“Yes, Father.I want to make sure Lasair iscomfortable in her new stall.”
He smiled.“I am certain Ratter will makesure she has every comfort.”
“I know.But she’s my horse, myresponsibility.”
“As you are mine and your mother’s.”
Here it came.Sahar had been expecting itsince last night, her parents’ loving, rational reasonings againsther riding in the races.She stood, ready to listen, and to argueher well-rehearsed defense.
“I, we, wish to warn you against—”
“I can ride as well as any man, Father, youyourself—”
“Yago the Wolf.”
“Oh, I, oh.”
“I do not trust him, daughter.”
“Why not?”Sahar said, not giving her fathera chance to answer.“Because of his parentage?As he pointed outlast night, you yourself have said that you do not think a manshould be blamed for his father’s actions.”
“That is true enough,” he answered in hiscalm, sensible voice.The voice he had lectured her with too manytimes to count through the years.“But wiser men than I have alsosaid that an apple does not fall far from the tree, and hisparents, how he must have been raised…” He shook his head.
“What of your father, of how the Pantherraised you?”
“I had my mother, who was as reasonable andas goodhearted as my father was not.”
“Well,” Sahar huffed, not quite certain whyshe was defending Yago to her father.“I prefer to give him thebenefit of the doubt.”
Her father gave her a rueful smile.“As didyour mother his father.She almost died for it, twice.”
Chastised, Sahar said nothing.
“Keep your guard up, my daughter,” her fathersaid.“And not only toward the Wolf.Our city will be teeming withstrangers for the next moon.”
“I will, Father,” she promised.
He nodded and tugged at the neckline of hisrobes.“I need to get out of these and into some sensible clothes,”he said, and then grinned like a lad let off from his chores to goplay in the fields.“Your mother and I are riding over to theSwan’s Pond this afternoon.”
Sahar grabbed a handful of walnuts and madeher own escape out of the kitchens.She tried hard not to imaginewhat it was that made the Swan’s Pond, a league outside of thecity’s walls and tucked away to the side of the river by a naturalenclosure of willows and reeds, so special for her parents.Or whythey both would smile for days after their sojourns there.
She had not made it more than halfway acrossthe inner courtyard when Asim came striding toward her.A seriouslook darkened her usually lighthearted brother’s face.
“Is it Rima?”she said.
“No.”
Sahar let out the breath she was holding.Itwas still a moon too early for the babe’s birth.
“I must speak with you, sister.”
“About the races?”
“About the Wolf.”
“What about him?”
“You should stay away from him.”
