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thunk-thunk-1hunk-drag. He was bigger than she expected, and
    her legs ached spanning a war-stallion’s broad back. For all that Talat had done
    nothing but stand in a field for over two years, the shoulders under her hands
    were hard with muscle.

    She rode him every day after that. At first it was once around his field, starting
    and stopping at the mounting stone; then it was two and three times: thunk-
    thunk-thunk-drag, thunk-thunk-thunk-drag. He walked when she squeezed with
    her legs, and went right or left when she bumped him with the outside knee; and
    after a few tries he realized she meant him to stop when she dug her hipbones
    into his back. She ran her hands over the bad leg every day after she dismounted:
    there was no heat, no swelling, no tenderness. One day she banged the long ugly
    scar with her closed fist, said, “Very well, it really doesn’t hurt, I hope,” got back
    on him again and wrapped her legs around him till, his ears flicking surprise at
    her, he broke into a shuffling trot. He limped six steps and she let him stop. Tears
    pricked at her eyes, and she fed him mik-bars silently, and left early that day.

Chapter 5
    AERIN WAS GOING to have to take part in Galanna’s wedding after all. The
    surka was indisputably wearing off—”It’s lasted this long, why couldn’t it have
    hung on just a little longer?” Aerin said irritably to Tor.
    “It tried, I’m sure,” said Tor. “It just wasn’t expecting Galanna.”
    Galanna had contrived to have the great event put off an extra half-year
    because, she said coyly, she wanted everything to be perfect, and in the time
    remaining it was not possible to drag a sufficient number of things up to meet
    that standard. Meanwhile Aerin had resignedly begun to take her old place in her
    father’s court; her presence was not a very necessary one, but her continued
    absence was noted, and the surka hadn’t killed her after all. “I wonder if I could at
    least convince her that I’m too woozy to carry a rod and a veil or throw flowers
    and sing. I could maybe get away with just standing with my father and looking
    pale and invalid. Probably. She can’t possibly want me around anymore than I
    want to be around.”
    “She should have thought more exactingly of the timing involved when she
    goaded you into eating the surka in the first place.”
    Aerin laughed.
    Tor said ruefully, “I almost wish I’d had the forethought to eat a tree myself.”
    Perlith had asked Tor to stand behind him at the ceremony. The first companion
    was supposed to hold a sola’s badge of rank during his wedding; but in this
    particular case there were some interesting politics going on. Perlith was required
    by tradition to ask the king and the first sola to stand by him for the ceremony,
    and the king and the first sola by tradition were required to accept the invitation.
    The first companion’s place was, as attendants go, the most important, but it was
    also the most attentive; the slang for the first companion’s position was rude, and
    referred to the companion’s location near his sola’s backside. Asking Tor to stand
    first companion was a token of Perlith’s unrivaled esteem for his first sola, as the
    first companion’s place should go to Perlith’s dearest friend. It would also be
    Perlith’s only chance ever to have the first sola waiting on him.
    “You should drop the badge with a clatter just as the chant gets to the bit
    about family loyalty and the unending bliss of being a member of a family. Ugh,”
    said Aerin.

    “Don’t tempt me,” Tor said.
    Fortunately Galanna did not have her future husband’s sense of humor, and
    she was glad to excuse Aerin from participation on the grounds of the continuing
    unreliability of the first sol’s health. Galanna was incapable of plotting much of
    anything over a year in advance, and the surka incident had had nothing to do
    with the predictable approach of her wedding day. It had had to do with the