The Book of Horses and Unicorns Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Ride the Wild Wind

  Dedication

  The Golden Pony

  Strangers on Horseback

  Half a Million Horses

  Sir Grey Nose

  The Black Kid

  The Baker’s Horse

  Notes on the stories

  The Book of Unicorns

  Dedication

  Warts

  A Present for Aunt Addie

  Amfylobbsis

  Spots

  The Taming of the Beast

  The Lady of the Unicorn

  About the Author

  Books by Jackie French

  Copyright

  Ride the Wild Wind

  Dedication

  To Angela, Noël and Fabia

  with love and gratitude:

  the spirit of the book is yours!

  The Golden Pony

  Six thousand years ago …

  Spring sunlight streamed across the snow and through the trees. This was a world of white and green shadows. The sled sped through the forest, avoiding the melted patches of grass tufts and broken branches.

  ‘Da!’ The girl signalled her father to stop.

  The man pulled at the reins. The two reindeer halted as the rope tugged at their antlers, and shifted impatiently in their harness. ‘Zushan, what is it?’

  The girl pointed. ‘Over there,’ she breathed. ‘Horses!’

  The big man followed her gaze. Four horses stood motionless among the trees, a stallion and three mares, their heads raised nervously, waiting to run. Their coats were dappled with black like the shadows, and gold like sunlight gleamed through their coarse winter hair.

  ‘I’ve never seen horses that colour before,’ whispered Zushan. ‘Not as bright as that.’

  The man nodded. He slipped quietly from under the furs on the sled and pulled out his spear. One step, two … the snow squeaked under his felt boots.

  Suddenly the stallion broke and ran. The mares followed him, darting through the trees as the man cast the spear.

  For a moment Zushan thought it would fall short. Her father was strong, but horses have tough hides. It was hard enough to drive a spear through horse skin even at close range.

  One of the mares screamed. She fell to the ground, the spear through her neck, the snow turning red around it. The horse struggled frantically, trying to get to her feet.

  The stallion reared. He reared once at the hunter, then galloped back and reared defiantly over the sled, as though he knew the attack had come from there. His hooves were wide and sharp. There was no time to scream or run. For a moment Zushan thought the hooves would slash down at her face, but instead the stallion turned and galloped through the trees, his mares with him.

  One horse remained. A smaller horse, all legs and floppy ears and straight dark mane. The falling body of the mare must have hit it, for it struggled in the snow, trying to find its feet.

  ‘A foal,’ breathed Zushan. ‘An early spring foal …’ She leapt from the sled and ran after her father, her brown felt boots slushing across the snow.

  The big man pulled his spear from the horse’s neck, then thrust it in again. The horse gave a dying gurgle; her struggles stopped. The foal whickered in alarm. It managed to get to its feet just as Zushan’s father lifted the spear again.

  ‘No!’ yelled Zushan, grabbing his arm.

  Her father stopped. ‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded quickly. ‘The stallion didn’t hurt you?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. Just please don’t hurt the foal!’

  Her father blinked and lowered his spear. The foal staggered a few steps then stood there shivering. ‘Why not?’ the big man asked quietly.

  Zushan hesitated. Why not indeed? The foal would soon die, separated from the other horses and without its mother’s milk. Either the wolves would sniff it out, or it would starve alone in the snow.

  ‘Let me look after it!’ she said suddenly.

  Her father stared. ‘Look after a horse! What use is a horse, except for eating?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Zushan, confused. ‘No use, I suppose. It’s just so lonely in the tent. There is no-one to cuddle up to, since Mama and Zerik died …’

  The man’s gaze softened. ‘It’s been a hard winter,’ he said quietly. ‘But there will be others to cuddle up to at Auntie Meran’s tent, I promise you. How about we keep a young reindeer from the spring migration, eh? You can cuddle it all you want to and train it to pull a sleigh.’

  ‘I want the foal,’ whispered Zushan. ‘Its mother has died too.’

  ‘If we take the foal we will have to leave most of the meat,’ her father began. ‘Oh, very well, shh then …’

  The foal felt warm. Its heart beat heavily against hers under the deerskin rugs. It still struggled now and then, but mostly it lay still, as though it knew the only safety now was in Zushan’s arms.

  The reindeer stamped and nuzzled at the snow, looking for lichen. They took no notice as Zushan’s father pulled the skin from the horse’s body, then cut the meat from the bones into rough chunks with his stone knives. The reindeer were used to the smells of blood and hunting.

  Beside the sleigh the mare’s bones and guts steamed in the snow. There was no point taking any but the best meat — rump, thigh, the long strips along the backbone, and the kidneys, heart, tongue and brain. There was a limit to what the reindeer could pull. As it was, Zushan’s father would have to run behind.

  He cast a longing look at the pile of bones. Horse marrow was rich in fat and it had been a hungry winter. Perhaps he could carry some of the bones in a sling on his back. The child could do with some fat. As for the guts, well horse guts were no use, unless they were dried and used to carry melted fat or seeds, and any animal’s intestines could be used for that.

  Zushan’s father felt a brief regret that it wasn’t a reindeer’s body lying in the snow, instead of a horse. If those had been reindeer guts, they could have eaten the fermented lichen in the belly. Normally humans couldn’t digest lichen, but once it had been partly digested by the reindeer, it was good to eat.

  The child could do with some greens, thought her father. It would be weeks yet before the first herbs would poke up through the snow and months before the berries would ripen. Reindeer antlers could be used for tools too … Horses gave good meat bones and hide, but they weren’t much use otherwise. The big man sighed. At least there was the horse skin. A good colour it was too, all gold and black. Most horses were mouse-coloured or grey. Winter skins were warmest; Meran would be glad of it.

  The foal whinnied. Zushan shushed it and stroked its golden head. Now she was close she could see faint dark stripes through the gold. Unlike the bigger horses, the foal had no shaggy winter coat. The young horse was the most beautiful animal Zushan had ever seen. ‘I’ll call you Sunlight,’ she said.

  It was as warm inside Auntie Meran’s deerskin tent as Zushan’s father had promised, and filled with comforting people smells and warm breaths; especially at night, when everyone slept together on the deerskin mats under the white fox skins. It had been so cold these last months with just her and Da.

  There was always someone next to you in Auntie Meran’s big round tent when you woke up in the dark.

  The moisture from their breath condensed on the roof of the tent and fell back in long warm drips, plop, plop, plop, all through the night, while the reindeer snorted and stamped their hooves outside. Reindeer rarely strayed once they had been tamed.

  It was good to be in a crowded tent again, thought Zushan. Auntie Meran had four children, but there was room for her; especially as Uncle Tari had gone north with Da and the othe
r men to hunt the reindeer that poured across the land on their spring migration.

  The men would spend weeks hunting and butchering, hanging the best skins out to dry high in the trees where wolves and other meat eaters couldn’t reach them.

  Later, when it grew warmer, their families would travel north to join them, and other camps would meet there too. The reindeer would pull the sleds across the grasslands, avoiding the forest country where branches might block their way. Auntie Meran’s big sled, which carried the tent, furs and all her family, needed ten reindeer to pull it, with everyone taking turns to run behind and help push when the long curved wooden runners caught on bushes.

  Everyone in the summer camp would spend weeks slicing the meat and drying it on wooden racks for winter, and cracking the bones and boiling them up for fat. The fat was poured into bags of reindeer guts that had been soaked in water till they were clean and soft. These bags were then tied at the top and bottom to keep the air from the fat.

  The rest of summer would be spent hunting other game and gathering berries to dry for winter. The big summer camp was a time for gossip and laughter, music, marriages and stories, before the camp split up and the families returned to their winter camp sites.

  Last winter had been lonely, as Mama and Zerik had died of the coughing sickness. A lone hunter had stumbled coughing into camp. Mama and Da had taken him into their tent to care for, then the sickness took them and the other families who had shared their winter camp, too. Zushan and Da had recovered, but so many from their camp had died. That was why Da had brought Zushan to Auntie Meran’s: to try to leave the memories behind.

  The colt grew too fast to keep inside the tent at night, though Auntie Meran had allowed it for a few days till Zushan grew used to the strangeness. Now the young horse straggled around the camp on its long legs, eating porridge mixed with reindeer milk from Zushan’s hands, and poking his nose into other pots in case it found something good.

  ‘Look at the creature,’ laughed Auntie Meran, as the colt butted Zushan’s waist, hoping for more porridge, ‘it’ll be as tall as you soon!’

  Auntie Meran was a round comfortable woman who laughed a lot, which was a good thing, thought Zushan. You could either laugh at the colt when it upset a bag of grain into the mud and slush, or yell at it, and laughing was definitely better.

  Old Farna snorted. ‘What use is a horse, I’d like to know,’ she said. But she hobbled over and fondled the colt’s floppy ears and scratched along its back as she said it.

  ‘No use at all,’ stated Blani. Blani was Auntie Meran’s oldest son. He was angry because the men had said he was still too young to accompany them on the reindeer hunt this year. ‘You could never train a horse to pull a sled, or even carry a load.’

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Zushan

  ‘A horse is too stupid to train, that’s why. And they’re too small. A horse doesn’t have a reindeer’s strength.’

  It was true that horses were smaller than reindeer, thought Zushan, but she refused to believe Sunlight was stupid. ‘I bet they can pull a sled,’ she insisted. ‘And they could carry small loads! See how broad his back is.’

  ‘It’s as skinny as yours,’ jeered Blani.

  ‘It will be broader when he grows up!’ said Zushan hotly.

  ‘And so will yours,’ said Auntie Meran soothingly. ‘You will look as fat as a pook pook bird with all its feathers ruffled by the end of this summer, you see if you don’t. Now Blani, off and check the fish traps and Zushan, check the snares we laid yesterday before the wolves get there first!’

  It was as good to get away from camp sometimes as it was to be among people again, Zushan decided, as she trod through the slush under the trees, while the colt danced ahead of her then behind, nuzzling the ground for the first spring shoots.

  Zushan ate as she walked too. It was habit, especially now in spring, to reach up and strip catkins from the willows, bend down to pick young thistle leaves or the unfolding stems of ferns, and use her stone knife to peel off some strips of bark, its inner layer sweet with rising sap.

  Now that the snow had melted, she could see the small pools and bogs again, thick with sedge and bulrush stems. The new spring stems were crisp and sweet, and Sunlight butted her to get his share.

  It was a noisy world now. Spring was in full song. The snow lingered only in deep drifts on the shady side of trees. The world was full of the cracking of ice and the yelling of the birds, and the rustles and cries of animals. Icicles dripped from the twigs, and snow melted in the branches. Streams ran down every possible channel, bringing a thousand new smells of thawed droppings and decay.

  Winter smelt of ice, thought Zushan, as the colt leapt over a snowdrift, but spring smelt of the remains of last summer and of the summer to come.

  The first snare was empty; the dried sinew looped around the tree lay limply on the slush. The second was empty too, but it was torn as well. Evidently a wolf or fox had found the contents before she did. Zushan untied it then tied it around another tree further on. There was no use leaving it in the same place; it had already caught something, and the smell of fear and death would scare other small animals away from it.

  The colt butted her again, as though to say, ‘Come on slow foot!’ Zushan laughed, and rubbed his ears. ‘You’ve got four legs and I’ve only got two!’ she informed it. The colt whinnied back as though to say: ‘And that’s a very poor arrangement!’

  ‘I’ll race you then!’ said Zushan. She ran through the trees, her felt boots thudding against the grass and slush, but the colt soon overtook her, and danced circles around her as she ran.

  Zushan leant puffing against a tree trunk. ‘Ooof,’ she said. ‘You have too much energy!’

  The horse whinnied again, just as though he understood her. Maybe he did, thought Zushan. Blani was wrong. No reindeer ever listened to her the way that Sunlight did.

  The third snare held a hare, still struggling to free its leg from the noose. Zushan wrung its neck quickly and expertly, then used her stone knife to slice between the sinew of one leg and slipped the other leg through the hole, so that the legs formed a loop and made the limp body easier to carry.

  She was glad she’d found the hare. Spring was a fresh green time, with air that sometimes felt too rich to breathe, but it was a time of shortages too — winter’s stores were used up and there was little fresh food around. Even fish were hard to trap in early spring. Blani might well bring home nothing, she thought with satisfaction. Even though her hare was skinny after winter, it would feed them all.

  The colt nosed at the hare, in case it was good to eat.

  ‘Nope,’ said Zushan, holding it high out of his reach. ‘Horses do not like hares!’ The small horse snorted with disapproval and kicked his legs high.

  One more empty snare, then a fox and a weasel in the next two. Fox’s meat was sour, but the fur was good; especially in winter when it was soft and white. Weasel meat was even worse than fox — you had to be really hungry to eat weasel — but the fur was softest of all. She’d use the fur to trim a hood, decided Zushan, if Auntie Meran had no other use for it. Weasel fur felt lovely around your face and was so fine that snow and ice just slid off it.

  ‘Come on!’ she yelled to Sunlight, who was nosing in a snowdrift. ‘That was the last snare! Time to go home!’

  The little horse ignored her.

  ‘Sunlight! Home!’ She walked towards him, as the colt looked up then danced towards her.

  Zushan looked more closely at the snowdrift; it was white against the new spring growth and larger than any drift she’d passed. But was it a snowdrift? Surely it was too large for this late in spring, and the shape seemed wrong as well.

  Zushan stepped closer. It wasn’t snow at all, she thought excitedly, it was a sheep! Perhaps it had been lying there frozen all through winter, the white of its fleece mingling with the last of the snow.

  Zushan prodded it. A whole sheep was a prize, especially in spring when animals were lean after winter
. This sheep would still have its autumn fat and all its wool. Wool was used to make felt. It was rolled and pounded till the cloth was thick and waterproof and more pliable than leather. Wool boots kept out the cold even better than leather, and were more comfortable too. But most wool was simply gathered from bushes as the sheep dropped it in their summer moult. This would be better than anything Blani might bring home!

  If she could get it home.

  Zushan hesitated. If she left the sheep and ran to get help, a wolf might find it before they got back. The snow was melting fast, and even in an hour or two there would be enough of the sheep above the snow to invite the attentions of others. But all the way back to camp was a long way to drag a frozen sheep over uneven ground. It would take both her hands. She would have to leave the fox and hare and the soft-furred weasel. If only she had brought a reindeer to help carry the load …

  The colt danced in front of her, bored. Zushan gazed at it. No, the young horse couldn’t take the weight of a sheep on its back, Blani was right about that, though Sunlight would when he was an adult, she thought stubbornly. But he might … he just might …

  Zushan unwound the plaited felt belt from her waist and tied part of it around the bodies of her animals.

  ‘Sunlight!’ she ordered, ‘Come here!’

  The colt skipped towards her, expecting food. ‘No, you silly horse, stand still.’ She tied the rest of the rope around his middle in a rough harness. The horse kicked up his legs, thinking it a game. The rope slipped and the hare slithered over the young horse’s tummy. He neighed in surprise and fear, and pranced away from her.

  ‘No, it’s alright you silly horse,’ soothed Zushan. ‘Come back here! That’s right.’ She scratched the little animal along his back, and the place he liked best around his ears. ‘Now, you just stand still and I’ll fix this up … see? It doesn’t hurt and it’s not heavy.’

  The colt kicked again, and once more the bundles tumbled. Zushan hesitated, then undid the long strips that held her leggings. The wind blew cold about her bare legs, but they would warm soon enough as she pulled the sheep. She untied the rope that held her hair back too and knotted all the ropes together.