The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [97]
Shhhh, shhhhh, I say to the stallion, like the ocean, and his ears instantly prick toward me, his tail hanging motionless for the first time. I’m not entirely sure I like his attention, even blindfolded.
Sean looks at me over Corr’s withers, his expression odd — approving? — for just a moment. Then he throws the iron breastplate behind him into the sand by the bells.
“I’ll take him now.”
“What about that man? Prince?” I ask, not releasing the reins until I’m sure that Sean has them.
“He’s dead.”
I glance over. Now that Sean and I have calmed Corr, someone from the crowd has pulled Prince to safety. But they’ve put a jacket over his face. I shudder in the wind. “He died!” I know it’s stupid to say it, but I can’t not say it.
“He was dead before. He knew it, didn’t you see it in his eyes? My jacket.”
“Your jacket?” I say, with enough force that my shaky voice makes Corr start. “How about ‘my jacket, please.’”
Sean Kendrick looks at me, perplexed, and I can see that he hasn’t a clue of why I’m upset with him. Why I’m upset at all. I can’t stop shaking, as if I’ve taken all of Corr’s trembling and made it my own.
“That’s what I said,” he says after a pause.
“No, it’s not”
“What did I say?”
“You said my jacket.”
Sean looks a little bewildered now. “That’s what I said I said.”
I make an angry noise and go to get his jacket. If there was any chance that the tide wouldn’t take it before he got back down here, I’d have left it. All I can think about is that that man is dead, the man who was just holding my hand, and the more I think about it, the angrier I get, although I can’t think of who to blame except this capall uisce that I just agreed to hold. And somehow that makes me feel like I’m complicit, and that makes me angrier still.
His jacket is absolutely filthy, caked with dried sand and blood and stiff with salt water on top of it all. It’s like a piece of canvas sail. I was going to just drape it over Sean’s bare arm, but without his shirt to soften it, it would chafe.
“I’ll bring it to you,” I tell him. “I’ll wash it with my horse blanket. Where do I bring it?”
“The Malvern Yard,” he says. “For now.”
I look back to Prince. There he is, stretched out, and someone’s gone to get Dr. Halsal to declare him well and truly dead. The men chat quietly next to his body, as if lowered voices show their respect. But I can catch snatches of their conversation and they’re talking about race odds.
“Thanks,” Sean says.
“What?” But I’ve already realized what he’s said, my brain catching up to real time. He sees the realization in my face and nods, shortly. Pulling Corr’s head down, Sean whispers to him, and then he puts his hand to the red stallion’s side. The stallion starts as if Sean’s palm is fiery. But he doesn’t lash out, and Sean leads him away from the beach and back toward the cliffs. He stops only once, an arm’s length from Mutt. From here, he looks wiry and pale without his shirt on, just a boy with a blood-red horse.
“Mr. Malvern,” he says, “would you like to take your horse back to the yard?”
Mutt just stares at him.
As Sean leads Corr away from the beach, I crumple and uncrumple his jacket in my hands. I can’t quite make myself believe the truth of it. That ten minutes ago I held a dead man’s hand. That days from now I will put myself on a beach with a few dozen capaill uisce. That I told Sean Kendrick I’d clean his jacket for him.
“Bit of a bollocks.”
I turn. It’s Daly.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Bollocks,” Daly says again, that helpless swearing that comes from needing