Free Lady of Horses by Judith Tarr

he went.
    It was a hunter’s trick, but she had learned it, and from
Wolfcub, no less. One moment he was there, with all eyes on him. The next, he
was gone, and people had a vague memory of his murmuring about changing out of
his good tunic and then maybe going to swim in the river.
    The tunic was an excuse, but a true one. Sparrow caught him
coming out of the young men’s tent, dressed in leggings but no tunic, with a
hunting bow in his hand and a quiver on his back, and a bag that held perhaps a
tunic and a bit to eat and provisions for a journey, whether long or short. He
looked like himself again, awkward gangling Wolfcub with his hair in untidy
plaits; the princely creature of the night before was gone, folded away with
his best tunic.
    That slowed her enough that he almost eluded her. He was not
going to the river; that had been a ruse. He was going to find the horses, and
then, she supposed, to hunt as he often did.
    She let him think he had lost her, turning hunter herself,
taking another and quicker way to the place where Wolfcub’s ugly little
stallion liked to graze. As she had expected, the stallion was there, but
Wolfcub was somewhat behind her. She filled the time by brushing out the
beast’s dirt-colored coat with a twist of grass, and picking burrs out of its
rusty black mane. It had acknowledged her when she came, but gone back to
grazing, like the sensible creature it was.
    oOo
    She was ready when Wolfcub came, well and carefully apart
from the horses, favoring him with a wide and sunny smile. “Good morning, O
lord of hunters,” she said. “Are you well pleased with yourself and your
world?”
    He blanched, as well he might, but he was never one to turn
and bolt, even from Sparrow in a temper. He stood his ground, and regarded her
with exasperating calm. “Is there any reason why I should not be pleased?”
    “None at all,” she said brightly. “Fawn is a marvel, isn’t
she?”
    His eyes widened. “You know—”
    “Everybody knows Fawn,” Sparrow said. “Or at least, all the
women do. Men only notice women when the women are being of some use to them.”
    He flushed. “Men can lose their jewels for looking at women
who don’t belong to them.”
    “Exactly,” Sparrow said.
    He opened his mouth, but shut it again. His eyes narrowed.
“You’re jealous.”
    “Oh, you want me to be?”
    “You’re angry,” he said slowly, as if that were a
revelation. “You really are jealous. You wish I hadn’t gone into the king’s
tent. Don’t you?”
    “If you hadn’t gone in, you would have insulted the king.”
Sparrow did not like to say it, but it was true. “Of course you had to go. And
of course you chose Fawn. Only an idiot would pass up that chance.”
    “She was the closest,” he said with some heat. “I barely
even saw her.”
    “I’m sure,” said Sparrow.
    “It’s true!” And she believed that: Wolfcub did not lie. “I
suppose,” he said, “she meant it to happen that way. That’s part of her art,
isn’t it? To know such things. To make them happen.”
    “She doesn’t often have to,” Sparrow said.
    “Well,” said Wolfcub. “I’m a fool, if not exactly an idiot.
And you’re jealous.”
    “What have I to be jealous of? I don’t incline toward
women.”
    That made him blush scarlet, to her considerable
satisfaction. He might have bolted then, if she had not been standing between
him and his horse.
    “You don’t want me,” he said. “But you don’t want anyone
else to want me, either.”
    “That’s ridiculous.”
    “Isn’t it?” He stepped round her. He paused for an instant,
seeing how clean the stallion was, burrs picked out of his tail and tangles out
of his mane. But he seemed not to realize how that had come about. He shrugged
and slipped the bridle over his stallion’s ears.
    She thought he would mount and ride away, but he paused. In
that pause she said, “I’m not jealous. I’m annoyed. I haven’t been able to get
near you since you went