Lady of Horses (50 page)

Kestrel nodded. “I think so. They’re to be trusted. Some of
the warband, too. Not the men of the Red Deer. I think they’re his. I think
Tall Grass is serving him in the gathering while Red Deer serves him here. And . . .”
He hesitated. “I think . . . my lord, would you be willing to
make alliance with the Grey Horse?”

“We’re going to raid them,” Linden said in surprise, “and
steal back my stallion.”

“We may not need to raid,” said Kestrel. “If they’re ready
for us, and I think they are, they won’t attack us before we attack them. We
can ride in as guests.”

“I don’t know,” Linden said. “The men are expecting a fight.
They won’t like this.”

“Tell them,” said Kestrel, “that Grey Horse women are as
free as men, and that if a man asks, and asks politely, a woman will happily
lie with him. But he must ask—he can’t take.”

Linden’s eyes gleamed even in the near-dark. “Really? They
really will?”

“Truly,” said Kestrel. “Their younger shaman, who is a
woman, came to me and lay with me, bold as a man, and skilled—my lord, you
never knew such skill.”

“Gods,” breathed Linden. “Do you think—would she—?”

“She would like you very much,” said Kestrel. “And she would
find you quite amazingly beautiful.”

“Is she beautiful?”

“Like a fine bay mare,” Kestrel said.

“Ah,” said Linden. He rose as if in a dream and wandered
back to his fire and his companions.

There was a pause. Kestrel could feel his father’s
amusement. “That,” said Aurochs at length, “was divinely inspired. Did you just
think of it?”

“Didn’t you?”

Aurochs laughed softly. “I confess I didn’t. I was hoping
we’d be able to sweep in, raid, and get out; then pray we could gather enough of
the warband to fight off Walker’s faction. I’m thinking that what the people
have done in this country, he’s done north of the river—it’s most suspicious
that we met only the Red Deer and never passed by any other camps at all,
except Tall Grass; and that was empty.”

“You think he’s got another warband following us?”

“It’s possible,” Aurochs said. “I’ve scouted as I can, but
if they’re following, they’re farther back than I like to go.”

“Then even if the Grey Horse unites with us against Walker’s
men, we’ll be faced with a war when we try to go back home.”

“Not if Walker is dead.”

Kestrel stared at his father. “You’d do that?”

“I’m not sure I dare,” said Aurochs. “But if his sister is
as you say, she well may be willing. And able. How strong is she? Truly?”

“Stronger than any shaman I’ve known,” Kestrel said.

“Stronger than her father?”

“Much stronger.”

“And she hates her brother.”

Kestrel found that his fists were clenched. “I don’t know if
I can do that—or if I’ll let anyone else do it, either. What would it do to her
spirit to kill her own kin?”

“Her brother was doing his best to kill their father.”

“Walker’s spirit is a dark and twisted thing,” Kestrel said.
“Hers is beautiful, and bright as the sun at noon. Brighter.”

“You do love her,” Aurochs said musingly. “I think we should
find her. Then we’ll see what we can see.”

“Maybe I should do the killing,” Kestrel said. “Or arrange
an accident.”

“That one is too canny for accidents,” said Aurochs. “And if
it’s known that you killed him, you’ll die for it. It’s a terrible crime to
kill a shaman.”

“Worse than killing a king?” Kestrel lay on his back, hands
laced beneath his head, filling his eyes with stars. “I’ve killed a boar by
accident and a lion by necessity. Why not a shaman by both? I’ll have his skull
for a drinking cup.”

“I think,” said Aurochs, “that you should wait until we’ve
found his sister.”

“She won’t let me do it.”

“Yes,” Aurochs said.

Kestrel drew a deep breath, held it, let it go all at once.
“Do you know what I’m thinking? Beyond all the rest? That she’ll help us not
for me but for Linden. She’s always been besotted with that pretty face.”

“Has she?” said Aurochs.

“Yes. Ever since we were children. He never looked at
her—why should he? He could have any woman he wanted. But now she’s what she
is. He likes a prettier face than she has, but he loves power. And I’m thinking . . .
here in the south, a woman may have as many men as she pleases.”

“You think she’ll bed him.”

Kestrel nodded. “I’m a fool, aren’t I? Jealous of a king. I
don’t want to be one, not ever in the world. But if I could have Linden’s face—”

“You wouldn’t want it,” Aurochs said. “He’ll be losing his
hair in a few years, and his sort runs to fat. You’ll only get better as you
age.”

Kestrel laughed, catching painfully in his ribs. “Oh, yes!
They all say I look like you. But that’s years away, and he’s beautiful now,
with that yellow hair. She’s a shaman, she’s a woman of great power and wisdom,
and I love her beyond endurance—and she is still infatuated with him.”

“Youth,” said Aurochs, “is a dire thing. Go to sleep, boy,
and stop your fretting. I’ll lay you a wager. If she lies with him, she’ll do
it once, just to have done it. Then she’ll come back to you—and she’ll never
look away from you again.”

“You think I should let it happen.”

“I doubt you can stop it, if she’s set on it.”

“There is that,” Kestrel sighed. “Do you think I—”

“I think you should sleep. We’ll be tracking a tribe
tomorrow, and beginning a game that could end in death for us all. Best we be
rested before we begin.”

That was wise. Of course it was. Aurochs was the wisest man
Kestrel knew; wiser than any shaman.

But Kestrel was still inclined to fret over Sparrow and
Linden. It was better than some of the other things, and Walker most of all.
Walker could not be allowed to live. Not after all this was done. It was a cold
truth, and a hard one. But in the end there was no escaping it.

Three days before the new moon, they found the camp of the
Grey Horse People. It was nearer than Kestrel had expected; indeed they had
camped far north. They were waiting, he knew. Facing what they were destined to
face.

Linden had done his best, and that, among the warriors, was
very good indeed. Most of the warband were eager to approach as guests and to share
the vaunted generosity of these southern women.

Walker offered no objection. Kestrel had not expected that
he would. For what Aurochs thought he had in mind, it only mattered that both
Linden and the stallion be in his power on the night of the new moon.

Kestrel noticed that one of the Red Deer men—the girlish
boy, in fact, who had pleasured the king—was missing. He must have gone, then,
to bear a message. Which meant that there was indeed a second warband behind
them.

There was a kind of calm in it. This long hunt was nearing
its end. Kestrel was ready for whatever might come.

oOo

They camped for the night not far from the Grey Horse
camp. Some of the greater fools wanted to press on, to reach the dark-eyed
wanton women sooner. But Linden for once was determined to be patient.

“We’ll come to them in the morning,” he said, “with our best
faces on, and no threat of war. And remember—don’t take any of these women.
Ask. We want allies, not enemies.”

They all agreed to that, some less willingly than others.
Linden appeared to be satisfied. Kestrel determined to be.

Tomorrow he would see Sparrow. However great her anger,
however bitter her condemnation of what he had done, even if she turned from
him to Linden, still he would see her. The thought made him dizzy with a
mingling of joy and fear.

oOo

They were up at dawn and riding by full light. All of them
were arrayed as if for a festival, or as much as they could be after so long a
riding. Such ornaments as they had, they wore. Their hair was plaited, their
coats cleaned as much as could be. Their horses’ manes were braided with
feathers and bright stones and even flowers. All their weapons were put away,
bows unstrung and riding in their cases, only their knives close to hand for a
fight.

They were a handsome company, and their king was glorious to
see. He had managed to bring with him a kingly coat and clean white leggings,
and a great collar of shells and bone and beads, and other, lesser ornaments
that were still impressively rich. He looked as a king should look, tall and
golden and proud, mounted on his lovely dun stallion.

He insisted that Kestrel ride at his right hand. People
murmured only lightly at that, and some was for the fact that Aurochs rode
close behind: the two so alike, father and son, and Aurochs mounted on the
younger of Kestrel’s greys besides, to heighten the resemblance. They made a
brave show, everyone agreed.

Walker was part of it. He rode on Linden’s left in his long
white tunic, with his hair blowing free, looking the very image of a shaman.
But to Kestrel’s eyes he was a shadow, a glimmer without substance.

oOo

The Grey Horse People were waiting for them. Their camp
was ordered as Kestrel remembered, no defenses, nothing changed or darkened in
preparation for attack. But he noticed that the back of it lay under the eaves
of a wood. The people could retreat within if there was need.

It seemed a full camp, with children and dogs running out to
greet the strangers, and their elders following, many afoot, but some mounted
on fine grey horses. Those came together, Storm on her heavy-boned mare, Cloud
and Rain on smaller, lighter horses, and a few others behind.

Sparrow was not there. Kestrel could not see or feel her.
She might have been gone from the world; except that if she had died, he would
know it. She had simply vanished.

Storm rode from among her people with her air of royal ease
that was so disconcerting at first to a man from the north. The way she
approached, the ornaments she wore, the leggings of doeskin tanned as soft as
butter, made it clear who she was. There was also no question that she was a
woman; she was bare-breasted as always in warm weather. So too was Rain in the
shaman’s place at her left hand.

Linden’s eyes were like to fall from his head; Kestrel could
well imagine what the men were doing behind. Some of them he could hear: they
were panting like dogs.

Storm appeared to take no notice. But Rain knew what she was
doing to these outland warriors. She rode straighter than she was wont to do,
and kept her shoulders well back.

Her eyes had a gleam in them that Kestrel knew well. She
would make mischief as she could. He only hoped that she did not provoke one of
the warband into something everyone would regret.

“Welcome,” said Storm in trader-tongue, “king of the White
Stone People. You’ve been long awaited.”

Linden looked ready to swallow his tongue. But he managed to
stammer, “You—you were waiting for us?”

Storm inclined her head. “Will you be our guests? We’ve
prepared a feast for you, and a place for your men to camp, and for your
horses. Though if you will, I would be pleased to welcome you into my tent as
my honored guest and my brother king.”

“I—would be pleased to—” Linden shook himself. “Yes. Yes,
you’re very generous.”

Storm smiled. “Come then,” she said.

oOo

She led them somewhat away from the camp to a broad field.
There a fire was built, and an ox roasting whole, and wild game, and a boar
turning slowly on a spit.

Kestrel glanced at Cloud when he saw that. Cloud was dressed
as the women were; he bore no new scars, nor wore the boar’s tusks. But Kestrel
did not doubt that the boar was his kill.

There in the field they set up camp, centering it on the
fire and the feast. The Grey Horse People streamed after them and past them, to
help with the tents and the lesser fires and to tantalize the warriors with the
sight of bold-eyed bare-breasted girls and women.

The warband remembered the command Linden had laid on it. No
one offered impertinence, or tried to seize a woman. Kestrel was rather proud
of them.

The king and the shaman and the king’s companions had no
need to raise a tent; Storm insisted that they must be guests in hers. For them
there was a canopy near the great fire, rolls of furs to recline on, and boys
and young girls to serve them baskets of fruit, cups of kumiss and berry wine,
and bits of cheese and sweet cake while they waited for the feast to be
prepared.

The child who waited on Kestrel and his father had a
familiar face, though she was trying to be dignified. When she knelt to offer
them her basket of berries, Kestrel scooped up a handful and said as casually
as he could, “Tell me where the shaman is.”

“Why,” said the child, whose name, he recalled, was
Squirrel, “she’s yonder.” She tipped her chin toward Rain, who sat beside the
king. There was a child in her arms, suckling at the breast: a dark-eyed,
dark-curled infant who reminded Kestrel, somehow, of Cloud.

He would think of that later, and admire Rain’s firstborn,
too. His mind now was on another thing. “Not that one,” he said to Squirrel.
“The other one. The foreign one.”

Squirrel’s round eyes were guileless. “I’m sure I don’t
know, lord hunter,” she said.

Kestrel bit his tongue and kept silent. She went on to serve
Cloud, who must have overheard; but like everyone else, he was pretending to be
oblivious. When he spoke, it was of trivial things, as if Kestrel had been a
stranger.

That, Kestrel could not bear. “Stop it,” he said. He kept
his voice down, but it was sharp nonetheless. “I’ll let her reveal herself when
she deigns to do it, but I won’t be treated as if you never saw me before. I
don’t care if you hate me—at least be honest about it.”

“I don’t hate you,” Cloud said. He sounded surprised and a
little dismayed. “Is that what you’ve been thinking? I’d be a hard man indeed
if I hated you for this.”

“For leading a warband against you?”