Mercedes Lackey - The Robin And The Kestrel

And what would I do with a King, if I had one? Thank you, no . She was nothing if not practical. A King has all of his duties, and little time for pleasure, if he is a good King. I should see him for perhaps an hour or two in the day. I have my Kestrel with me as much as I like .

The horses stamped restively; she went up to the front of the wagon to reassure them. Thank the Lady that King Rolend had the sense to fling gold at Gypsy Raven with which to outfit a wagon and buy horses for it, rather than trusting such a task to his own stablemen. Not that the King's stablemen were unfit to choose horses, but a pair of pampered highbloods would be ill-suited for tramping the roads in all weathers. No, these mares were as sturdy as they were lovely; two generations out of the wild horses of the Long Downs, and crossbred to Kelpan warmbloods for looks and stamina. Truly a wedding present fit for a Prince, for all that he was Prince no more. A Prince of the road, then.

Why would she ever trade a life bound to one place for her free life on the road, anyway? She'd had a dislike for being tied to one spot before her unfortunate encounter with the dark-mage Priest, an encounter that left her with a horror of cages and being caged; now she was positively phobic about the notion.

Kestrel did not know about that, beyond the bare bones, that a renegade Priest-mage had turned her into a bird and caged her. He did not know how she had refused the Priest's demand she be his mistress, and that he had not only turned her into a bird, he had turned her into a bird too heavy to fly! He'd put her in a cage just barely large enough to hold her, and had displayed her by day for all the Kingsford Faire to see as his possession, and by night to the guests at his dinners.

Only the intervention of Rune and Talaysen had freed her; only Talaysen's acquaintance with a decent mage-Priest had enabled them to break the spell making her a bird. It had then rebounded upon its caster, who was still, for all she knew, languishing in the same cage he had built for her, in the guise of the ugliest and biggest black bird she had ever seen.

But ever since, the thought of staying in one place for too long brought up images of bars and cages....

No, thank you. No Kings for me! No matter how luxurious, a cage is still a cage .

The horses calmed, she went back to her task of shoving wood wedges under the wheel. Trying to, at any rate. It was awfully hard to tell if she was getting anywhere at all; the mud was only getting worse, not better, as the rain continued to pound them.

" 'Ware!" Kestrel warned her with a single word; he could usually manage single words without stuttering. She snatched her hands and board out of the way, called to the horses, and the wagon settled as Kestrel and the mares let it down.

He closed his eyes and sagged against the back of the wagon. She appraised him carefully, trying to measure with her eyes just how exhausted he was, how strained his muscles. We can't manage too many more of these attempts , she decided. He hasn't got them in him, and neither do I .

She thanked her Lady that he was not , like so many men she knew, inclined to overextend himself in the hope of somehow impressing her. That sort of behavior didn't impress her and it inevitably led to the man in question hurting himself and then pretending he was not hurt!

Kestrel, on the other hand, was naive enough about women to take what she said at face value_and bright enough not to do something stupid just for the sake of impressing her.

And I am just contrary enough to say precisely what I mean, so all is well . She had to shake her head at herself as she admitted that . I would not have him change for the world and all that is in it. I am no easy creature to live with. He would not change me, either. So he says, and so I believe .

She leaned against the wagon, and tried to knot her wet hair at the nape of her neck, but little strands kept escaping and straggling into her eyes. She gave it up as a hopeless cause.

This naivete of his was something to be cherished_if that was precisely the right thing to call it. Perhaps it was simply that he had no one to teach him that women were anything other than persons . Truly, he had no one to teach him that women were anything!

After all, his childhood was spent with that old Master of his, and not even a female servant about_and the rest of his time was spent trying to earn enough to keep fed and running to save his life .

For whatever reason, he was one of the few men she knew, Free Bards and Gypsies included, who simply assumed that she was his partner_his equal in most things, his superior in some, his inferior in others. She had met a few men who were willing to accept her as a partner, but Kestrel was only one of three who simply assumed the status, and the other two were Raven and Peregrine. There was a difference, subtle, but very real to her, between that acceptance and assumption . It was a distinction that made a world of difference to her.

He never asked her to prove anything; he simply assumed that if she claimed she could do something, it was true. When she said she could not, he worked with her to find a way around the problem. When he knew how to do something, he asked her opinion before he simply did it_and she gave him the same courtesy.

Like this situation that they found themselves in now; neither of them knew a great deal about wagons, at least of this type, and neither of them were large and muscular. Without any arguing, they had each tried the other's suggestions, and when things didn't work, they simply went on to try something else.

Oh, they had arguments; everyone did. But when it counted, they were partners. Arguments were for times of leisure!

In a peculiar way, even standing in the pouring rain, wet and miserable, cold and besmeared with muck, was a wonderful and rare experience. It proved something to her that she had hoped for all along; that she was his friend, companion, the person he trusted, as well as his lover. She could count the number of couples who could say that on one hand, and have fingers left over.

"Ready?" she asked, when it looked as if he had recovered as much as he was going to. He nodded tiredly.

"C-c-can't d-d-do this m-m-much l-longer," he said, simply. "I'm ab-b-bout gone."

"So am I," she admitted. "And so are the mares. But let's give it what we have, yes?"

He nodded. She counted. On four , she shouted to the horses, and they all strained to the limit.

Nothing happened. Just as nothing had really happened all the times before, no matter what they had tried.

" 'Ware!" she shouted, and they both let go as the horses slacked the harness. The wagon did not even move a great deal as it settled back.

Her good temper finally broke under the strain. She clenched fists and jaw, and glared at the wagon, the pothole, the mud that now reached halfway to the wheel-hub. "Damn," she swore under her breath, as she backed off and stared at the cursed thing. "Stupid, stubborn, blasted, demon-possessed pile of junk !" It was pretty obvious that there was nothing they were able to do alone that was going to free the wheels. They were not going to get it out, and everything they did now that it was obvious was a wasted effort.

She muttered a few Gypsy curses at the wheels under her breath for good measure. Kestrel just pulled the hair out of his eyes and leaned back so that the rain washed the mud from his face. After a few moments with his mouth open, drinking the fresh rain, he lowered his head and looked at her apologetically, as if he thought that he was somehow responsible for the situation.