The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [30]
“Quite a remarkable structure. This was built just for the capaill uisce?” he asks. He’s very careful with the last words, but his pronunciation is good. Coppie ooshka.
I nod. On the other side of the stables is the round pen that I exercise the sport horses in, sixteen yards across with high fence-like walls built of light metal tubing. Corr wouldn’t tolerate the metal for very long, and even if he did, everyone is too afraid to put a capall uisce in something that looks like it would blow away. So instead we’re in this fearfully wondrous pen that Malvern devised sometime before I arrived, dug eight feet into the side of a hill so that the earth makes a solid wall around it. The only entrance is a high-dirt-walled path ending at an oak door that serves as part of the pen’s wall. I like it well enough, except for when it floods.
“Capaill uisce? Capall uisce?” The American frowns now, doubting his usage.
“Capaill is plural. Capall is singular.”
“Roger. It’s never sure if it’s raining or not here, is it?” asks the American. He’s very handsome, in his late thirties, wearing a navy flat cap, a white V-neck sweater, and slacks that won’t stay that pressed for long in this humidity. The sky spits at us, but it’s not really rain. It’ll be gone before I head down to the beach with the others. “How long will you trot him out?”
Corr is already annoyed with the gait. My father once said that no water horse was meant to trot. Any horse has four natural gaits — walk, trot, canter, gallop — and there’s no reason for one to be preferable over another. But Corr would sooner gallop until he’s lathered like the surf than trot for half the time. My mother once said that I hadn’t been built to trot, either, and that’s true, too. It’s too slow to be exciting, too jolting to be comfortable. I’m perfectly content to let Corr do it on his own right now, without me on his back.
At the moment, he can tell that he’s being watched by a stranger, however, so he picks his feet up and tosses his mane just a little more than usual. I allow him his show. There are worse flaws than vanity in a horse.
The American’s still looking at me, so I reply, “Just taking the edge off. The beach will be crowded again today, and I don’t want to bring three fresh horses down there.”
“Well, he’s a beauty,” the American says. It’s meant to flatter me, and it does. He adds, “I see by your smile you already know.”
I didn’t think I was smiling, but I did already know.
“I’m George Holly, by the way,” the American says. “I’d shake your hand if it wasn’t occupied.”
“Sean Kendrick.”
“I know. You’re why I came. They said it wasn’t a race unless you were in it.”
My mouth quirks. “Malvern said you had your eye on some yearlings.”
“Well, I came for them, too.” Holly wipes the mist from his eyebrows. “But I could’ve sent my agent for them. How many times have you won?”
“Four.”
“Four! You’re the man to beat. A national treasure. Regional treasure, perhaps. Does Thisby have home rule? Why don’t you race on the mainland? Or maybe you do and I’ve missed it. We get your news slowly, you know.”
George Holly didn’t know it, but I had been to the mainland once with my father, for one of the races there. It was vests and flat caps and bowlers and canes, horses in snaffle bits and jockeys in silks and a track contained by a white rail, and wives who looked like dolls. The benevolent hills stretched gently on either side of the stands. The sun had shone, the bets had been cast, the favorite won by two lengths. We came home and I’d never gone back.
“I’m no jockey,” I say. Corr starts to come in toward us, and I push him back out to the wall with a flick of my stick.
The stick isn’t long enough to touch him, but it’s got a length of red leather fixed to the end, and it snaps to remind him of his place.
“Me neither,” Holly announces broadly, putting his hands in his pockets like a boy. He rotates on his heel as I turn, watching Corr circle around us. “Just a horse lover.”
Now that he’s said his name, I know exactly who he is. I’ve not met him before, but I know his agent, who