Lady of Horses

by Judith Tarr

  They were farthest out as always. The stallion stood on the edge. One white mare wandered away from him.

  There were riders on her back, one behind the other as Linden rode behind Wolfcub. Wolfcub knew at once and incontestably who those riders must be.

  He had no clear thought, only a kind of resignation. Of course it would have to happen this way.

  Of the others, not many could see as far or as clear as Wolfcub. He dared to hope that either they would not see the mare leaving the herd, or would not understand that the figures on her back were women.

  But Curlew, too, was farsighted—and Linden was watching his stallion. The stallion moved away from the rest of the mares, calling to the one who was departing. She took no notice. He tossed his head and stamped, and galloped after her.

  Linden’s cry had no words in it. But words came soon enough. “Raiders! Thieves! After them!”

  The companions needed no urging. Wolfcub’s gift horse, burdened with two men, could not rise to a gallop.

  Wolfcub could not say he regretted it, but Linden was wild to go after his stallion. Wolf-cub slipped to the ground and left Linden to it—and prayed, not at all wisely, that two women on a lone but sturdy mare could escape, and that the companions could catch the stallion and so be diverted from his apparent thieves. They were not stealing him at all, a blind man should have been able to see that. He was following the mare.

  Wolfcub did not linger long afoot. His ugly little dun had been trailing after them, aggravated by Wolfcub’s desertion but determined not to be left behind.

  He had to punish Wolfcub with a coy dance, but after he had led a merry chase, he let himself be stopped and bridled with a bit of spare leather. The dun was already moving as Wolfcub caught mane; he let the movement carry him onto the narrow familiar back.

  oOo

  The king and his companions were swift, but the mare was the wind made flesh, even with her double burden. After a while an even more terrible thing happened: the king stallion came up level with the mare, and the rider in front sprang onto his back. The other continued on the mare, who ran even faster now that she had only one rider to carry.

  Wolfcub had never seen Linden so angry. He even strung his pretty bow as he rode, and tried to shoot an arrow from it; but his aim was not the best, even if the bow could have shot so far.

  The mare and her companion were broadening the distance between them. Their riders were lighter and they were faster. However furiously the king and his men thundered in their wake, they thundered farther and farther behind.

  Linden was in a red rage. He would have followed them beyond the world’s end, if his horse could have done it. But the sorrel was neither fast nor particularly strong, and Linden was a big man, heavy for such a beast to carry. He faltered for all that his rider could do. At last he caught his foot on a stone and tumbled headlong, sending Linden flying.

  For Wolfcub who was close behind him, it was a terrible thing to see his young king fall as the old one had done. But Linden was more fortunate, or quicker in his reactions: he tucked and rolled and fetched up winded but alive against a hummock of grass.

  His mount was alive, too, but as he struggled to his feet, one leg hung broken. He stood three-legged, lovely head hanging, as the men crowded about his rider, pulling him up, fretting over him, determining that he had no more than a gathering of bruises. The wild rage had been struck clean out of him, but in its place was a colder, deadlier thing.

  He would not let anyone else give his poor sorrel the mercy-stroke. He did it himself with his flint knife, holding the head in his arms, thrusting the keen grey blade into the great vein of the neck as he had done in the sacrifices of the Stallion.

  The sorrel died gently, sinking down as the blood drained out of him, slipping into the long sleep. Linden stayed with him till he no longer breathed, watching over him, his face white and still.

  Their quarry by now was long gone. Linden did not rebuke his companions for failing to follow. He slipped the bridle from the sorrel’s head and stepped away from the body. “May the god of horses protect your bones,” he said.

  Then he faced his companions. Some looked down abashed. Others looked everywhere but at the king. All but Wolfcub, who looked Linden in the face, and Spearhead, who was likewise lacking in proper submission.

  “You go,” Linden said to them. “Bring them back to me—alive, thieves and horses. The thieves’ lives are mine, do you understand? Bring them back!”

  “I understand,” Wolfcub said. Spearhead nodded.

  “Go,” said Linden. Nor was there any choice but to obey.

  PART TWO:

  SPARROW AND KESTREL

  26

  Wolfcub and Spearhead rode swiftly away from the king, but once they were out of his sight, they slowed to a more sensible pace. Wolfcub’s heart and throat were both clenched tight. Of all the ways he had expected Sparrow’s rebellion to end, this was not one he had thought of. Riding away on the white mare, yes—that he could credit. But taking the king of stallions was madness.

  With the mare alone she might have escaped; it was only a mare, even if one of the royal herd. But the king stallion was the heart of all that the People were. He summoned them to their wanderings. He ordained their pauses and their camps. He made and then carried their king.

  Sparrow had taken the kingship away from the People. She could not, if she tried, have made more certain that she was hunted down and killed.

  He was her hunter. He who loved her, though she had never known or cared. The friend of her childhood, and her ally of late against her brother the shaman. She had bidden him look after Linden—and now, in doing that, he had to submit her to the grim justice of the People.

  He would far rather have done it alone. But Spearhead was a quiet companion, not given to chatter or to unnecessary galloping about. His plain, practical bay strode along easily beside Wolfcub’s homely dun. After a while he spoke, but it was to the point. “We’ll not catch them by running after them.”

  “No,” said Wolfcub, forcing the word through his constricted throat. “No, we won’t. We’ll have to be hunters, and they the deer.”

  “The king is not going to like it if we take too long.”

  “We’ll take as long as it takes,” Wolfcub said through set teeth.

  Spearhead nodded, then shook his head and sighed. “The king stolen from the gathering itself—and by a woman. Who’d ever have imagined it?”

  Wolfcub raised a brow. “A woman? Are you mad?”

  “Don’t play the fool,” Spearhead said. “I saw the shape of her, if no one else did.”

  Wolfcub sighed. “So,” he admitted, “did I.”

  Spearhead glanced sidelong at him. “Tell me what you know of her.”

  “Should I know anything?”

  “It’s the shaman’s daughter, isn’t it? The little dark one. She’s a witchy creature. I crossed her once, I forget for what. Her tongue has an edge like a fresh-knapped blade.”

  “So. You recognized her?”

  “So did you. I’ve seen you talking to her. And the other one—don’t tell me that’s who it seems to be.”

  Wolfcub set his lips together.

  “That can’t be Walker’s wife. Can it?”

  Wolfcub shrugged.

  “Well,” Spearhead said, “and well. She wasn’t happy with his taking a new wife, was she? Is that why they both did it, do you think? For spite?”

  “It’s a great and terrible thing to do for spite.”

  “It is that,” said Spearhead, “if you have a man’s wits. Women—who knows what they think? Or how? Or even if they do?”

  “They do think,” Wolfcub said, snapping it.

  “Ah,” Spearhead said, as if he had suddenly understood something—but what, Wolfcub could not guess.

  Nor would he ask. He pressed his dun to move a little ahead of the bay, and set himself to following the women’s track more closely. They had stopped running straight and had begun to weave
a little, not for weakness, he did not think, but maybe in some hope of throwing off pursuit. Sparrow at least should have known better, if she suspected that Wolfcub would go after her.

  She might expect that he would stay with Linden, and that whoever hunted her would be less skilled and much less likely to understand her mind. Not that Wolfcub claimed anything of the sort, but he had known her since she was a child. He knew what she was likely to do, given choices.

  He could let her throw him off the scent. It would be easy. A day, two, three—follow a false trail, lose the true one altogether, go back and face Linden’s wrath. But Sparrow would be safe.

  He could not do that. He had given his word to her that he would look after Linden; and Linden was his king. For the king’s sake, and for the sake of the People, he must bring back the king of stallions. Or the People would have no strength, and the gods would forsake them.

  He followed the women’s track therefore, grimly, with none of his wonted pleasure in his skill. Of the People, only one man was the better tracker, and that one was his father.

  Spearhead was not too unskilled at it, either. He found a place where their quarry had paused to drink from a little stream and to graze the horses. “They’ll be wanting to eat,” he said. “Would women know how to hunt?”

  “These would,” Wolfcub said. “And they can fish, if they make for the river that runs south of here.”

  “We’ll catch them soon enough,” Spearhead said. “Two women, even if they can hunt—how strong can they be?”

  “Stronger than you might think,” Wolfcub said. He mounted his dun and left Spearhead standing there, following the trail down the stream and then across it.

  Yes, it seemed they were making for the river. If they forded that, they left the lands that were common to the tribes of the plain. He knew somewhat of what was beyond: a plain not so broad and somewhat greener, broken by forests of trees, outriders of great forests to the south.

  This was the country from which Sparrow’s mother had come. That tribe was gone, her mother the last of it, but others lived here and there, small dark people who as often as not took shelter in the forests.

  Some of them had horses and some were riders, but how many or what skill they had, Wolfcub did not know. He had never thought to ask his friends of the Tall Grass, whose lands ran along the river. They raided the green country and intermarried with the dark women.

  Ah well, he thought. He would learn soon enough, if Sparrow did as he thought she would. She would look for refuge among the dark people. If they did not kill her, they might even welcome her—until the People came against her with the full force of war.

  Maybe she would come to her senses. Maybe she would let the stallion go. Maybe—if he could persuade her to give him the stallion, he could go back and leave her where she was, and convince Linden not to pursue his vengeance.

  He could do that. Yes. It was not dishonorable. She had not meant to steal the stallion, he was sure of it. The pretty idiot had been following the mare.

  With a somewhat lighter heart, he went on, keeping a pace that was steady but not grueling. When the trail wove and doubled back, he went straight. He might even catch them before they reached the river.

  That would be well; he could take back the stallion and send them across the river. Exile was a terrible thing, more terrible than death to most of the People—Linden might even accept that as a proper punishment.

  Wolfcub might be deluding himself. But it kept him going when he would have preferred to stop and howl at the moon. It gave him something to hope for.

  oOo

  Sparrow had never expected the king stallion to follow when she took the mare and ran. That was a mad enough thing, but the mare was wild to go—pulling at her spirit, robbing her of will or sense. The mare was a goddess. She cared nothing and less than nothing for the men who saw her with her chosen one.

  Then when she had got Sparrow on her back, the idiot stallion had insisted on going with her. By the time Sparrow understood that the mare could not carry two and still escape pursuit, Sparrow had also understood what her only choice must be. The mare showed her the way to it: let the stallion come up beside her, and leaned just so. It was oh so easy to catch the flying silver mane and let the force of their speed pull her across.

  The king of stallions did not rebel at her touch or cast her off in outrage. His little lean ears flicked back. He snorted a little as if her weight surprised him. She was much lighter than the man who had been riding him, and rather less inclined to pinch.

  The flow of his gait, the turn of his ear, spoke of his pleasure. He even danced a little when the mare slowed to breathe, tossing his mane. He was a lighter spirit than the mare, more frivolous.

  But he was determined to stay with the mare. When they paused by the stream to drink, to let the horses graze, and to eat berries from a bramble that grew up over the stream, Sparrow tried to send him away.

  He paid no attention to spoken dismissals. Slaps made him trot off a step or two, then drop his head to graze.

  When she picked up a stone, a large white figure interposed itself. The mare grazed placidly between her and the stallion, nor would she move: if Sparrow stepped aside, she was there, quiet but firm. Sparrow was not to chase the stallion away.

  “You do know,” Sparrow said to her, “since you are a goddess, that his being here is going to get us all killed.”

  The mare ignored her. So did the stallion. Keen, who might have paid attention, was lying on the grass by the stream, asleep or close to it.

  In sudden concern, Sparrow dropped beside her, peering into her face, feeling her forehead. She roused at that, blinking up at Sparrow’s face. “Sparrow? Is it morning?”

  Before Sparrow could answer, she shook herself, sitting up, taking in the horses and the stream and the wide stretch of the plain.

  She shuddered, clasping arms about her middle. “We’ve done it this time, haven’t we? We’ve done the one thing no one will ever forgive us for.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Sparrow said. “I’m sorry you got caught up in it.”

  Keen stared at her. “Caught? I caused it! If I hadn’t convinced you to run away—”

  “I was running away before I saw you,” Sparrow said. She sighed and let herself sink down beside Keen. It felt suddenly wonderful not to be standing or sitting, to be letting Mother Earth hold her. “We’re meant to do this. It’s Horse Goddess. She wants—for whatever reason, she wants us here, and the stallion.”

  “Gods are difficult,” Keen said. She yawned. “Oh, I’m tired. But we can’t stay here, unless you think we’re meant to die before we’ve been gone half a day.”

  “I’m not sure we’re meant to die at all.” Sparrow rose reluctantly, groaning—her muscles had stiffened already. What Keen must be feeling, she did not like to imagine. But Keen said nothing.

  They mounted again, Keen with Sparrow’s help, and went on as quickly as the horses would consent to go. The mare led, carrying Keen. The stallion followed.

  Sparrow found his gaits easier than the mare’s, smoother and softer. She could let herself drowse on his back as men did on the march, erect or else lying on his neck. He was tolerant of it, for so young a creature, and a stallion besides. Small wonder that Horse Goddess cherished him: he was biddable, as a mare reckoned a male should be, but strong enough when strength was required of him.

  The mare led them on past sunset, then at last let them rest, hidden in a hollow. There was grass enough for the horses, but the women had only water in the skins that each had brought and filled at the stream, and a few berries, and a bit of dried meat from Keen’s store.

  Tomorrow, Sparrow thought, they should camp earlier, and she would set snares. Provided that they were not caught. Provided that they lived to see another sunset.

  27

  Cloud was entirely out of patience. Whatever god of mischief had invented both yearling colts and half-grown girls, he all too clearly had intended them to drive Clo
ud mad. When they were both together—the colts besetting the mares till the mares were thirsty for their blood, and the girls egging the colts on for the delight of seeing the mares’ rage—they were enough to drive the herdsman to distraction.

  He could set the dogs to herding the colts back where they belonged, but the girls were more elusive. They scattered when he rode at them, then simply ran back together when he was past, jeering and making ghastly faces.

  All at once they scattered and stayed scattered. He greeted his mother with relief that he hoped was not too desperate. She, mounted on her strong grey mare, watched the children’s flight with lifted brow. “I wonder,” she said, “how the lot of them would take to a good birch switch?”

  “I should love to discover,” Cloud said feelingly.

  Storm laughed. She was a comfortable woman to look at, deep of breast and hip, and gifted with ample flesh even in a lean winter. In summer she needed her mare’s strength, but she rode well always, as light on the mare’s back as a girl.

  She looked over the horse-herd with a discerning eye, and nodded approval. “They’ve done well this summer,” she said. “So many new foals—and so strong. Horse Goddess willing, most of them will last out the winter.”

  “I think so,” Cloud said, not sorry to be diverted from the pranks of impudent girlchildren. “With as many calves as we’ve had, too, we’ll do well in winter camp. And if the women do their part . . .”

  “Wicked child,” Storm said, but without censure. “If the women do their part with you, do you mean?”

  “Or with anyone else,” he said. He coaxed a tangle out of his mare’s mane, until she grew tired of his fussing and went back to her grazing. “I should like us to be richer. More numerous, too. We’re not what we were in the dawn time, but we can be a great people again. Why not? We have horses, and they prosper with us. We can fight if we have to. If we would raid across the river—”

  Storm’s frown stilled his tongue before it ran on further. “If we are ever ready to make war,” she said, stern as she seldom was with him, “that will not be this year, or even next. We’re richer than we were, but we’re still a poor people. Our way is the hare’s way, close to the ground, swift and wary—not the way of the horse running proud over the plain.”