Lady of Horses (9 page)

Sparrow, whose only gift was to dream as a shaman dreams,
found it impossible to hate her. Keen was too pleasing a presence and too
undemanding a companion. She never seemed to want anything of Sparrow but her
company. She was the only one like that; everyone else either ignored Sparrow
altogether, or had need of her as a servant.

That had been so long before Keen was given to Walker; since
they were children, when the lovely gold-haired child attached herself with
inexplicable persistence to the small and sullen dark one. Keen saw no visions,
but listened when Sparrow spoke of hers; and in turn she spoke of the things
that mattered to a woman, small things of the tent, the women’s gathering, and
later on, her husband.

The world she lived in was sunlit, undarkened by shadows.
She knew that Sparrow’s visions were the same as Walker’s, but she did not seem
to understand that only Sparrow saw them; Walker took them and called them his
own. Sparrow had tried more than once to make her see this, but she would not.
“My husband is a great shaman,” she said with gentle firmness, and no anger
that Sparrow could discern. “He doesn’t need to steal from you, beloved, even
if he could want to.”

After a while Sparrow had given it up. Keen was blind,
willfully or otherwise.

Maybe it was best for her. She was married to him, after
all. Her honor was his honor. Her will must be obedient to his.

Today she was not thinking of him at all. She was full of
Wolfcub and the boar, as everyone else seemed to be. “Do you believe what he
did?” she asked in wonder. “Who’d have thought it? Not that I ever reckoned him
a coward, but he’s always been a quiet boy, more hunter than warrior. Who’d
have expected that he’d take the great boar, and save the prince’s life, too?”

“He says it was an accident,” Sparrow said a little
sullenly.

“He’s too modest.” They had come to the edge of the herds of
cattle. As Sparrow stooped to gather the dried dung, Keen helped her, moving
easily beside her, caught up in wonder at the feat. “And now he’s off hunting
again as if nothing had ever happened. That’s so like him. Any other of the
boys would hang about the camp for days, drinking kumiss and boasting.”

“Even Linden?” Sparrow asked, trying to be casual, but she
could feel the heat in her cheeks.

“Well,” said Keen with a glance that saw too much, and
laughed at it, “maybe not Linden. He’d only hang about for a day or two. Then
he’d be off in search of another boar to conquer.”

“Nobody seems to mind that it’s not Linden who did it,”
Sparrow said. “I’m surprised.”

Keen’s face did not cloud over, nor did she act as if she
knew what her husband had been doing. “Yes, people are a little surprised at
that,” she said, “but that’s the gods’ gift, clearly. He certainly isn’t
troubled by it.”

“Linden has a generous spirit,” Sparrow murmured.

Keen smiled. Her glance turned wicked. “Yes, and there’s
much else about him that’s generous, too. But Wolfcub—did you see how he looked
by the fire last night, with the king beside him? Wasn’t he handsome?”

Yes, he had been. But Sparrow was not about to admit it.
“He’s all arms and legs and eyes. And his shoulders stick out like a bird’s.”

“Not so much, any more,” Keen said. “Do you know what I
heard? Fawn has been wandering about all day with a dreamy look on her face.
She never looks like that after the king has shared her. Lark says she stops
sometimes and smiles. Wolfcub must be a wonder in the sleeping-furs, says
Lark.”

“Lark is a chattering fool.” Sparrow pitched a handful of
dung into the basket with such force that half of it leaped back out again.

“Lark says,” said Keen, not the least disconcerted by
Sparrow’s temper, “that when he comes back from this latest hunt, she means to
see if he’s as good as Fawn’s smile says he is.”

“And what will Lark’s father say to that?”

Keen laughed. “Why, nothing, of course! Black Bear is much
too busy keeping his sons in order, to notice what his daughter does.”

“He’ll notice when her belly swells, the way she carries
on.”

“Maybe not even then,” said Keen. She straightened,
stretched, smiled at the sky. When she looked about her again, she paused.
“Sparrow, look. That’s a horse. It’s watching us.”

Sparrow did not look. She could feel it on her skin. The
white mare had appeared somehow among the herd of cattle. The wonder of it was,
none of them challenged her. Even the bull did not approach her.

Of course he did not. She was a goddess. Now that Sparrow
knew, she could see how the mare shone like clouds over the moon.

As if Keen had taken the thought from Sparrow’s head, she
said, “See how bright she is. Isn’t she one of the horses who came to the
herds—what, a hand of winters ago now? It’s strange, the way she watches us. As
if she could speak, if she had a mind.”

“Horses don’t talk,” Sparrow said to the basket, which was
nearly full. A handful or two and she would be done.

She wanted to be done. But she dallied, scowling, refusing
to look at the mare, who so clearly wanted her to look. She could not afford
that betrayal. Not in sight of the camp. And certainly not in front of Walker’s
wife. Keen was the friend of her childhood, closer than a sister, but this was
a secret she could not safely share.

Keen was more intent on the horse than on Sparrow, which was
perhaps a merciful thing. “She’s beautiful. Like the moon. Like a new snowfall.
Do you think one of the boys will try to tame her?”

Sparrow’s rage rose so swiftly and so strongly that she
almost lost control of it. But somehow, by main strength, she held it down. She
spoke tightly, but she did not scream. She did not rail at Keen for saying what
was, after all, but an idle thing, and reasonable enough as far as Keen could
know. “No male would be caught on the back of a mare,” she said. “Even such a
mare as that.”

“Silly,” Keen said. “What stallion ever had such eyes? She
sees us, Sparrow. She’s actually looking at us. I wonder what she’s doing with
the cattle?”

“Maybe she’s never seen two women crouched in the grass
before,” Sparrow said. “And maybe we should go. If the men find out how close
we’ve come to one of the horses, they’ll not be pleased at all.”

“No,” Keen sighed. “They won’t.” She rose regretfully and
walked away, not pausing until she was at the distance deemed proper for a
woman whom necessity brought near the herds.

Sparrow left with considerably less regret but fully as much
reluctance. She could feel the mare’s eyes on her, the mind intent, willing her
to come away, to ride, to be free. But she could not do that. She was a woman
of the People. What she had done already, raising the mare, lingering with her,
riding her, was sacrilege that, if discovered, would cost her her life.

Not that she cared for that. But she did care that Keen
might be caught up in it. Keen must not know this of all Sparrow’s secrets.

She walked away therefore, without ever looking at the mare.
When she came level with Keen, Keen was standing, looking back, yearning in a
way that Sparrow knew all too well. “I wish . . .” she said. “I
wish we didn’t have to . . .”

But Keen did not finish the thought. It was close to
unthinkable as it was. She stiffened her shoulders and took the laden basket
from Sparrow’s fingers, and walked back quickly to the camp.

oOo

Keen liked to tell Walker of her days’ doings, if he came in
her early enough and if he seemed in the mood to listen. Usually he was, or
pretended to be. Maybe he simply enjoyed the sound of her voice prattling on as
she fed him his dinner and tended his belongings and, more often than not,
waited for him to be ready to bed her.

But she did not tell him of the white mare. Part was
prudence: telling him would force her to confess how close she and Sparrow had
come to a horse. The rest was—yes, was the desire to keep something to herself.

The mare was magical. Keen was not one who had a gift for
such things, but even a blind man could see what that creature was. And she had
looked at them—had looked at her, with eyes as dark as deep water, and such an
expression that even now she struggled to put a name to it. Intelligence, yes.
Curiosity? Maybe. Interest, to be sure.

The mare had noticed her and her companion. What that notice
meant, what it would mean hereafter, she did not know, and she was not minded
to ask her husband. Shaman he might be, but he was a man. He would see only the
profanation, never the magic.

She kept the secret, therefore, and chattered of other
things, things that she barely remembered even as she said them. Walker,
perhaps fortunately, was preoccupied himself. For a while she thought he would
not want her tonight, but as she bent her head and began to withdraw, he caught
her hand. She stopped. He did not move at first, simply held her. His fingers
were hot. They almost burned. She bit her lip but did not speak.

Suddenly he seemed to remember that she was there, and to
realize that he had a deathgrip on her hand. He loosened it somewhat but did
not let go. His eyes were dark in the lamplight, his face flat, empty of
expression. But his rod was high and hard, rising from beneath his tunic.

He took her without tenderness, without appearing to be
aware of her at all. Her body was stiff, unready; but she submitted as a wife
should, and tried to please him, though she was dry inside, and he hurt her,
driving at her, grinding his loins on hers.

He spent himself quickly, for a mercy, got up and
straightened his tunic and wandered away as if in the grip of a vision. She lay
aching, with a burning between her legs, and tears pricking her eyelids.
Foolish tears.

Sometimes he was like this. He was a shaman. If his gods
possessed him, there was little he or anyone could do, except to submit.

Tomorrow he would be himself again, tender, solicitous,
bringing her a balm for the burning, and making love to her all the more
gently, to atone for the way the gods had taken them both. She had only to live
until then, and tell herself that it would be so. It always had been. That was
the price they both paid for the gift the gods had given him.

Wolfcub hunted for three days before he found his father.
Even at that, he was surprised to succeed so soon. When Aurochs went on one of
his hunts, he could wander for whole moons, traveling as far as the forest in
the north or all the way to the dark-haired tribes of the south, the southernmost
of whom, he said, lived on the shores of a great water. “Greater than any
river,” he said, “or any lake on the steppe. They call it
sea
, and insist that it goes on forever. But I think it pours off
the edge of the world.”

Wolfcub did not know if he believed that or not. But Aurochs
had not gone so far this time. He had tracked a lion to its lair, simply for
the pleasure of having done it; then he had followed a herd of antelope that
grazed toward the west, bringing down a fawn to feed himself, and leaving the
bones for the wolves.

When Wolfcub came upon him, he was making camp by a spring,
building a fire and roasting a haunch of antelope. He greeted his son with
utter lack of surprise, as if they had only parted that morning, and tilted his
head, granting Wolfcub leave to share his dinner.

Wolfcub sat by the fire as was polite, ate what he was
given, and belched his thanks. He did not speak. That was for his father to do,
if his father saw fit. Which Aurochs did not always do; Aurochs was not a man
for chatter.

Tonight however, as the stars came out, Aurochs said in his
rough sweet voice, “It will rain tomorrow.”

Wolfcub nodded. He could smell it on the wind, though the
sky was clear. “The grass will be glad. It’s been a dry spring.”

“Spring should be wetter, yes.” Aurochs stretched out on the
ground, propped on his elbow. He was a compact man for one of the People, not
particularly tall, with wide shoulders and strong arms. The women thought him
handsome. Then, of late, they giggled and told Wolfcub that he looked like his
father.

Wolfcub did not think that he did, but the women only
laughed when he said so. Aurochs did not look as if he had ever been awkward or
gangling. Wolfcub was both, to a distressing degree. What Aurochs thought of
this, Wolfcub did not know. He had never asked.

Bur in one thing they two were alike. They preferred to hunt
alone. Other men hunted in packs and companies, but Aurochs had always said
that for real hunting a man needed to be free of distraction. He had taught his
son the rudiments of the art long ago, then left him to it.

Now Aurochs looked at his son, really looked, and said, “So.
You killed the boar.”

Wolfcub sat still by the flicker of the fire. All the
accolades of the People, the prince’s admiration, the king’s honor and his
gifts, together meant less than that long level stare and those few words.

He had to say what he had been saying since it happened: “It
was an accident. I got my spear in him, then he fell on it.”

Aurochs nodded. “That would be how it was. He needed a god’s
hand to finish him.”

Even Sparrow had not understood that. She wanted it to be
Wolfcub’s honor and his doing. But Aurochs saw. He knew. He still looked on
Wolfcub with what could only be approval and said, “It’s as well you did it.
Another might have taken too much of the credit.”

“They gave me much too much,” said Wolfcub.

“People do that,” Aurochs said. “Did they try to follow
you?”

“I slipped out before they knew,” said Wolfcub.

Aurochs smiled at that, a flicker almost too quick to see.
When it was gone, it was wholly gone. “You didn’t track me down to tell me of
that.”

“No,” Wolfcub said. “Or . . . not simply
that, though it’s part of it. I wasn’t hunting boar. Linden was, he and the
pack of boys who run at his heel. But Linden wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t
been put up to it.”