Mistress of the Runes

by Andrews

  The attack today on a massive castle compound, high on a promontory, its northern walls built into the rocky hills at its back and overlooking the fields below, is little different than any other raid, save the opportunity for more valuable chattel. The young aide to the redheaded warrior has already been instructed to be on the lookout for items belonging to the king that his superior might want, weaponry in particular. Inside the walls, the warriors ride across everything in their path, murdering and pillaging.

  The elderly king, whose realm this was until only minutes ago, is decades older than the red-haired warrior, and he cannot personally protect his queen, who is younger and small of stature. Defying anyone to come near her, she stands her ground shouting orders as a sword- wielding invader runs her king through to the hilt. The queen is now fair game and can be slaughtered, raped, or claimed by any warrior who will have her; her outcome is not the red-haired warrior’s affair.

  His horse wheels in the air, and she glares up at the warrior for only a split second, to determine his advantage over her. The look in her eye is more piercing than any weapon he has ever encountered. She does not run like the other women. She stands her ground and defies him to take her life. She is both beautiful and deadly.

  A soldier lunges for her, holding his sword aloft, preparing to behead her; she holds her ground and aims her sword at his groin. The red-haired warrior makes his split-second decision, leans from his horse, grasping her by the upper arm, near her barely concealed breast, and hoists her off the ground to safety.

  The picture freezes there and fades, forever frozen in time—the red-haired warrior and the golden-haired queen.

  Lightning strikes loudly in the distance.

  Aaron shouted for us to halt. The crash, followed by the crisp tone of his voice, snapped me back to the present. I shook my head slightly and patted the neck of my horse, grateful one of us had stayed on course, and we headed back to the barn.

  Since we really had no earthly idea what putting up a horse entailed, Aaron untacked them. We thanked him and paid him for allowing us to ride, then headed for our car, but the sound of thundering hooves made us turn back. Liz’s small chestnut gelding careened toward us and slalomed to a halt across the fence from us, spraying turf and dirt in all directions, his head cocked quizzically as if to say, “Where are you going?” The wind blew his thick red forelock to one side, revealing a tiny starburst of white on his forehead. With those big eyes, he looked so vulnerable.

  “My God, he’s looking at you with so much love in those giant brown eyes. He really doesn’t want you to go.”

  Liz walked over and spoke to him softly. “He knows he belongs to someone else.” The horse leaned in and pressed his muzzle to her neck and made her giggle, living up to his name of Laughter. She kissed him and whispered to him.

  “What are you telling him?”

  “That I know how he feels to have to let go of someone and that I will always love him and remember him.” As Liz looked at me, her voice softened. “Are you teary? You’re a big softie, aren’t you?”

  “I think anyone would be teary who witnessed a horse crying over a lady.”

  *

  An hour later, out of our wet clothes and into our sweatpants, we flopped onto the big, soft hotel-room beds. Our room sported hunt décor, a bit stiff but luxurious, reminding me of the world in which hounds chased foxes and horses leapt over stone walls and banjos played. It had been the most exhilarating day of the trip: walking through a field of fabulous Icelandic horses, riding an Icelandic horse in open fields in the pouring rain, saying good-bye to an Icelandic horse who seemed to communicate with us. What a marvelously wonderful experience. Yet the images the horses evoked were hypnotic and disturbing.

  “When I was riding out there I felt that I had stepped into a dream. I guess being on the descendant of a Viking horse triggered it.” I tried to be offhanded about my confession, but Liz seemed to have connected to my troubling dreams and flashbacks without my having to explain myself.

  “Maybe it’s bringing up a past life for you. I imagine you rode the countryside lopping off heads. Fits your temperament.”

  “Thanks, darling,” I said archly. “If that’s true, why am I seeing it now, when it’s over?”

  “Maybe it’s never over.” She smiled enigmatically at me. “Speaking of never over…” she added slyly, waggling all five of her fingers, each with a small yellow sticky note attached to it.

  I examined them more closely. The first read, I will always love you. The second, Don’t leave me! The third She is nothing; you are everything. I stripped the notes off her fingers, recognizing the handwriting as Clare’s.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “When I was putting our stuff in the closet one fell off your pants, another was on a shirt, and one was in the ice chest.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  “So where are you living now?” Liz asked, pretending to change the subject.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it. I want to forget the whole Clare debacle.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who posted your panties.” She held up the most humiliating piece, my underwear with a note stuck to the crotch. Yanking off the note, she rubbed the cotton as if removing glue. “Wow, that’s gonna hurt,” she said, managing to maintain a straight face.

  I snatched the note and my underwear from her. The note read, I love the way you smell.

  Liz made an exaggerated display of keeping her lips pressed tightly together in a no-comment mode.

  “Oh, fuck her,” I said, exasperated.

  “Yes, I think that’s the lead story.” Liz winked.

  *

  It was our last night on the road together, and being in the same bedroom with Liz had taken an emotional toll on me. I was nervous and couldn’t sleep. Why can’t I just have sex with her, the way guys have relationships? I thought. It’s healthier, actually, because it wouldn’t tie me up for four goddamned years! I clenched my thighs together as I thought about that. If I were totally honest with myself, I would love to throw her down on the bed and go down on her! Yes, just take what I want! Case closed. God, I’m uncivilized, I thought and went in and took a cold shower as punitive damages for base thoughts.

  *

  At breakfast in the hotel dining room, I caught Liz staring out the window admiring the green lawns and blue skies. She looked beautiful and serene, but melancholy. I was pretty sure I knew what she was thinking.

  “You love that chestnut horse, don’t you?” I said. “The one that belongs to the man in New York.”

  “You know…” She started to deny it, then gave in like someone talking about a lover. “I do love that old horse.” She smiled and her face held a softness that nearly melted me. “But I’ll get over it. He belongs to someone else.”

  “I don’t recall that ever standing in your way,” I said gently, and Liz blushed for the first time since I’d known her.

  “The trainer said he’s inseparable from the blond mare that was out in the pasture. Even if I could have him to love, it wouldn’t be good to break them up. At least they get to go back to New York together,” she said wistfully.

  In that instant, I made my decision—as quickly as I’d purchased the toy horse in the antique store. “I’ll talk the owner into selling them to us. You’ll take lover boy and I’ll take the mare.”

  Liz looked at me, apparently stunned by my suggestion. “You haven’t even looked at the mare or ridden her.”

  “Every horse out there was gorgeous, and what good would riding her do? It would just show her that she’s about to be bought by someone who doesn’t know what she’s doing, and what woman wants that!”

  “You’re doing this just because of me, when you don’t even—”

  “I’m doing it for Hlatur so he can live every man’s fantasy—being adored by two blondes, you and his mare. Besides, I’ll have someone to ride with. I’m single now, remember? Maybe I can make a relationship with this ma
re last longer than I have with a woman.”

  Liz just looked at me as if she were trying to decide what to make of me, as if for the first time since she’d met me, she didn’t have me figured out.

  “Look, if you believe in signs, we were literally blown down the highway and shaken out of that hotel to get us here much quicker than planned, because any later and we might never have met Hlatur. But we did, and the silly horse falls in love with you and you with him. So it’s meant to be. Well, aren’t you excited?”

  “You haven’t even talked to the man in New York. He probably won’t sell them,” Liz said, trying perhaps to keep herself from ultimate disappointment.

  “He’ll sell them. Negotiations are what I do for a living. When I go after something, it’s mine. Do you want the horse?”

  “Yes!” She swooned. “My God, will it cost a fortune?”

  “Why is it we’ll pay forty-five thousand dollars for a piece of steel to drive around, knowing it falls apart in three years, but we’re worried about the cost of a furry friend for life?”

  “Okay, make the deal and I’ll get a loan.”

  “I’ll take care of the money.”

  “No. I take care of my own business. I’ll have the money…just keep it reasonable, okay?”

  We shook hands. Only this time, her grip was softer, clasping me in the way she might hold a lover. I had to keep myself from sighing in public and happily contemplated long afternoon rides with Liz on our wonderfully kind Icelandic horses.

  I would not have believed, even if someone had told me, that an Icelandic horse would mirror my mind and reflect my very soul. Or that what I brought to the horse would be upon me in seconds. Or that the Icelandic horse would be a vortex into an ancient past. Nor had I come upon that perplexing instruction in the Icelandic Horse Training Manual that said, “The best way to stop an Icelandic horse from running away with you is never to let it happen.”

  Chapter Nine

  Before nine a.m., I phoned the horse farm to tell Aaron we’d like to come out and see Hlatur and his mare, only to learn that both horses had been put on a truck at dawn bound for New York. I was upset that the horses were moving in the wrong direction. If we bought them, they’d have to turn around and make the trip again, which would unnecessarily stress them. Liz looked crestfallen as she heard my side of the conversation about her beloved Hlatur being trailered away from her.

  I managed in a roundabout way to learn that Hlatur’s owner was a man named Furtillo, who Aaron would only say lived somewhere in upstate New York. I would locate Furtillo myself, knowing that a successful deal happened when no one was between me and the ultimate decision maker.

  I rang Jane at her home, asked her to do a search on Furtillo, and she called me back in fifteen minutes, having located his number. I phoned him in Utica, New York, at his farm. His service said he was out of the country but would be calling in, and she would relay the message. I left my number.

  As we loaded up the car to head home, Liz’s cell phone rang. It was the station, apparently unable to wait another twenty-four hours before telling her where they wanted her to go and what they wanted accomplished.

  “I did the corn festival parade last year, so that one goes to Mac.” Liz lay back in the seat with her head lolling around, most likely in despair over the triviality of it all. “I’ll do that one,” she said in reference to another opportunity for the masses to see local TV stars live. “No, not that one,” she moaned, sorting through the list. “Tell him he’ll get more live cut-ins. We’ll talk at the run-through tomorrow.” Liz hung up and deciphered the call for me, adding that she had a new news director who wanted to beat the competition. “Which would be fine,” she said, “if it were just to give the public a better product, but this guy’s more like my dick’s bigger than yours.”

  “You seem to take it all in stride.”

  “Because I’m not a warrior. I’m just the air-hair, remember?”

  I apologized again. My remarks had obviously cut deep or she wouldn’t have repeated them.

  “It’s okay. I am all about face time. The more people see me and know me and wave at me, the more viewership goes up and the more the GM loves me because I’m ratings royalty. But who I appear to be and who I am are two entirely different people.”

  “My point exactly. No one gets to see who you are.”

  “I’m only interested in letting one person see who I am,” she said, and the light through the windshield splintered like diamonds onto the dashboard and the steering wheel, and refracted off Liz’s sunglasses and jewelry and beautiful blond hair as if the heavens were spotlighting their own. I sighed, unable this time to conceal my reaction.

  *

  The sixteen-hour drive home flew by as we, at first, fretted over Hlatur’s traveling in the wrong direction, then later put a positive spin on the horses’ trip to New York, saying their delayed arrival in Texas would give us time to find out what to buy them, where to board them, and when we’d ride them.

  After hours of talking and laughing, Liz finally curled up and went to sleep as I drove. I thought about her and watched her occasionally out of the corner of my eye. She was a beautiful woman with full sensual lips, a narrow nose, and large blue eyes. I mentally slapped myself around; I wasn’t going to start mooning over leaving her. I didn’t want a relationship. Women were all great in the beginning—love was all great in the beginning—that first sexual encounter was always exciting. It was the four years I needed to remember.

  “Your mind is going a hundred and ninety miles an hour.” She chuckled with her eyes closed. “You think because Clare’s out of the picture, and we’re getting horses together, that I’m going to mistake our relationship for more than friendship and dive on you.” She suddenly lunged at me like the boogeyman at a scared child, and I jumped and swerved the car.

  “Damn it, are you trying to get us killed?” I said, irritated.

  “Guess what, Ms. Chandler, I wouldn’t jump you if you begged. So relax. Just friends.” And she chuckled some more.

  Liz Chase’s gratitude over my plan of getting the horses certainly didn’t last long, nor did any sense of being beholden to me. I didn’t know what to think, but I didn’t feel relaxed around her. I knew that much.

  *

  Reentry was painful…sailing out of the serenity of Kentucky horse farms and blasting into the frenetic atmosphere of network and talent chaos. Jane stood in my doorway before I’d even had time to snap my laptop into its docking station.

  “Hugh in legal says he’s got to talk to you before lunch, but wouldn’t tell me why,” she said, reading from her notes and attaching people’s work areas to their names as if I’d arrived from another planet and had no knowledge of the people on hers. “Jack in sales left a copy of the carriage contracts on your desk, and he didn’t look happy. Maxine in talent and research says a client is suing us. One of the on-air talent was arrested for drunk driving, and there’s…some other emergency!” Jane threw her hands up in the air, as if caught in a robbery in which her memory was stolen and, I assumed, to accentuate that her world had gone mad in only a few short days.

  “Maxine, Hugh, Jack, Starbucks,” I rattled off, prioritizing.

  “Okay,” she said and left.

  I looked up to see Maxine in the doorway.

  “Who was arrested?” I asked, my tortoise-shell reading glasses propped down on my nose.

  “LaTisha. Arizona Highway Patrol.”

  LaTisha, whose on-air success seems to hinge on the fact that her bra size is larger than her I.Q.? I thought, but said only, “What’s she doing in Arizona?”

  “Vacation. Driver drinking, she wasn’t. Hugh’s handled. No press. My other emergency: guy in post-production beat his wife up this morning, then she tried to commit suicide. Called HR about him. Handling the police.” She spoke in a fast, cryptic fashion, aware I gravitated to executives who could cover lots of verbal landscape at a high rate of speed, pointing out the essential elements and
moving on.

  “Who’s the wife beater?”

  “Fred Davis, video editor.”

  “Shit. You know if this is true—” I warned, knowing I would probably lose a very creative editor.

  “We know where you stand on that.” Maxine gave me a big false smile. “Glad you’re back?”

  “Thrilled.” I mirrored her smile.

  She was exiting as Hugh entered my office looking like his blood pressure was spiking. For an attorney, Hugh had a nicely buffed body topped by a completely bald head that flushed pink when he was upset.

  “You heard about LaTisha and Fred-with-the-wife deal?”

  “Yes.” I nodded, undoubtedly too calm for his liking.

  “So you got the whole story?” Hugh loved to be first on the scene with shocking news.

  “Yes,” I said, and Hugh looked miffed.

  “Seems like all your people have gone nuts!” he said, and admitted he didn’t like his morning disrupted.

  Since this kind of thing was in part why we employed attorneys, I was irritated that he was irritated.

  “We’re amateurs aspiring to the escapades of corporate—exec VP boffing a client’s underage daughter, remember that one? We in programming and talent acquisition make the occasional mundane faux pas simply to get our money’s worth from the allocation we take from you in legal. After all, if you had nothing to do, you could go home.”

  “Man, you’re in a mood.” He snorted as Jane plopped the Starbucks cup in front of me and my phone rang. “Might want to try to get that to her earlier, or at least before I meet with her,” Hugh mumbled to Jane on his way out. “I’m going to the men’s room. Shout when you’re off the phone,” he called over his shoulder.

  It was 11:11 a.m., most of the morning gone. I grabbed the phone and Nick Furtillo said he was returning my call. Hearing what I wanted, he said he had no intention of selling the two horses. I was quite certain I’d been awake longer and had handled bigger issues this morning than Nick, so I was ready for him, inquiring about his business trip, casually communicating that I was president of a large entertainment conglomerate. I quickly pinpointed mutual acquaintances, building a bridge between us, letting him know I was more than just one lone business deal.