The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [63]
Wheuuunnnn…The nag’s whinny was half-whine, half-groan.
I shook my head. I’d be lucky if the old gelding made it much past the gates of Freetown.
“At five golds, he’s a bargain,” commented Cerclas.
“Is that what the glue works would pay?”
Cerclas coughed into his tangled beard, then straightened and fixed his glance on my staff. His eyes widened. “He’s a long way from the glue works, and you need transportation, I’d venture.”
“I do, or I wouldn’t be looking at horses. But even at two golds, this old fellow wouldn’t get me halfway to anywhere.”
Cerclas shrugged, scratching the unkempt gray-and-black thatch at the back of his head, then spat noisily on the clay.
“What about that undersized horse over there?” I asked.
“That’s not a horse. He’s a mountain pony, tough as they come. Felshar hasn’t priced him.”
I repressed a smile. That failure might be enough. Walking over to the pony, but avoiding those effective hooves, I stepped up toward his shoulder. While I was no judge of horses or ponies, he seemed broader in the shoulders than some of the larger horses, and his legs, while shorter, seemed sturdier.
“He might be able to carry me,” I let my voice ooze doubt.
“He’ll carry you and another,” admitted the liveryman, standing well behind me.
I touched a streak on the pony’s flank.
Wheeee…The animal twitched, but did not move away from me.
“These welts…” I shook my head. “Still…two golds?”
“Felshar hasn’t priced him…”
I shrugged. “What good would it be to price him? Most buyers wouldn’t take him until these heal. Felshar would certainly know that.”
This time I could sense the uneasiness in the liveryman.
“Three golds, if you throw in a saddle, bridle and blanket.”
“I don’t know…”
I shrugged again. “Well…I need to check elsewhere, then…”
Cerclas scratched his head and spat again. “Felshar wouldn’t complain too much if I got four…I don’t suppose…” He stepped closer to the pony.
Wheeeee…eeee…
The liveryman stepped back.
“Let’s see the saddle and bridle first…”
In the end, I paid more than I had to, three golds and seven silvers, but I got a decent saddle and blanket. The bridle wasn’t a bit-type, but a choker, sort of a hackamore. But I had the feeling that the force of the bridle wasn’t going to matter much anyway. If I couldn’t persuade that pony to do something gently, he wasn’t about to be forced.
The only other sticky point was the chit.
“I never learned my figures. Felshar does that.”
“Fine. I’ll write it up and you put the chop on it.” I’d seen the chop hanging next to the boxes where the chits were lying.
“How do I know…”
I held up the staff. “Everyone knows if you carry this, you don’t lie. I couldn’t afford to. The price is too high.”
At the sight of the staff, he stepped back. “I don’t know…”
“Felshar knows you don’t cheat a blackstaffer, and that they don’t cheat you. Maybe you didn’t get an outrageous profit, but you got a fair price, and you’re getting rid of some trouble.” I looked pointedly at the pony’s flank.
“…suppose…wouldn’t hurt…”
That was how I ended up riding down Cinch Street toward the gates of Freetown. The old lance cup, with the addition of a strip of leather, was adequate enough to hold my staff, although I had a tendency to lurch in the saddle perilously close to the dark wood when I wasn’t paying attention.
The pony’s name was Gairloch. I knew that when I touched him to saddle him. He did try and puff out his belly, but, following Cerclas’s instructions, I kneed him, not very hard, and not nearly so hard as Cerclas recommended, to get him to let out his breath.
Don’t ask me how I knew his name, but I did. That bothered me, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Surprisingly, Gairloch didn’t rock all that much, and the old saddle was broken in enough that it wasn’t too stiff. The straps and girths had been replaced recently, and I had checked the stitching and rivets to make sure they were solid, but the seat looked like it had weathered more than a few caravans.
If Gairloch were as adept on the trail as he was in avoiding