The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [77]
Kendrick reaches to turn up the collar on his jacket. He doesn’t smile, but he’s not as close to frowning as usual. “Thanks for the cake.”
Then he strides off across through the grass, leaving me with my pencil touching my paper. I feel like I’ve learned something important about the race to come, but I’ve no idea how to write it down.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
SEAN
The first thing I do when I get back to the yard is search for Benjamin Malvern. I feel the same slanting, groundless sensation that I felt while training Fundamental, after encountering Puck for the first time. That I felt after the mare goddess told me to make another wish. I’d never realized how changeless this changeable island was until it turned into something different than I’d ever known.
I find Malvern at the gallops with two men at his elbow. He’s got his head jutted forward like he does when he’s with buyers, as if he can bully them into buying. The other two men are standing huddled; they look cold and damp, cats left out in the wet.
The first thing I notice when I draw closer is the filly they’re looking at: Malvern Mettle, a filly with promising speed and heart. She’s generally willing to do more than she’s able, which is always better than the opposite.
The next thing I notice is that one of the buyers is George Holly. When he sees me, realization dawns on his expression. He says something to the other buyer and then to Malvern. Malvern nods his head, smiling but looking like he’s unhappy about it. He points them back toward the house, and George Holly shepherds the other buyer in that direction.
As we pass, Holly juts his hand out in my direction and says, “Sean Kendrick, right? Happy morning.”
I allow him to shake my hand as if we are strangers and I raise an eyebrow at his guile. Then he and the other buyer are gone, leaving me to Malvern.
I join Malvern by the rail of the gallop. He frowns in the direction of Mettle. One of the grooms is riding her, and she’s playing and lazy. Mettle’s got a peculiarly ugly face — ugliness and coarseness are traits that for some reason seem to accompany the fastest of the thoroughbreds — and right now she is flipping up her mule-like upper lip as she gallops. The groom’s not taking her to task, either; I’m not sure if he just doesn’t know what she’s normally capable of doing or if he’s disinterested. But either way, Mettle is taking him for a walk in the park.
Malvern speaks, finally. “Mr. Kendrick. Is this filly always like this?”
I consider how to answer. “She’s out of Malvern Penny and Pound and by Rostraver.” Penny and Pound is one of Malvern’s favorite broodmares and the rumor is that Rostraver’s won so much over hurdles on the mainland that no one will race against him.
“The blood doesn’t always come through,” Malvern says. He spits and looks back to her.
“It came through.”
“And she’s out for a lark in front of the buyers, is it?”
All I can think about is what I’m about to ask him, but it’s not the right moment. Instead of answering, I grip the rail and slide beneath it, walking across the track to where the groom — another one of Malvern’s new ones, no one tolerates the grooms’ quarters and the pay for long — walks Mettle around in a circle, cooling her down. I walk up to Mettle and take hold of her bridle.
“Ho,” the groom says to me, surprised. He’s young as I am. I think his name is Barnes but I can’t be sure. Maybe Barnes was the last one. “Sean Kendrick!”
With my free hand, I reach up and snatch the crop out of his hands. I haven’t even touched Mettle with it and she dances in a circle, pivoting around where I hold her. “Malvern is watching you. You’re going to take her out again and you’re going to make her work. She’s having you on.”
“I was pressing her,” Barnes insists.
I lightly touch the crop to Mettle’s hamstrings and she crow-hops forward as if I’ve slapped her. She knows my voice and she feels my certainty where I hold her bridle. “Maybe you were. But she didn’t believe you, and neither did I. Take