The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [37]
“There’s no need for you two to stay,” he told her. “I’m going to review some very basic principles for the slowest pupils. Go amuse yourselves, if you’d like.”
“Thank you!” They said it together, glanced at each other, and laughed.
Nalla hurried off on some errands of her own, while Hwilli decided to go see what the horse-riding looked like. She went outside to a cool afternoon that threatened autumn rain and hurried across the ward to the back wall. She climbed the ladder up to the catwalks and leaned between two merlons to look out.
Behind the fortress lay a long stretch of ground that had once been open and covered with grass. The horses had eaten the grass down to dirt, and masons were building new walls to enclose the area at each side and along the back. She saw no sign of the horses, however, or of Rhodorix and the guardsmen. Her disappointment clutched her so sharply that she felt tears rise in her throat. Oh, don’t be so stupid! she told herself. It’s not like he’ll ever be interested in you anyway.
When she climbed down to the ward, one of the women servants hailed her. “If you’re looking for the riders,” she said, “they took the horses out to the first terrace.”
“Thank you,” Hwilli said. “But I was just looking at the clouds. Do you think it will rain?”
“Tonight, maybe. Winter’s on the way.”
Hwilli argued with herself all the way to the front gate of the fortress, but in the end she left and walked down the hill to a spot just above the first terrace, a narrow strip of tall grass that ran along the face of the mountain for some hundreds of yards. At one end, some of the men were harvesting the grass with scythes, while others laid it out in the sun to dry. Seeing the arrogant men of the prince’s guard working like farmers made Hwilli laugh aloud. They could barely handle the scythes, though they did keep at the task with a certain grim determination. Good! she thought. Let them see what my people go through to feed them.
At the other end of the terrace the horses were grazing in the grass, watched over by the fortress’ kennelmaster and his dogs. In the middle, where the grass had already been cropped short, Rhodorix stood by a wooden structure, vaguely horse-shaped, and talked to Andariel through the black crystal. In turn, the captain repeated everything to a semicircle of guardsmen.
Eventually Rhodorix handed the white crystal to Andariel, who held the black. Rhodorix turned, stuck two fingers in his mouth, and whistled. Out in the herd of horses a golden horse nickered in answer. Rhodorix whistled again, and the horse trotted free of the herd and came straight to him. Even at her distance Hwilli could see how the guardsmen looked at him, worshipful, almost frightened by his command of the large and—to her—ugly beast.
The golden horse stood still when Rhodorix patted its neck and whispered to it. He walked a few steps back, then ran up and leaped for the horse’s back. It wasn’t a graceful gesture, more of a twist and a wiggle with a kick of one leg and a wave of his arms, but Rhodorix was sitting astride the horse’s back and holding the horse’s halter rope in one hand before Hwilli had quite seen what he’d done. The guardsmen all cheered, and Rhodorix, grinning, bowed to them from the horse’s back. He slid down again, and with a gentle slap on the horse’s rump, he sent it back to its herd.
Rhodorix pointed to one of the men, who walked forward. A few more instructions, and the guardsman took a deep breath, then trotted forward and leaped for the wooden horse’s back. He landed hard, stomach first athwart the wood, and slid right over and off, landing with a clumsy roll on the ground, where he lay