Lady of Horses Read online

  After a while Sparrow had given it up. Keen was blind, willfully or otherwise.

  Maybe it was best for her. She was married to him, after all. Her honor was his honor. Her will must be obedient to his.

  Today she was not thinking of him at all. She was full of Wolfcub and the boar, as everyone else seemed to be. “Do you believe what he did?” she asked in wonder. “Who’d have thought it? Not that I ever reckoned him a coward, but he’s always been a quiet boy, more hunter than warrior. Who’d have expected that he’d take the great boar, and save the prince’s life, too?”

  “He says it was an accident,” Sparrow said a little sullenly.

  “He’s too modest.” They had come to the edge of the herds of cattle. As Sparrow stooped to gather the dried dung, Keen helped her, moving easily beside her, caught up in wonder at the feat. “And now he’s off hunting again as if nothing had ever happened. That’s so like him. Any other of the boys would hang about the camp for days, drinking kumiss and boasting.”

  “Even Linden?” Sparrow asked, trying to be casual, but she could feel the heat in her cheeks.

  “Well,” said Keen with a glance that saw too much, and laughed at it, “maybe not Linden. He’d only hang about for a day or two. Then he’d be off in search of another boar to conquer.”

  “Nobody seems to mind that it’s not Linden who did it,” Sparrow said. “I’m surprised.”

  Keen’s face did not cloud over, nor did she act as if she knew what her husband had been doing. “Yes, people are a little surprised at that,” she said, “but that’s the gods’ gift, clearly. He certainly isn’t troubled by it.”

  “Linden has a generous spirit,” Sparrow murmured.

  Keen smiled. Her glance turned wicked. “Yes, and there’s much else about him that’s generous, too. But Wolfcub—did you see how he looked by the fire last night, with the king beside him? Wasn’t he handsome?”

  Yes, he had been. But Sparrow was not about to admit it. “He’s all arms and legs and eyes. And his shoulders stick out like a bird’s.”

  “Not so much, any more,” Keen said. “Do you know what I heard? Fawn has been wandering about all day with a dreamy look on her face. She never looks like that after the king has shared her. Lark says she stops sometimes and smiles. Wolfcub must be a wonder in the sleeping-furs, says Lark.”

  “Lark is a chattering fool.” Sparrow pitched a handful of dung into the basket with such force that half of it leaped back out again.

  “Lark says,” said Keen, not the least disconcerted by Sparrow’s temper, “that when he comes back from this latest hunt, she means to see if he’s as good as Fawn’s smile says he is.”

  “And what will Lark’s father say to that?”

  Keen laughed. “Why, nothing, of course! Black Bear is much too busy keeping his sons in order, to notice what his daughter does.”

  “He’ll notice when her belly swells, the way she carries on.”

  “Maybe not even then,” said Keen. She straightened, stretched, smiled at the sky. When she looked about her again, she paused. “Sparrow, look. That’s a horse. It’s watching us.”

  Sparrow did not look. She could feel it on her skin. The white mare had appeared somehow among the herd of cattle. The wonder of it was, none of them challenged her. Even the bull did not approach her.

  Of course he did not. She was a goddess. Now that Sparrow knew, she could see how the mare shone like clouds over the moon.

  As if Keen had taken the thought from Sparrow’s head, she said, “See how bright she is. Isn’t she one of the horses who came to the herds—what, a hand of winters ago now? It’s strange, the way she watches us. As if she could speak, if she had a mind.”

  “Horses don’t talk,” Sparrow said to the basket, which was nearly full. A handful or two and she would be done.

  She wanted to be done. But she dallied, scowling, refusing to look at the mare, who so clearly wanted her to look. She could not afford that betrayal. Not in sight of the camp. And certainly not in front of Walker’s wife. Keen was the friend of her childhood, closer than a sister, but this was a secret she could not safely share.

  Keen was more intent on the horse than on Sparrow, which was perhaps a merciful thing. “She’s beautiful. Like the moon. Like a new snowfall. Do you think one of the boys will try to tame her?”

  Sparrow’s rage rose so swiftly and so strongly that she almost lost control of it. But somehow, by main strength, she held it down. She spoke tightly, but she did not scream. She did not rail at Keen for saying what was, after all, but an idle thing, and reasonable enough as far as Keen could know. “No male would be caught on the back of a mare,” she said. “Even such a mare as that.”

  “Silly,” Keen said. “What stallion ever had such eyes? She sees us, Sparrow. She’s actually looking at us. I wonder what she’s doing with the cattle?”

  “Maybe she’s never seen two women crouched in the grass before,” Sparrow said. “And maybe we should go. If the men find out how close we’ve come to one of the horses, they’ll not be pleased at all.”

  “No,” Keen sighed. “They won’t.” She rose regretfully and walked away, not pausing until she was at the distance deemed proper for a woman whom necessity brought near the herds.

  Sparrow left with considerably less regret but fully as much reluctance. She could feel the mare’s eyes on her, the mind intent, willing her to come away, to ride, to be free. But she could not do that. She was a woman of the People. What she had done already, raising the mare, lingering with her, riding her, was sacrilege that, if discovered, would cost her her life.

  Not that she cared for that. But she did care that Keen might be caught up in it. Keen must not know this of all Sparrow’s secrets.

  She walked away therefore, without ever looking at the mare. When she came level with Keen, Keen was standing, looking back, yearning in a way that Sparrow knew all too well. “I wish . . .” she said. “I wish we didn’t have to . . .”

  But Keen did not finish the thought. It was close to unthinkable as it was. She stiffened her shoulders and took the laden basket from Sparrow’s fingers, and walked back quickly to the camp.

  oOo

  Keen liked to tell Walker of her days’ doings, if he came in her early enough and if he seemed in the mood to listen. Usually he was, or pretended to be. Maybe he simply enjoyed the sound of her voice prattling on as she fed him his dinner and tended his belongings and, more often than not, waited for him to be ready to bed her.

  But she did not tell him of the white mare. Part was prudence: telling him would force her to confess how close she and Sparrow had come to a horse. The rest was—yes, was the desire to keep something to herself.

  The mare was magical. Keen was not one who had a gift for such things, but even a blind man could see what that creature was. And she had looked at them—had looked at her, with eyes as dark as deep water, and such an expression that even now she struggled to put a name to it. Intelligence, yes. Curiosity? Maybe. Interest, to be sure.

  The mare had noticed her and her companion. What that notice meant, what it would mean hereafter, she did not know, and she was not minded to ask her husband. Shaman he might be, but he was a man. He would see only the profanation, never the magic.

  She kept the secret, therefore, and chattered of other things, things that she barely remembered even as she said them. Walker, perhaps fortunately, was preoccupied himself. For a while she thought he would not want her tonight, but as she bent her head and began to withdraw, he caught her hand. She stopped. He did not move at first, simply held her. His fingers were hot. They almost burned. She bit her lip but did not speak.

  Suddenly he seemed to remember that she was there, and to realize that he had a deathgrip on her hand. He loosened it somewhat but did not let go. His eyes were dark in the lamplight, his face flat, empty of expression. But his rod was high and hard, rising from beneath his tunic.

  He took her without tenderness, without appearing to be aware of her
at all. Her body was stiff, unready; but she submitted as a wife should, and tried to please him, though she was dry inside, and he hurt her, driving at her, grinding his loins on hers.

  He spent himself quickly, for a mercy, got up and straightened his tunic and wandered away as if in the grip of a vision. She lay aching, with a burning between her legs, and tears pricking her eyelids. Foolish tears.

  Sometimes he was like this. He was a shaman. If his gods possessed him, there was little he or anyone could do, except to submit.

  Tomorrow he would be himself again, tender, solicitous, bringing her a balm for the burning, and making love to her all the more gently, to atone for the way the gods had taken them both. She had only to live until then, and tell herself that it would be so. It always had been. That was the price they both paid for the gift the gods had given him.

  9

  Wolfcub hunted for three days before he found his father. Even at that, he was surprised to succeed so soon. When Aurochs went on one of his hunts, he could wander for whole moons, traveling as far as the forest in the north or all the way to the dark-haired tribes of the south, the southernmost of whom, he said, lived on the shores of a great water. “Greater than any river,” he said, “or any lake on the steppe. They call it sea, and insist that it goes on forever. But I think it pours off the edge of the world.”

  Wolfcub did not know if he believed that or not. But Aurochs had not gone so far this time. He had tracked a lion to its lair, simply for the pleasure of having done it; then he had followed a herd of antelope that grazed toward the west, bringing down a fawn to feed himself, and leaving the bones for the wolves.

  When Wolfcub came upon him, he was making camp by a spring, building a fire and roasting a haunch of antelope. He greeted his son with utter lack of surprise, as if they had only parted that morning, and tilted his head, granting Wolfcub leave to share his dinner.

  Wolfcub sat by the fire as was polite, ate what he was given, and belched his thanks. He did not speak. That was for his father to do, if his father saw fit. Which Aurochs did not always do; Aurochs was not a man for chatter.

  Tonight however, as the stars came out, Aurochs said in his rough sweet voice, “It will rain tomorrow.”

  Wolfcub nodded. He could smell it on the wind, though the sky was clear. “The grass will be glad. It’s been a dry spring.”

  “Spring should be wetter, yes.” Aurochs stretched out on the ground, propped on his elbow. He was a compact man for one of the People, not particularly tall, with wide shoulders and strong arms. The women thought him handsome. Then, of late, they giggled and told Wolfcub that he looked like his father.

  Wolfcub did not think that he did, but the women only laughed when he said so. Aurochs did not look as if he had ever been awkward or gangling. Wolfcub was both, to a distressing degree. What Aurochs thought of this, Wolfcub did not know. He had never asked.

  Bur in one thing they two were alike. They preferred to hunt alone. Other men hunted in packs and companies, but Aurochs had always said that for real hunting a man needed to be free of distraction. He had taught his son the rudiments of the art long ago, then left him to it.

  Now Aurochs looked at his son, really looked, and said, “So. You killed the boar.”

  Wolfcub sat still by the flicker of the fire. All the accolades of the People, the prince’s admiration, the king’s honor and his gifts, together meant less than that long level stare and those few words.

  He had to say what he had been saying since it happened: “It was an accident. I got my spear in him, then he fell on it.”

  Aurochs nodded. “That would be how it was. He needed a god’s hand to finish him.”

  Even Sparrow had not understood that. She wanted it to be Wolfcub’s honor and his doing. But Aurochs saw. He knew. He still looked on Wolfcub with what could only be approval and said, “It’s as well you did it. Another might have taken too much of the credit.”

  “They gave me much too much,” said Wolfcub.

  “People do that,” Aurochs said. “Did they try to follow you?”

  “I slipped out before they knew,” said Wolfcub.

  Aurochs smiled at that, a flicker almost too quick to see. When it was gone, it was wholly gone. “You didn’t track me down to tell me of that.”

  “No,” Wolfcub said. “Or . . . not simply that, though it’s part of it. I wasn’t hunting boar. Linden was, he and the pack of boys who run at his heel. But Linden wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been put up to it.”

  Aurochs nodded. His brows had drawn together slightly. He waited for Wolfcub to go on.

  Wolfcub meant to, but he needed to think for a bit, to get his thoughts in order. His father did not mind. Aurochs had a gift of silence. He would lie there all night if it suited him, sleep, wake, and keep on waiting for Wolfcub to say what was troubling him.

  In the end he said it baldly, without easing up to it. “It was the young shaman. Walker. He dared Linden to bring him home a piglet, and sow’s milk to cook it in. I heard him do it. I was going hunting on my own, but after that I went with Linden. I didn’t know what I could do, but I wanted to be there. I suppose the gods were calling me to use my spear against the boar.”

  “And that troubles you?”

  “No, not that. Walker. He’s a shaman. He must have known what the boar would do.”

  “Any hunter would know that,” Aurochs said. “Have you considered that the shaman foresaw what you would do, and sent the prince to lead you on?”

  Wolfcub had thought of it. But that had not roused the quiver in his bones when he saw Walker with Linden. Walker had not been thinking about Wolfcub at all—Wolfcub was sure of it. “It was Linden he thought of,” he said. “He wanted Linden to provoke the boar. I think he wanted Linden dead.”

  “Or Linden was meant to kill the boar,” said Aurochs, “and not you. That could well be.”

  Wolfcub shook his head. “That’s not what my bones say. My bones say the shaman is up to no good.”

  “Shamans usually are,” Aurochs said dryly. “That’s what they do. They brew trouble.”

  “Yes,” Wolfcub said. “Yes, that’s what my bones say. What if—what if he wants Linden dead? Or the king?”

  Aurochs seemed not to find that thought disturbing, though it made Wolfcub’s stomach feel cold and sick. “What, king-killing? What purpose would that serve?”

  “It’s a ninth year,” Wolfcub said. “And it was a hard winter, and is a dry spring.”

  “Not so hard anybody died of it,” said Aurochs, “and not so dry that we suffer unduly.”

  “But it’s a ninth year,” said Wolfcub, “and the king is no longer young.”

  “The king is not old, either, or diminished in strength.” Aurochs shook his head. “You never liked that young man, even before he was a shaman. Not that I have any great regard for him, but I doubt he’s strong enough yet, or bold enough, to try his hand at making and unmaking kings. If you had said that the old one, old Drinks-the-Wind, had done it . . . then I might believe. But that boy, for all his pretensions? I don’t think so. In the next ninth year, or the next, be wary and more than wary—but not in this one.”

  Wolfcub set his lips together. Of course his father must be right.

  And yet his bones said no, and no, and no again. Walker was very young to be what he was, and he was reckoned extraordinarily gifted. He might not care that he was too young or too weak to do such things. He had been working great magics since before he grew his beard.

  Aurochs knew that. He was also a man grown, with grown sons. He could not see that a boy, which was all Walker must be to him, might not only think of king-killing, he might try to do it.

  Sparrow would not be pleased, Wolfcub thought rather distractedly. But this much he could do for her—and for himself, and for Linden. He could say, “Maybe that is so. But there are rumblings in the tribe that my bones don’t like. It is a ninth year. People do strange things in a ninth year, and so do the gods. Didn’t they rais
e my spear to kill the boar? Who knows what they will do next?”

  “And you think I can do something about it?”

  Wolfcub looked into his father’s face. Aurochs was indulging him—a rare enough thing that it caught him off guard. But his wits rallied. “I think a man of sense, a man whom everyone respects, might be useful if something odd happens.”

  “I suppose,” mused Aurochs, “I could hunt closer to the camp for a while. And visit my wives and the rest of my sons. Maybe make more sons. Would that content you?”

  Wolfcub flushed. “Does it matter what I think?”

  “Clearly you seem to think so, since you came so far to ask me to come back.”

  Wolfcub bit his lip. “It was presumptuous. I’m sorry I did it. Sorry I—”

  “Stop that,” Aurochs said mildly, but the words had the force of a slap. “You never did it before. Mind you don’t do it again. But this once, I’ll humor you.”

  Wolfcub bent his head. He would never tell his father who had in truth wanted Aurochs to come back. Aurochs might not be angry and he might not be insulted, but he well might decide to continue his hunt after all. No man of any standing would do something because a woman wanted it—though if it was his wife, and she pressed hard enough, he would do it simply to win a little peace.

  Sparrow would have known this when she sent Wolfcub to his father. Wolfcub sat and watched his father sleep, but the face he saw was quite different: dark round face with eyes too big for it, fixed on him with fierce intensity.

  He sighed. It was as well, he sometimes thought, that a woman could not be a shaman—because Sparrow would have made a terribly strong and dangerous one. Stronger than Walker, even. Maybe stronger than her father. She had the will for it, and the sheer bloody- mindedness. Though he could not imagine that she would ever want to kill the king.