Kestrel was trapped—and there was no one to blame for it but himself. If he had thought at all, he had thought that Linden would kill him with his own hand. Then of course the warband would go to take the stallion, but Kestrel would not be part of it. He would be safely and honorably dead.
Linden was not angry with him at all. “If Horse Goddess forbade,” he said as the women hastened to prepare a feast, “of course you couldn’t take him. But I’m the king, the one meant to ride him. She’ll let me take him.”
“And if she won’t?” Kestrel asked.
Linden’s clear brow darkened. For an instant he looked as he had the day before, harder and colder, with a faint, cruel edge. Then he was himself again, grinning and thumping Kestrel on the shoulder. “Of course she will! If she resists, I’ll woo her. She’ll let me have my stallion.”
Kestrel sighed and let be. Preparations went on while he sat by the king. No one had asked after Spearhead. At last he said it, because if this was to be a funeral feast or a day of mourning, the People would have to know. “The one who went with me,” he said, “Spearhead. He—”
Brief sorrow crossed Linden’s face. “He died. We know. Walker told us. We thought you’d died, too. He saw it in a vision: a terrible storm, and lightning. Then everything was dark, and you both had vanished.”
“Walker told you?” Kestrel bit his tongue. “And Drinks-the-Wind? Did he say anything of it?”
“Drinks-the-Wind was old,” Linden said, “and had grown feeble. He’s gone now. We’ve mourned him as is proper. As we mourned Spearhead. And you.” His eyes glinted. “We mourned you very splendidly. Some people are maybe disappointed that you came back—it was such a waste of grief.”
Kestrel smiled thinly. “I may give you something to grieve for yet,” he said.
It was not a jest, but Linden laughed at it, far more uproariously than it deserved. He was happy, Kestrel thought. He had a war ahead of him and his stallion to win back. A long grim winter had lifted from his spirit. He could let himself be a creature of the sunlight again.
Kestrel’s winter of the heart had only begun. He feasted as joyously as he could. To be reunited with the People—that was not the pleasure it should have been. He kept remembering a different tribe, dark eyes and round faces, and strangers who had, in so short a time, become as dear as kin.
If his father had been there, he might have felt somewhat differently. But he had always been alone, walked alone, hunted alone. The place he had fallen into by slaying the boar had never been altogether his. Now, with what he had been and done, he felt no part of this tribe.
None of them understood. Of course Linden had to know of the lion’s claws and skin, and he had to see the scars and marvel over them. The rest of the companions professed gladness to have him back, with none too carefully concealed jealousy of all that he had done, or that they fancied he had done. Boarslayer and lionkiller: he was a great hero, and he had no desire to be any such thing. He wanted to be lying in his tent in the Grey Horse camp, with Sparrow in his arms and Rain singing one of her songs nearby.
Inevitably Linden offered him a woman. “I’m rich in them now,” he said. “I’ve a dozen wives from all the greater tribes, and concubines innumerable. Choose yourself one. Or two or three, if you’ve a mind. I’m sure they’ll be delighted.”
Kestrel was not the child he had been, to take what any man bade him take, even his king. He bowed and thanked Linden politely, but said, “Tonight I’m weary, and I’ve yet to visit my blood kin. Tomorrow, if you’re still minded to give the gift . . .”
Linden waved his hand. “Oh, go, go! They’ll still be there tomorrow, certainly. Go, do your duty—and beg your kinsmen’s pardon for me, for keeping you away from them.”
oOo
Kestrel escaped while he could. He cared little for most of his kin, and most of those were at the feast, basking in the light of his glory.
But his mother, who as a woman could not join the revels, was waiting in his father’s tent, and the rest of the wives seemed glad to see him.
Willow dismissed them after a blessedly short while, but stayed in the men’s portion, regarding him with eyes that were too proud to weep, even for joy. “We did believe,” she said, “that you had died.”
“I think maybe I did,” he said.
She waited in the way she had, that commanded him to speak again, and speak well.
He smiled at that, a broader smile than he had offered Linden. “I can’t seem to find opportunity, and they keep calling me by the name I left behind, but it’s not mine any longer. The goddess’ people—they call me Kestrel.”
Her brows rose. “Sparrowhawk? Because you hunted a Sparrow?”
“They didn’t know that. I’m not sure they do even yet. But their shaman insisted that I’m no wolf, I’m a small swift falcon with a ruddy tail.”
His mother tugged at one of his plaits. “Small you are not, but swift and ruddy? Yes, I see that. It was a good naming.”
Kestrel sighed. He had been clenched tight for so long that it felt strange to unclench, to be at ease again. He lay propped on his elbow, banked in furs that he or his father had brought back from hunting.
“Is she well?” Willow asked.
“Sparrow?” He was flushing—and why he should do that, he could not imagine. “Yes, very well—very well indeed. The people there, they let women be shamans. She’s a shaman. They say she’s very powerful, the most powerful that they’ve known.”
“Indeed,” said Willow without surprise. “So you were in her mother’s country. That’s where the stallion is.”
“Yes,” said Kestrel.
“You could have stayed there.”
“I promised the king,” he said with a resurgence of misery. “Damn that stubborn honor of mine! I couldn’t stay where I was happy. I had to come back here.”
He had not meant to strike her to the heart, nor had he thought he would: she was made of sterner stuff. But her face had gone stark. “You found kin there—kin of your spirit.”
“I found Sparrow,” he said. He took her hand and held it to his breast. “Mother, except for you I have no joy at all in this homecoming. But you, and Father when he comes back—you make it bearable. If I could take you—if there is a way—”
She shook her head slightly. “I belong here. So does he.”
“No,” he said. Then more strongly: “No! There is a place worthy of you. Their king is a woman, Mother. Their shaman is a woman. The king’s heir is a man—they walk side by side, women and men: rule alike, hunt alike, live alike. Nothing is forbidden to a woman that is permitted to a man.”
“Then Sparrow must be profoundly happy,” Willow said. “A woman who is a king. Imagine that. Is she beautiful?”
“In her way she is,” said Kestrel. “She rides as well as a man.”
“And does she fight?”
Kestrel’s teeth clicked together.
“She is going to have to fight,” Willow said, “when our men come raiding. When you lead them to her.”
The knot was back in Kestrel’s middle, tighter and harder and more painful than ever. “What am I supposed to do? Run away? I can do that. Maybe if they’re busy chasing me, they’ll forget about the stallion.”
“You know that won’t happen,” Willow said.
“Then what do I do?”
“You should have stayed there,” she said. “Since you wouldn’t, then you pay whatever price your foolishness demands. Who knows? Maybe the warband will have no better luck than it did the first time it tried to find the stallion. The gods drove it back. Maybe they will again.”
“Maybe they will,” Kestrel said. It was a poor hope, but it was better than any he had had before.