Lady of Horses (27 page)

“We’ll catch them soon enough,” Spearhead said. “Two women,
even if they can hunt—how strong can they be?”

“Stronger than you might think,” Wolfcub said. He mounted
his dun and left Spearhead standing there, following the trail down the stream
and then across it.

Yes, it seemed they were making for the river. If they
forded that, they left the lands that were common to the tribes of the plain.
He knew somewhat of what was beyond: a plain not so broad and somewhat greener,
broken by forests of trees, outriders of great forests to the south.

This was the country from which Sparrow’s mother had come.
That tribe was gone, her mother the last of it, but others lived here and
there, small dark people who as often as not took shelter in the forests.

Some of them had horses and some were riders, but how many
or what skill they had, Wolfcub did not know. He had never thought to ask his
friends of the Tall Grass, whose lands ran along the river. They raided the
green country and intermarried with the dark women.

Ah well, he thought. He would learn soon enough, if Sparrow
did as he thought she would. She would look for refuge among the dark people.
If they did not kill her, they might even welcome her—until the People came
against her with the full force of war.

Maybe she would come to her senses. Maybe she would let the
stallion go. Maybe—if he could persuade her to give him the stallion, he could
go back and leave her where she was, and convince Linden not to pursue his
vengeance.

He could do that. Yes. It was not dishonorable. She had not
meant to steal the stallion, he was sure of it. The pretty idiot had been
following the mare.

With a somewhat lighter heart, he went on, keeping a pace
that was steady but not grueling. When the trail wove and doubled back, he went
straight. He might even catch them before they reached the river.

That would be well; he could take back the stallion and send
them across the river. Exile was a terrible thing, more terrible than death to
most of the People—Linden might even accept that as a proper punishment.

Wolfcub might be deluding himself. But it kept him going
when he would have preferred to stop and howl at the moon. It gave him
something to hope for.

oOo

Sparrow had never expected the king stallion to follow
when she took the mare and ran. That was a mad enough thing, but the mare was
wild to go—pulling at her spirit, robbing her of will or sense. The mare was a
goddess. She cared nothing and less than nothing for the men who saw her with
her chosen one.

Then when she had got Sparrow on her back, the idiot
stallion had insisted on going with her. By the time Sparrow understood that
the mare could not carry two and still escape pursuit, Sparrow had also
understood what her only choice must be. The mare showed her the way to it: let
the stallion come up beside her, and leaned just so. It was oh so easy to catch
the flying silver mane and let the force of their speed pull her across.

The king of stallions did not rebel at her touch or cast her
off in outrage. His little lean ears flicked back. He snorted a little as if
her weight surprised him. She was much lighter than the man who had been riding
him, and rather less inclined to pinch.

The flow of his gait, the turn of his ear, spoke of his
pleasure. He even danced a little when the mare slowed to breathe, tossing his
mane. He was a lighter spirit than the mare, more frivolous.

But he was determined to stay with the mare. When they
paused by the stream to drink, to let the horses graze, and to eat berries from
a bramble that grew up over the stream, Sparrow tried to send him away.

He paid no attention to spoken dismissals. Slaps made him
trot off a step or two, then drop his head to graze.

When she picked up a stone, a large white figure interposed
itself. The mare grazed placidly between her and the stallion, nor would she
move: if Sparrow stepped aside, she was there, quiet but firm. Sparrow was not
to chase the stallion away.

“You do know,” Sparrow said to her, “since you are a
goddess, that his being here is going to get us all killed.”

The mare ignored her. So did the stallion. Keen, who might
have paid attention, was lying on the grass by the stream, asleep or close to
it.

In sudden concern, Sparrow dropped beside her, peering into
her face, feeling her forehead. She roused at that, blinking up at Sparrow’s
face. “Sparrow? Is it morning?”

Before Sparrow could answer, she shook herself, sitting up,
taking in the horses and the stream and the wide stretch of the plain.

She shuddered, clasping arms about her middle. “We’ve done
it this time, haven’t we? We’ve done the one thing no one will ever forgive us
for.”

“I’m afraid so,” Sparrow said. “I’m sorry you got caught up
in it.”

Keen stared at her. “Caught? I caused it! If I hadn’t
convinced you to run away—”

“I was running away before I saw you,” Sparrow said. She
sighed and let herself sink down beside Keen. It felt suddenly wonderful not to
be standing or sitting, to be letting Mother Earth hold her. “We’re meant to do
this. It’s Horse Goddess. She wants—for whatever reason, she wants us here, and
the stallion.”

“Gods are difficult,” Keen said. She yawned. “Oh, I’m tired.
But we can’t stay here, unless you think we’re meant to die before we’ve been
gone half a day.”

“I’m not sure we’re meant to die at all.” Sparrow rose
reluctantly, groaning—her muscles had stiffened already. What Keen must be
feeling, she did not like to imagine. But Keen said nothing.

They mounted again, Keen with Sparrow’s help, and went on as
quickly as the horses would consent to go. The mare led, carrying Keen. The
stallion followed.

Sparrow found his gaits easier than the mare’s, smoother and
softer. She could let herself drowse on his back as men did on the march, erect
or else lying on his neck. He was tolerant of it, for so young a creature, and
a stallion besides. Small wonder that Horse Goddess cherished him: he was
biddable, as a mare reckoned a male should be, but strong enough when strength
was required of him.

The mare led them on past sunset, then at last let them
rest, hidden in a hollow. There was grass enough for the horses, but the women
had only water in the skins that each had brought and filled at the stream, and
a few berries, and a bit of dried meat from Keen’s store.

Tomorrow, Sparrow thought, they should camp earlier, and she
would set snares. Provided that they were not caught. Provided that they lived
to see another sunset.

Cloud was entirely out of patience. Whatever god of
mischief had invented both yearling colts and half-grown girls, he all too
clearly had intended them to drive Cloud mad. When they were both together—the
colts besetting the mares till the mares were thirsty for their blood, and the
girls egging the colts on for the delight of seeing the mares’ rage—they were
enough to drive the herdsman to distraction.

He could set the dogs to herding the colts back where they
belonged, but the girls were more elusive. They scattered when he rode at them,
then simply ran back together when he was past, jeering and making ghastly
faces.

All at once they scattered and stayed scattered. He greeted
his mother with relief that he hoped was not too desperate. She, mounted on her
strong grey mare, watched the children’s flight with lifted brow. “I wonder,”
she said, “how the lot of them would take to a good birch switch?”

“I should love to discover,” Cloud said feelingly.

Storm laughed. She was a comfortable woman to look at, deep
of breast and hip, and gifted with ample flesh even in a lean winter. In summer
she needed her mare’s strength, but she rode well always, as light on the
mare’s back as a girl.

She looked over the horse-herd with a discerning eye, and
nodded approval. “They’ve done well this summer,” she said. “So many new
foals—and so strong. Horse Goddess willing, most of them will last out the
winter.”

“I think so,” Cloud said, not sorry to be diverted from the
pranks of impudent girlchildren. “With as many calves as we’ve had, too, we’ll
do well in winter camp. And if the women do their part . . .”

“Wicked child,” Storm said, but without censure. “If the
women do their part with you, do you mean?”

“Or with anyone else,” he said. He coaxed a tangle out of
his mare’s mane, until she grew tired of his fussing and went back to her
grazing. “I should like us to be richer. More numerous, too. We’re not what we
were in the dawn time, but we can be a great people again. Why not? We have
horses, and they prosper with us. We can fight if we have to. If we would raid
across the river—”

Storm’s frown stilled his tongue before it ran on further.
“If we are ever ready to make war,” she said, stern as she seldom was with him,
“that will not be this year, or even next. We’re richer than we were, but we’re
still a poor people. Our way is the hare’s way, close to the ground, swift and
wary—not the way of the horse running proud over the plain.”

“But we should be horses,” Cloud said. “We’re Grey Horse
People. Not Slinking Hare or Cowering Mouse.”

“War is a boy’s dream,” Storm said. “What, did I misremember
it? Did we never make you a man at the midsummer feast? And my heir, too?”

He flushed. “Maybe you should have chosen one of your
sisters’ daughters after all. Not your only son, who knows no better than to
wish his people great again.”

She was not to be swayed by such force. She regarded him
calmly, with the same expression she wore when people were obstreperous in a
gathering of the tribe. In that way she reminded him, without a word spoken,
that he might be prince-heir, but she was king of the Grey Horse People,
strongest of all her mother’s children, and gifted with both kingship and
powerful magic.

Cloud was not a shaman, nor would he be. He was not born to
the power. One of his cousins apprenticed to his mother—and indeed most people
had expected that she would choose her sister’s daughter Rain to be king after
her, and not name her son instead. They two were born on the same day, of
sisters who were twinborn. They were bound from before birth, and fated to rule
side by side, shaman and king.

Or so Storm and the elders had said when Cloud was given the
horsehide cloak and the herdsman’s staff. It was of little moment out among the
horses, with Storm disinclined to indulge his dreaming. When he was king, it
would be different. While he was heir, he would do as she bade him.

It was not an easy discipline. She brushed his cheek with
her hand, ruffling the curly beard. “Child,” she said, “in your day you will be
a king of notable wisdom. But until then, indulge me. Teach yourself to be
patient.”

“Patience is not a young man’s virtue,” he said, but less
sullenly than he might. It was difficult to stay in a temper with her smiling
at him, daring him to see the humor in it. With a snarl that was at most
halfhearted, he bowed to her will.

oOo

Cloud camped with the herd that night, because the women
who would have been the night guards were occupied with one of their sisters:
she was birthing her first child. Cloud did not mind. It was a fine evening,
clear and not too terribly warm. At sunset he settled in the camping place on a
hill that overlooked the grazing grounds, and ate the dinner that his mother
had brought him.

The sky darkened as he ate, and the stars came out. There
was a thin new moon, delicate as a young girl’s cheek. The hounds, whom he had
sent to circle the herd, to be sure that nothing threatened the foals, came
back to lie panting at his feet.

Not long after full dark, the dogs’ heads came up. Cloud had
been drowsing, part of him alert for signs of trouble among the horses. He
snapped awake.

A figure came toward him in the thin moonlight, glimmering
white, seeming to float above the silvered grass. It seemed a goddess made
flesh, and wonderful flesh, too: round and sweet, full-breasted and
deep-hipped, clothed only in long black hair.

She bent over him. Her broad nipples were dark in firelight
and moonlight, her face hidden in the shadows of her hair. She smelled of grass
and smoke and horses, warm woman and sweet herbs, and over them all the scent
of flowers. She had crowned herself with them, petals hardly softer than her
skin.

Cloud wore only leggings against the night’s warmth. She
unfastened the clout that covered his member, laughing softly as it sprang
free, rampant in the moonlight. Her warm hand grasped it and guided it inside
her, where she was warm to burning.

She rode him as if he had been one of the stallions, the
tall bay whom she favored most, with his beautiful red-brown coat and his waving
black mane. Her fingers tangled in Cloud’s hair, which was as thick as the
stallion’s and as black, and curled with abandon. Her lips brushed his,
teasing, tormenting, as she held him just short of release.

He could not bear it. He would break; he would scream. She
grasped him with sudden and startling strength, rolled onto her back and pulled
him over her, and then at last had mercy.

He sank down gasping beside her. He was streaming with
sweat. She licked a runnel of it from his shoulder. “Don’t fall asleep yet,”
she said. “I’m not done with you.”

He opened his mouth, indignant. She laid her hand over it.
“Hush. Look at the moon. Isn’t she lovely tonight?”

The moon was exquisite. So was she. He ran his hand over her
breasts, down to the faint curve of her belly.

She smiled and rested her hand over his, freeing him to
speak if he would. Which after a while he did. “It’s well?”

“Very well,” she said in a tone of deep contentment. “And will
be till spring.”

He sighed. When she said such things, she comforted him
greatly. She was not an ordinary woman wishing for the best. She was a shaman.
If she said it would be well, so it would.