Lady of Horses (25 page)

She stretched her stride. When she was out of sight of the
hut, under paling stars, she stretched her whole body from toes to fingertips,
reaching for the sky, then swaying, dipping, whirling, dancing through the tall
grass.

She stumbled and went sprawling. The thing that had caught
her was no stone: it was soft, and it grunted. She snapped into a knot and
rolled away from it, flinging herself to her feet.

It was no wild sow or sleeping wolf. It was a human figure
in a woman’s long tunic, with long hair streaming over its shoulders. Even in
the grey light of morning, it was as bright as sunlight.

“Keen!” said Sparrow, astonished. “What are you doing out
here?”

“The same thing you are, I suppose,” Keen said. “What did
you run away from?”

She spoke lightly, but something in her tone made Sparrow
drop to her knees and seize that rounded chin, peering into the face.

Keen twisted free. “I’m not hurt. I . . .
just had to get away.”

“From what? What did he do to you? Tell me!”

Keen did not look as if she wanted to, but Sparrow had
always had the stronger will. She got it out as if through clenched teeth.
“Nothing. Nothing with his fist. But—he took another wife.”

“I heard,” Sparrow said flatly.

“You heard? And you never told me?”

“I couldn’t,” Sparrow said, taken aback by the flash of
Keen’s eyes. Keen, angry? Keen was the most even-tempered creature in the
world. “I was in the women’s house. One of the others there knew every scandal.
She made sure we did, too. We heard all about the shaman’s daughter of the Tall
Grass and the White Stone shaman. So it’s true? He’s making her senior wife?”

Keen nodded. “Her father is more useful to him than mine,
you see. So he sets her over me. I’m to be glad of it, since it gives me a
friend in the tent, and brings me a flock of servants to do everything I used
to do. It sets me free, he says. Free—indeed. Free to walk away.”

Sparrow could not give way to temper. Not yet. Her mind had
to be clear. “Free to walk where? Back to your father?”

“No,” said Keen. “He tells me to be glad of it. It’s easier
for me, you see. I can sit back and let someone else rule the household.”

Sparrow sat on her heels. Keen’s calm was brittle to
breaking. Sparrow had never seen her like this. As if—

“Are you sure he never touched you?”

“Of course I’m sure!” Keen shook herself. “Please. I’m
sorry. It’s just—he didn’t tell me. Until—until last night, he hadn’t been near
me since spring camp. He—he never—he never looked to see if I was gone!”

Sparrow could not bear to see her cry. She folded arms about
Keen, held her and rocked her while she wept herself out. It took a long while.

How strange, Sparrow thought as she felt her shoulder growing
wet through the worn leather. Years of Walker’s cruelties had done little to
shake her; they were nothing that she took pleasure in, but neither did they
break her spirit. A few days of them had shocked Keen to the marrow.

Ah, but he had been kind to Keen. No doubt he had told her
he loved her. He was probably still saying it, even as he supplanted her with a
newer, wealthier wife. It would never occur to him that what he did might wound
her to the heart. It was convenient. It served his purposes. Of course Keen
would accept it.

Sparrow did not like to understand her brother so well. All
men, from what she could see, thought such thoughts. Women were cattle, to be
bought and sold without regard for what they might think of it. But Walker had
a way about him. If he had been as heedless as any other man, it would not have
mattered; but he lied. He made one think he had a heart.

As Keen wept, the morning brightened about them. The sun
rose in a sky heavy with haze. The day would be hot, searingly so. Sparrow had
a day or two before she was looked for. Walker likely would not go hunting his
wife, with a new wife to keep him occupied.

She dried Keen’s tears and smoothed the hair back from that
lovely face—it even wept beautifully, blushing rose rather than going all to
blotches. “Listen to me,” she said. “We’ll go away for a day or two, you and I.
We’ll take the mare and ride till we’re tired of riding. Then we’ll camp and
rest, and never mind the world beyond us. If you want to go on after that, we
will. Or we’ll go back, and we’ll find a place for you. You won’t be a servant
to that child from the Tall Grass, not ever. Not unless you truly want to.”

Keen shook her head. She was a gentle creature, but when she
made up her mind, it was firmly made up. “I won’t share a tent with her.
Everybody tells me I’ll learn to be a sister to her—but she’ll be sister as
Walker is your brother. As—as you always told me he was.”

“They’re well matched, then,” Sparrow said. “He might even
let you go. If when we go back, we speak to the king, catch him when Walker is
busy being married—Linden has a soft heart. He’ll give you your freedom, I’m
sure he will. Maybe,” she said with swelling heart, “maybe he’ll even take you
for himself. The king can do that. He can take you in and honor you and treat
you with respect.”

“Linden . . .” Keen made the word a sigh. “He
is pretty. And yes, he’s kind, and he’s a fine lover, they say. I could do
worse than that.”

“Much worse,” Sparrow said. “He’s the king.”

“So he is,” said Keen. “I’d forgotten. It’s so much to keep
in mind—kings dying, kings rising up. Stallions fighting. There will be a war,
I suppose. There’s always a war when the men make themselves a new king.”

“That won’t matter to us,” Sparrow said.

“It should,” said Keen. “People die.”

“People won’t die.”

“Promise?”

Sparrow opened her mouth, but the words did not come out.
She had been saying whatever came into her head, to comfort Keen. But this—Keen
was not asking only for comfort. Keen wanted something more.

Keen wanted surety. Sparrow could not give her that. Sparrow
was a shaman. She was not supposed to be, but she was. If she promised that no
one would die, she would have to keep that promise—and she could not.

Keen understood her silence. The tears were all gone, which
was as well.

She stiffened. Sparrow let her go. She stood, smoothing her
skirt, combing her hair with her fingers. “I want to go away,” she said. “We
can do that. The rest . . . if it will be, it will be.”

Sparrow was content with that, if Keen was.

oOo

Sparrow’s captivity in the women’s house and Keen’s flight
from her husband’s tent had taken them to the far side of the gathering from
the horse-herds, though the herds of cattle—and their herdsmen—were nearby.
They had to crouch low and pretend to be wind in the grass, Sparrow with the
ease of practice, Keen mimicking her name.

She was not as sturdy as Sparrow. She had to stop more
often, and rub legs and back that ached with moving so slowly and so
unnaturally. It had been a long while since she ran wild with Sparrow and
Wolfcub, and he taught them both to hunt as his father had taught him.

They made a broad circle round the cattle and skirted the
outermost edge of the camp. It was a clear run there till they came on the
horses.

Once the swell of the ground hid them from the camp, Sparrow
straightened and gestured to Keen to stand erect, and sped through the grass.
Keen trailed her, but not too far.

Sparrow was giddy with freedom. Her anger at Walker was deep
and lasting, but she set it aside till she could use it, like a new-made
weapon. For the moment she gave herself up to speed, and to looking out for
Keen, to be sure she did not stumble or fall behind.

The mare was waiting. Sparrow could feel her impatience. In
what seemed a very long time but by the sun was brief enough, they ascended the
last hill and looked down on the horse-herds.

Sparrow dropped to the grass before the summit and crawled
the rest of the way in concealment. Keen was in no wise unwilling to do the
same. When they had reached the top, she lay on her face while Sparrow scanned
the herds. She was breathing hard, and shaking with exhaustion.

Foolish creature, why had she not said anything? Sparrow bit
her tongue on the rebuke. Keen was one of the bravest people she knew, and one
of the least inclined to complain. She would go until she dropped, like a good
horse.

It was Sparrow’s fault; she should have seen that Keen was
pressing the limits of her strength, and slowed down. But she had been too
eager to come to the mare.

Keen was recovering as they paused. Sparrow searched the
herds below for signs of priests or herdsmen. There did not appear to be any.
By ancient custom, no one waged war during the gathering, nor did tribes raid
one another. There was nothing to watch for but wolves and lions, and those
tended to be lazy in the summer’s heat.

The herds were quiet, grazing in their clans and tribes. The
royal herd kept the far edge as always, with the mare on guard as she so often
was. She knew Sparrow was there. She grazed, but watchfully, with an air that
bade Sparrow be quick—she had somewhat in mind, and she needed Sparrow for it.

Sparrow waited a little while even so. But no human figure
stirred, nor did a dog lope along the edges, questing for invaders or
stragglers. These might have been wild herds for all the evidence she found of
men’s presence.

At last, when Keen’s breathing had quieted and the mare had
begun to stamp with impatience, Sparrow rose from the grass and trotted down
the hill.

Linden had made a very pretty king for the nine days’
sacrifices. He astonished people, perhaps, by drinking in moderation, dancing
all the dances with tireless grace, and seeing to it that every tribe’s fire
saw him at it for at least a little while. Whatever his failings of wit or
wisdom, he had a gift for winning people’s hearts.

On the second day after the sacrifices, Linden was called
upon to be king over the gathered tribes. He had to sit in the king’s circle
and hear petitions, settle disputes, and pass judgment on those who had broken
this law or that during the time of sacrifice.

This clearly was much less to his taste. He had learned to
sit still, all hunters did, but Wolfcub saw the hint of fidget in the way he
sat, in the flicker of his eyes toward the circle’s edge. But for Walker, who
sat at his right hand and advised him frequently and very softly, he might have
simply stood up and walked away. But Walker would not allow that.

Linden did not have a gift for judgment, or much patience
either. Wolfcub watched with interest as the morning stretched. Linden had been
called out before the sun was well risen, dressed and combed and set in the
circle with barely a bite to eat or a drop to drink. The old king had done as
much—held audiences in the morning before the day’s heat rose too high—but
Linden had never been at his best in the morning. He was a creature of the
evening, a dancer about fires and a lover of women. In the mornings he best
preferred to sleep.

At first Wolfcub thought Walker had done this to test the
young king, to prove his fitness or lack thereof. But as the sun rose higher,
Wolfcub began to think that Walker had not thought such a thing at all. He had
brought his puppet out to do his bidding. It had never occurred to him that the
puppet might object.

When the sun poised between sunrise and noon, Linden rose
abruptly. One petitioner had gone. Another was coming forward, dragging a much
disheveled woman who was perhaps his wife.

Linden took no notice. He smiled charmingly, inclined his
head to them all, and said to the petitioner, “Take her home, good man. Do with
her as you see fit. I,” he said sweetly, “have duties elsewhere.”

The woman shrieked and began to babble, begging the king’s
mercy. The king turned away, still smiling, and said to his companions, “Come,
we’re going hunting.”

It was a terrible insult to both Walker and the elders, and
no less to the petitioners still remaining. Wolfcub and Spearhead exchanged
glances and, after an instant, shrugs.

Linden was king. He could do as he pleased. And it was
pleasant to see Walker struck speechless.

Linden was not quite done in the circle. He spoke again to
the elders and petitioners. “After this, audience will begin midway between
noon and sunset, and continue till dark. I’m much more awake then, and much
more likely to give you a fair hearing. For now, good morning; may the gods
keep you.”

He left them with that, walking lightly, taking visible joy
in his freedom. The clamor of outrage that broke out behind him was muted
somewhat by his promise of a later audience. Still, that clamor captured Walker
as he moved to follow, and held him fast.

Linden’s smile grew sly. He waited till he was out of
earshot; then he laughed, deep and long. His companions had to hold him up or
he would have rolled on the ground.

When he could speak again, which was some little time, he
said, “Did you see the shaman’s face? Oh! Oh, gods! Like a clubbed ox.”

Some of the companions laughed with him. Wolfcub did not,
nor did Spearhead.

Linden noticed. He put aside his mirth, not easily, and
patted each on the shoulder. “There, there, my elders. I won’t do this every
day. But by the gods, hauling me out at the crack of dawn and making me listen
to all that before I’d even had a cup of kumiss—it’s ungodly. I couldn’t stand
for it. I’ll be a good king tomorrow. Today I’ll hunt. Or swim or fish, or
whatever else I can do that’s not either in the camp or concerned with being a
king.”

Few of them could contest that. They had been hauled out,
too, to stand behind the king; and without even his grace of being the one everyone
looked to. It was crashingly dull to stand guard for hour upon hour while
people droned on and on. The beaten woman might have been a diversion, but
Linden’s hunt was a better one.