Free Centauriad 1 - Daughter of the Centaurs by Kate Klimo

He doesn’t even know her! He has no right to touch her. A horse would have bitten him for less. “Is this object of religious significance, I wonder?”
    Then his hands move to her hair. He brushes a few strands away from her eyes. “I’m sorry!” he says in a low voice. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve never seen so much hair. Centaurean maidens, when they reach a certain age, stuff their hair up into caps. The Seventh Edict. Your hair’s all matted with mud, of course, but I can imagine how lovely it will be when it’s clean and combed.”
    He parts her hair with a finger and peers at her face. Emboldened, he gathers up more of her hair and rearranges it with care over her shoulders, then says, “I can see your whole face now. And I’m sure it must be more pleasant for you, as well!” He stands back, cloth to nose, head tilted to one side. “That’s better,” he says softly. Lowering the cloth, he smiles. His teeth are white and straight, with no pointed ones like those she has in her own mouth for tearing meat. His teeth are more horselike. She wonders if centaurs graze. Lifting herchin, she looks right back at him, meeting his unsettling blue gaze.
    He nods and appears to reach a private conclusion. “It’s a very good face,” he declares. “An honest face. It’s moments like these when I regret I did not take on drawing as my Hand. You’d make a fine subject.” He frowns, rocking ever so slightly on his hooves, which are sheathed in heavy cloth boots that lace up the backs of his legs. “What are these white marks, I wonder?” He points to the faint tracings of scars on her arms and legs, where horses have nipped her in friendly, and sometimes not so friendly, fashion; where insects and snakes and small mammals have bitten her; where sparks from the fire have burned her.
    “Except for these odd white marks and your extraordinary eyes, you’re all the same tone—a sort of warm Ironbound red. An artist would have to sketch with chalk mined from these mountains to get it right. But I’m not an artist, so all I can do is perhaps attempt to concoct a scent in honor of you. Let’s see. What shall I call it? Ironbound? Or perhaps Fury.” He stops, and suspicion darkens his eyes. “There is such a look of intelligence on your face, I could swear that you can understand every word I’m saying.” His eyes narrow. “Can you?”
    Malora, tempted to reply, remains silent. She knows much more useful information will be forthcoming from the centaurs and their feline underlings if they go on thinking she doesn’t understand a word they are saying.

C HAPTER 7
Small Talk
    Plains and mountains both are cloaked in silence, as if every living wild thing lies stunned in the wake of the storm and flood. A half-moon, like a shard from a shattered pot, has swung to the top of the rain-scoured sky. Malora wriggles free from the second set of knots. Three pussemboos sleep in a pile near the tree, the ones who, she supposes, are meant to guard her. She skirts them and heads toward the scullery tent, making her way past the blue-and-white-striped tents where the centaurs slumber. She stops at the entrance to one tent.
    A lantern hangs from a hook on the tent pole, burning dimly. Malora peers further into the tent, curious to see how the centaurs sleep, and sees that this one, at least, sleeps on a low, wide bed, stretched out on his side, much the way she has seen horses sometimes sleep in the safety of their stalls. The centaur clutches a light woven coverlet to his bearded chin. A table near his bed holds the copper bangles he wore at dinner. She eyes with envy the assortment of silver-backedbrushes of different shapes and sizes. Wouldn’t they be useful, she thinks, to curry the hides of horses, especially after the winter when their hair comes off in tufts big enough to line the nests of a hundred buffalo weaver birds.
    Next to the brushes sits a green glass bottle. Perhaps it contains water, she thinks,