She brought her mare alongside him.

“I thought you wanted to hunt.”

“We wanted to watch you hunt.

We saw you shoot that hawk as it flew.

“We would like to be with you

every day, every hour of our life.”

She snorted, couldn’t hold it in.

“For one hour maybe. On top of me.”

He flushed, his cheeks reddening

though he was no pale Innish man.

His embarrassment nothing to her.

“Are there no women in your palace?”

“None like you.” Xau hesitated,

reddened still further, went on,

“None who can outshoot us.

None who dare scorn us.

“None who ride as if they

and their horse were one.”

Xau’s gaze fixed on her,

his approval all too clear.

A complication she did not need.

She urged her mare forward, away.

Heard Xau’s horse follow,

not too close, not pressing her.

The hills thick with azaleas,

the air bright with their scent.

Hana paused by a stream

to let her mare drink.

Xau rode up. “Are you hungry?

Our guards have red bean cakes.”

Hana’s belly betrayed her,

rumbled loudly and pointedly.

Xau signaled his men over,

introduced them to her.

They ate sitting on the grass,

the bean cakes sweet, delicious.

Xau made sure that each guard

had a chance to rest, to eat.

Something disconcerting there:

how the guards looked at Xau,

how the king looked at them.

As if they were brothers.

Afterward, when they rode on,

an easing between Hana and Xau.

She told him about herding sheep,

the spring shearing, making felt;

about the winter the snow melted,

then refroze, the ice iron-hard;

told him about her sister, mother,

brothers, her three horses.

Xau listened more than he spoke.

Quiet, alert, intent on her.

Dusk settling onto the hills

when Xau halted his horse.

He dipped his head to her, said,

“Will you marry us? Please.”

As if she could not breathe.

As if a wall closed in on her,

relentless, remorseless,

to seal her within Xau’s palace,

far from these open hills,

the rushing air of a gallop.

“No!” She shook her head fiercely

as if that could silence him.

“Marry my sister instead.

She would fall at your feet—”

“—We don’t want a woman

who falls at our feet,

“who mistakes us for more

than we are. We want you.”

The trap closed. Walled in.

She was walled in by his words,

by the intolerable possibility

that he meant what he said.

“No. I’m sorry. I do not want you.”

She turned her horse. She rode away.

RIPPLES

“A woman from the horse tribes?”

Artoch spoke quietly,

so that the king’s guards

on the far side of the pond

wouldn’t overhear.

“You asked her to marry you?”

“Yes,” said King Xau. “She refused,

but we hope to change her mind.”

A silence awkward as any

in Artoch’s twelve years

advising the young king.

At length, Artoch offered,

“That may be... unwise.

Such a marriage would further no alliances.

The horse lords already support you fully.