by Judith Tarr
“Didn’t you?”
Aurochs laughed softly. “I confess I didn’t. I was hoping we’d be able to sweep in, raid, and get out; then pray we could gather enough of the warband to fight off Walker’s faction. I’m thinking that what the people have done in this country, he’s done north of the river—it’s most suspicious that we met only the Red Deer and never passed by any other camps at all, except Tall Grass; and that was empty.”
“You think he’s got another warband following us?”
“It’s possible,” Aurochs said. “I’ve scouted as I can, but if they’re following, they’re farther back than I like to go.”
“Then even if the Grey Horse unites with us against Walker’s men, we’ll be faced with a war when we try to go back home.”
“Not if Walker is dead.”
Kestrel stared at his father. “You’d do that?”
“I’m not sure I dare,” said Aurochs. “But if his sister is as you say, she well may be willing. And able. How strong is she? Truly?”
“Stronger than any shaman I’ve known,” Kestrel said.
“Stronger than her father?”
“Much stronger.”
“And she hates her brother.”
Kestrel found that his fists were clenched. “I don’t know if I can do that—or if I’ll let anyone else do it, either. What would it do to her spirit to kill her own kin?”
“Her brother was doing his best to kill their father.”
“Walker’s spirit is a dark and twisted thing,” Kestrel said. “Hers is beautiful, and bright as the sun at noon. Brighter.”
“You do love her,” Aurochs said musingly. “I think we should find her. Then we’ll see what we can see.”
“Maybe I should do the killing,” Kestrel said. “Or arrange an accident.”
“That one is too canny for accidents,” said Aurochs. “And if it’s known that you killed him, you’ll die for it. It’s a terrible crime to kill a shaman.”
“Worse than killing a king?” Kestrel lay on his back, hands laced beneath his head, filling his eyes with stars. “I’ve killed a boar by accident and a lion by necessity. Why not a shaman by both? I’ll have his skull for a drinking cup.”
“I think,” said Aurochs, “that you should wait until we’ve found his sister.”
“She won’t let me do it.”
“Yes,” Aurochs said.
Kestrel drew a deep breath, held it, let it go all at once. “Do you know what I’m thinking? Beyond all the rest? That she’ll help us not for me but for Linden. She’s always been besotted with that pretty face.”
“Has she?” said Aurochs.
“Yes. Ever since we were children. He never looked at her—why should he? He could have any woman he wanted. But now she’s what she is. He likes a prettier face than she has, but he loves power. And I’m thinking . . . here in the south, a woman may have as many men as she pleases.”
“You think she’ll bed him.”
Kestrel nodded. “I’m a fool, aren’t I? Jealous of a king. I don’t want to be one, not ever in the world. But if I could have Linden’s face—”
“You wouldn’t want it,” Aurochs said. “He’ll be losing his hair in a few years, and his sort runs to fat. You’ll only get better as you age.”
Kestrel laughed, catching painfully in his ribs. “Oh, yes! They all say I look like you. But that’s years away, and he’s beautiful now, with that yellow hair. She’s a shaman, she’s a woman of great power and wisdom, and I love her beyond endurance—and she is still infatuated with him.”
“Youth,” said Aurochs, “is a dire thing. Go to sleep, boy, and stop your fretting. I’ll lay you a wager. If she lies with him, she’ll do it once, just to have done it. Then she’ll come back to you—and she’ll never look away from you again.”
“You think I should let it happen.”
“I doubt you can stop it, if she’s set on it.”
“There is that,” Kestrel sighed. “Do you think I—”
“I think you should sleep. We’ll be tracking a tribe tomorrow, and beginning a game that could end in death for us all. Best we be rested before we begin.”
That was wise. Of course it was. Aurochs was the wisest man Kestrel knew; wiser than any shaman.
But Kestrel was still inclined to fret over Sparrow and Linden. It was better than some of the other things, and Walker most of all. Walker could not be allowed to live. Not after all this was done. It was a cold truth, and a hard one. But in the end there was no escaping it.
51
Three days before the new moon, they found the camp of the Grey Horse People. It was nearer than Kestrel had expected; indeed they had camped far north. They were waiting, he knew. Facing what they were destined to face.
Linden had done his best, and that, among the warriors, was very good indeed. Most of the warband were eager to approach as guests and to share the vaunted generosity of these southern women.
Walker offered no objection. Kestrel had not expected that he would. For what Aurochs thought he had in mind, it only mattered that both Linden and the stallion be in his power on the night of the new moon.
Kestrel noticed that one of the Red Deer men—the girlish boy, in fact, who had pleasured the king—was missing. He must have gone, then, to bear a message. Which meant that there was indeed a second warband behind them.
There was a kind of calm in it. This long hunt was nearing its end. Kestrel was ready for whatever might come.
oOo
They camped for the night not far from the Grey Horse camp. Some of the greater fools wanted to press on, to reach the dark-eyed wanton women sooner. But Linden for once was determined to be patient.
“We’ll come to them in the morning,” he said, “with our best faces on, and no threat of war. And remember—don’t take any of these women. Ask. We want allies, not enemies.”
They all agreed to that, some less willingly than others. Linden appeared to be satisfied. Kestrel determined to be.
Tomorrow he would see Sparrow. However great her anger, however bitter her condemnation of what he had done, even if she turned from him to Linden, still he would see her. The thought made him dizzy with a mingling of joy and fear.
oOo
They were up at dawn and riding by full light. All of them were arrayed as if for a festival, or as much as they could be after so long a riding. Such ornaments as they had, they wore. Their hair was plaited, their coats cleaned as much as could be. Their horses’ manes were braided with feathers and bright stones and even flowers. All their weapons were put away, bows unstrung and riding in their cases, only their knives close to hand for a fight.
They were a handsome company, and their king was glorious to see. He had managed to bring with him a kingly coat and clean white leggings, and a great collar of shells and bone and beads, and other, lesser ornaments that were still impressively rich. He looked as a king should look, tall and golden and proud, mounted on his lovely dun stallion.
He insisted that Kestrel ride at his right hand. People murmured only lightly at that, and some was for the fact that Aurochs rode close behind: the two so alike, father and son, and Aurochs mounted on the younger of Kestrel’s greys besides, to heighten the resemblance. They made a brave show, everyone agreed.
Walker was part of it. He rode on Linden’s left in his long white tunic, with his hair blowing free, looking the very image of a shaman. But to Kestrel’s eyes he was a shadow, a glimmer without substance.
oOo
The Grey Horse People were waiting for them. Their camp was ordered as Kestrel remembered, no defenses, nothing changed or darkened in preparation for attack. But he noticed that the back of it lay under the eaves of a wood. The people could retreat within if there was need.
It seemed a full camp, with children and dogs running out to greet the strangers, and their elders following, many afoot, but some mounted on fine grey horses. Those came together, Storm on her heavy-boned mare, Cloud and Rain on smaller, lighte
r horses, and a few others behind.
Sparrow was not there. Kestrel could not see or feel her. She might have been gone from the world; except that if she had died, he would know it. She had simply vanished.
Storm rode from among her people with her air of royal ease that was so disconcerting at first to a man from the north. The way she approached, the ornaments she wore, the leggings of doeskin tanned as soft as butter, made it clear who she was. There was also no question that she was a woman; she was bare-breasted as always in warm weather. So too was Rain in the shaman’s place at her left hand.
Linden’s eyes were like to fall from his head; Kestrel could well imagine what the men were doing behind. Some of them he could hear: they were panting like dogs.
Storm appeared to take no notice. But Rain knew what she was doing to these outland warriors. She rode straighter than she was wont to do, and kept her shoulders well back.
Her eyes had a gleam in them that Kestrel knew well. She would make mischief as she could. He only hoped that she did not provoke one of the warband into something everyone would regret.
“Welcome,” said Storm in trader-tongue, “king of the White Stone People. You’ve been long awaited.”
Linden looked ready to swallow his tongue. But he managed to stammer, “You—you were waiting for us?”
Storm inclined her head. “Will you be our guests? We’ve prepared a feast for you, and a place for your men to camp, and for your horses. Though if you will, I would be pleased to welcome you into my tent as my honored guest and my brother king.”
“I—would be pleased to—” Linden shook himself. “Yes. Yes, you’re very generous.”
Storm smiled. “Come then,” she said.
oOo
She led them somewhat away from the camp to a broad field. There a fire was built, and an ox roasting whole, and wild game, and a boar turning slowly on a spit.
Kestrel glanced at Cloud when he saw that. Cloud was dressed as the women were; he bore no new scars, nor wore the boar’s tusks. But Kestrel did not doubt that the boar was his kill.
There in the field they set up camp, centering it on the fire and the feast. The Grey Horse People streamed after them and past them, to help with the tents and the lesser fires and to tantalize the warriors with the sight of bold-eyed bare-breasted girls and women.
The warband remembered the command Linden had laid on it. No one offered impertinence, or tried to seize a woman. Kestrel was rather proud of them.
The king and the shaman and the king’s companions had no need to raise a tent; Storm insisted that they must be guests in hers. For them there was a canopy near the great fire, rolls of furs to recline on, and boys and young girls to serve them baskets of fruit, cups of kumiss and berry wine, and bits of cheese and sweet cake while they waited for the feast to be prepared.
The child who waited on Kestrel and his father had a familiar face, though she was trying to be dignified. When she knelt to offer them her basket of berries, Kestrel scooped up a handful and said as casually as he could, “Tell me where the shaman is.”
“Why,” said the child, whose name, he recalled, was Squirrel, “she’s yonder.” She tipped her chin toward Rain, who sat beside the king. There was a child in her arms, suckling at the breast: a dark-eyed, dark-curled infant who reminded Kestrel, somehow, of Cloud.
He would think of that later, and admire Rain’s firstborn, too. His mind now was on another thing. “Not that one,” he said to Squirrel. “The other one. The foreign one.”
Squirrel’s round eyes were guileless. “I’m sure I don’t know, lord hunter,” she said.
Kestrel bit his tongue and kept silent. She went on to serve Cloud, who must have overheard; but like everyone else, he was pretending to be oblivious. When he spoke, it was of trivial things, as if Kestrel had been a stranger.
That, Kestrel could not bear. “Stop it,” he said. He kept his voice down, but it was sharp nonetheless. “I’ll let her reveal herself when she deigns to do it, but I won’t be treated as if you never saw me before. I don’t care if you hate me—at least be honest about it.”
“I don’t hate you,” Cloud said. He sounded surprised and a little dismayed. “Is that what you’ve been thinking? I’d be a hard man indeed if I hated you for this.”
“For leading a warband against you?”
“There’s no war yet,” said Cloud. “You’re guests. We’re honored to serve you.”
“Once,” said Kestrel, “I was somewhat more than a guest.”
“Once,” Cloud said, “you were.”
Kestrel flinched beneath the mask he had made of his face. So few words, to smite so deep. They were not spoken in anger or with intent to be cruel. In Cloud’s eyes, they were the simple truth. They pierced Kestrel to the heart.
Cloud did not know, and Kestrel would not tell him. The prince had turned to Aurochs with an air of evident pleasure. “You are the great hunter, yes? The Lord Sparrowhawk’s father?”
Aurochs bowed assent.
Cloud smiled at him. “You are welcome here, my lord. Very welcome indeed.”
“Why is that?” asked Aurochs.
Cloud’s smile widened. “For your son’s sake,” he said, “and for the sake of another who has been a guest and more. But come, eat; be merry. There’s ample time later for higher things.”
oOo
Kestrel determined to be patient. Linden was more than pleased to do it: he sat between Storm and Rain, and his servant was an older girl than the others, lissome still but with her breasts sweetly budding. She was not shy, either, as maidens of the People were taught to be. When she had served him, she sat in his lap and played with his yellow braids, clearly fascinated.
Linden was a happy man. So were the rest of the companions whom Kestrel could see. But Walker, despite the offices of a lovely young thing and the attentions of several more, all captivated by his ice-pale beauty, wore the expression of a man on the raw edge of endurance. When his servant took her lead from Linden’s and twined herself about him, he rose abruptly, spilling her to the ground, and stalked away.
Kestrel half-rose to follow, but Cloud’s hand stopped him. Cloud’s eye slid. Kestrel saw what he indicated: a nearly imperceptible drift of certain people in the shaman’s wake. Walker was being watched. Kestrel should stay where he could be seen, and betray none of his suspicions.
Kestrel sank down reluctantly, but he could not deny the prince’s wisdom.
The girl who had so discomfited Walker came to join those about Linden, with no sign of offense to have been cast off so rudely. “Such an odd man,” she said to Linden. “Do you have many like him?”
“I think he’s the only one,” Linden said.
“Good,” she said.
Kestrel began to see a great many things. Fortunately no one saw him fall back, laughing soundlessly; or if anyone did, he did not speak of it.
52
“Treachery.”
The hiss brought Kestrel starting awake. For a moment he lay in confusion. Then he remembered: he lay in the outer room of the king’s tent in the Grey Horse camp, with his father beside him and the king’s companions beyond. Linden was in the inner room with Storm, who had claimed him from among the rest and taken him to a fate most of them could well imagine. They had heard it clearly enough from beyond the curtain.
Morning light slanted now through the open tentflap. Kestrel heard voices without, the soft clamor of a camp rising, dressing, breaking its fast. One of the voices was Storm’s, warm, deep for a woman’s, and rich with contentment.
Linden was still in the inner room. Walker was with him—and none of the companions had roused.
None but Aurochs. The space beside Kestrel was empty. Kestrel’s father knelt close by the curtain, listening as unashamedly as Kestrel went to do.
“Treachery,” Walker said again, barely above a whisper. “They’ve trapped you here, separated you from your warband, and lulled you with strong drink and willing women. Where do you think my
sister is? Wouldn’t you wager that she’s leading an army against you?”
Linden yawned audibly, and must have stretched: Kestrel heard a soft and distinct cracking of waking bones. “Walker,” he said with a slight edge of petulance, “you woke me up to tell me that? You worry too much. Storm told me your sister is a shaman now—can you believe that? A woman, a shaman. She’s gone to a holy place to do whatever shamans do. When she comes back, she’ll bring my stallion. Storm promised. I made her promise that he’ll be alive and fit for me to ride. That was clever, don’t you think?”
“Very clever,” Walker said without conviction. “My lord, you believe what the she-king of an enemy people tells you? Of course she’ll say what you want to hear. That’s part of the plot.”
“There’s no plot,” said Linden. “Guests are sacred here. We’ve eaten their bread, drunk their wine. They can’t kill us. It’s against their religion.”
“So they told you,” Walker said.
“Lord Sparrowhawk told me, too. He knows these people. And he’s loyal.”
“Is he?”
“I trust him,” Linden said. “Now go away, please. I want to sleep a little longer.”
“You’ll sleep long in your death,” Walker said tightly. “My lord—”
“Go away,” said Linden.
oOo
Kestrel and Aurochs were well away from the curtain and feigning sleep when Walker burst through it. He was beyond knowing or caring who listened, Kestrel suspected.
When he was gone, sweeping through like a wind across the plain, Linden emerged from the inner room. He was naked, and his hair was a sun-colored tangle. He did not look nearly as sleepy as he had sounded. “Sparrowhawk,” he said.
Kestrel sat up. Linden frowned at him. “Come in here. Help me.”
He meant more than that Kestrel should help him dress and make some order of his hair. Between them, Aurochs and Kestrel made short enough work of that. Linden frowned through it, as troubled as Kestrel had ever seen him.
At last, as Kestrel finished plaiting his hair, he said, “Walker’s going to crack.”
