Lady of Horses by Judith Tarr Read Free Book Online Page B

on the back
of his pretty stallion. He moved well, spoke well. He was hunter enough for the
purpose. He was much too thick of wit to know fear in battle, though he had
little judgment, either.
    It was a ninth year, and the king was old. His son was
young, very young, and not the most clever of men.
    It came to Walker out of the sun, in the whisper of the
wind. Shamans had always ruled the kingmaking—that was so from the dawn time.
And yet, in the long ago, the king had been king for but a year, served his
purpose, led the young men in battle and in the hunt, mated with the royal
women. Then when his year ended, so too did he.
    There had been the great sacrifice then, the Stallion
offered up to the gods—but he had had a rider, always. The king of stallions
and the king of men had gone together before the gods, taking with them the
People’s prayers and their petitions, and all their tribute.
    Then there had come a year of war that stretched into two,
then three; and the king in that time was a great leader of men. The shamans
had suffered him to live until the war was over. By then the People were
accustomed to him, and he was strong among them. The shamans bowed to his
power, even till the ninth year, when at last they mustered the strength of
will to offer him in sacrifice.
    That had begun the decline. Now a king ruled as long as he
pleased, or as long as he kept his strength. He chose the time when he would
die, and the shamans submitted to his will.
    It was time, Walker thought, to return to the old ways. The
king was growing old. His son was strong in body but weak in will. Any man of
wit could play him like a flute.
    Walker turned his face to the blue heaven. The sun stroked
his cheeks with warm fingers. He spread his arms and wheeled slowly, as the
stars wheeled at night and the sun by day. The wind caressed him, sweeter than
any woman’s touch.
    After all, he had had his vision. It had not come in dream
through his sister, nor in trance, nor after a great working. And yet it was
real.
    It was strong. It filled him with certainty. He was the
Walker Between the Worlds. He would be a maker of kings and a ruler of the
People. He would be as shamans had been in the old time, great in power and
terrible in his strength.

5
    Wolfcub heard what the shaman said to Linden, and how
Linden played into his hands with almost distressing ease. Wolfcub had been
going hunting himself, but alone, as he preferred to do. It was easier to track
the deer without a pack of idiots baying at his back.
    But once he had seen that Linden meant to bring the shaman a
delicacy for his dinner, Wolfcub attached himself to the end of the riding. No
one minded at all. Wolfcub was the odd one, the one who liked to hunt alone,
but he was also the son of the great hunter of the People, and a hunter of
prowess himself. He was always welcome on hunts, no matter what impudence he
might have offered the prince.
    Linden, at least, had a short memory for slights. He was an
easy man, which might be a virtue, or might not. Wolfcub could never quite
decide. He was carrying the pretty bow that Wolfcub had given him, for he
cherished it: it was, like his horse, like himself, lovely to look at if not
particularly practical.
    Wolfcub, whose horse was no beauty, but hardy and sensible,
shrugged to himself and made his way to a place not far behind Linden. If
Linden was going to risk his neck going after a sow and her piglets, Wolfcub
would do what he could to keep the fool alive. The fool was, after all, the
king’s son.
    oOo
    A pack of wild pigs had made itself a tribe some distance
down the river, where an outcropping of rock gave shelter, and a little thicket
of wind-torn trees offered roots to graze among. The boar had claimed the upper
reaches of the hill, the sows and piglets the rest.
    If Wolfcub had been consulted, which clearly he had not, he
would have preferred that they hunt deer, whose meat was sweeter and who did
not turn a hunt into a battle. But