Daughter of Lir (73 page)

While he made the mare’s acquaintance, people had been
coming to surround the caravan. There seemed an uncommon number of them. Rhian
of course, with Ariana in her arms, and Eresh, and Aera and Emry, and Metos,
but with them a mingled crowd from Lir and of the People. Men of the warband.
Men and women of the city guard. Makers and smiths. Servants. Tamers of horses.

They had come for him as well as for Rhian. He was glad to
be mounted, to be a rider and not a cripple in a cart. He could leave them
proudly, as a prince of the People should.

No one wept or wailed, which was well. This should be
joyous, this parting. Minas’ eyes only brimmed once, when his mother came and
took his hands and looked long into his face.

“Go with the gods,” she said.

He stooped to kiss her. “May the Goddess of this place keep
you,” he said.

That startled a laugh out of her, even through tears. She
kissed his hands and held them to her cheeks, then turned away.

The caravan was moving—so soon?

The White Mare came up beside him. Ariana stretched out her
arms. Minas took her, to her manifest satisfaction, with a smile over her head
for Rhian. Rhian’s cheeks were wet, but her smile was bright, and growing
brighter.

“Adventures,” their daughter said, clapping her hands.
“We’re going to have adventures!”

“Many and many of them,” Minas agreed. “You and I and your
mother and—your brother?”

Rhian was properly taken aback. “How did you—”

He smiled with perfect sweetness—a smile, he knew well,
precisely like the one for which she was notorious. “I may be halt, my lady of
horses, but I’m hardly blind.”

“I was going to tell you,” she said.

“Yes: when we were too far to turn back.” He settled their daughter
more comfortably in front of him. “Well? Is it a son?”

She nodded.

This new smile filled the whole of him from the soles of his
feet to the crown of his head. By the gods and the Goddess, he was happy. He
would not have given this up for the world—no, not even to be king of the
People.

o0o

Aera and Emry and the rest followed the caravan to the gate
and out upon the road. There they stopped, and the caravan went on.

Aera slipped her arms about Emry’s waist and leaned against
him, watching them go. Her son rode straight and tall. The long bright tail of
his hair swung, brushing the mare’s broad white rump. In coat and leggings, he
showed nothing of the strokes that had maimed him. He was as beautiful as he
had ever been.

He was whole in spirit. And so, she thought, was she. Her
king in her arms, their children in the king’s house, the youngest in her
belly, had healed the wounds in her heart.

She looked up just as Emry looked down. She smiled through
the last of her tears.

“Are you sorry,” he asked her, “that you didn’t go with
them?”

“A little,” she admitted. “But only a very little.”

“I, too,” he said. He tilted up her chin and kissed her, and
no matter that the whole world could see. “Come, lady,” he said. “Come rule
with me in Lir.”

They walked back hand in hand, as lovers walk: back to the
city; back to the world that they and their kin had made.

Daughter of Lir

The Epona Sequence, Book 3

Judith Tarr

Book View Café July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61138-430-7
Copyright © 2001 Judith Tarr

First published: Forge, 2001

Production Team:

Project Manager: Judith Tarr

Cover Design: Pati Nagle

Proofreader: Dave Trowbridge

Ebook Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre

This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Digital edition: 20140716vnm

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Judith Tarr is the author of over forty novels, including World Fantasy Award nominee
Lord of the Two Lands.
She lives near Tucson, Arizona, where she raises and trains Lipizzan horses.

Novels

Ars Magica

Alamut

The Dagger and the Cross

Living in Threes

Lord of the Two Lands

A Wind in Cairo

His Majesty’s Elephant

The Epona Sequence

White Mare’s Daughter

Lady of Horses

Daughter of Lir

Avaryan Rising Series

The Hall of the Mountain King

The Lady of Han-Gilen

A Fall of Princes

Avaryan Resplendent Series

Arrows of the Sun

Spear of Heaven

Tides of Darkness

The Hound and the Falcon Series

The Isle of Glass

The Golden Horn

The Hounds of God

Nonfiction

Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting it Right

BVC Anthologies

Beyond Grimm

Breaking Waves

Brewing Fine Fiction

Ways to Trash Your
Writing Career

Dragon Lords and Warrior
Women

Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls

The Shadow Conspiracy

The Shadow Conspiracy

The Shadow Conspiracy II

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The Epona Sequence

Book 1

Sample Chapter

Judith Tarr

www.bookviewcafe.com

Book View Café Publishing Cooperative
January 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61138-356-0
Copyright © 1998 Judith Tarr

THE SEEKER

I: HORSE GODDESS’ SERVANT

1

From far away she heard them, echoing across the steppe:
the drums beating, swift as a frightened heart. The voices were too far, too
thin to carry above the shrilling of the wind, and yet in her belly she knew
them, deep voices and high, strong and wild.

Blood and fire! Blood
and fire! Fire and water and stone and blood!

They had made the year-sacrifice, one of many that they
would make in the gathering of the tribes. On this day, from the rhythm of the
drums, it would be the Bull. Yesterday, the Hound; tomorrow, the Stallion, with
his proud neck red like blood.

She laid a hand on the Mare’s neck. In the rolling of years
it would be white, like milk. Now it was the grey of the rain that had fallen
in the morning, shot with dapples like flecks of snow. The Mare snorted lightly
and tossed her head. She could smell the stallions. It was her season, the
strong one that waxed with the moon in spring, and would wax and wane slowly
with each moon all the summer long, and in winter sleep.

She snorted again and pawed, impatient to be going. Her
rider eased a little on the broad grey back, freeing her to spring forward. The
wind tangled in thick grey mane and silver tail; caught the long thick braid
that hung to the rider’s buttocks and sent it streaming out behind. The
pounding of hooves blotted out the drumbeats. They raced the wind then, swift
over the new grass, into the westering sun.

oOo

The gathering of the people spread wide in a hollow of the
steppe, where a river ran through a cutting that deepened with the years.
Winter’s storms brought down the banks nonetheless, and the herds of horses and
cattle made broad paths to the water.

The herds were the girdle that bound the camp. The center,
the soft body, divided into circles of camps, each with the staff and banner of
its tribe: black horsetail, red horsetail, spotted bull’s hide, white bull’s
horns, and three whole handfuls of others; and in the center, in the
king-place, the white mare’s tail catching the strong wind of spring.

Agni was on his way to the king’s circle, but taking his
time about it. The dancing, that had begun where the hill of sacrifice rose
dark with blood, had wound away toward the river. He had been part of it when
it began, before the king’s summons brought him back in toward the white
horsetail. His father was entertaining the chiefs of tribe and clan in the
feast of the Bull, and had called on Agni to stand at his right hand. Rumor had
it among the tribes that the old man was going to name an heir at last; and he
had called for Agni, the avowed favorite of all his sons.

Agni was sensible of the honor, and of what it meant—how
could he not be? But he dearly loved the dance, and the delights that came with
it. He was none too eager to forsake it for the dull dignity of the elders in
their circle.

As he made his somewhat desultory way past the tents in the
center, a hiss brought him about. Someone had lifted the back of a tent. A
white hand beckoned from beneath, and a slender arm heavy with ornaments: carved
bone and stone, beads strung on leather, and one woven of horsehair that he
knew very well.

His breath quickened. Completely without thinking, he
dropped down and slithered into the tent.