Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [31]
While the days lengthened again, and winter lost its grip on the countryside, Gwen found herself outstripping the group of youngsters she’d started with. Not drastically, but enough that by Gwyl Canol Gwenwynol, the Spring Equinox, she was given her second horse.
All warriors had more than one horse. Charioteers needed two, of course, but riders had more than one as well. If your horse was lamed, or killed, or ill, you couldn’t count on one of the chariot drivers to be able to take you to the battlefield. The chariot was already considered by some old-fashioned, although Gwen’s father used it, and used it well. Many commanders were slowly abandoning it in favor of purely mounted cavalry, following the lead of the High King, who fought Roman fashion. Chariots broke, they needed highly skilled drivers, when accidents occurred they could be terrible and generally involved more than just the driver and his horses. And a single mounted man was always faster than a chariot.
Nevertheless, King Lleudd wanted his cavalry trained in chariot work, and that required two horses. All the more reason for every warrior to have two, or more than two, if he or his lord could afford it. So just before the Equinox, the horsemaster Bran came himself for her and presented her and her mare with the gray stallion that had been one of his two original choices for Gwen.
This time when she called him across the paddock, the mare was at her side. The stallion stepped carefully toward them both and diffidently bowed his head a little at the mare. Adara looked the poor fellow over with thinly veiled arrogance, as was to be expected in a lead mare of the herd, then snorted and perfunctorily touched noses with him. The stallion Dai was to be permitted to partner with Gwen. It was very hard for Gwen to keep a sober face and not laugh out loud at the two of them, but poor Dai had been humiliated once by Adara, and he wasn’t going to forget that in a hurry.
So now Gwen would learn chariot driving and the trick of switching from one horse to another when riding. The High King Arthur had made a name for himself with his mounted knights who could move swiftly to any part of the land where trouble was brewing by doing just that—stopping for only the briefest periods, or not at all, by switching from a tiring horse to one that was fresher. Though her father might favor the chariot, he was no fool, and as a good commander he could easily see the advantage this brought him.
This was a well-omened time for her to have such recognition, for along with the rites of the seed blessings, the Spring Equinox was the moment when the young god of Light took up his weapons for the first time, and slew his rival of Darkness, the young Prince of Spring eliminating the killer of his father, ridding the world of the murderous Winter King. As such, Gwen’s father generally called for another feast like the one at the Fall Equinox. It was not yet time for planting—the ground was still too cold, and the frosts still too certain for that—which meant that the men were not yet bound up in the sowing and tending. Lambing time was mostly over, and though calving and foaling time was on them, such were the responsibilities of horsemasters and herdsmen, not the warriors. So it was a good time to take stock of what the winter had taken and trade news and rumors.
The women, of course, and the Druids, all had magic to do. So it was a good time for them to gather also. There were the seed blessings . . . and there were other things.
For this feast, Gwen was not required to do any of the hearth chores, although she did, in fact, pitch in. With the other squires, she went to gather fallen wood in the forest. She gathered cress and the young sprouts of the cattail plants, which