Lady of Horses

by Judith Tarr

  He wheeled. Keen had seen the woman coming: the young shaman, whose name, she recalled, was Rain. He must have heard her. He flung his words in her face. “You knew!”

  Rain did not seem dismayed, even before the blaze of his anger. “Knew what?” she asked, reasonably enough in Keen’s estimation.

  “You knew about this!” He stabbed his hand toward Keen.

  Rain lifted a brow. “What, that Old Woman had guests? Everybody’s known that since summer. I thought you knew.”

  “You never told me who those guests were.”

  “Should I have?”

  He sucked in breath as if to bellow at her.

  She spoke calmly through that sharp, furious hiss. “Kestrel, my dear and headlong beloved, while I can gather that this woman is someone you know, I can hardly have been expected to have foreknowledge of that. I’m a shaman, not a god.”

  “You knew,” he said, “that there were two women from north of the river in this country. Surely, if you had been thinking—”

  “When I troubled to think about it at all,” she said, “I thought that you knew already, and it was no matter to you.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She shrugged. She was calmer than Keen would have been in the face of such breathtaking rudeness. “Then don’t believe it. Don’t tell me, either, why you’re so completely out of your head over this. I don’t think I care to know.”

  Keen watched her turn and stalk away. Wolfcub, or Kestrel as he seemed to be now, refused. He glared at Keen instead.

  “I think,” she said mildly, “that you have a story to tell. Why not sit here and drink some of this goat’s milk—the honey in it is very good—and tell me how you came to this country.”

  He was not listening. Nor, clearly, was he in any mood to be reasonable. “She’s not dead? Then where is she?”

  Keen had to pause for a moment, to remember what they had been speaking of before Rain appeared. “Sparrow is with Old Woman.”

  Kestrel stared blindly at her. “With the shaman? Tonight? That must mean—”

  “Kestrel!” That caught his attention, at least. “You can’t go running after her. Not now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” Keen said, “you are not a shaman, and she is.”

  “But she can’t be—”

  “In this country she can.”

  For some reason that stopped him, and brought him somewhat to himself. “This country . . .” He rubbed hands over his face, raking them down his cheeks. “Oh, gods. O unmerciful gods.”

  He was gone before she could call him back, whirling, running away from her. She could not think what to do, except that it would not be wise to follow him. She stayed therefore, with her stitching forgotten in her lap, and thoughts waking in her that she did not want, no, not at all.

  38

  Kestrel had not been kind to Keen, or even polite. Nor should it have mattered, after what she had done; but he was all in a roil. He ran blindly through the camp, ignoring people who called after him, and children and dogs who followed till their elders called them back. He had no goal in mind, but his feet bore him toward the horse-herd.

  And there he was, that black-and-silver beauty, tethered at the end of a line of young stallions, well apart from the king stallion and his mares. As many greys as there were in this herd, he was not strikingly unusual, but his silver-dappled black coat and his bright mane were difficult to mistake.

  Keen must have ridden him to the Grey Horse camp. A woman, and neither royal nor shaman, riding that of all horses. He looked and acted like any other young male of his kind, grazing in his portion of the line, glaring down the bay on his left and flinching before the elder grey on his right. He was no king here, nor did he presume to be.

  Kestrel did not approach him or touch him. There was a stone near the stallions’ line, swept clean of snow. Kestrel sat on it with his knees drawn up, knotted tight within himself.

  Here he sat in the dark of the year. His hunt had ended: the quarry had come to him, easily, unwarily, and all unlooked for. He could take the stallion now, simply lead him away, and make his long way back to the People.

  He could do that. The Grey Horse People had given him a horse, a tall speckled grey with a dark mane. He could take that horse and lead the stallion and go. He doubted that anyone would pursue him.

  As for the command that had been laid on him, to bring back the thieves alive, he would hope that Linden had forgotten. Or he would tell the truth, that the women were in exile and would not come back. It should be enough, even for Linden.

  So simple an ending; so tidy. Who but a god could have arranged it?

  And yet he could not move. The stone was chill under him, the sun’s warmth fading as it sank into night. His scars ached, straining over his ribs.

  The stallion paid no heed to him at all. Horses, like gods, cared little for men’s frets and follies. Kestrel wondered a little wildly if he remembered that he had been a king, or regretted that he had left it. Most likely he did not. He seemed happy enough here.

  Kestrel would wait. He would endure the night and the day of festival. Then if Sparrow did not come, he would go to her. He would see her before he left—if only to assure his king that he had found her; she had been alive. Then he would go.

  Maybe the gods were laughing at the delusions of a simple mortal. Maybe this was as they willed. He was not a shaman. He did not know. He could only do what he reckoned best, however poor a best that was.

  oOo

  Kestrel did not go seeking Sparrow after the rite and the feast. He did not even see the rite. He stayed with the horses through the long chill night; and come morning, he paid the price he should have expected: a fever that lodged itself in his misused ribs.

  It was a sharp fever, but short. And it was Keen who nursed him through it, because the Grey Horse People were preoccupied with their festival.

  Cloud would have left the feasting to look after him, but Keen convinced him that she could manage. Kestrel, slipping in and out of dream, saw how they looked at one another, they two, and thought that he should say something, or do something. But his head hurt too much, and his ribs were not happy at all.

  He was only abed for two days—long enough to drive him wild with boredom, but not long enough to destroy all his strength. By the second day, Keen had discovered his scars, and come close to weeping over them. “Oh! You poor thing. No wonder you’re all bones. What was it? Lion?”

  He nodded. “More of my foolishness. I really should be wiser.” She laughed a little as she bathed him in warm water scented with herbs. It was a healer’s potion: it made Kestrel’s skin tingle. “You always say that. You’re proud of yourself, admit it. These scars are as noble as any man could hope to live with.”

  “And not die of?” He shifted slightly on the heaped furs. It dawned on him dimly that he was naked and alone in a tent with a woman of remarkable beauty. But this was Keen, whom he loved as a sister. She seemed oblivious to him, except as an object to be cleaned and tended.

  She was also and rather obviously with child. Walker’s, he supposed. It could hardly have been anyone else’s. She bore the burden well, in a deep contentment that he had seen more often in mares than in women. It strengthened her beauty, made it both richer and softer. Small wonder that Cloud looked on her as he did; any man would, who was not her all-but-brother.

  “You don’t want to tell me, do you?” she said. “How you came here. You always did hate to tell stories.”

  Yes, he did; and this story was not one he wanted to think of. But he was weak with fever, and he was tired; he could not lie to her. “I came to find the stallion,” he said, “and take him back.”

  She was not shocked or afraid. She nodded. “I thought that might be it. Will you do it?”

  “The king commanded me.”

  “Then I suppose you should,” she said. “If you can.”

  His brows drew together. “If I can? Will these people stop m
e?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “But Horse Goddess might.”

  “Horse Goddess? Why would she do that?”

  “He belongs to her,” said Keen. “She brought him here. She wants him for something—I don’t know what. Certainly not the thing that stallions do: she was in foal already when we left. But I don’t think she’ll let him go.”

  “She has to,” Kestrel said. “If I don’t take him back, the king will come for him.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so,” Kestrel said.

  “Then why didn’t he come before? He had most of the summer, and the autumn. He never came.”

  That was a question Kestrel had asked himself. But he thought he had an answer. “He would have had to be king, more than ever with his stallion gone, and settle the tribes. By the time he could have done that, it would have been too late. But come spring, if I don’t bring the stallion back, he’ll come here. The shamans will show him the way.”

  Keen regarded him gravely. Her expression put him in mind of men’s estimation of women’s intelligence, or the lack thereof. But Keen was by no means weak in the wits. Behind that lovely face and those blue and dreaming eyes was a sharp mind and a clear perception. “Maybe Horse Goddess wants that,” she said. “Maybe he’s supposed to come here.”

  “And bring war?”

  She shivered, but she nodded. “I don’t know why the gods do anything. But I don’t think Horse Goddess will let you take her stallion away.”

  “I have to try,” he said. “These people are brave enough, and fight well when they have to, but they’re a small tribe, and not rich. They can’t hope to stand against all the gathered peoples. Even if the People come alone—they’ll be hideously outnumbered.”

  “Maybe Horse Goddess will protect them,” Keen said.

  “Or maybe not.” Kestrel tried to rise. “Now do you see why I have to go?”

  “You’ll go nowhere now,” she said, pushing him gently back down again. “And yes, I see. I saw it to begin with. But I don’t think Horse Goddess will.”

  oOo

  Sparrow rode into the camp on the fourth day after the dark of the moon. She came in by the same way that Keen had come, riding on the white mare. This time Kestrel was there to see, and to mark how the people were at her coming: silent, still, bowing as she rode past. She seemed unaware of them. Her eyes were dark, fixed as if blind.

  But she could see. She saw Storm standing in the camp’s heart, and Rain, and Cloud beside Keen. All of them she saw, and knew. But Kestrel she seemed not to see at all.

  The mare halted in front of the king. Sparrow slid from her back, holding up the thing that she had been carrying in her hands: a skull-cup such as warriors made, as richly and intricately ornamented as a king’s. Storm sank down before it, to the ground, and everyone else followed—even, after a moment, Keen.

  Kestrel stayed on his feet. He had not known the one whose skull this must be. He had not acknowledged her power, if such she had ever had.

  It was an empty defiance. No one seemed to notice it. Sparrow spoke in a clear and carrying voice, simply but with clear strength of will. “Your Old Woman is dead. She bade me come to you and give you her farewell. Her spirit watches over you. Her voice intercedes with the gods for you. She speaks as one of your ancestors, though she came from another kin and tribe. That is the love she bore you, and the care she took for you.”

  People wept, hearing that. They grieved as for one of their own. But Kestrel’s heart was cold.

  He had seen Sparrow. Now he could go. Indeed, he should, while she and the mare were occupied; but he stood still.

  What she had done was beyond forgiveness—even if it was not she but the mare who had done it. She had taken the kingship away from the People. He was bound by honor and duty to bring her back to the king for that, and to see her suffer whatever penalty the king should exact.

  Probably the king would put her to death. If Kestrel had been king, he would have done it.

  She had become a stranger, a violator of the laws of gods and men. She stood among these people who looked so much like her, and spoke to them in the voice of a shaman, and they bowed to her power. What she had done to gain that cup she held in her hands, and the power that both filled it and shone out of her, he did not want to imagine.

  Yet she was still Sparrow. He looked at her and tried to be cold, tried to hate her; and he could only hate himself, because after all they had both done, he still loved her. He would always love her. Even if—or when—he had to kill her for what she had done to the People.

  He turned and walked away from her and from the people about her. He went to the horses. He sat where he had sat on the night of the moon’s dark, knotted as he had been then, and resolved that this time, when the sun went down, he would be sensible and find a warm place to sleep.

  Maybe that would not be in this camp, if she was in it. He had to leave—he could not stay. Because if he stayed, he would have to invoke his duty, seize her and carry her off and bring her to his king.

  oOo

  She found him there. It did not take much finding, to be sure. The mare had come in among the herd, cowing the queen mare with teeth and heels, and driving back the great white mountain of a stallion. Then, having done that, she established herself near the young king, to the visible dismay of the other stallions tethered along the line.

  She fostered that dismay. She took pleasure in it, Kestrel was sure.

  Sparrow came and sat on the rock beside him, not touching, but close enough that he could feel her warmth. She said, “If you try to take him, the mare will stop you.”

  “That’s what Keen said,” he said. He was amazed at how calm he managed to sound. “I told her it really would be better if I took him. Otherwise he’ll bring the People down on this country.”

  “Yes,” said Sparrow.

  He glanced at her. He was older; people said he looked it, and certainly he felt it. She had changed, too, though maybe more subtly. She had not grown taller as he had. Her face was much the same.

  But her eyes were different. Shaman’s eyes. They were dark and deep, and had seen beyond the world.

  “You’re not afraid,” he said.

  “Would it help anyone if I were?”

  “It might help these people.”

  She shook her head. “Horse Goddess will do whatever she pleases.”

  “Keen said that, too.”

  “Keen understands.” Sparrow clasped her knees and laid her chin on them. “I suppose we’re under some dire sentence. Is it death?”

  His teeth clicked together. He always did forget just how direct Sparrow could be. “I was to bring you back alive.”

  “So my brother can kill me.”

  “No. Linden. Linden commanded me.”

  That startled her. His heart stabbed at the hurt in her face. All this time, all this power and wisdom, and she still yearned after that pretty fool.

  She did not try to deny what he had said, at least. That was Sparrow: unflinching in the face of the truth. “He did love that horse,” she said slowly. “He must have been very, very angry.”

  “The word I would use,” said Kestrel, “is wrath.”

  “Ah.” She sighed. “Yes, I suppose it would be that. We couldn’t have done anything much worse than we did.”

  “I can’t think of anything,” Kestrel said dryly.

  “And he sent you. That was cruel.”

  “He wouldn’t have known,” Kestrel said.

  “I suppose not,” said Sparrow. “You can’t do it, you know. Take the stallion, or take me. The goddess won’t allow it.”

  “The goddess? Not you?”

  “I would go,” she said, “if I could. I’m not particularly afraid to die—and I might not. But the goddess forbids. We’re to stay here.” She slanted a glance under those straight black brows. “You know that. You can hear her, too.”

  “I can’t—”

  That was not true. Kestrel did not
hear the goddess, nothing so clear or so direct. He knew, that was all. He looked at the mare, and she was going nowhere, nor was the stallion, nor was Sparrow.

  As for him, whom the shaman here had named the Sparrowhawk . . . he had failed of his hunting. He should go back and take the punishment that he had earned.

  “No,” said Sparrow as if he had spoken aloud. “You’ll stay.”

  “I can’t.”

  She reached across the narrow space that was between them, and took his hand. “You will.”

  He stared at his long thin hand in her small round one. His fingers were cold. Hers were warm. He said, “You’re playing me like a flute. Stop it.”

  She did not let go his hand. “I will play a whole night’s dance on you, if that’s what’s necessary. I won’t let you go back. They’ll kill you.”

  “I don’t think Linden will,” he said.

  “It’s not Linden I’m thinking of.” She raised his hand to her cheek. It turned of its own accord, fitting its palm to that soft curve. “She brought you here, you know. The goddess. She tested you; she tempered you with pain. She wants you here for what will come.”

  “And if I won’t stay?”

  “You, she won’t stop. But I will.”

  “Can you?”

  She closed the space between them, linking hands behind his neck. “Ask me now,” she said.

  She did not mean it. She did it because she knew what was in his heart—not because she shared any part of it.

  He knew that, and he felt himself falling. Honor, duty, loyalty to his king—what had any of them been, from the beginning, but obedience to her wish? She had asked him to look after Linden. He had done that. Now he was here, and she asked him to do another thing, a terrible thing, to abandon the king whom he had served at her will. All at her will, because he had no power to resist her.

  He groaned and willed himself to pull away. Of course he could not. His arms, raised to thrust her off, folded around her, drawing her closer.

  He had dreamed of this. But in the dreams, she had loved him as he loved her. That was not so in this waking world. She was saving his life, that was all—that was how she would reckon it.