Lara's Gift Read Free Page B

other skills—skills that will help me find you a husband.”
    Papa was right about one thing. I wouldn’t make a very good kennel steward without hunting experience.
    Sure, I’d hunted hare and other small animals with Zar, but nothing as big as a wolf. And really, what had I contributed? Zar had done all the work. And watchingthe younger borzoi train on muzzled wolves our hunters had caught, caged, and brought back alive to practice on—well, that couldn’t be called
real
hunting, either. That was a mock hunt in enclosed pens, protected behind tall fences, with teams of borzoi and knives at the ready. What kind of skill lies in that?
    None.
    To breed borzoi worthy of His Majesty Tsar Nicholas, I would need to go on a
real
wolf hunt. But even that wouldn’t be enough for Papa. To prove myself to him—and I shuddered at the thought—I would need to kill a wolf.
    I had never killed a living thing before.
    And wasn’t even sure I could.
    But I had to try.
    With my shoulders back, my chin up, and Zar at my side, I harnessed my most serious, grown-up voice. “
Tyatya
, now that I’m fourteen, take me on a wolf hunt. Teach me what I need to know.”
    Zar pawed at my leg and goosed me with his long snout. “Zar’s ready, too.”
    “Hunting’s a man’s world.” Papa extended an outstretched arm over Borei, Bistri, and Sila. “With fine, fast, powerful dogs like these three.”
    “Zar’s likely to be just as fine, if given the chance,” I said. “Don’t forget that Borei, Bistri, and Sila are his littermates.”
    Papa shook his head. “Look at him! Zar is and will always be just a runt.”
    At the mention of his name, Zar gazed up at Papa with trusting eyes.
    “Zar might be small, but he compensates for it in quickness, agility, and tenacity,” I said in Zar’s defense. “You should see him zigzag after the wiliest of hares and pluck them from the air in mid-flight.”
    “Hares are one thing,” Papa said. “Wolves are something different.”
    “Then train him. He deserves a chance,” I said.
    “Nyet,”
Papa said firmly.
    “But—”
    “Don’t argue with me. Zar’s no more suited to hunt than you are.” And then he added, “Who hunts and who doesn’t is a Golden Rule we must follow.”
    “There’s no such Rule,
Tyatya
.” And then it dawned on me. Had Papa let the secret behind Golden Rule Number Eight slip?
    “There is now.” Papa raised one finger high in the air, as if he were the Tsar. “By the power vested in me by my forefathers, I hereby declare—Golden Rule Number Nine: Hunting’s a man’s sport.”
    “If Catherine the Great—Empress of all Russia—could hunt, surely a young, hardy peasant girl like me could hunt, too!”
    Papa’s bushy brows bunched up. He handed me a basketand a small knife. “The only hunting you’ll get to do is for mushrooms. Now hurry along.”
    Before Papa could impose another Rule, I obeyed, like a well-trained dog, and took the basket from him—wishing I could add my own Rules.
    I’d make one that made sense.
    Still, I carried a thread of hope—what if Mama gave birth to a baby girl?
    Papa would have to bend, right?
    I could hardly call Papa’s order a hardship. The thought of fresh, meaty mushrooms, cooked in butter with onions, smothered in sour cream, made it all worthwhile. After last night’s rain, mushrooms would be popping up all over the forest.
    “Davai!”
Zar and I headed through the main animal hospital that connected the dog kennel to the horse stable, through a long brick building, where the Count housed a fine collection of horses. Like each borzoi, every Orlov Trotter was assigned two trainers and a special team of animal doctors—well, except Zar. All he got was me.
    “Where are you off to in such a hurry so early in the morning?” Alexei asked. Just like his Trotters, the Count’s stable steward had a mane of long, thick, gray-white hair, and was equally important to the Count as Papa was on the estate.
    “Hunting for