Wolf Captured (33 page)

This made him think of Firekeeper. The wolf-woman had been through as much as had Derian—and more. He wondered how she was doing out there on Misheemnekuru, and whether the wolves were anything like what she had expected.

“Hey, Derian!”

A laughing voice brought him back to himself. Derian started, finding Zira waving her hand in his face.

“Sorry,” he apologized, feeling himself color. “I must be a bit tired. I was up late last night, making arrangements..”

“Would you like to go back to your rooms?” Varjuna asked, beginning to turn that way.

“No, please,” Derian said. “If I nap now, I won’t sleep later. I’d prefer to keep looking at the horses. I can honestly say I’ve never seen so many fine animals in one place.”

“They are good,” Varjuna said. “I’ve been here sixty-five years and I can honestly say I’ve never seen finer.”

“You say that every year,” Zira said fondly.

Derian halted in his tracks.

“Sixty-five?”

“I cheated a little,” Varjuna admitted with a chuckle. “I was born here. My parents were aridisdu and kidisdu, so I have a head start on my residency.”

“He does look good, doesn’t he?” Zira said. “I thought so when I met him twenty-nine years ago when I came to u-Bishinti from a little village to the south. There was Varjuna, without a thought in his head for anything but horses. I said to myself, ‘There’s the man for you, Zira, my girl—if you can just get him to notice you exist.’”

Varjuna chuckled again. This was clearly an old story and one he liked as much as she did.

“So,” Derian said, fumbling for something to say, “I thought you were younger than Varjuna.”

“Seventeen years,” Zira replied without hesitation. “He’s well preserved and I am not so, but we get along like many a stallion and his reliable herd mare.”

Later, Derian was to learn that the Liglimom did not grey as quickly as did his people and that their oilier skin kept them from showing lines as early. However, at the time he felt as if he had stumbled into one of those tales of Old World magic wherein sorcerers remained comparatively youthful while those around them aged and died.

“Here’s a group you may be particularly interested in,” Varjuna said, gesturing to a pasture where a small bachelor herd was grazing in apparent amity. “We haven’t cut any of these, waiting to see which show real promise.”

Derian immediately knew why Varjuna had indicated this particular group. Superficially, they greatly resembled the Wise Horse who had let him have a ride the evening before. He wondered why he immediately knew that these were not Wise Horses. Unlike Elation and Blind Seer, who had been noticeably larger than the “cousins” of their type, the Wise Horse had not been unduly larger than many domestic horses Derian had known. The answer came to him as quickly.

Although a horse or two raised his head and examined the newcomers—and indeed a couple whickered with recognition and came trotting over—the eyes that examined the humans were bright, inquisitive, and yet lacking that extra penetrating intelligence that Derian had found in Eshinarvash’s eyes—and in those of the Royal Beasts he had been fortunate enough to know.

“We call this coloration type ‘paint’ for rather obvious reasons,” Varjuna said, “and to save you from asking, yes, we’re breeding for it in imitation of—one might even say homage to—the Wise Horses. They are widely admired, but not one rider in ten thousand can make the claim you now can—to have ridden a Wise Horse.”

“I was honored,” Derian said sincerely. Then, because he felt vaguely embarrassed—what had he done to deserve the honor, anyhow?—he changed the subject. “I see that these paints are not all black and white, like the gentleman I met last night. There are brown and white, some greys, and even what has to be called a bay.”

Varjuna nodded. “It’s rare to have more than three colors mixed in. Usually, it’s just white and one other. We’ve tried but never managed to eliminate the white.”

Zira sighed. “One time I was at the delivery of a foal and we thought we’d pulled it off. Chestnut coat with darker patches, but there was the white—a big splash of it across the belly and a star on her forehead. Still, she was a good horse nonetheless.”

“There’s enough variety in the paints to satisfy anyone,” Varjuna went on. “They’ve been an interest of mine since I was a boy.”

“I’m not surprised,” Derian murmured, for he had heard a note of obsession in the other’s voice. “These seem to have mostly blots—for lack of a better word. What else do you get?”

“Spots,” Varjuna said, pointing in case the word wasn’t in Derian’s vocabulary to a handsome stallion grazing at the far side of the pasture. “Sometimes all over like a jaguar, other times clustered. We also get ones with speckles—irregularly shaped spots. Those can be really striking.”

Derian touched his own forearm. “I’d call those ‘freckles’ and I agree, they’re quite spectacular.”

“Would you like to try that one?” Varjuna asked. “I can have him brought in and saddled up in a heartbeat. One shouldn’t choose a horse just on our say-so. So much depends on how the horse and rider relate.”

And that was how Derian realized that they planned to give him a horse. He realized immediately that the gift was meant as compensation—for there could be no replacement—for dead Roanne, but nonetheless, he was deeply touched. There had been no reluctance in Varjuna’s voice, only eagerness and enthusiasm.

Zira looked a bit more thoughtful, but that was only—as Derian learned a few moments later—because she thought Derian might be a bit too tired to ride well, and that he should wait until tomorrow to start testing possible mounts.

“After all,” she said, “you don’t need to rush. There are plenty of horses than can be loaned to you if you need to ride to the city. You want to make sure you’re perfectly happy.”

“And if you’re not,” Varjuna interjected, “as sometimes happens, we can let you exchange.”

“But we don’t want him disappointed,” Zira objected, “nothing is worse than choosing a horse and having to trade. I remember when I outgrew my first horse. I had expected to keep riding her for years to come, then I shot up like a weed and we just weren’t right for each other.”

“I think I can manage a ride or two,” Derian said, almost overwhelmed, “and I certainly won’t be deciding anything today.”

That satisfied both his hosts, and the next several hours passed quite pleasantly for all of them—and for the small group of grooms, trainers, and kidisdum who drifted over to offer comment and advice. They chatted about teeth (no one was in the least insulted when Derian checked the teeth of a horse he was interested in) and hooves and the merits of various types of saddles and stirrups.

It was during this fine muddle that Derian met Poshtuvanu, Varjuna and Zira’s eldest, though introductions waited until they were well into a friendly argument over which types of hay were best. Later, the younger two sons—both near Derian’s age—arrived. Everybody had their own opinion, and in the end Derian was rather relieved when the rattling of an iron rod against the sides of a wrought-iron triangle signaled that the time had come for horses to be brought in from pasture, for feed to be hauled to those who were remaining out for the night, and for any of the dozens of jobs that are repeated daily at a working stable.

Dinner that evening was a small, family affair, for though many people wanted to meet the foreign visitor, Varjuna had commanded that Derian be given a chance to settle in first.

“We wouldn’t ask a new horse to run a race on his first day, would we?” he said, and everyone agreed with such immediacy that Derian wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been fed hot mash and had his ankles wrapped before being put to bed.

Dinner, however, was an excellent seafood stew served over a tiny white grain Derian had not encountered before coming to Liglim, but which apparently grew well where the weather was both hot and wet. A pale beer was served with dinner, and Derian had to remind himself to keep an eye on the unobtrusive way his mug was filled whenever its level dropped below half. There was fruit to follow, and, of course, honeyed nuts.

He tumbled into bed that night, still subconsciously weighing the merits of various horses he had ridden, and wondering whether he should choose a mare or a stallion. He knew he wanted a breeding animal. While a stallion could be set to several mares, mares were generally more even-tempered. He wasn’t looking to found his own stable quite yet. He needed an animal to ride. On the other hand, Varjuna assured him that on the whole their stallions were tractable and some were even mild. One simply didn’t force them into proximity with other stallions, especially around a mare in heat …

Somewhere in the midst of this, Derian fell asleep, and dreamed, unsurprisingly, of horses.

DERIAN DIDN’T MAKE HIS DECISION the next day or even the next after that. He found this gained him respect rather than making the others think him difficult to please or picky.

“Only a child or someone in great need chooses a horse quickly,” Varjuna said. “After all, horses can live for many years. It is not a relationship into which one enters lightly.”

Reviewing his options gave Derian ample opportunity to get to know the denizens of u-Bishinti. Since Varjuna and Zira had duties that kept them from being Derian’s guide all the time, Poshtuvanu was given the job. At first, Derian thought this was simply because of who his father was, but within a short while he realized that Poshtuvanu was knowledgeable beyond his contemporaries.

“It was either learn fast,” Poshtuvanu confided in Derian as they sat on a fence rail surveying the same paint bachelor herd as the day before, “or disappoint both myself and my parents. As it is, I keep needing to prove myself over and over again.”

“Do you want to be a kidisdu or an aridisdu?” Derian asked, knowing that specialization often came after a candidate had tried both courses.

“Kidisdu,” Poshtuvanu replied promptly. “I’m more interested in the horses themselves than in the books of lore. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very glad that animals can help us understand the best way to live in accordance with the divine will. It’s just that my mind doesn’t seize on all that stuff. Now, my youngest brother is another matter. I think he’ll be an aridisdu.”

One thing they did not do was haunt the pastures where the Wise Horses could be found.

“Everyone goes sneaking off to look at them when they’re kids,” Poshtuvanu said. “It’s a rite of passage, almost, and the Wise Horses are pretty patient about it. However, once you’re older, you realize it would be rude, like peeking in the windows of someone’s house. The Wise Horses set a young stallion or two on watch, and messages are given to them.”

“Your father took me up there pretty confidently,” Derian said, kicking at the rail with his heel and wondering how much of his inability to settle on a new horse was due to the memory of Roanne—and how much to the memory of that one wonderful ride. After all, he’d had to make choices much more quickly at horse fairs and had never had any difficulty.

“Father probably had been granted an omen,” Poshtuvanu said with the breezy unconcern that Derian was coming to accept on this matter. “In any case, if the watch stallion hadn’t wanted to acknowledge your coming, the ikidisdu would not have pressed further.”

“But,” Poshtuvanu went on, giving Derian a strange, sidelong glance, “you probably know more about this than any of us.”

Derian blinked.

“How could I? I’d never seen one of these Wise Horses until last night.”

Poshtuvanu looked a bit nervous, like he’d said something he shouldn’t have.

“Never mind,” he said. “Forget I said anything. It’s just that you’re so good with horses I forget sometimes you’re a stranger.”

Derian didn’t think that anyone looking at him—the one red head among all these dark ones—could forget for a moment that he was a stranger, but he accepted the apology in the spirit it had been offered, and politely changed the subject.

“So,” he said, returning to well-trodden ground, “what would you pick, if all things were the same, a mare or a stallion?”

XIV

“I HAD ASKED TO SEE Ahmyndisdu Tiridanti,” Wain said stiffly to Harjeedian.

She is not available,” Harjeedian replied, smoothly. Although Wain did not invite him, he glided into the two-room suite Wain had occupied since the return of the
Fayonejunjal
.”Word of your request was given to me, and I am here to see what I may do to assist you.”

Waln swallowed a snarl, covering his agitation by moving over to the tidy liquor cabinet and pouring himself a glass of the sharp white wine he was learning to enjoy.

“I understand that there was a reception a few days ago,” Waln said, deliberately not offering Harjeedian a glass of wine. “A reception for those we brought from the north. I had thought I would be invited to such an event. After all, without my intervention, you would not have learned of their existence.”

“The omens,” Harjeedian said, “did not indicate that you were to be included among those entertained.”

“Omens,” Waln said, almost sneering. “Right. When will I see the ahmyndisdu again?”