going straight at her but strolling obliquely across her front. As soon as she showed the first sign of agitation he squatted down in the green grass and waited. She began feeding again but all the while she was watching him from the corner of her eye. Nefer began to sing the monkey song softly, and she raised her head and looked at him again. He took out a dhurra cake from the pouch on his belt, and without standing up offered it to her. She flared her nostrils and snuffled loudly.
'Come, my darling.'
She took an uncertain step towards him, then stopped and threw up her head.
'Sweetheart,' he crooned, 'my lovely darling.'
A step at a time she came in, then extended her neck to full stretch and sniffed noisily at the cake. Terrified by her own audacity she jerked back and galloped away, making a wide circuit of the field.
'She moves like the wind,' Meren called.
'Dov.' Nefer used the Bedouin word for the north wind, the soft cool wind of the winter season. 'Dov, that is her name.'
Having shown him her feminine capriciousness, Dov circled back flirtatiously and came to him from the other side. This time she accepted his offering readily and drooled saliva as she crunched it up. She ran her velvet muzzle over his open palm searching for crumbs, and when she found none she reached for his pouch and bumped it so demandingly that she knocked Nefer over backwards. He scrambled up and fished out another cake.
While she ate it he touched her neck with the other hand. As though flies were crawling over her, she made her dark mahogany-coloured hide dance, but did not pull away. There was a tick in her ear-hole, and Nefer plucked it off then crushed it between his fingernails and offered the bloody fragment for her to smell. She shuddered with disgust and rolled her eyes at the offensive odour, but allowed him to examine and fondle the other ear. When he left the field she followed him like a dog to the fence. Then she hung her head over the rail, and whickered after him.
'I am consumed with jealousy.' Mintaka had watched the encounter from the temple roof. 'Already she loves you almost as much as I do.'
The next morning Nefer came down to the field alone. Taita and Meren were watching from the roof of the temple. This was something between Nefer and Dov. No others should interfere.
Nefer whistled as he came down to the fence and Dov threw up her head and galloped across the field to meet him. As soon as she reached him she pushed her muzzle into his pouch.
'You are a typical woman,' Nefer scolded her. 'You are interested only in the gifts I bring you.'
While she ate the cake he fondled and caressed her, until he could slip one arm around her neck. Then he walked her along the fence and back again, and she leaned her shoulder against him. He fed her one more cake and as she savoured it he moved back along her left flank, stroking her and telling her how beautiful she was. Then in one smooth movement he swung up and straddled her back. She started under him and he braced himself for her first wild plunge, but she stood trembling with her legs slightly splayed. Then she turned her head and stared at him in such comical astonishment that he could not help laughing. 'It's all right, my sweetling. This is what you were born to.'
She stamped her forefoot and snorted.
'Come now,' he said. 'Are you not going to try to throw me off? Let us get this question settled at once.' She reached back and sniffed his toe, as if she could not bring herself to believe the extraordinary solecism he had committed against her dignity. She shuddered and stamped her hoof again, but she stood firm.
'Come then!' he said. 'Let's try a canter.' He touched her flanks with his heels and she jumped with surprise, then walked forward. They went down the fence sedately, and he touched her again. She broke into a trot, then a gentle canter. Meren was whooping and shouting from the temple roof, and the men and women working in the fields straightened up and watched with interest.
'Now let's see you really move.' Nefer slapped her lightly on the neck and urged her forward with a thrust of his hips. She stretched out and floated away, her dainty hoofs seeming barely to touch the earth, like the gentle wind for which she had been named. She ran so that the wind stung his eyes and the tears streamed over his temples and wet the dense tresses of his hair.
Round and round the paddock they sped, while on the roof of the temple Mintaka clapped her hands and cried out with amazement.
Beside her, Taita smiled distantly. 'A royal pair,' he said. They will be hard to catch on the Red Road.'
--
The entire city had heard of the instant love affair between Pharaoh and his filly. Now the word spread rapidly through Gallala that Nefer was going to put the rope on Krus. Horsemen all, they knew that the colt would be a different proposition from the filly. They were in a ferment of excitement at the prospect of Nefer's first attempt to break him in. Nobody went out into the fields that morning and all work in the vehicle shops and on the buildings was suspended. Even the training regiments were given a day's holiday to watch the attempt. Thus, there was fierce competition for the best positions on the city walls and rooftops that overlooked the field below the fountain of Horus.
Nefer and Meren went out through the gates to ironical cheers and ribald advice shouted down from the walls by the wags among the crowd. Krus was in the centre of the herd. He stood out among the other animals, taller by a hand and his head was distinguished. All the horses had sensed the mood of the watchers, and were skittish and nervous as the two men paused at the gate and hung the coils of flax ropes over the fence.
'I will try him first with a cake,' Nefer said, and Meren laughed. 'Look in his eye. I think he would eat you before the cake.'
'Nevertheless, I will try. Wait here.'
Nefer went through the gate, and moved in slowly as he had with Dov. Krus disliked this attention. He arched that long neck and rolled his eyes. Nefer stopped and let him settle down to graze again. He took a dhurra cake from his pouch and held it out, but when he moved forward Krus tossed his head, kicked his heels to the sky and galloped furiously away down the fence line. Nefer chuckled ruefully. 'So much for my gifts. He will not make it easy.'
'Look at him run,' Meren called. 'Sweet Horus, if Dov is the north wind then this one is the khamsin.'
