Free Chernevog by C.J. Cherryh

down in the sunlight beside the pen to braid a sort of bridle; which decidedly drew Babi's interest.
    And when he had his makeshift bridle and put it on Volkhi and when he swung up onto a horse's back for the first time in three years, Babi was perched up on a rail to watch, chin on manlike hands.
    But there was no point to riding circles around a pen on a day like this, so Pyetr leaned over, let the top bar drop, circled away and jumped Volkhi over the lower rail, not having forgotten his seat after all.
    He was quite pleased with himself. He rode Volkhi a wide circle in the back and side of the yard, then rode around to the front of the house and stopped in front of the porch, looking he was quite sure, a very fine figure on Volkhi's back.
    '‘ ‘Veshka , Sasha! ” he called up to the house, “ I 'm for a up and down the road! ”
    The door opened. The shutters of the kitchen window moved Eveshka appeared in the doorway looking at him.
    “ Go for a ride? ” Pyetr said and, realizing it quite possible; Eveshka had never been on a horse, held out his hand for encouragement. “ 'Veshka, come on. I'll take you up. Nothing fast at all. It's absolutely safe. ”
    She stepped back a pace, definite dislike. “ I've work to do. ” “ Oh, 'Veshka, come on, just down the road and back.'.' Eveshka shook her head, frowning, and stepped back entirely within the doorway. “ You, ” she admonished him, “ be careful. ”
    “ Sasha? ” he said then, looking to the window where Sasha was. “ Want to see how he goes? Take a turn on him yourself? ” Bribes again. It was the highest he had. He was sure it would win.
    But: “ I've work, ” Sasha said. “ Or I would. ”
    “ Work can wait. ”
    “ Maybe tomorrow, ” Sasha said.
    “ Stick-in-the-muds, ” Pyetr said. Sasha puzzled him. He turned Volkhi full about, giving them both a chance to change their minds.
    But Sasha did not. Certainly Eveshka would not. Both of them, he was sure, were using a great deal of ink this morning searching after answers that would make sense to wizards—all for a stray horse, for the god's sake, which only proved how far the boy had gone down the old man's track. And Eveshka—the god knew she was difficult to win.
    But give it time. Sooner or later, he thought, he would get them .
    For himself it was sedately out the front gate and sedately down the ghost of a road that ran into the dead woods, with Volkhi all to himself, and nobody calling after him Be careful, Py etr, don't take chances, Pyetr, —
    He kept it quite tame until he was out of sight of the house.
     
    Eveshka was worried when she shut the door; and wished something quite strongly, Pyetr's safety, Sasha was sure, against the unknown dangers of horses.
    “ Babi was with him, ” Sasha said.
    Eveshka only shook her head.
    “ Pyetr won't fall off, ” he said. “ Saddle or no saddle, I've seen him do really crazy things— ”
    This seemed not to reassure Eveshka at all, so Sasha instantly changed his mind about telling Eveshka the story about Pyetr and aunt Ilenka's front porch, or how Volkhi had broken the butter churn. He amended it quickly: “ But it only looks that way: he really does know what he's doing. ”
    “ I don't trust that creature, ” Eveshka muttered, and went back into her own room, to her own studies.
    Sasha was not up to arguments at the moment, with a dozen things from his book and Uulamets' all floating about in his head. He went back to the kitchen table, sat down and turned the pages one after the other, looking—
    —looking for reconciliations.
    He wrote, Eveshka and I like each other as well as two wizards can. We want no harm to each other and certainly we want things for Pyetr's good: but that's very tangled, unless we want the same thing in exactly the same way. One never dares be too specific in that kind of wish.
    Could Eveshka's wish for Pyetr's welfare harm me ?
    Only if—
    He stopped writing, feeling a slight chill in the air, a stray