“You do not need a breaker of horses,” I said.

He looked at me.

“What, then, do I need?”

“A pawn for whatever power-game you are mindful to play.” I let him savor that, then I said, “So, my lord. I am your pawn.”

His shrewd blond weasel’s eyes ran over me.

“Your surrender is more swift than I had hoped for. I thought after all you would require some lessoning.”

“I have no better existence to look forward to than this you offer. The day I find one, you shall know of it.”

“Oh, yes, my warrior. I shall know, and never think I shan’t.” He walked to the door, turned, and beckoned me to follow. “You can come and go as you want,” he said, “now that you are in my service.”

When I went up to him, he showed me a silver ring and the slot in the door that it fitted (this being the sort of key they used most often in the cities), then put the ring into my hand.

Accordingly, the son of Vazkor and of the goddess-woman Uastis became the horse-breaker of Erran, leopard prince of the yellow city.

As I had told him, I guessed eventually I should be more than that. I should be his pawn in his game of Castles. Maybe I had some inchoate purpose, some forethought that when he began to use me, I should, in being used, use him, and once ambition and power were close enough, I would slough my mentor and carve for myself. Maybe.

But in truth, I think I was only like the warrior in the antique story the Moi tell, who straying in the cave of the dragon, and finding it too large to slay, lies down before it on the pile of gold, and swears fealty till the moon goes out.

5

The city months were longer than those of the tribal calendar, and possessed of more elegant names. In the early days of the season they called White Mistress, the first of the low mountain snows covered Eshkorek, turning the fulvous city and yellow terrain to leaden white.

All that winter I was a bronze-mask, Erran’s bond soldier and horseman. I perceived that if I had chosen to serve one of the three princes, Erran should have been my choice. For, by the standards of the city, he was rich in many things: slaves, grainfields, horses, and also herds, driven to pasture on the lower slopes all summer, and directed home in autumn. Even their winter feed he had provided for, along with food for his strongholds in Eshkorek. It was not astounding that angry though the princes were at the capture of their prize, myself, they held their wrath in check. More often than not they would need to deal with the leopard during the cold months. Though there were constant clashes between the soldiery of this or that lord, and no man went abroad by night without a goodly company and some measure of sharp steel, Nemarl and Kortis never spoke rough to Erran.