Jenny: Shackles

It was like holding a small bird cupped in one's hands, knowing one had to throw it loose into the sky, knowing one could not fly after it once it was gone. Between the auburn streaks of hair blowing across her vision, Gwenhywfar watched the girl across the colt's back, staring into the wind, something hard and almost masculine coming into the determined line of the jaw. The eyes glittered darkly, and she wondered if the girl could see what was beyond the next hill, or only for just a heartbeat. Tomorrow, Gwenhywfar thought, and that annoying ache that was getting harder and harder to push away made her chest tight. Tomorrow and they would be gone. And what of the fox in the hedgerow that kept the hedge open for the little coneys to pass? A dog howled across the pasture, and she started violently.

The Guttersnipe turned round, but the sun was in her eyes and she had not seen the jolt. "I should put them in the holding pen," she remarked. She caught hold of the colt's headstall.

Gwenhywfar heard herself saying, "I will see to Lucius." The girl nodded, beckoned to Domitia, and together the two went down with the colt to the gate at the stream and over, leaving Gwenhywfar in the upland windy vastness. How she stood there, beating her wings against the cage! But she knew better. Champion, she considered, knew better. And Lucius was right. But it was a hard thing that he was right. On the red fox’s chair I perched, the pigeon close to my heart, she thought -

It sang and I listened and I learned,
And with my mind’s eye I looked at things
Far beyond me: of the masters of men,
Of heroes reborn whose horses wore wings.
And my heart yearned within me,
But I ran in the shadow of the red fox.


Taking up her skirts, she went down through the grasses to the stream to find Lucius.