their braided hair swinging

like so many horse tails,

their gold armbands glinting.

Though their leader bowed with the others,

Xau read in his eyes a mocking amusement.

“Such a great king,” said the horse lord,

“such fine armor, such a large army.

They must think you too young

to look after yourself.”

He raised a hand. “Fetch a cup

of mare’s milk to help the king

grow into a man.”

The counselor beside Xau

made the finger motion for death:

he had advised Xau again and again

to assert authority early.

Xau had but to order his archers

to shoot the horse lord,

a word, a gesture, quickly over,

but Xau said instead, “Save the milk

for your many and excellent children.

Let the two of us walk to the hills—”

“Sire!” said the counselor.

“It is their custom, is it not?”

said the king. “You taught us that.”

“It is our custom,” said the horse lord.

“Yet your father never honored it.”

“Sire!” said his counselor.

“You are the ruler of these men,

not one of them.

Their ways are not our ways!”

The king said to the horse lord,

“Before we take your horses for our wars,

we will honor your custom.”

The horse lord bowed,

and this time the king saw no sign of mockery.

They set aside their weapons, their armor,

left the king’s entourage

gabbling behind them.

They walked to the hills,

drinking from each other’s water bottles.

The king knew they might meet bears... or dragons,

that even wolves could kill them both.

He didn’t care.

He was fed up with prudence, politics, protocol,

people prostrating themselves.

A clear, cold night.

Trees silhouetted by the half moon.

No wolves howled. No bears prowled.

No dragons threatened.

But sometime after midnight

the wild horses came:

first a pounding of hooves,

then the smell, heat, breath of them:

forty, fifty, too many to count.

The horse lord knelt

while Xau went from horse to horse,

speaking to them,

laying his hands on them.

At his touch, the horses

lowered their heads.

All night, more horses came.

At dawn, the two men saw below them

the hillside covered in horses.

Eighteen hundred horses followed them back

to the other horse lords (who prostrated themselves)

and the king’s soldiers (who cheered)

and his counselors (who looked peeved).

In front of all these people

the horse lord bowed so low

that his braid brushed the dirt.

“Your horses are in our heart,”

said the king. “We will ride them to war,

but we will not squander their lives.”

And Xau gave one of the horses,

a black stallion,

to the horse lord,

who rode it and none other

for the rest of his life.

TUTOR

“That turned out rather well,”

said King Xau, triumphant,

happy as I’d ever seen him.

The other counselors

studied the patterned rug

on the floor of his tent.

Even Artoch, who had shouted

at the king two days ago,

had nothing left to say since