Lady of Horses (26 page)

“He’ll probably kill the woman,” Spearhead said as they
strode toward the horse-herds. “I know that man—he’s one of the Dun Cow People.
He’s given to killing wives when they cross his temper.”

“Then she shouldn’t have done it,” said Linden. He shook his
head. “Women. I’m supposed to take a wife when the marrying starts. Wives, if
some of the old men have anything to say about it. One from each tribe, they’re
telling me. Can you believe it? I don’t remember that my father did any such
thing.”

“Probably,” drawled Curlew, “because he already had a
tentful of wives when they made him king. I remember he married one or two.”

“He always married somebody at gathering,” Linden said.
“They want me to do it all at once. Something to do with sending all my
father’s women to the tomb with him—that was a noble gesture, but nobody asked
me if I wanted it.”

“Truly?” said Wolfcub. “Nobody did?”

“Not a soul,” said Linden. “They try to tell me it was the
old shaman who commanded it, but he’s been shut in the shamans’ tent, talking
to nobody. He’s willing himself to death, I suppose. That would be like him.
No—it was Walker. I’d lay wagers on it.”

“No gamble there,” Spearhead said. “My brother, the one
who’s an apprentice—he tells me the old man’s refusing food and drink.”

Linden nodded. “Yes, I can believe it. He loved my father.
They were battle-brothers, did you know? The shaman was older, but with being a
shaman and all that goes into it, he rode to his first battle when my father
rode to his. They fought together then and always. It was like having a second
right hand, my father said.”

“Drinks-the-Wind is left-handed,” Curlew said.

“Yes, and they’d ride side by side, with a spear on either
side, and no one could stand against them.”

That was an old song, and none of Linden’s making, but the
companions seemed to find it stirring. Wolfcub was almost reluctant to break
into their mood, but he had a thought, and he had to speak it. “What if it’s
not the shaman who’s willing himself to death? There are poisons that work
slowly, and spells that eat away at a man’s spirit.”

Eyes rolled at that. But Linden said, “No. No, I don’t think
that’s so. Drinks-the-Wind is old. He was losing his powers before all this
even began. Now, without his battle-brother, what’s left for him? He’ll walk
across and be with my father again. They’ll travel the gods’ country as they
traveled this one.”

Wolfcub set his lips together, carefully. He might have
tried to persuade Linden, but this was not the time or the place. He walked on
instead, and the conversation turned to other things.

oOo

They did not approach the horse-herds by stealth. There
was no need; they were not raiders or lovers on tryst. But they quieted as they
drew nearer, and stepped more softly, so as not to alarm the mares or the
skittish foals.

The riding stallions ran in their own herd, all but the
king’s stallion, who as lord of the royal mares kept his own place and
eminence. This morning they had claimed a fertile field near the river, at
somewhat of a distance from the rest, but still closer to the camp than the
royal herd. The companions paused there first to catch and bridle their own
mounts, while Linden looked rather longingly at his former stallion, the pretty
sorrel with the mane as fair as his own. But his new horse was much prettier.

He caught Wolfcub watching him. His face brightened; he
clapped his hands. “Boarslayer! Here, I’ve a gift for you. Take this horse. I
insist!”

Wolfcub swallowed a groan. The horse was pretty, oh indeed,
and tractable, and not too slow in a gallop. But for heart and sheer
intelligence, he was not even the beginning of a match for Wolfcub’s ugly
little dun.

There was little Wolfcub could do but put on a smile and
accept the gift. He could have sworn his dun sneered—and when the beast turned
his back and dropped manure almost in the sorrel’s face, it was as clear as
words.

Wolfcub sighed and bridled the sorrel and sprang astride, as
one by one the others did the same. All but Linden. Wolfcub offered him a hand.
He grinned and swung up behind Wolfcub.

oOo

They rode out of the field, over a low ridge and onto the
windy plain. Horse-herds dotted it. The royal herd was impossible to miss, with
its white mares and its silvermaned stallion.

They were farthest out as always. The stallion stood on the
edge. One white mare wandered away from him.

There were riders on her back, one behind the other as
Linden rode behind Wolfcub. Wolfcub knew at once and incontestably who those
riders must be.

He had no clear thought, only a kind of resignation. Of
course it would have to happen this way.

Of the others, not many could see as far or as clear as
Wolfcub. He dared to hope that either they would not see the mare leaving the
herd, or would not understand that the figures on her back were women.

But Curlew, too, was farsighted—and Linden was watching his
stallion. The stallion moved away from the rest of the mares, calling to the
one who was departing. She took no notice. He tossed his head and stamped, and
galloped after her.

Linden’s cry had no words in it. But words came soon enough.
“Raiders! Thieves! After them!”

The companions needed no urging. Wolfcub’s gift horse,
burdened with two men, could not rise to a gallop.

Wolfcub could not say he regretted it, but Linden was wild to
go after his stallion. Wolf-cub slipped to the ground and left Linden to it—and
prayed, not at all wisely, that two women on a lone but sturdy mare could
escape, and that the companions could catch the stallion and so be diverted
from his apparent thieves. They were not stealing him at all, a blind man
should have been able to see that. He was following the mare.

Wolfcub did not linger long afoot. His ugly little dun had
been trailing after them, aggravated by Wolfcub’s desertion but determined not
to be left behind.

He had to punish Wolfcub with a coy dance, but after he had
led a merry chase, he let himself be stopped and bridled with a bit of spare
leather. The dun was already moving as Wolfcub caught mane; he let the movement
carry him onto the narrow familiar back.

oOo

The king and his companions were swift, but the mare was
the wind made flesh, even with her double burden. After a while an even more
terrible thing happened: the king stallion came up level with the mare, and the
rider in front sprang onto his back. The other continued on the mare, who ran
even faster now that she had only one rider to carry.

Wolfcub had never seen Linden so angry. He even strung his
pretty bow as he rode, and tried to shoot an arrow from it; but his aim was not
the best, even if the bow could have shot so far.

The mare and her companion were broadening the distance
between them. Their riders were lighter and they were faster. However furiously
the king and his men thundered in their wake, they thundered farther and
farther behind.

Linden was in a red rage. He would have followed them beyond
the world’s end, if his horse could have done it. But the sorrel was neither
fast nor particularly strong, and Linden was a big man, heavy for such a beast
to carry. He faltered for all that his rider could do. At last he caught his
foot on a stone and tumbled headlong, sending Linden flying.

For Wolfcub who was close behind him, it was a terrible
thing to see his young king fall as the old one had done. But Linden was more
fortunate, or quicker in his reactions: he tucked and rolled and fetched up
winded but alive against a hummock of grass.

His mount was alive, too, but as he struggled to his feet,
one leg hung broken. He stood three-legged, lovely head hanging, as the men
crowded about his rider, pulling him up, fretting over him, determining that he
had no more than a gathering of bruises. The wild rage had been struck clean
out of him, but in its place was a colder, deadlier thing.

He would not let anyone else give his poor sorrel the mercy-stroke.
He did it himself with his flint knife, holding the head in his arms, thrusting
the keen grey blade into the great vein of the neck as he had done in the
sacrifices of the Stallion.

The sorrel died gently, sinking down as the blood drained
out of him, slipping into the long sleep. Linden stayed with him till he no
longer breathed, watching over him, his face white and still.

Their quarry by now was long gone. Linden did not rebuke his
companions for failing to follow. He slipped the bridle from the sorrel’s head
and stepped away from the body. “May the god of horses protect your bones,” he
said.

Then he faced his companions. Some looked down abashed.
Others looked everywhere but at the king. All but Wolfcub, who looked Linden in
the face, and Spearhead, who was likewise lacking in proper submission.

“You go,” Linden said to them. “Bring them back to me—alive,
thieves and horses. The thieves’ lives are mine, do you understand? Bring them
back!”

“I understand,” Wolfcub said. Spearhead nodded.

“Go,” said Linden. Nor was there any choice but to obey.

Wolfcub and Spearhead rode swiftly away from the king, but
once they were out of his sight, they slowed to a more sensible pace. Wolfcub’s
heart and throat were both clenched tight. Of all the
  
ways he had expected Sparrow’s rebellion to end, this
was not one he had thought of. Riding away on the white mare, yes—that he could
credit. But taking the king of stallions was madness.

With the mare alone she might have escaped; it was only a
mare, even if one of the royal herd. But the king stallion was the heart of all
that the People were. He summoned them to their wanderings. He ordained their
pauses and their camps. He made and then carried their king.

Sparrow had taken the kingship away from the People. She
could not, if she tried, have made more certain that she was hunted down and
killed.

He was her hunter. He who loved her, though she had never
known or cared. The friend of her childhood, and her ally of late against her
brother the shaman. She had bidden him look after Linden—and now, in doing
that, he had to submit her to the grim justice of the People.

He would far rather have done it alone. But Spearhead was a
quiet companion, not given to chatter or to unnecessary galloping about. His
plain, practical bay strode along easily beside Wolfcub’s homely dun. After a
while he spoke, but it was to the point. “We’ll not catch them by running after
them.”

“No,” said Wolfcub, forcing the word through his constricted
throat. “No, we won’t. We’ll have to be hunters, and they the deer.”

“The king is not going to like it if we take too long.”

“We’ll take as long as it takes,” Wolfcub said through set
teeth.

Spearhead nodded, then shook his head and sighed. “The king stolen
from the gathering itself—and by a woman. Who’d ever have imagined it?”

Wolfcub raised a brow. “A woman? Are you mad?”

“Don’t play the fool,” Spearhead said. “I saw the shape of
her, if no one else did.”

Wolfcub sighed. “So,” he admitted, “did I.”

Spearhead glanced sidelong at him. “Tell me what you know of
her.”

“Should I know anything?”

“It’s the shaman’s daughter, isn’t it? The little dark one.
She’s a witchy creature. I crossed her once, I forget for what. Her tongue has
an edge like a fresh-knapped blade.”

“So. You recognized her?”

“So did you. I’ve seen you talking to her. And the other
one—don’t tell me that’s who it seems to be.”

Wolfcub set his lips together.

“That can’t be Walker’s wife. Can it?”

Wolfcub shrugged.

“Well,” Spearhead said, “and well. She wasn’t happy with his
taking a new wife, was she? Is that why they both did it, do you think? For
spite?”

“It’s a great and terrible thing to do for spite.”

“It is that,” said Spearhead, “if you have a man’s wits.
Women—who knows what they think? Or how? Or even if they do?”

“They do think,” Wolfcub said, snapping it.

“Ah,” Spearhead said, as if he had suddenly understood
something—but what, Wolfcub could not guess.

Nor would he ask. He pressed his dun to move a little ahead
of the bay, and set himself to following the women’s track more closely. They
had stopped running straight and had begun to weave a little, not for weakness,
he did not think, but maybe in some hope of throwing off pursuit. Sparrow at
least should have known better, if she suspected that Wolfcub would go after
her.

She might expect that he would stay with Linden, and that
whoever hunted her would be less skilled and much less likely to understand her
mind. Not that Wolfcub claimed anything of the sort, but he had known her since
she was a child. He knew what she was likely to do, given choices.

He could let her throw him off the scent. It would be easy.
A day, two, three—follow a false trail, lose the true one altogether, go back
and face Linden’s wrath. But Sparrow would be safe.

He could not do that. He had given his word to her that he
would look after Linden; and Linden was his king. For the king’s sake, and for
the sake of the People, he must bring back the king of stallions. Or the People
would have no strength, and the gods would forsake them.

He followed the women’s track therefore, grimly, with none
of his wonted pleasure in his skill. Of the People, only one man was the better
tracker, and that one was his father.

Spearhead was not too unskilled at it, either. He found a
place where their quarry had paused to drink from a little stream and to graze
the horses. “They’ll be wanting to eat,” he said. “Would women know how to
hunt?”

“These would,” Wolfcub said. “And they can fish, if they
make for the river that runs south of here.”