by Judith Tarr
“That’s the intention,” Kestrel said.
Linden shook his head. “I don’t like the way he feels. He should be happier. His other army is coming. He has me safe, until he needs to take me away. I think he knows about the rest of it.”
“It is possible,” Aurochs said.
“Then you can do something about it?”
“We’ll think of something,” said Aurochs.
Linden’s frown relaxed at last. He sighed heavily. “I’m not good at this game. I think I’d rather have come in and raided, and never mind all this.”
“If you had come in so,” said Kestrel, “you wouldn’t have found the stallion. They’ve hidden him away. And Walker would still be plotting to give you to the gods at the new moon.”
Linden shivered. But he said, “He can’t do that without the stallion.”
“Which means he’ll set himself to find the horse.” Kestrel sighed himself, almost as heavily as Linden had. “Storm’s people are watching him. Our part is to pretend to be joyful guests—and to watch our backs. Do I have your leave to send scouts? Walker’s army will be near, if it’s coming. I’d like to know how near.”
“Yes,” Linden said. “Yes, do whatever you need to do. Am I safe with Storm?”
“As safe as you’ll be anywhere,” said Kestrel.
Linden smiled. “Oh, that’s good. That’s very good.” He paused. Then: “She’s old, and I don’t know that she’s beautiful, but . . . aaahhh!” It was a sigh of rapture.
That startled laughter out of Kestrel. “Was I right, then?”
“You were very right,” said Linden.
oOo
Sparrow rode into the camp at midmorning. She came without fanfare. She was riding a dark grey stallion with a silver mane, with a small dark colt gamboling after. She had no escort but a single rider, a woman mounted on the moon-grey mare who had come with her from the north.
Linden was learning to shoot the shorter, stronger bow of these people, afoot for now; later, Cloud had promised him, he would try it from horseback. They had set up targets on the open field, and had mounted a contest, men and women of the Grey Horse against the men of Linden’s warband.
Sparrow rode straight across the field, taking no notice of arrows that flew about her. They all flew wide. Yet some, it seemed to Kestrel, came very close; one should have struck, but a trick of the wind sent it veering aside.
He shivered lightly. The sight of her was like rain on dry land. She was as she had always been, small, dark, unprepossessing until one met her eyes.
She rode up to the king, with the other following. Linden’s eyes were fixed on the stallion, ignoring for the moment the woman who rode him as easily as any man.
The stallion did not notice. He was nibbling the neck of the colt who could not but be his son: the foal was his image in miniature, with already a glint of silver about the eyes and in the tail.
Linden approached him blindly. No one else moved. They were all watching him, except Kestrel, who was watching Sparrow. She was almost smiling, doting as always on that handsome face.
Linden laid his hand on the stallion’s bridle. The stallion noticed him then, and snorted at him, warning him away from the colt. The colt nosed inquisitively at the end of one of his braids.
“You are riding my horse,” Linden said to Sparrow. His voice was light and calm, but it made Kestrel’s shoulders tighten.
“This is the goddess’ horse,” Sparrow said with equal calm.
“He belongs to me.”
“Are you greater than a goddess?”
Linden blinked. “I am a king.”
“You should be careful,” said Sparrow, “that you don’t anger her.”
“This is my horse,” Linden said again.
Sparrow shrugged, swung her leg over the stallion’s neck, slid lightly to the ground. “He doesn’t belong to any man,” she said.
“You’ll have to die,” he said, “because you rode the king of stallions. You, a woman.”
“I, Horse Goddess’ child.” Sparrow smiled at him, completely without fear. “I’ll lay you a wager, king of men. We’ll turn him loose and let him wander. You finish your archery. Then when the field is clear, call him. If he comes, he has chosen you. If not, you forsake your claim to him. Will you wager so? Are you as bold as that?”
“He is mine,” Linden said.
“Then prove it,” said Sparrow.
She had him. Kestrel could see how it rankled at him to be casting the bones with a woman, but her boldness, it seemed, intrigued him. And it was an easy wager, if his claim was true.
“I’ll do it,” he said. He slipped the bridle from the stallion’s head and let him go.
The stallion snorted, tossed his mane, lifted his tail and pranced down the field, reveling in men’s admiration. His son loosed a high whinny and sprang after him. They danced together, the stallion gentle in his strength, the colt springing into the air and making a great show of ferocity.
No one could shoot while they were there, nor was anyone minded to venture it. They put away their arrows, unstrung their bows. Those who had wine or kumiss passed it round.
But Linden had eyes and mind for only one thing. “Now?” he asked Sparrow.
She spread her hands. “When you will.”
Linden shouldered the bridle and walked out across the field. The stallion was grazing, the mare nearby, nursing the colt. Linden approached as a horseman should, easily, expecting no trouble.
The stallion grazed unperturbed. The mare had not seemed to move, but somehow, where Linden wished to go, she was there, with her colt at her side.
Across the field, somewhat apart from the rest of those who watched, Sparrow was smiling.
It was not a chase. None of the horses ran from the man. But he could not come near the stallion. Either the mare impeded him, or the colt. Or the stallion moved away just as he came close.
Linden persisted. He was not a man to surrender without a fight—even if that fight was as subtle as shifting mist.
At last Sparrow walked calmly over the trampled grass, straight up to the stallion; stroked his neck and his inquiring nose; and swung easily onto his back. She rode him up in front of Linden.
Linden’s face was slack with shock. “My lord king,” she said, “what belongs to Horse Goddess can never belong to a man. And yet . . .” She held out her hand. “Come up,” she said.
He hesitated so long that Kestrel thought he would refuse, but in the end he took the proffered hand. He swung up behind her. He sat on his own stallion—but only by her leave.
She laughed. The stallion wheeled, flagged his tail, and sprang into a gallop.
Not everyone was frozen in astonishment. A few cried out, even ran after them. But no one had a bow strung, even if he would have dared to shoot the woman without fear of striking the king.
“Gods,” said Curlew of the companions. “Gods, she’s stolen the king, too.”
“She has not.”
That clear voice startled them all. No one had noticed the mare’s rider: she had slipped down before the game began, and effaced herself near Storm and her heir. But when she spoke, she drew every eye; and the sight of her was dazzling.
By the gods, she was beautiful. More beautiful than the king, and in the same mode: sunlight and summer sky. Kestrel had not known Keen could stand so tall or speak so distinctly, as if she had been a king of this country. “She has not stolen your king,” she said. “She’ll bring him back before too long. I give you my word on it—and myself as hostage, if you have need of such.”
Men looked down abashed—those who were not gaping at her as if they had never seen a woman before. Maybe they had not: not a woman of their own kind, standing with head up, eyes level, bold as a man.
oOo
“You!”
Walker had retreated to his tent after he left Linden that morning, there, no doubt, to brew up poisons and to ponder his myriad plots. But something had brought him out. Maybe he was
enough of a shaman after all to know when his sister had come.
But his eyes were on Keen now. “You,” he said, his voice as harsh as anyone had ever heard it. “Wife. Come here.”
Keen went white. She did not move. Cloud was standing close, not touching her, but the bond that had been between them from the beginning was as strong and nigh as solid as a rope of braided hide.
That bond was her strength. Even with it, she looked near to fainting.
“Come here,” Walker repeated. “Now.”
Still she did not.
He strode toward her. And as the mare had done for the stallion, Cloud arranged to be between. If Walker would touch her, he must do it through that much shorter but much broader and no doubt stronger man.
Walker glared down his long white nose at what, his expression declared, was a creature beneath contempt. “Out of my way,” he said.
Cloud smiled his sweet and guileless smile. “Sir,” he said, “far be it from me to be rude to a guest; but this too is our guest. She is under our protection.”
“She is my wife,” Walker gritted. “Stand aside.”
Cloud shrugged slightly, spread his hands, and stood immovable. He was still smiling.
Walker raised a fist.
“I would not do that,” Aurochs said mildly, “all things considered. Since this is, after all, the prince of the tribe.”
Walker wheeled. Aurochs stood at ease, offering no threat, venturing no command. But there was no evading the truth he had spoken.
Walker, who lived for power as Linden lived for women, stood stiff. It must be a terrible dilemma, Kestrel thought: torn between his wife’s defection and his passion for princes.
Kestrel watched him measure where he was, count the numbers who stood at Cloud’s back, and recall what he had plotted—with, no doubt, the lovely memory of the army that was coming. It must have torn at him to retreat, but retreat he did, though not without casting a final, poisoned dart.
“The woman is mine,” he said to Cloud. “If I find that any man has touched her, that man’s privates shall shrivel, and he shall enjoy no other woman.”
Cloud seemed unperturbed. “You should have a care,” he said. “Curses have a way of rebounding on those who cast them.”
“Are you threatening me?” Walker asked, as if he honestly wished to know.
“I only warn,” Cloud said, “as I would any guest whose safety was my concern.”
Walker’s lip curled. He turned on his heel and left the field.
Keen’s knees gave way. Cloud wheeled to catch her. They touched only for a moment, she leaning, he supporting. Then they drew apart. But Kestrel had seen enough.
For Cloud’s sake, he hoped that Walker’s curse had no power to harm.
53
Sparrow did not ask the stallion to carry his doubled burden far: only as far as the wood, and somewhat within, away from eyes that could pry or ears that could hear.
She let him halt in a clearing with grass for him to graze on and a stream from which to drink. She knelt by that herself, slaked her thirst, laved her face.
Linden had dismounted when she did, and stood as if dazed, looking about. He was fully as lovely as she remembered, indeed perhaps more so. He was taller and his shoulders were broader. His beard had come in thicker, almost thick enough to braid as the great warriors did.
He was still as much boy as man, and no great marvel of intellect, either. “Is this where your magic is?” he asked.
Sparrow raised her brows. “My magic is wherever I am. Why? Did you think I’d sweep you off to my lair?”
He nodded. “And do unspeakable things to me. Kill me, even. Isn’t king’s blood the strongest of magical potions?”
“Who told you that? Walker?” She sat on her heels, looking up at him. He was very pleasant to look at. “I don’t need your blood. I do need your alliance.”
“My—” He seemed astonished. “But that’s what I came here for! Or,” he said with the hint of a frown, “that’s what Aurochs and Kestrel said I should come for. Walker wants to kill me, you know. At the new moon. So he can make a new year-king. We’re not sure who it will be. Maybe someone from the Red Deer, since they came with us.”
Sparrow nodded. Cold walked down her spine, but her heart was steady. “Or a man of the Tall Grass. That’s who’s following you. Tall Grass, Cliff Lion, Dun Cow. But Cliff Lion won’t be allowed to take the kingship—it’s too arrogant. And Dun Cow isn't bound by marriage to Walker.”
“But it is to me,” said Linden.
“So it is,” Sparrow said. Amid all the crowding visions and the intoxication of his presence, it was hard to think, let alone speak.
“You really are a shaman, aren’t you?” Linden seemed to have recovered command of his body: he went down on one knee in front of her, peering into her face. His fear had retreated in favor of curiosity. “Kestrel said. But a woman—who’d have thought it? And you. He’s right. You’re not beautiful. But you shine.”
“You can see, too?”
She had puzzled him. “I’m not blind. You’re like Storm. Your beauty is inside. It’s strange, but rather wonderful. Different.”
“You don’t talk to your wives, do you?”
That baffled him, too. “Why would I want to do that?”
Sparrow shook her head. “I suppose you wouldn’t,” she said.
“This really is your country,” said Linden. “You must have been wretched among the People.”
That took her aback. “I wasn’t—” She had to start again. “I wasn’t unhappy. I wasn’t happy, either; but I didn’t wallow in misery.”
“You needed to be here.” He touched her hair, which was rioting out of its braid as usual, and brushed her cheek: light, daring much, but as if unable to help himself. “You’re not my enemy. Are you?”
“Never,” she said.
“Walker is.” His fair brows drew together. “It’s all very difficult to keep track of. Kestrel and Aurochs, they can do it; it’s easy for them. Kestrel said you wouldn’t hurt me. But you stole my stallion. You’re keeping him away from me still. How can I be king before the People if I let you live?”
“That,” said Sparrow, “I can show you how to do. Will you trust me?”
“Kestrel said I could.”
“You trust him.”
Linden nodded. “With my life.”
“Why?”
“Because,” said Linden, “he never lies to me. He never flatters me. And he came back, even knowing I could kill him.”
“But you didn’t.”
“How could I? I needed him for a guide. And,” Linden said, “he turned out to be so much more than that.”
“Yes,” said Sparrow, “there is a great deal to him.” It hurt, almost, to sit here with this man whom she had yearned after all her life, and to speak Kestrel’s praises. Kestrel, whom she loved to the heart’s core. But she loved Linden, too.
The child stirred in her, restless, stretching beneath her ribs. Kestrel’s child. She still wanted Linden; rather strongly as she sat there, close enough to feel the heat of his body, and catch his scent of musk and sweat and horses. Kestrel’s was different, less strong, and somewhat cleaner. Kestrel was a fastidious man.
It did not matter. Nor did it matter to know that if she lay with this man once, then once would be enough. She wanted that once.
He was looking at her as she had dreamed he would, in something like wonder and something that most definitely was desire. He touched her hair again.
She moved into his arms. He was broader than she was used to, and taller; much larger than she was.
He surprised her with gentleness, with forbearing to fall on her like a bull in rut. He had some skill, and some regard for her pleasure. He did not adore every inch of her as Kestrel did, but he admired her full round breasts and her ample hips, and he kissed her thighs.
She took him inside her. His broad breast above her, almost as thick with tawny hair as a southerner’s, struck he
r piercingly with memory of one narrower, smoother, and dearly beloved. She buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder and let their bodies finish it.
He dropped away without lingering—and without, at least, falling asleep at once. His hand stroked the domed curve of her belly. “Kestrel’s?”
She nodded.
“He’s lucky,” Linden said. “Though he doesn’t know it. He thinks you must hate him.”
“I love him,” she said.
“I can tell.”
“Why?” she asked in dismay. “Was I—”
“No, no,” he said, patting her as if she had been a hound. “You pleased me very much. But when you talk about him, your eyes go all soft.”
She began to laugh. Once she had started, she could not stop, even when he dashed water in her face. She was alarming him. She had to stop.
It took a long while and another cold drenching from the stream. Linden was eyeing her wildly, as if she had gone mad.
“No,” she said. “No. It’s only—I’ve wanted you so long. And when I have you . . . we talk about someone else.”
“That’s because you’re his,” he said. “I suppose I should arrange it that you two can marry, once this is over.”
“I don’t want to marry,” she said.
“But—”
“This is the south,” Sparrow said. “Things are different here.”
“But how will your children know their father?”
“They’ll know,” she said.
He shook his head. He did not believe her.
With Kestrel she could have said what she was thinking, which was that if a man had to keep his wives imprisoned in order to be certain his children were his own, then the man was hardly the lord and master that he fancied himself. But Linden would not understand.
Beautiful Linden, who had given her pleasure, but not as Kestrel could. “Let’s go back,” she said.
He frowned. “No. Not yet. Tell me why you brought me here. It wasn’t just to lie with me. Was it?”
“Actually,” she said, “it was.” And as he stared at her: “Also, to talk to you. To see what you knew. To know if you were honest—if you really meant to turn against the shaman who made you king.”
