Lady of Horses

by Judith Tarr

  Wolfcub had to wait an annoying while before he could speak to Spearhead, whom he had settled on as best for the purpose. Spearhead, fortunately, was more or less awake and aware, and not too prostrate with the aftermath of the feast. A dose of Willow’s potion restored him most of the way to himself. When he went out to the trenches, Wolfcub went with him.

  oOo

  As Wolfcub had hoped, there was no one there. They did their business together, then as Spearhead turned to go back into the camp, Wolfcub said, “Walk with me for a bit. I’m all fuzzy-headed with camp smoke and kumiss.”

  Spearhead shrugged and consented. He was not a particularly amiable man, but he was shrewd and he was not afraid to speak his mind. He was also, Wolfcub thought, fiercely loyal to Linden, though he would have denied it if anyone had asked.

  They followed the track past the trenches, up over a low hill and down toward the herds of cattle. The camp was not visible from there, nor was there anyone in sight but a boy who watched over the cows. His eyes went wide when he saw who walked on the edge of his herd, but he did not trouble them with his presence.

  They halted on the outer edge of the herd. Spearhead squatted in the grass, marked out a bare spot, produced a handful of bones. He held them up with an inquiring look. Wolfcub nodded.

  They played at cast-the-bones, quietly, for no wager but the pleasure of winning. After a while Spearhead said, “Now then. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  Wolfcub raised a brow. “You think I’m troubled?”

  “I know you are. You’ve been as twitchy as a bitch with pups. What is it? Afraid Linden can’t be the king he needs to be?”

  “Are you?”

  Spearhead shrugged. “He’s not the brightest star in the heavens. I’m not sure he’s suited to ruling anything greater than his own flock of women. As to whether he can be king enough for the purpose . . . who knows? If he picks his advisors well enough, it won’t matter that he’s not much more than a pretty face.”

  “He is more than that,” Wolfcub said. “Not a great deal more, but his heart is good. He wants to do well by his people.”

  “And you’re not sure he can.”

  “I’m not sure he’ll be allowed to.” Wolfcub drew a breath. In it, he cast the bones. He clapped his hands. “Victory!”

  “I’ll top that,” Spearhead said, and did. He left the bones lying where they were, looked Wolfcub in the face and said, “It’s the shaman, isn’t it?”

  “Which?”

  Spearhead spat. “Don’t play the fool, wolfling. You know which. He’s been hovering over Linden like a vulture since the day we met the boar.”

  Wolfcub nodded. “I think,” he said, “it wasn’t accident that the old king died.”

  “I know it wasn’t,” said Spearhead. “I looked after the stallion when Linden was done with him. He had a thorn in his rump and another in his neck. Whatever was on them was long gone and he was himself again, but someone put them in him. Someone maybe with a blowgun and a quick hand.”

  “It might not have been Walker,” Wolfcub said. He was being cautious. His heart was beating hard. When he chose Spearhead to confide in, he had never imagined that this of all the king’s companions would have stumbled on what he needed most to know. The gods’ hand was in that, surely.

  “Maybe it wasn’t the shaman,” said Spearhead, “but I’ll wager it was someone in his power. He’s got the hunger. He wants to rule.”

  “A shaman can’t be king,” Wolfcub pointed out.

  “No, and should he want to be? There’s more pure power in what that one is than in anything Linden can hope to be. He’s making and breaking kings. I wonder, what will he find to do after this?”

  Wolfcub shivered. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “And you’re afraid you do.”

  “Yes.” Wolfcub scooped up the bones and cast them moodily. They fell into a pattern that they seldom fell into. That pattern, in the game, was called War.

  He stared at it. War was not a thing to be afraid of. Young men loved it. And yet when he looked at the fall of the bones, he saw darkness, and Walker’s white and pitiless face.

  “He’s going to do something,” Wolfcub said, “that maybe no one’s dared before. Or he’ll hark back to something that the old people did, that was too terrible or too wasteful to keep.”

  “Or both.” Spearhead scattered the bones with a sweep of his hand. “It’s not really what he’ll do, is it? It’s how he’ll elect to do it. He loves himself too much and the People too little. And he’s a great deal more powerful than wise.”

  That was so like something Willow would say that Wolfcub loosed a snort of laughter. “Make a pact with me,” he said. “We’ll keep Linden as safe as we can. We’ll protect the People if that’s possible. And if we can, we’ll pull Walker’s fangs.”

  “How,” Spearhead inquired, “do you intend to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Wolfcub said. “The gods will show us a way.”

  “Unless he’s tricked the gods into feeding his power, too.”

  “Then,” said Wolfcub, “we’ll let them know what he’s done—and stand back from their wrath.”

  “Oh, they’ll be angry,” Spearhead agreed. “They will indeed.” He gathered the bones and tipped them into their pouch and tucked it back in his belt. “Well then. I’ll play this game. Do we tell anyone else?”

  Wolfcub shook his head. “Not unless there’s someone you can trust.”

  “I trust most of the companions,” Spearhead said, “to be loyal to the king, to fight as well for him as they can, and to be completely incapable of keeping a secret as great as this. Even if they believe it—and most of them probably would—they’re inclined to chatter to whoever will listen. Best they not know what creeps in the shadows.”

  “Yes,” said Wolfcub in something like relief. “Yes, best they not know.”

  They clasped hands over it, a clasp that turned into a test of strength, and then a contest, and at last a wrestling match that fetched them up laughing against the feet of a placid cow. Wolfcub had won, but Spearhead had given him a fair fight.

  He sprang up under the cow’s nose, held out a hand, pulled Spearhead to his feet. Side by side they went back to the camp.

  22

  Keen saw the two young men walking back from the herds, grass-stained and rumpled and content with themselves and their world. It was a moment before she recognized one of them as Wolfcub.

  By the gods, he had changed. His hair was sleek, no longer as untidy as a winter field. His shoulders were broad, his arms and legs matched to the length of his body. And his face—no wonder all the girls were giggling over him. Who would have imagined that Wolfcub would be a handsome man?

  He was a man of consequence, too. He stood beside the new king. No doubt, now the sacrifices were over, his mother would set about finding him a wife and a tent of his own.

  This was the time for it: the time after the festival, when the gods were propitiated and, in such years as this one, kings were made and unmade. The gathering would go on for another round of the moon, confirming alliances, settling feuds, and making marriages within and among the tribes.

  That was on her mind of late. A year ago, Walker had brought gifts to her father’s tent, bargained for and won her.

  She had been too happy to speak. Beautiful Walker, Walker the shaman, wonderful and powerful, had chosen her of all the women in the tribes. He had taken her into the tent that her father and his father combined to give them, full of all needful things, and discovered with great joy what she had kept for him. She had not, like others of the women, given her maidenhood to strangers during the sacrifices. She had waited and been patient, in spite of temptation.

  It had hurt. There was blood. She wept a little, but he dried her tears and kissed her and told her she was beautiful, and promised her that the next time would be better.

  And so it had been. And each time after, better yet, till she knew no greater joy than his
coming to her in the evening after a long day’s labors.

  He had not come to her since the People left the spring camp. She kept his tent, prepared dinners for him that he never came to taste, made certain that she was clean and dressed becomingly. He would come back, now the festival was over and the king was made. It was his tent she lived in and his possessions she looked after, among them no small quantity of things that a shaman needed for his magics.

  As Wolfcub and his companion strolled back arm in arm from wherever they had been, Keen was coming up herself from the river with a basket of fish and a harvest of green herbs. Walker loved fish rubbed and stuffed with herbs and baked in clay. It had taken her most of the morning to catch the fish—she had had to go far up the river to find an eddy with life in it, with so many people camped by the river and fishing in it. Then she had tarried to dig up the clay and to gather the herbs.

  It was nearly noon when she came to the camp. Her heart was lighter than it had been in a long while. Today, surely, Walker would remember her and come to her.

  She would prepare the fish and bury it in embers, then she would tidy the tent, and after that she would spend a leisurely while making herself beautiful for her husband. Her best tunic, her best ornaments, yes. She would wash her hair and scent it with some of the herbs that she had set aside in preparing the fish.

  What would come of that woke a flutter in her middle. Much of it was excitement. Some was fear. She was going to make another child, if she could at all. She had asked old Mallard, the elder shaman’s wife, for something to help make sure of it. Mallard had twitted her, of course, but almost gently, and given her a clay pot full of something eye-wateringly pungent. “Put a little of that in a cup of kumiss,” she said, “and drink it just before you go in to him. Then say a prayer to Earth Mother and to the Lady of Birthings, and let them bless you as you lie with him.”

  Keen could do that, and gladly. It was better by far than some things she had heard of, spells and incantations that required ghastly substances and arduous rites.

  oOo

  She smiled at the thought as she rounded the camp and approached her husband’s tent. There were a number of people about, more than usual; but this was the gathering. Sometimes everyone happened to be in the same place at the same time.

  They were, she realized, crowding about her husband’s tent. Her heart leaped. He had come back—he was receiving guests. She had seen such a crowd about Drinks-the-Wind, people begging him for his wisdom or asking for spells or simply paying their respects. Walker was the king’s shaman now. Of course the crowds would come to him.

  The people who came to Drinks-the-Wind were nearly always men. These were all women. They were, what was more, women of the Tall Grass, and none of White Stone or any other tribe. They came and went with great intentness of purpose. Those coming carried bundles and baskets. Those departing looked as if they were going to fetch more.

  A few women of the White Stone stood about, staring and offering commentary. When they caught sight of Keen, they flushed and made themselves scarce.

  Keen found that puzzling, but she was not apprehensive. There was a perfectly good explanation. Of course there was. She held her head high, firmed her grip on her basket, and walked to the tent as she well should, as one who had every right to do so. One or two of the strangers seemed not to like that very well—but that was no concern of Keen’s.

  The tent was not small, in fact it had been overlarge for Keen and Walker and their possessions. As Keen slipped into it, she nearly barked her skin on a basket.

  The tent was bursting with baskets, boxes, and bundles. They were heaped by the flap and mounded by the tent-wall. The partition that divided the outer room from the inner, women’s portion, which Keen kept fastened out of the way—she had never needed it—was down and fluttering with presence beyond.

  Keen was beginning to be angry. Whatever invasion this was, it came without her leave. She flung back the partition and stood face to face with what, at first, seemed another great crowd of women.

  It was only a few, she realized once her sight had cleared. Three very young women or girls, a somewhat older woman, and one who must have been both wife and mother: she was plump, her ruddy hair was shot with grey, and she conducted herself like the mistress of a wealthy man’s tent.

  It was she who faced Keen with arched brow and expression of disdain. “And who may you be?” she inquired.

  Keen stiffened. That should have been hers to say. This was her tent. But habits of grace, hard-learned and sternly kept, overwhelmed her temper. She answered civilly, “I am the shaman’s wife. How may I serve you?”

  The Tall Grass woman looked her up and down. She was not prepossessing, she knew. There was mud in her hem and her feet. Her hair was caught back in a rough plait, and she carried a basket like a servant. She held her head high and recalled who she was, whose daughter and whose wife.

  The interloper tightened thin lips and sighed. “You’re pretty enough,” she said. In her accent, which was broader and softer than the White Stone dialect, it sounded lazy and faintly insulting. “I suppose he’ll keep you, one way and another.”

  Keen’s jaw set till it ached. “My name is Keen-Wind-in-the- Grasses. I am the daughter of Flint, king’s brother, elder of the first clan of the White Stone. My mother was a shaman’s daughter. Her brother is a great hunter of the People. I was wedded in gathering to Walker Between the Worlds, shaman of the White Stone People. This is my tent. I welcome you to it, and I offer you hospitality, with all such grace as custom requires. Is it my husband you wish to see? If so, you would do best to seek him out in the king’s circle. He will linger there till evening.”

  “Ah,” said the Tall Grass woman. “You’re a proud one. It might serve you well to seek him out yourself. He’s taken a new wife, and spoken no word of the old one.”

  Keen held herself still by effort of will. This woman with her rough tongue and her bold eyes must not—must not—see her tremble. She managed the faint hint of a smile. “Indeed? Oh, that man! He never said you’d be arriving so soon. Since it’s customary for marriages to be made at the full moon, and it’s not even the new moon yet, I had thought . . .” She trailed off sweetly, lifted her chin, and shrugged as her mother had taught her, both to charm and to show off the excellence of her neck and shoulders and breasts. She made a little dance of it, which in turn showed off her white hands—somewhat smudged now, but of lovely shape, with long fingers. “Ah well, it’s done, and I’d be greatly remiss to send you away. Come, is this the lady? Come here, child, I won’t bite.”

  There could be little mistaking which was the bride-to-be: she was slender, her hair was a glorious deep red, and her eyes were as green as young grass; but she had her mother’s round face and somewhat prominent teeth. She was more than lovely, but time would bring her to her mother’s looks, or Keen was no judge.

  She met Keen’s stare as if she had only now deigned to notice that there was a stranger in the tent. Her mother was rude and forthright. She was haughty.

  Here, thought Keen, was one who reckoned herself fit to lie with a king. Was she perhaps a little disgruntled to have been given to a shaman?

  Certainly she was not pleased with the tent. “This is your tent, you say? It’s barely adequate for one. I’ll require another, and larger. See to it.”

  Keen’s smile had a distinct edge. “Oh,” she said, “but that would be an insult! Your father will wish, of course, to provide you with all necessities, among them a tent of appropriate size and grandeur. At least,” she said, “that is the custom of the White Stone. Among your people, then, it is the senior wife who provides?”

  “I am to be senior wife,” the girl said with more than a hint of petulance. “I was promised. He never mentioned you. They said he had a woman in his tent, but of course he would; every man requires a servant.”

  “I am his wife,” Keen said as gently as she could, “and senior by virtue of his having married me first. Come, ar
e these your servants? Let us send one to your father and inform him that there has been, perhaps, a little confusion. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to enlarge this tent which my father and my husband’s father combined to give us at our wedding. In the meantime, if you will, I’ll borrow the rest of your servants, and see that your belongings are arranged as conveniently as possible. I’ll send one when we’re done, to fetch you from your father’s tent.”

  The girl was speechless. Her mother bridled. “Are you sending us away? How dare you!”

  “Oh, no,” Keen said. “No, of course not! But wouldn’t your lovely daughter be better served at home, while we ready the tent for her here? I beg your forgiveness; I was not warned that you would come so soon. By tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, all will be ready for her, in as much comfort as she could desire.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” the girl snapped. “I came to be senior wife here. I will be senior wife here.”

  “Such confusion,” Keen sighed. “You—girl with the brown braids, take your mistress home, if you please, then come back to me. If you and your sister can bring the rest of the tent, then do it.”

  For a stretching moment Keen knew that her will was not strong enough; that these invaders would refuse. She had no strength and no assistance to cast them out bodily.

  The mother gave way, with no grace and nothing resembling politeness, but it was a surrender. She swept her daughter with her in a grand exit, trailing servants.

  Keen yearned to collapse in tears, but she could not do that. She called back the servants, all but the one whom she had ordered to bear the message to the girl’s father, and was deeply relieved that they obeyed her. She set them to work at once, shifting all their mistress’ possessions to as small a corner as possible, and heaping in front of the tent those that overflowed the corner. The girl’s father would provide shelter for them, or not; that was not Keen’s concern.