The Wind-Witch (2 page)

Her hands, too coarse for a lady, were ideal for pleasing a horse. He permitted her touch, even sought it, and Druyan revised her guess about other nearby horses. This beast was alone, and lonely, turning to her for the companionship he would have sought from his own kind if any had been about.

All at once, he presented his side to her. He all but shoved her off her feet and she tangled her fingers in his mane just above his withers and held on tight while she recovered her balance. He sidestepped into her again instantly, then lifted his right forehoof to paw the earth.

Only an utter fool would mount a strange horse in a strange place—without so much as a bit of rope to grant control, without saddle or bit or spur. Only such a fool would think the horse wanted her to climb aboard, that he was pledging her safety.

He was rolling an eye back at her. It sparkled merrily, daring her to trust him. He pawed again—the hoof farthest from her own feet, Druyan noticed.

Well, he wasn’t so very tall. At worst she’d slip off, and it wouldn’t be such a long drop to the ground. She’d ridden bareback often enough, and knew she could get herself down without risking a hard fall.

His dark eyes were full of little blue and amethyst lights, like the tips of the sea waves when the sun catches them. And sparks of green, pale as sunlit leaves, deep as emeralds. Druyan tightened her grip on the handful of mane. Before she could change her mind, she vaulted onto his back.

With her full skirts hindering her, she nearly didn’t gain her objective. Druyan felt the stallion shift beneath her, as if he’d moved to catch her. That was foolish—at best he was only trying to keep his own balance, which her clumsiness must have disturbed. But she was up, safe, settled securely just behind his withers in a spot that seemed made to hold her.

Now what?
Dare she ask him to move out? Was he trained to a rider at all? It seemed to her that he surely must be, but the reality of lacking reins made Druyan tense and anxious all over again. All very well to think she had only to slide off to be safe on the ground again—but she’d still put herself at his unknown mercy, foolishly. If he ran, he could give her a nasty fall. . .

She felt his hindquarters bunch under her. Druyan’s mouth opened, probably to scream. But there was no need—after that first dismaying leap, they were going smooth as water flowing over glass. She felt the press of wind about her again. Her hair streamed back. The black mane lapped her hands.

She thought of the wheeling gulls, the effortlessly soaring hawk. A bird in flight must feel just so—the land streaming away, the wind a joyful companion. . .

To be aboard a runaway horse—even with bit and bridle, saddle and stirrup and spur for control—was a terrifying thing. Yet Druyan knew no fear at all. This stallion was running from joy, not fright or anger, and she knew in her heart that he would heed the slightest shift in her weight or her will, that he would turn or halt in an instant, a heartbeat, if she asked him, if she was frightened to continue. He would certainly not harm her, never willingly distress her. He loved to run. It was the heart of him, to run over the land, free as the air.

Druyan loved his running, too, as she had never known she could love anything in her life. She leaned forward into it, her face split by a wide joyful grin as they merged with the wind. She felt as she did in the first moments of a thunderstorm, before the exhilarating forces of wind and lightning grew so intense that enjoyment shifted to dread. She rode this wind, did not stand buffeted by it. She was part of it, and it of her, as they swept on and on and ever onward. . .

They might have galloped to the ends of the world; Druyan wouldn’t have known, nor minded. When she felt the stallion shorten stride and slow, she wanted for a moment to weep—as one wakened from a dream too beautiful to be true, too precious to bear losing. But her eyes, wind-dried, could produce not one single tear. And her mouth was still stretched into a grin.

She shoved a tangle of hair out of her face, instead, and sat back a trifle, as befit the slower gait. Ahead rose Keverne’s gray towers, growing magically as she neared the castle, higher and broader. Clever horse, to run in a great circle and bring her back almost to the very spot where they’d met. She had never felt him turning at all, the course had been so subtle.

She must make him walk, Druyan told herself as his silky canter became a gentle trot. A horse heated by fast running could not be allowed simply to stop and stand all lathered with sweat, or even to graze the grass. He could not even have water till he was cool. He would founder, or colic, but horses didn’t know that. She ran a hand down his near shoulder, trying to gauge how warm he was, how long before he’d be at his ease.

She expected his hide to be sweat-soaked, but it felt like sun-warmed silk beneath her questing palm. His neck was more of the same, not a hair out of its place, no damper than the sea air. She was herself perspiring more heavily than the horse was. Druyan frowned at the puzzle, seeking a solution.

Perhaps they hadn’t run all that far. Or all that fast. His stride was longer than her fat pony’s, maybe she’d been deceived. Maybe he ran so smoothly, it only felt fast. In any case, the strange horse wasn’t hot, so there was little sense persisting in trying to make him walk himself cool. When the stallion halted of his own accord, she slid down his side to the ground, then pressed her cheek against his neck, her arms encircling it.

“Where do you belong?” she whispered, envying whomever he’d strayed from. To ride so whenever one wished. . .

Here.

Druyan looked about, startled. She saw no one, and the stallion was gazing steadily at her, his ears pricked, but unalarmed by any intruder. His attention was on her. His eyes were sparkling with those amazing colors again, tiny rubies, emeralds, topazes, swirls of sapphires. She’d never seen such eyes on any creature, certainly never on a horse. . .

I am Valadan.

Valadan? The magic steed Leith of the Isles had adventured upon? How was that possible?

“
Druyan!
”

The stallion shied away from her, and she stumbled, then caught what balance she could—barely enough. The horse had vanished like smoke in a high wind, leaving only a hoofprint or two to suggest he hadn’t been purely a daydream. Druyan was still staring, heartbroken, at the trampled grass when her brother’s hand seized her elbow.

“Where’ve you been?” Robart demanded to know, but gave no space for an answer. “We’ve been calling you for an hour! The horses were being saddled when they sent me out to look—” He jerked the elbow he’d captured. “Come on!”

“Mother
said
I could go for a walk!” Druyan protested, trying not to sound guilty. She hadn’t meant to be gone so long.

“She thought you were in one of the gardens. Father’s set to leave, and if we’re all still in our saddles at midnight, we’ll hear of nothing else for a week! What are you doing out here?”

Druyan, walking along as rapidly as she could—and a deal faster than was strictly comfortable, since her legs were not quite a match for her brother’s—looked back at the fruit trees. “I was only petting a horse.” She needn’t admit to the ride, if Robart hadn’t seen. Plainly, she was in enough trouble without explaining she’d been careening about bareback on a strange horse. There was no sign at all of the black stallion.

“What horse?” Robart asked impatiently, marching her faster still and not looking back.

“A black one. A stray, I think. Ouch!” Her toe found a rock among the long grasses.

“Wonderful.” Robart swept her on, heedless. “You stray after a stray horse. As if you haven’t got one waiting to carry you home this minute. Can’t you walk any faster?”

Her imprisoned arm was starting to ache. Her toe still hurt. She was out of breath and had a fiery stitch in her side. By the time Druyan reached Keverne’s bailey, where her parents waited testily amid restless horses, offspring of all ages, annoying hounds, and general bedlam, she had quite forgotten the black horse.

The horse had not, however, forgotten
her
.

Druyan took no note, as their procession straggled untidily along the road, raising dust, of the addition to their company, for he kept a long way off the road. One needed to have fixed one’s eyes on the exact right spot at the exact right instant, to catch the briefest glimpse of black hide through a tiny gap in the gorse bushes that flanked the track. Dru was far too occupied with keeping herself out of her father’s sight to be gazing at the scenery. She rode near the tail of their double file, just ahead of the baggage, but her assigned place did not much ease her task—before her rode her elder sister Tavitha, upon a golden-coated jennet for which Dru’s stolid brown pony had a hearty dislike.

The jennet did not much like the pony, either. Threats and counterthreats were exchanged with pinned ears and snaked heads, and Druyan had all she could do to keep back out of harm’s way without lagging. A noisy altercation between the saddle horses would only remind her sire of her earlier sin of delaying their departure.

Only when they paused to ford a narrow stream did Druyan have leisure to look about—Tavitha was being led across, the jennet having balked at the water and refused to obey its rider in the matter of crossing—and saw the flick of a jet-black tail, back behind the third sumpter horse. She turned her head sharply to count noses, but just then her pony chose to enter the stream, almost unseating her as it leapt down the bank. When she could look back again, there were only the baggage horses, none of which possessed a black tail. Druyan shoved her idle fancies ruthlessly away.

It was well after nightfall when they reached home. Her father was testy, and everyone—even her lady mother—walked carefully wide of him, not wanting to call down attention certain to be unwelcome. Supper and bedtime crowded one another, each hectic because Druyan’s two eldest sisters and one older brother had not only temporarily returned to the flock but had spouses with them, as well, and the usual sleeping arrangements would have to be altered with only fair success. Druyan ate a bit of bread and cheese, retired to the pallet she’d been shuffled to in the corner of Tavitha’s chamber, and thought no more of horses, no matter how swift.

She slept badly, being both hungry and uncomfortable on the ill-stuffed pallet. At foggy first light Druyan escaped outdoors to the orchard, hoping for a ripe apple to stay her appetite till the hour was more propitious for trying to filch a loaf of cirmamon-sprinkled bread from the bakehouse. The sisters and their husbands would be departing for their own homes by sun-high. Things at Glasgerion would settle down. She’d get her own familiar bed back, and probably her father would have forgotten why she was in his bad graces—he’d have been vexed by a dozen other matters ere then.

There was a horse in the orchard. That would vex Ronan for certain, whether only this one horse had been nibbling the fruit, or the younger groom had been careless with the latches and let all the stable stray free if it wished. Druyan strode carefully through the dewy grass, peering through the drifting mist. Unless this was one of the coursers, which were high-mettled and hard to handle, she could probably lead it back to its stall without fetching a rope first. Most of their horses—excepting the coursers—were like pets to her and did her bidding. Of course, this one might belong to one of her sisters’ husbands, but she’d seen no black horse in their trains.

He nickered to her, wishing Druyan the best of mornings. She froze stock-still, staring into those sparkling eyes, full of colors where they should have been merely dark. Merry and ever so familiar. She saw high cliffs, wheeling gulls, apricot trees. . .

How her stray from Keverne had found his way into Glasgerion’s orchard, Druyan couldn’t guess. The palings were purposefully high. . .

He tossed his head at the weathered boards and snorted deprecatingly, obviously having no high opinion of fences.

“Well, excuse me! I’m sure you jump very well, but we’d really better get you out of here before anyone else sees you. The gardener will have your pretty hide.” She might need to fetch a rope after all. No reason this horse should lead as tarnely as their own did.

He rested his soft muzzle against her chest, as if he were the gentlest of old pensioners, docile and sway-backed. His breath smelled of hay, and his eyelashes were longer than her own. His manners were impeccable. Two of her fingers twined in his mane were enough to guide him wherever she wished, Druyan found. “Valadan,” she whispered, daring to name him aloud, if only with her lips muffled by his mane.

There was no more a stall for the stranger than there had been a bed for Druyan—not till the overnight guests had safely departed. She tucked him into the corner of the sheepfold, with apologies to both stallion and disconcerted sheep. When she left him, to see about her own breakfast, Druyan knew better than to babble indiscriminately about her good fortune at being followed home from Keverne by a splendid horse. No one would believe he’d trailed her all the way from the duke’s castle, much less that he’d seemed to claim her. At supper, she confessed offhandedly to discovering a strayed horse in the orchard, wondered aloud whether that meant a fence needed tending, and offered to ride to their near neighbors to inquire whether anyone had lost a black horse.

She did exactly that most faithfully for a solid fortnight, though she knew perfectly well that he belonged to none of them. No one minded—had she not offered, Robart would have been made to undertake the inquiries, to his anoyance. By the end of the second week, her family was so accustomed to seeing Druyan riding the black, no one remembered where he’d come from, or how recently. She began to call him Valadan aloud, not only in secret.

For a stallion, Valadan was impeccably behaved in the company of other horses, never the least trouble. One coolish breezy day, the two of them trailed Druyan’s elder brothers to the downs that lay beyond the farm and the pastureland. It was a fine day for riding—there were a score of horsemen already assembled with their best mounts, neighbors racing one another various distances over the gently rolling ground.