The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [55]
“I don’t want to consider this unless I’m sure she’s going to be a better bet than Dove,” she says. It’s not until she’s been quiet for a long moment that I realize that she’s looking at me, waiting for me to agree or disagree.
I’m not certain what she expects me to say. She must know all this, but still I say, “There is nothing faster than a capall uisce. Period. I don’t care what sort of training regimen you’re doing, circles in the surf, or whatever. They have strength on your mare, they have height on her, and your mare runs on grass. The capaill uisce run on blood, Kate Connolly. You don’t stand a chance.”
This seems to solidify her opinions, because she nods, once, sharply. “Okay, then. So, you’ll race me, then, won’t you?”
It’s a curious way that she phrases it. The “won’t you?” means that I’ll have to disagree with her just to keep things as normal.
“Race? Me on the mare, you on Dove?”
Kate nods.
The wind buffets us again, finally stilling Corr as he stops to scent it. I can smell rain on it, far away. “I don’t understand the purpose.”
She just stares at me.
Back at the yard, I have two lots of horses to take out to the gallops yet. I have George Holly and at least two other buyers poking around the barns, looking for the horse that will make their mainland yards famous, or at least famous for the year. I have too much to do in too few hours before the October night comes early. I don’t have time for a fool’s race, a capall uisce against a pony that couldn’t begin to look Corr in the eye.
“It’s no more time than it would take for me to try her,” Kate says. “So if you say no, it’s just because the idea insults you.”
Which is how we end up racing.
I retrieve the bay mare, leaving Corr in her place with a lump of beef heart from my satchel, and find Kate adjusting her stirrups from the back of her pony, one leg crossed over the saddle as she does. It’s something you can’t do on a horse you don’t trust, something I don’t know that I’d ever do on one of the capaill uisce.
Beneath me, the bay mare is twisting and anxious. She’s as hard to hold as the piebald, but less malevolent. She would sooner drown you than eat you.
“Are you ready?” Kate asks me, though I think it’s a question I should’ve been asking instead. I don’t think there’s even a ghost of a chance she wants this horse I’m on. “To the big outcropping over there?”
I nod.
I reason with myself: This doesn’t have to be an entirely wasted exercise. If I can get this bay mare running straight and true for these five minutes, then I’ll reconsider what I told Malvern. I hate releasing a horse after I’ve invested time in it, and she’s had plenty of time sunk into her. Maybe I was wrong and she will shape up for next year. Corr took years to settle.
“Are we waiting for a sign?” Kate says, springing off across the field. The bay mare’s after her like a shot, all predator, and I let her have her head until we’ve caught up. Kate has a big handful of Dove’s mane, which I think is for grip until I realize it’s to keep the strands from slapping the girl’s hands and face with their length. I don’t have to worry about that with the bay mare; she’s rubbed most of hers off on the door frame of her stall, longing for the sea.
The two horses gallop through the cliff grass, both of them nimble over the uneven surface.
The bay mare’s not even really trying. I nudge her to get a bit more speed out of her, to pull away from Dove and end this. But the mare curves her body around my leg instead of away from it. She tugs toward the cliff edge, moving more to the side than forward.
And of course that island pony tracks straight and true ahead of us.
It takes me several long seconds to sort my bay mare out again, but when she decides to run, she catches up easily. Kate’s dun pony gallops along — joyfully. Her ears are pricked with the glee of the run, her tail cracking every so often as she bucks playfully with excitement. If my