The Golden Mean - Annabel Lyon [14]
“Is it time to ride?” I ask. He mounts more easily now and sits up tall. Mounted, he’s more coordinated, with better balance than on his own feet. This amazes me and I can’t think through a reason for it, though the groom tells me he’s seen it before. He strikes me as the kind who’s seen everything before and doesn’t want to be told much of anything, or at least isn’t willing to show surprise, but he’s genial and alert and helpful without getting in the way, and hasn’t asked me why I bother. He says he’s seen children who are awkward and ungainly become graceful on their animals. He’s seen it too with injured soldiers who have to learn all over again how to ride. Sometimes it might be an injury to a leg or the pelvis, but he says he’s seen men with no outward impairment who’ve suffered some damage to the head and can’t remember how to raise their hands until they’re given reins. I ask him what he makes of all this. He shrugs.
“People like horses,” he says. “It’s a part of our nature. I’m happiest on a horse, aren’t you? I could forget everything and still remember how to ride. My father was like that. Babbling idiot by the end, not far off this one”—he gestures at Arrhidaeus—“but he sat like a general. Aren’t you happiest on a horse?” he demands again.
I haven’t the heart to tell him not really. I wonder where the rest of his life takes place when he’s not in the stables: what room, what meat, what sleep, who he rides in his bed. I remind Arrhidaeus to keep his heels down and watch the groom walk him around the ring on a lead. Walk on, the little man’s taught him, and stop; a major accomplishment in just seven days. From the back Arrhidaeus looks grand, and I love to hear his voice giving these commands. I’ve ordered his nurse to bathe him daily and keep his laundry cleaner; I’ve told the little snit I’ll make them exchange clothes if what the prince is wearing isn’t suitable. I take good care to refer to him as “the prince.” I love to hear my own voice giving these commands, and wonder sometimes why I have conceived such a dislike of the nurse. He has a job I would abhor, and it’s natural enough for him to despise me, who plays at his life’s work for an hour or two each day. I wonder what ambitions he would have were he not yoked to an idiot every hour of the day. I wonder what he does when I relieve him. I’ll have to sneak up on him sometime and find out.
After Arrhidaeus’s ride, I show him how to curry his animal. He’s rough at first and I have to teach him about the grain of the horse’s hide and the tender places on the animal’s body. He’s still nervous feeding Tar from his own hand, and the scabbing and peeling of the skin haven’t improved, despite the mixtures I’ve given the nurse.
“He eats them,” the nurse says, when I return Arrhidaeus to his rooms today. “Licks them right off. Do you put honey in? That will be why.”
He’s tidying the room, sweeping, snapping blankets; or at least had enough warning of us coming to put on a little show. He has food already laid out for Arrhidaeus, who sets to with both hands, immediately ignoring both of us.
“He gets it every winter,” the nurse continues, before I can say something scathing. “I’ve tried a honey poultice before. On his feet, too. Heals right up when the weather turns warm. I bind it when it bleeds, but otherwise I leave it to air. The feet, too. That’s why the sandals, and I let him go barefoot when I can. Fresh air seems best.”
“Do you read?”
He stiffens. “You already asked me that. I’ve been working on his letters with him. Ask him and see.”
“I mean for yourself.”
“Books?”
I nod.
“Why?”
And there is my prize. He