Chapter 5 #2
“Nice day for a swim.” Aleksandr was grinning
from ear to ear.
“If you like swimming,” Sahar grit out, her
teeth as clenched as her fists.
“What is there to not like about a swim in a
cool, refreshing river on a hot, autumn day?”
“Soggy boots and chafed thighs.”
Aleksandr’s laugh turned into a scowl, and
she followed his glare over her shoulder to see Yago and the Jackal
making headway and passing them. She fully expected Aleksandr to
leave her and surge ahead, but he stayed by her side, teasing her
about how poorly tigresses swam until they reached the far
shore.
Once on dry land again, Lasair and Zolotoy
shook the river water off their sodden coats while Sahar unclenched
her fists and took in several deep, calming breaths. She turned to
Aleksandr, nodding her unspoken thanks, and he grabbed her by the
tunic and pulled her to him, giving her a smacking kiss on the
lips.
“You’re welcome,” he called out over his
shoulder as he sent Zolotoy into a gallop.
Sahar had fallen five riders behind, but soon
overtook the fifth and then the fourth as she and Lasair climbed
their way up the hillside. Once on the flat hilltop, there were
three riders to catch up to: Aleksandr, the Jackal, and Yago. Munir
and four others were coming up over the hill’s crest behind her.
Sahar kept Lasair at a steady pace, maintaining her position
between the two clusters of riders and giving the mare a bit of a
breather.
Aleksandr made his move before the downhill
run, his golden stallion passing the Jackal’s roan in a burst of
strength and speed that Sahar took advantage of, urging Lasair into
a full gallop and edging past the Jackal, who had resorted to using
his riding whip on his poor mount. Glancing back over her shoulder,
she saw Munir and Feroz overtake the Jackal, who had pushed his
horse too hard too soon.
Sahar’s legs gripped Lasair’s sides as they
started downhill. The path was rocky and overgrown with thick brush
on either side, leaving only enough space for two horses abreast in
the widest, clearest sections and a single horse in others. Lighter
and fleeter-footed than Zolotoy and Tor, Lasair soon closed the
distance between them, but she could see no way to get past either
of them without injury, so she held Lasair back. They were only
halfway into the race and she would have plenty of time to take the
lead once they made it to the wider path through the river
delta.
The verdant delta was no more than fifty
paces ahead of them when behind her there came loud shouting and
cursing amid a cloud of dust that could only mean that a rider and
his horse, or several, had taken a fall, and she gave a silent
prayer of thanks to the gods as Lasair’s hooves hit flat ground.
She glanced back to see Munir and Feroz still riding, and gave
Lasair her head.
Twenty paces ahead, Zolotoy and Tor were
racing neck and neck, their powerful haunches bunching and
springing, their hooves churning up earth and sending clods flying.
She hunched up higher on her saddle and leaned closer to Lasair’s
withers, hoping to take advantage of Aleksandr’s and Yago’s
preoccupation with each other to edge past them. She’d closed the
gap to ten paces when Yago’s arm shot out and the sound of a whip
cracked through the air. Aleksandr swerved to the side so suddenly
that he almost fell out of his saddle and then righted himself with
a curse. Yago’s arm flicked out again and she heard the snap and
saw the snaking tip of the whip strike Zolotoy’s flank.
“You spineless worm,” Aleksandr yelled. “You
whip my horse again and I will kill you, the race be damned.”
Yago sneered and plied the whip to Tor’s rump
with three quick smacks as Aleksandr slowed enough to twist in his
saddle and run his hand over Zolotoy’s flank where the whip had
struck. He glared at her as if she had somehow aided or condoned
Yago’s actions, and then he swung back around and hunkered over
Zolotoy’s withers, closing the ground they had lost between them
and Yago with pure determination.
The crowd of people gathered at the city’s
edge where the delta path met the road burst into loud cheers as
Zolotoy passed Tor, and then cheered again as Sahar and Lasair
turned onto the road, followed by Munir and Feroz. They were on the
last half league of the race, the last of the flat road before it
turned up the hill to the palace gates and the finish line. If she
was going to make her move, she needed to make it now.
“Come on, Lasair,” she whispered fiercely
into the mare’s ear. “Come on, girl, show them what you got.”
Lasair responded with a surge of speed and
Sahar kept up her whispering as they gained ground on Yago and Tor.
They pulled up even with them and she was glad of the crowds.
Without them, Yago might’ve used his whip on Lasair as he had
Zolotoy, as he now used it on Tor, who had nothing left to give by
his labored breathing and the sweat lathering on his black coat.
With a disgusted shake of her head, she rode past them and
concentrated on Aleksandr and Zolotoy, who were still running hard
and steady a good ten paces ahead. She glanced back and saw that
Munir had now passed Yago, but was still five paces behind Lasair,
whose breaths were growing shorter along with her gait as they
started up the hill to the palace.
“Come on, Lasair,” she urged, willing her
breath into the mare’s straining lungs, her strength into Lasair’s
tired legs. “We can do this.”
We can do this, we can do this, we can do
this. The thought pounded through her head with the beat of
Lasair’s hooves, but though the mare gave it her all, it was not
enough to overtake Zolotoy. The golden stallion crossed the finish
line to wild cheers six strides ahead of Lasair.
Aleksi’s belly filled with the sumptuous
feast held in the palace courtyard, he leaned forward in his
victor’s seat and inhaled the sweet and instantly familiar
fragrance of the exotic white flowers floating in a bowl of water
on the table.
He turned to Sahar, who sat at his right
side, nursing the wine in her silver goblet. “What are these
flowers called?” he asked.
“Gardenias.”
“It is the oil of these petals that you wear
on your skin.”
It was more statement than question, and he
answered with a dip of her head and a flush to her cheeks. She
lifted her mass of curls from her neck as if she’d suddenly become
heated, which Aleksi did immediately from the intoxicating scent of
gardenia and warm skin assailing him. He half lowered his head with
the sudden urge to nuzzle the soft underside of her jaw and then
jerked his head back as cups clanked on the table to a boisterous
chorus of “Speech, speech.”
He stood on unsteady legs and raised his
golden victor’s cup high. “To King Asad and Queen Oona,” he said,
grateful that his voice did not waver. “I thank you once again for
your hospitality and for the generous victor’s purse now hanging
from my waist belt.” He jangled his leather purse, heavy with the
thirty pieces of gold added to the two from the previous race as
the gathering laughed and clapped. “To Princess Sahar,” he said,
“and her mare, Lasair. They both ran a good, close race once
again.” He lifted his cup to Sahar, and her smile lit up her face
and his. He gave her a purposely cocky grin. “I intend to beat them
two out of three races.”
“You will try,” she said, lifting her cup of
silver to him and taking a drink, her green eyes glinting with the
challenge.
Chuckling, Aleksi turned to Munir at his
left. “To Munir, stalwart king’s guard and newly betrothed to the
lovely Halah, and my new friend, congratulations on a race well
run.”
Munir held his copper cup up to Aleksi and
took a good, honest draught.
“Goes to prove the advantage of a home
course,” a voice said loudly over the huzzahs.
The voice and accusation were familiar.
Aleksi had heard them two days before on the practice run, and he
did not like it any better now than he had then. He looked down the
long table of riders, past the Wolf’s sneering face to the
Jackal’s.
“What it proves,” Aleksi said, “is the
relationship between a horse and its rider, which is why you,
Jackal, and you, Wolf, lost the moment you used your whips.”
Aleksi sat down and looked to the king, for
he had not intended to insult him or his hospitality in any way,
but neither was he going to stand there and let Sahar and Munir be
slandered. The king, rather than insulted by Aleksi’s response, was
glaring at the Wolf and the Jackal.
“What it proves,” a feminine voice shrilled
out over the grassfire of whispers sweeping across the courtyard,
“is that breeding will show every time.”
“How so, sister?” Aleksi said.
Anastasia pushed one of the jeweled combs
holding her blonde coif up deeper into her hair, her ring-laden
fingers sparkling in the torch light. “Your horse, Zolotoy, was a
gift from our father, King Maksimillian, bred from the royal
stable’s bloodline. Anyone could have ridden him and won.”
Sahar stood in one sinuous movement, impaling
Anastasia with her glare. “I did not see you out there riding your
horse, Princess Anastasia,” she said. “Though they are presumably
from the same royal stables.”
Anastasia sniffed and pushed at another of
her combs. “I was bred and raised to be a lady, not only a
princess,” she said. “Certainly not to act like a man.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sahar
demanded.
“That by your own words, you have no need of
a husband, no need of a man.” Anastasia pouted prettily, drawing
attention to her thin, red-stained lips. “What true woman has no
need of a man?”
Sahar stiffened, her full, lush lips pressed
tight at the not-so-subtle insinuation. Aleksi rose instantly to
stand beside her.
“Princess Sahar is more of a woman than you
will ever be, sister,” he said.
“How would you know, my father’s
bastard?”
“I know because I have kissed her.” Beside
him, Sahar sucked in her breath. “And she kissed me back.”
The grassfire of whispers burst into flames
of gasps and conjectures that died to a low sizzle as the queen
stood and slowly turned her level gaze on Anastasia.
“If I were you, Princess Anastasia,” she