Lady of Horses (8 page)

Very well, he thought. Since she insisted, he told her the
truth. He even told her of the shaman’s challenge to Linden, which might not
have been wise at all, but he did not care. “It was an accident,” he said,
“that the boar died. He fell; the spear pierced him. I did nothing.”

“You stood fast while he came, and you set the spear where
it would be most deadly,” she said—very like Linden, indeed. “That was a brave
thing you did. And braver yet, what you did to the shaman.”

Wolfcub flushed. “I’ll pay a price for that. He won’t
forget.”

“Most likely not,” she said calmly. “Still, it was well
done. Even a shaman can get above himself, and that one . . .” She
trailed off; then shook her head. “Well. That’s as may be. Come now, kiss me.”

She said it so suddenly and so imperiously that he obeyed
her before he thought. It was a long kiss, sweet as if with honey. Her hands
did wonderful things in the midst of it, stroking his back and sides,
and—greatest wonder of all—rousing his rod anew, far sooner than he would have
thought possible.

She drew back from the kiss, but her hand stroked his rod
still. She was smiling. “Youth,” she said, “is a marvelous thing.”

He could hardly disagree. She opened to him, taking him
inside herself, but holding him—reining him in, drawing it out, as long and
fully as sweet as her kiss. When he could not bear it for one more instant,
when he was ready to scream for release, then at last, and only then, she let
him go.

A cry escaped him, a shout of surprise. She smiled and
brought him to the end of it, till he lay gasping, spent, with all his body
thrumming like the bowstring after the arrow has flown.

Gods,
he thought.
Dear gods.
But not for the height of her
skill or the strength of the release. No; those were to be expected. The
greatest wonder, the one that would remain with him long after his body’s
trembling had quieted, was the warmth of her smile. There was something a
little sad in it, and something a little wry. It was a wonder, a marvel of a
smile.

And that, he knew, was why she was the king’s favorite. For
that smile.

When Wolfcub came out of the king’s tent in the morning,
he had a sheen on him that no one could mistake. Certainly the men could not,
either the young ones or the old: they mocked him for it, but lightly, as men
will for one of their own. The whole camp knew by then that he had chosen the
woman called Fawn, who was the king’s favorite.

The king himself applauded the choice and bade him share the
royal breakfast, seated at the king’s right hand, with Linden the prince on
Wolfcub’s other side.

Already people were circling, watching, weighing this new
favorite. Some of his more callow brothers were strutting about in the glory of
their kinship, and letting fools even more callow appoint them messengers for
this favor or that. His father might have had something to say of such
foolishness, but Aurochs was away on a hunt.

Sparrow hoped that he would come back soon. Aurochs was a
level-headed man, as she had thought his son was inclined to be—but Wolfcub was
young, and Fawn had a great name among the women for her skill in bending men
to her will. She could snatch a man’s wits and turn him into a blind and
seeking thing, a rod with eyes, as old Mallard had been heard to mutter.
Mallard had no use for Fawn. “She’s not a witch,” the old woman said; “she’s
not got the wits for that. But she has the gods’ own gift for bewitching a man.”

Sparrow thought that perhaps Mallard was jealous. Mallard
had been beautiful when she was young, but age had not been kind to her. Fawn
had a beauty that would grow old slowly and only become finer, till it was
stripped to the fine white bone. She knew it, as she could hardly fail to do,
but she was not arrogant about it, nor did she sneer at Sparrow as some of the
captives did. She had a calm way about her, a cool acceptance of her place in
the world, that Sparrow found rather more pleasing than not.

But Sparrow was not at all pleased that she had worked her
wiles on the Wolfcub. Sparrow had thought better of them both.

oOo

It was not as long as she had feared before she could get
at Wolfcub. After he broke his fast with the king, he managed to slip away—but
not before Sparrow saw where he went.

It was a hunter’s trick, but she had learned it, and from
Wolfcub, no less. One moment he was there, with all eyes on him. The next, he
was gone, and people had a vague memory of his murmuring about changing out of
his good tunic and then maybe going to swim in the river.

The tunic was an excuse, but a true one. Sparrow caught him
coming out of the young men’s tent, dressed in leggings but no tunic, with a
hunting bow in his hand and a quiver on his back, and a bag that held perhaps a
tunic and a bit to eat and provisions for a journey, whether long or short. He
looked like himself again, awkward gangling Wolfcub with his hair in untidy
plaits; the princely creature of the night before was gone, folded away with
his best tunic.

That slowed her enough that he almost eluded her. He was not
going to the river; that had been a ruse. He was going to find the horses, and
then, she supposed, to hunt as he often did.

She let him think he had lost her, turning hunter herself,
taking another and quicker way to the place where Wolfcub’s ugly little
stallion liked to graze. As she had expected, the stallion was there, but
Wolfcub was somewhat behind her. She filled the time by brushing out the
beast’s dirt-colored coat with a twist of grass, and picking burrs out of its
rusty black mane. It had acknowledged her when she came, but gone back to
grazing, like the sensible creature it was.

oOo

She was ready when Wolfcub came, well and carefully apart
from the horses, favoring him with a wide and sunny smile. “Good morning, O
lord of hunters,” she said. “Are you well pleased with yourself and your
world?”

He blanched, as well he might, but he was never one to turn
and bolt, even from Sparrow in a temper. He stood his ground, and regarded her
with exasperating calm. “Is there any reason why I should not be pleased?”

“None at all,” she said brightly. “Fawn is a marvel, isn’t
she?”

His eyes widened. “You know—”

“Everybody knows Fawn,” Sparrow said. “Or at least, all the
women do. Men only notice women when the women are being of some use to them.”

He flushed. “Men can lose their jewels for looking at women
who don’t belong to them.”

“Exactly,” Sparrow said.

He opened his mouth, but shut it again. His eyes narrowed.
“You’re jealous.”

“Oh, you want me to be?”

“You’re angry,” he said slowly, as if that were a
revelation. “You really are jealous. You wish I hadn’t gone into the king’s
tent. Don’t you?”

“If you hadn’t gone in, you would have insulted the king.”
Sparrow did not like to say it, but it was true. “Of course you had to go. And
of course you chose Fawn. Only an idiot would pass up that chance.”

“She was the closest,” he said with some heat. “I barely
even saw her.”

“I’m sure,” said Sparrow.

“It’s true!” And she believed that: Wolfcub did not lie. “I
suppose,” he said, “she meant it to happen that way. That’s part of her art,
isn’t it? To know such things. To make them happen.”

“She doesn’t often have to,” Sparrow said.

“Well,” said Wolfcub. “I’m a fool, if not exactly an idiot.
And you’re jealous.”

“What have I to be jealous of? I don’t incline toward
women.”

That made him blush scarlet, to her considerable
satisfaction. He might have bolted then, if she had not been standing between
him and his horse.

“You don’t want me,” he said. “But you don’t want anyone
else to want me, either.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Isn’t it?” He stepped round her. He paused for an instant,
seeing how clean the stallion was, burrs picked out of his tail and tangles out
of his mane. But he seemed not to realize how that had come about. He shrugged
and slipped the bridle over his stallion’s ears.

She thought he would mount and ride away, but he paused. In
that pause she said, “I’m not jealous. I’m annoyed. I haven’t been able to get
near you since you went on that madness of a hunt. My brother put Linden up to
it, didn’t he? That’s why you went.”

Wolfcub had quicker wits than most men: he could shift the
path of his thought without excessive floundering about. “Yes, that’s why I
went. If you knew that, why are you asking me?”

“Because I wanted to be sure. Does Walker want Linden dead?”

“I . . .” Wolfcub paused, frowning, pondering
what she had said. “I don’t think so. I thought he might, but . . .
no. He wanted Linden in danger, but he doesn’t want Linden’s life. He’s up to
something else.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know,” Wolfcub said.

“He’s pressing me for visions,” said Sparrow. “He’s plotting
something, you can be sure of it.”

Wolfcub did not ask what she meant about the visions. He
knew. He was the only one who did, or who would believe her. “He wants
visions?” Wolfcub’s grey eyes darkened. “And he sent the king’s son on an
errand that, if it didn’t kill him, would gain him a fine share of honor among
the men.”

“Except that you overshadowed him.”

“Yes,” Wolfcub said. “I didn’t intend to. All I wanted was
to make sure Linden was safe. I never meant to kill the boar.”

“The gods saw to that,” Sparrow said. And when he stared at
her: “What, that’s a great revelation? Of course they did! My brother has to
know that—and I doubt very much that he’s happy.”

“I know he’s not,” Wolfcub said, not as if it frightened
him, but he did not make light of it, either. “Whatever he’s doing, I’ll wager
it has something to do with the king. Everyone knows Linden’s his favorite
son.”

“And,” said Sparrow, “it’s a ninth year.”

“Yes,” Wolfcub said. “You don’t think—”

“I think the king is older than he was, and Linden is young
and beautiful and none too quick of wit. And,” said Sparrow, “I think my
brother knows this all too well.”

“That is not a comfortable thought,” said Wolfcub.

Sparrow set her lips together. No, it was not comfortable.
She had not meant it to be. “Go on your hunt,” she said. “Think on this. And if
you happen to come across your father . . .”

“I’ll tell him,” Wolfcub said.

“Do that,” said Sparrow. “Now go.”

But he hovered still. “Maybe I should stay. Maybe—”

“No,” she said. “I’ll keep watch here. Come back as soon as
you can. If you bring your father with you—so much the better.”

He understood. She had known he would. He might have
dallied, but she fixed a glare on him, fierce enough that he had caught the
reins and sprung onto his horse’s back, perhaps, before he stopped to think.

“Go,” she said to the stallion. The stallion, like a
sensible beast, obeyed.

oOo

Wolfcub looked back once as he rode away. Sparrow stood
watching him, as he had expected. There was something standing behind her. At
first he thought it was a cloud, or a trick of the light; then it moved. It was
a horse, grey as a cloud, lowering an elegant head to nuzzle Sparrow’s neck.
She did not turn, did not start, but reached up with all the calm in the world,
and stroked the pale cheek and the dark muzzle.

Almost Wolfcub wheeled his stallion about and went charging
back, but the horse was not in the mood to listen. Wolfcub gave in, for once.
He had enough to think of as it was. Sparrow with a white horse—mare, he would
have wagered, and he would have laid his best spear on the herd it came
from—seemed, somehow, all of a piece with the rest of it.

He went on his hunt therefore, hunting not the red deer but
a man, his father who could be anywhere in this part of the world. Aurochs was
wise, wiser in Wolfcub’s estimation than any shaman. He would know what to make
of this. He might even know what to do about it.

Sparrow had been away from her father’s tent too much
since she reckoned it wise to stay out of Walker’s sight. When she came back
from seeing Wolfcub off, and then from riding the white mare wherever the mare
chose, which had been farther from the herd than Sparrow might have expected a
horse to go, every one of her father’s wives seemed to have decided at once
that they needed something from her. It was well after sunset before she was
done, and they were at her again in the dawn.

“Do my hair, Sparrow! Nobody else does it as well as you
do.” “My best tunic—see, the beading’s all torn out along the hem. Mend it,
Sparrow. Mend it quickly. Our lord has asked for me tonight.” “Come here,
Sparrow, grind this meal, and be quick! The men will be up before the bread is
made.”

And on and on, through a day that stretched endless, till
she ran headlong into an obstacle that grunted but did not give way.

She blinked stupidly at Keen. Keen smiled at her, a smile
that knew no trouble, even in the face of Sparrow’s abstraction.

Sparrow was running to fetch a basketful of dung for the
cookfire. Teal had taken it into her head to prepare a delicacy for Drinks-the-Wind,
the stomach of a newborn calf stuffed with grain and berries and herbs, and
roasted in heaped coals. Of course she must do it this very moment, and of
course the supply of fuel had run low; and none of the children happened to be
about, to fetch more.

Keen did not try to delay Sparrow on her errand, but she
followed lightly, saying, “It’s been ages since I saw you. Where have you been
keeping yourself?”

“Hither and yon,” Sparrow answered. She could never be rude
to Keen, or walk away from her, even knowing what Keen was married to, and what
she thought of him.

Keen did not know the truth of her husband. That much
Sparrow was sure of. Whether for fear of Keen’s father, who was a man of wealth
and power among the elders, or because it simply amused him, Walker was as kind
to his wife as he could be. That he had no other wife, nor gave Keen anyone to
help her look after his tent, was a matter for mild scandal among the women,
but Keen did not seem to mind. She had an air about her of enviable ease. Very
little disconcerted her, and she never seemed to struggle with the tasks that
gave Sparrow such fits of frustration. Keen, like Wolfcub, was good at
everything she did.