Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover Anthology 11 by Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover

Author:Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-11-23T20:26:40+00:00

II

One of the few tasks confronting Jaelle at Ardais which she felt fully compatible with her life as a Renunc iate was the care of her own horse; Dom Gabriel and even Rohana would have felt it more suitable if she had left the beast’s welfare to the grooms, but they did not absolutely forbid her the stables; and almost every morning before sunrise she went out to the main stables to look after the fine plains-bred horse Rohana had presented her as a birthday gift; where she gave the beast its fodder and brushed it down. She also exercised her own horse and rode almost every day. Although she still resented not being allowed to ride astride, she was obedient to Rohana’s will, suspecting that yielding on this matter might be the price of being allowed to ride at all. No one could have said or suggested that Lady Rohana was not a good rider, although she was to all outward appearances the most conventional of women.

Jaelle suspected that Rohana was hoping to force her to admit that she could find as much pleasure in riding sidesaddle as in riding Amazon style in boots and breeches; but this, she was resolved, she would never do.

Perhaps, she thought, while Kindra was here —and Rohana could not constrain a guest to follow her customs—Rohana could be persuaded to allow her, Jaelle, to ride as Kindra did. She was intending to try, anyhow. Her own Renunciate clothing, which she had worn when she came here, was too small for her now. She had

grown almost three inches, though she would never be really tall. Perhaps one of her cousins could be persuaded to lend her some breeches until she would have proper clothing made on returning to the Guild House; she certainly did not intend to ride back to Thendara in the ridiculous outfit which Rohana thought suitable for a young lady’s riding; the sort of riding-habit her cousin Elorie wore, a dark full-cut skirt and elegantly fitted jacket with velvet lapels, would be the mock of every Renunciate in the Guild House!

She took her horse out of the stall and began brushing down the glossy coat. She had heard Rohana and Kindra speak of hawking this day perhaps and meant to ask if she would be allowed to ride out with them. Before long, the horse’s coat gleamed like burnished copper, and she herself was warm and sweating profusely, despite the chill of the stable —it was so cold that her breath still came in a white cloud. She began to lead the horse back into its stall when a hand touched her and she frowned, knowing the touch. Her first impulse was to pick the hand off her like a crawling bug, perhaps with a fistsized blow behind it; but if she was to persuade her cousin Kyril to lend her his riding-clothes, she did not want to alienate him too thoroughly.

Rohana’s elder son was seventeen years old, a year older

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