To Ride the Gods’ Own Stallion by Diane Lee Wilson

at his owner’s back. Habasle turned and coolly looked Soulai up and down.
    â€œYour leg has been tended, I see, so you’re well enough to keep an eye on this horse. Stay with him.” He looked at Mousidnou. “Summon me if he gets worse.” Without so much as a final glance at Ti, Habasle followed the others out. Soulai noticed him hesitate at the doorway, though, saw him look each way before proceeding across the courtyard.
    â€œI hate him,” Soulai muttered between clenched teeth. “I hate him! He’ll never touch Ti again if I have a say in it.”
    Mousidnou coughed up a big wad of spittle and projected it across the aisle. “As if you could have a say in it, you clod. You’re forgetting your place—and that’s more dangerous than any lion.” He glanced at Soulai’s bandaged thigh. “Do you know the story ‘After the Hunt’?”
    Soulai shook his head.
    â€œPlague it!” The stable master cleared his throat again, looked both ways down the aisle, and repeated his curse. “Well, boy, as there’s a long night before the both of us, or the three of us,” he said, nodding toward the silent stallion, “do you good to hear it. Maybe if you clean that wax out of your ears you’ll learn something.” He took a deep breath and began.
    â€œIt so happens that one day, just before sunup, a lion, a leopard, and a jackal decide to join in a little hunting. And before the day is even warm they get themselves a fine catch: a boar, an antelope, and a duck. Now the leopard and the jackal, they’re so hungry that they’re licking their lips and circling their prizes and planning where they’ll begin; but the lion, he jumps up with a loud growl and stares them both down. ‘There’s a lot of meat here,’ he says. ‘Leopard, you divide it as you see fit.’
    â€œNow the leopard isn’t expecting this. In fact, he’s already planning how to get the dead antelope up into a tree where he can take his time eating it. So without much thought he says, ‘Lion, you eat the boar, I’ll take the antelope, and the jackal can have the duck.’
    â€œWell, the lion swats him so hard that the leopard finds himself limping away with a broken leg. ‘Jackal,’ the lion roars, ‘you divide the meat!’
    â€œNow the jackal, being the cunning survivor that he is, has been watching carefully. Quick as lightning, he drags both the boar and the antelope over to the lion and bows as he backs away. ‘I believe that is the lion’s share,’ he says. ‘With your permission, the leopard and I will share the duck.’
    â€œThe lion rumbles with pleasure. ‘How, my friend, did you learn to share so well?’
    â€œâ€˜I took a lesson from the leopard’s broken leg!’ he says.”
    Mousidnou paused. He looked pleased with himself. “I’m warning you,” he said, “no matter what you or I think of Habasle, he is the lion, son of King Ashurbanipal and—”
    â€œThe ashipu doesn’t seem to think—”
    The knuckled side of the stable master’s hand cracked across Soulai’s face. “Listen, you snot-nosed little turd. I don’t know why I’m blowing words into your thick skull, except that your ass is hitched to Habasle’s, so you’d better understand his situation.” He lifted his hand again, hesitated, and lowered it. “It’s like this. Soon after Habasle’s mother came to the palace, still a girl, she had a child, Habasle. She claimed to have lain with the king, but at about that time it was also discovered that a slave boy had been sneaking into the harem. My wife tells me that in the fourteen years since Habasle’s birth, his mother has lain with the king many times but has not conceived. So palace tongues wag that this is proof that Habasle isn’t royal, that he’s the son of the