind. She had an air about her of enviable ease. Very little disconcerted her, and she never seemed to struggle with the tasks that gave Sparrow such fits of frustration. Keen, like Wolfcub, was good at everything she did.

  Sparrow, whose only gift was to dream as a shaman dreams, found it impossible to hate her. Keen was too pleasing a presence and too undemanding a companion. She never seemed to want anything of Sparrow but her company. She was the only one like that; everyone else either ignored Sparrow altogether, or had need of her as a servant.

  That had been so long before Keen was given to Walker; since they were children, when the lovely gold-haired child attached herself with inexplicable persistence to the small and sullen dark one. Keen saw no visions, but listened when Sparrow spoke of hers; and in turn she spoke of the things that mattered to a woman, small things of the tent, the women’s gathering, and later on, her husband.

  The world she lived in was sunlit, undarkened by shadows. She knew that Sparrow’s visions were the same as Walker’s, but she did not seem to understand that only Sparrow saw them; Walker took them and called them his own. Sparrow had tried more than once to make her see this, but she would not. “My husband is a great shaman,” she said with gentle firmness, and no anger that Sparrow could discern. “He doesn’t need to steal from you, beloved, even if he could want to.”