A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [134]
“Show-off ! You won’t let me jump a fence and you put on that display?” I teased.
“Dahr doesn’t get enough exercise either. This is exactly what he needs.” Matthew grinned and patted his horse on the shoulder. “Are you interested in a race? We’ll give you a head start, of course,” he said with a courtly bow.
“You’re on. Where to?”
Matthew pointed to a solitary tree on the top of the ridge and watched me, alert for the first indication of movement. He’d picked something that you could shoot past without running into anything. Maybe Rakasa wasn’t as good at abrupt stops as Dahr was.
There was no way I was going to surprise a vampire and no way my horse—for all her smooth gait—was going to beat Dahr up the ridge. Still, I was eager to see how well she would perform. I leaned forward and patted Rakasa on the neck, resting my chin for just a moment on her warm flesh and closing my eyes.
Fly, I encouraged her silently.
Rakasa shot forward as if she’d been slapped on the rump, and my instincts took over.
I lifted myself out of the saddle to make it easier for her to carry my weight, tying a loose knot in the reins. When her speed stabilized, I lowered myself into the saddle, clutching her warm body between my legs. My feet kicked free from the unnecessary stirrups, and my fingers wove through her mane. Matthew and Dahr thundered behind us. It was like my dream, the one where dogs and horses were chasing me. My left hand curled as if holding something, and I bent low along Rakasa’s neck, eyes closed.
Fly, I repeated, but the voice in my head no longer sounded like my own. Rakasa responded with still more speed.
I felt the tree grow closer. Matthew swore in Occitan, and Rakasa swerved to the left at the last minute, slowing to a canter and then a trot. There was a tug on her reins. My eyes shot open in alarm.
“Do you always ride unfamiliar horses at top speed, with your eyes closed, no reins, and no stirrups?” Matthew’s voice was coldly furious. “You row with your eyes closed—I’ve seen you. And you walk with them closed, too. I always suspected that magic was involved. You must use your power to ride as well. Otherwise you’d be dead. And for what it’s worth, I believe you’re telling Rakasa what to do with your mind and not with your hands and legs.”
I wondered if what he said was true. Matthew made an impatient sound and dismounted by swinging his right leg high over Dahr’s head, kicking his left foot out of the stirrup, and sliding down the horse’s side facing front.
“Get down from there,” he said roughly, grabbing Rakasa’s loose reins.
Dismounting the traditional way, I swung my right leg over Rakasa’s rump. When my back was to him, Matthew reached up and scooped me off the horse. Now I knew why he preferred to face front. It kept you from being grabbed from behind and hauled off your mount. He turned me around and crushed me to his chest.
“Dieu,” he whispered into my hair. “Don’t do anything like that again, please.”
“You told me not to worry about what I was doing. It’s why you brought me to France,” I said, confused by his reaction.
“I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. “I’m trying not to interfere. But it’s difficult to watch you using powers you don’t understand—especially when you’re not aware you’re doing it.”
Matthew left me to tend to the horses, tying their reins so that they wouldn’t step on them but giving them the freedom to nibble the sparse fall grass. When he returned, his face was somber.
“There’s something I need to show you.” He led me to the tree, and we sat underneath it. I folded my legs carefully to the side so that my boots didn’t cut into my legs. Matthew simply dropped, his knees on the ground and his feet curled under his thighs.
He reached into the pocket of his breeches and drew out a piece of paper with black and gray bars on a white background. It had been folded and refolded several times.
It was a DNA report. “Mine?”
“Yours.”
“When?” My fingers traced the bars along