The Coming of the Horseclans by Robert Adams

Author:Robert Adams
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781594262586
Publisher: Mundania Press
Published: 2005-09-01T23:15:23+00:00

13

Horse shall choose and man shall choose.

Be neither, slave nor master. . . .

—From “The Couplets of the Law”

Later, Milo and Mara and Hari and the two cats were once more closeted in the small meeting chamber. On the table were three drinking cups, an ewer of Ehleenee wine, a slab of cheese and a bowl of wild apples.

As he accepted a hunk of cheese from the point of Hari’s knife, Old-Cat mindspoke Milo. “Though she cannot be slain or injured, it is true, do you think it was wise to allow the God-child to return to the people who so ill-used her, God Milo?”

Milo halved an apple, passed one piece to Mara and bit into the other. “I can think of no better nor safer place for her, Old-Cat. My race is not completely immune to death, you know; there do exist ways to kill us and the Ehleenee have learned them all. I cannot imagine how she managed to live among them undetected, as long as she did. What the Horseclans call God-kinship, the Ehleenee and many other peoples call ‘curse’ — the Curse of the Undying. They all hate and fear my kind. To them, we are incredibly evil devils, to be sought out and slain slowly and horribly, for we feel pain quite as keenly as do other living creatures.

“No, Old-Cat, of all the many races of man, only among the men of the Horseclans can little Aldora expect life. Since her future lies with them, it were well that she came to know them. It is unfortunate that she had to learn first of the bad of Horsepeople; but let her, now, learn of the good.”

After Hari had fulfilled Horsekiller’s request for a bit of the sheep-cheese, his hand moved unerringly to his wine cup. While sipping, he mindspoke. “Still, Milo, you might have kept her here. Her mind needs training, if she is to advance to her full powers. Good and well-meaning as they are, what can Hwahlis and his clan provide that we could not?”

Milo concentrated his gaze on the surface of the resinous wine in his cup. “Did you ever sire and rear children, Hari?”

There was a twinge of ancient pain in the bard’s mind. “No. When I was a young man, I took as wife a lovely maiden of the Clan Koopuh, one Kairi. In the two years before she conceived of me, she became all things, all that ever I could want or need. When she died a-borning — she and the child together — I never again felt desire for, and never took, another woman — wife nor slave.”

While Old-Cat nuzzled Hari’s thigh sympathetically, Milo went on. “You have never reared a child, Hari, nor has Mara. I have, but it was centuries ago and in another world. Aldora is of, and must learn to live in this world. For all that she is, she is still a child and she needs the love and guidance and companionship of parents and a family-and she needs them now.

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