Horses!

by Gardner Dozois

  HORSES!

  Edited By

  JACK DANN & GARDNER DOZOIS

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-148-1

  Copyright © 2013 by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann

  First printing: May 1994

  Cover art by: Ron Miller

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  Electronic version by Baen Books

  http://www.baen.com

  Magic Tales Anthologies

  Edited by Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois

  UNICORNS!

  MAGICATS!

  BESTIARY!

  MERMAIDS!

  SORCERERS!

  DEMONS!

  DOGTALES!

  SEASERPENTS!

  DINOSAURS!

  LITTLE PEOPLE!

  MAGICATS II

  UNICORNS II

  DRAGONS!

  HORSES!

  Edited by Terri Windling

  FAERY!

  Acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following material:

  "Classical Horses," by Judith Tarr, copyright C 1991 by Judith Tarr, first published in Horse Fantastic (DAW); reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Wonder Horse," by George Byram, copyright 0 1957 by the Atlantic Monthly Company; reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agent, Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  "On the Gem Planet," by Cordwainer Smith, copyright 0 1963 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.; first published in Galaxy, October 1963; reprinted by permission of the author's estate and the agents for the estate, Scott Meredith Literary Associates, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022.

  "The Thunder of the Captains," by Garry Kilworth, copyright 0 1985 by Davis Publications, Inc.; first published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1985; reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Brothers of the Wind," by Jane Yolen, copyright C 1981 by Jane Yolen, text from the book Brothers of the Wind (Philomel Books); reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agent, Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  "Aunt Millicent at the Races," by Len Guttridge, copyright 0 1965 by Mercury Press, Inc.; first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1965; reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Circus Horse," by Amy Bechtel, copyright C 1988 by Davis Publications, Inc.; first published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, June 1988; reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Riding the Nightmare," by Lisa Tuttle, copyright 0 1986 by Lisa Tuttle; first published in Night Visions 3 (Dark Harvest); reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Wild, Wild Horses," by Howard Waldrop, copyright 0 1988 by Omni Publications International, Ltd.; first published in Omni, June 1988; reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Boy Who Plaited Manes," by Nancy Springer, copyright 0 1986 by Mercury Press, Inc.; first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1986; reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Horse Camp," by Ursula K. Le Guin, copyright © 1986 by Ursula K. Le Guin; first published in The New Yorker, August 25, 1986; reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agent, Virginia Kidd.

  "His Coat So Gay," by Sterling E. Lanier, copyright © 1970 by Mercury Press, Inc.; first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1970; reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agent, Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  For

  Mike Resnick

  and

  Maria Vallone

  —Two People Who Know Their Horses

  and

  in memory of

  Vivian Smith

  —Who Would Have Liked This Book

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The editors would like to thank the following people for their help and support:

  Susan Casper; Jeanne Van Buren Dann; Janet Kagan; Ricky Kagan; Jim Cappio; Lawrence Person; Ellen Datlow; Ed and Audrey Ferman; Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Jane Yolen; Mike Resnick; Michael Swanwick; Sheila Williams; Ian Randal Strock; Tina Lee; Scott Towner; Judith Tarr; Josepha Sherman; Diana de Avalle-Acre; Barbara Delaplace; Scott Edleman; George Alec Effinger; Nina Kiriki Hoffman; all the folks on the Delphi and GEnie computer networks who offered suggestions; and special thanks to our own editors, Susan Allison and Ginjer Buchanan.

  She breathed gently upon

  the woman's sleeping face . . .

  The woman opened her eyes and looked into the mare's blue gaze. She seemed confused but not frightened, and after a moment she sat up slowly, moving cautiously as if for fear of alarming the horse. The horse was not alarmed. She suffered the woman to stroke her nose and pat her face before she backed away. . . . She had timed it perfectly. The woman came after her as if drawn on a rope, making soft, affectionate noises. The mare moved as if uneasy, still backing, and then, abruptly flirtatious, offered her back, an invitation to the woman to mount. . . .

  Feeling her rider in place, legs clasped firmly on her sides, the mare leaped skyward with more speed than grace. She felt the woman gasp. . . .

  —from "Riding the Nightmare" by Lisa Tuttle

  Classical Horses

  by

  Judith Tarr

  One of the most popular and respected fantasists of the 1980s, Judith Tarr is also a medieval scholar with a Ph.D. in medieval studies from Yale University, which background has served her well in creating the richly detailed milieus of her critically acclaimed novels. Her many books include The Isle of Glass, The Golden Horn, The Hounds of God, The Hall of the Mountain King, The Lady of Han-Gilen, A Fall of Princes, A Wind in Cairo, Ars Magica, Alamut, and The Dagger and the Cross: A Novel of the Crusades. Born in Augusta, Maine, she now lives in Tucson, Arizona.

  In the brilliant story that follows, she offers us a fascinating look at a tranquil country estate where nothing is quite what it seems to be . . .

  * * *

  I

  The yard was full of Lipizzans.

  I'd been driving by, missing my old mare and thinking maybe it was time to find another horse, and I'd slowed because I always do, going along any row of fence with horses behind it, and there they were. Not the usual bays and chestnuts and occasional gray, but a herd of little thick white horses that weren't—but couldn't be —but were.

  They weren't the Vienna School. They came from somewhere in Florida, Janna told me afterward, and they'd been doing something at the armory, and they needed a place to board for the night. I didn't know Janna then. I wouldn't have stopped, either, just gone down to a crawl and stared, except for the two horses in the paddock. It wasn't that they were wild with all the running and clattering. It was that they were quiet. A chestnut and a gray, not big, just about Morgan-sized, and maybe Morgan-built, too, but finer in the leg and shorter in the back than most I'd seen—and of course you don't see a gray Morgan. But as upheaded as any Morgan you'd want to look at, with a good arch to their necks, and ears pricked sharply forward, watching the show.

  I pulled over without even thinking about it. I remember wondering that it was odd, me staring at two perfectly nice but perfectly normal horses, with all those white stallions taking turns around the yard and being walked into the barn. The gray would be white when he was older, there was that. He had a bright eye, but calm. When one of the Lipps circled past his fence, his head came up higher and he stamped. Then he lifted himself up, smooth and sweet as you please, and held for a long breathless while. He was, I couldn't help but notice, a stallion.

  The chestnut watched him with what I could have sworn was amusement. His ears flicked back and then forward. His muscles bunched. He soared up, even smoothe
r than the gray, and lashed back hard enough to take the head off anyone who might have dared to stand behind him.

  Levade, capriole. Then they were quiet again, head to tail, rubbing one another's withers like any old plow horses.

  I got out of the car. No one looked at me or even seemed to have noticed the demonstration in the paddock. I wandered toward the fence. The chestnut spared me a glance. The gray was too busy having his neck rubbed. I didn't try to lure them over. I leaned against the post and watched the stallions, but with a corner of an eye for the ones in the paddock.

  There was an old surrey on the other side, with a tarp half draped over it, half folded back. Someone sat in the seat. She was old, how old I couldn't tell; just that she was over sixty, and probably over seventy, and maybe eighty, too. It didn't keep her from sitting perfectly straight, or from looking at me with eyes as young as her face was old, large in their big round sockets, and a quite beautiful shade of gray. She didn't smile. If she had, I might have ducked and left.

  As it was, I took my time, but after a while I went over. "Hello," I said.

  She nodded.

  I supposed I knew who she was. I'd heard about a woman who had a farm out this way. She was ninety, people said, if she was a day, and she still drove her own horses. Had even been riding them up till a little while ago, when she broke her hip—not riding, either, but falling down in her house like any other very old lady. She had a cane beside her, with a brass horse's head.

  "Nice horses," I said, cocking my head at the two in the paddock.

  She nodded again. I wondered if she could talk. She didn't look as if she'd had a stroke, and no one had said anything about her being mute.

  "Not often you see two stallions in a paddock together," I went on.

  "They've always been together."

  Her voice was quiet and a little thin, but it wasn't the old-lady voice I might have expected. She had an interesting accent. European, more or less.

  "Brothers?" I asked.

  "Twins."

  I stared at them. They did look a lot alike, except for the color: bright copper chestnut, almost gold, and dapple gray, with the mane and tail already silver.

  "That's rare," I said.

  "Very."

  I stuck out a hand, a little late, and introduced myself. Her hand was thin and knobby, but she had a respectable grip. "You're Mrs. Tiffney, of course."

  She laughed, which was surprising. She sounded impossibly young. "Of course! I'm the only antique human on the farm." She kept on smiling at me. "My yard is full of Lipizzans, and you notice my two ponies?"

  "Big ponies," I said. "If they're that. Morgans?"

  "No," she said. She didn't tell me what they were. I didn't, at that point, ask. Someone was standing behind me. Janna, I knew later. She wanted to know what to do about someone named Ragweed, who was in heat, and Florence had categorically refused to move her Warmblood for any silly circus horse, and the show manager wanted to know if he could use the shavings in the new barn, but she wasn't sure what to charge him for them, if she let him have them at all, since no one had told her if there was going to be a delivery this week.

  It went on like that. I found myself dumping feed in nervous boarders' bins and helping Janna pitch hay to the horses that had been put out to pasture for the night. There were people around—this was a big barn, and the guests had plenty of grooms of their own—but one way and another I seemed to have been adopted. Or to have adopted the place.

  "Do you always take in strangers?" I asked Janna. It was late by then. We were up in the office, drinking coffee from the urn and feeling fairly comfortable. Feeding horses together can do that to people. She'd sent the kids home, and the grooms were gone to their hotel or bedded down in the barn. Even Mrs. Tiffney had gone to the house that stood on the hill behind the barns.

  Janna yawned till her jaw cracked. She didn't apologize. She was comfortable people, about my age and about my size, with the no-nonsense air that stable managers either learn early or give up and become bitchy instead. "We take in strays," she said. "Plenty of cats. Too damn many dogs. Horses, as often as not. People, not that often. People are a bad lot."

  "Maybe I am, too," I said.

  "Mrs. Tiffney likes you," said Janna.

  "Just like that?"

  Janna shrugged. "She's good at judging animals."

  "People-type animals, too?"

  Janna didn't answer. She poured more coffee instead, first for me, then for herself. "Do you ride?" she asked.

  "Not since the winter. I had a mare up at Meadow Farm; Arab. Did dressage with her. She got twisted intestine. Had to put her down." It still hurt to say that.

  Janna was horse people. She understood. "Looking for another?"

  "Starting to."

  "None for sale here right now," she said. "But some of the boarders take leases. There's always someone wanting a horse ridden. If you want to try one of them, take a lesson. . . .

  I tried one, and then another. I took a lesson. I took two. Pretty soon I was a regular, though I didn't settle on any particular horse. The ones that came up weren't quite what I was looking for, and the ones I might have been interested in weren't for sale or lease, but I had plenty of chances to ride them.

  What I was mostly interested in was just being there. Someone had put up a sampler in the tackroom: "Peaceable Kingdom." Tacky and sentimental, but it fit. There were always dogs around and cats underfoot. Janna gave most of the lessons, but she had a couple of older kids to help with the beginners. I didn't do any teaching. I did enough of that every day, down in the trenches.

  There were thirty horses in the two barns, minus the one-night stand of Lipizzans. The farm owned a few ponies and a couple of school horses, and Mrs. Tiffney's pair of stallions, who had a corner of the old barn to themselves. They weren't kept for stud, weren't anything registered that anyone knew of. They were just Mrs. Tiffney's horses, the red and the gray—Zan and Bali. She drove them as a team, pulling a surrey in the summer and a sleigh in the winter. Janna rode them every day if she could. Bali was a pretty decent jumper. Zan was happier as a dressage horse, though he'd jump if Janna asked; and I'd seen what he could do in the way of caprioles. Bali was the quiet one, though that wasn't saying he was gentle—he had plenty of spirit. Zan was the one you had to watch. He'd snake his head out if you walked by his stall, and get titchy if he thought you owed him a carrot or a bit of apple. Bali was more likely to charm it out of you. Zan expected it, or else.

  I got friendly with most of the horses, even Florence's precious Warmblood, but those two had brought me in first, and I always had a soft spot for them. They seemed to know who I was, too, and Bali started to nicker when I came, though I thought that was more for his daily apple than for me. If Mrs. Tiffney was there, I'd help her and Janna harness them up for her to take her drive around the pastures and down the road, or sit with her while she watched Janna ride one or the other of them. The day she asked me if I'd like to ride Bali—Janna was saddling Zan then—I should have been prepared, and in a way I was, but I was surprised. I had my saddle, I was wearing my boots; I'd been riding Sam for his owner, who was jetsetting in Atlantic City. But people didn't just ride Mrs. Tiffney's horses.

  I said so. She laughed at me. "No, they don't. Unless I tell them to. Go and saddle Bali. He'll be much happier to be with his brother."

  He was that. I felt as if I was all over his back—first-ride nerves, I always get them in front of the owner. But he had lovely gaits, and he seemed determined to show me all of them. Fourteen. I'd counted once at Meadow Farm, when I watched the riding master. Walk: collected, working, medium, extended. Trot: ditto. Canter: ditto. And then, because Mrs. Tiffney told me to do it, and because Janna was there to set my legs where they belonged and to guide my hands, the two gaits almost no one ever gets to ride: passage, the graceful, elevated, slow-motion trot; and piaffe, "Spanish trot" that in Vienna they do between the pillars, not an inch forward, but all that power and impulsion concen
trated in one place, in perfect control, to the touch of the leg and the support of the hand and the will of the rider that by then is perfectly melded with that of the horse.

  I dropped down and hugged Bali till he snorted. I was grinning like an idiot. Janna was grinning, too. I could have sworn even Zan was, flirting his tail at his brother as he went by.

  Mrs. Tiffney smiled. She looked quite as satisfied as Bali did when I pulled back to look at him, though I thought he might be laughing, too. And told myself to stop anthropomorphizing, but how often does anyone get to ride a high-school horse?

  II

  Not long after that, Mrs. Tiffney taught me to drive. I'd never learned that, had always been out riding when chances came up. It was easier than riding in some ways. Harder in others, with two horses to think of, and turning axes, and all those bits and pieces of harness.

  We didn't talk much through all of this. The horses were enough. Sometimes I mentioned something that had happened at school, or said I'd have to leave early to have dinner with a friend, or mentioned that I was thinking of going back to grad school.

  "In what?" she asked me.

  "Classics, probably," I said. "I've got the Masters in it, but all I teach is Latin. I'd like to get my Greek back before I lose it. And teach in college. High school's a war zone, most of the time. You can't really teach. Mostly you just play policeman and hope most of your classes can read."