The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [45]
“Very difficult,” Ranadar announced. “Don’t feel dishonored on my account, men.”
The guardsmen cheered him. Rhodorix felt utterly stunned. He’d never seen a man of authority, not Devetianos nor Rhwmanos, voluntarily shame himself for the sake of the men who served him. On a wave of good feeling all round, Ranadar collected his retinue and his son and left the guardsmen to their practicing. Rhodorix watched them as they walked uphill. He’d finally found a leader worth dying for, he realized, someone with ten times the honor of a Vindex or even a Brennos.
At the end of the day, when they returned to the fortress to let the men care for their mounts in the newly built stable, Rhodorix and Andariel discussed the various problems that the lesson had shown them.
“If we ride to battle, then dismount,” Andariel said, “how are they going to get them mounted again after the fighting’s over?”
“It’ll be worse yet if they’re unhorsed during a retreat,” Rhodorix said. “You’ll have to leave them behind. They’ll never manage to remount a panicked horse.”
“We don’t have enough men to leave anyone behind.”
“Well, then, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s all very well to provide a set of wooden steps here in the fortress, but we can’t carry those with us to battle.”
Andariel sighed and considered the line of saddles perched on a railing. Crystals in hand, the two men were standing in an improvised tack room, part of a storehouse that the prince’s servants had roughly converted to a stable. The saddles were much like those Rhodorix knew from the homeland, simple leather pads with a cinch that went over a heavy saddle blanket.
“Carry the steps with us?” Andariel said eventually. “That gives me an idea. What if we hung a step of sorts from the saddle itself?”
“What?”
“I’m thinking of the rope ladders that lead up to the catwalks on the walls. What if we put straps down on each side of the saddle with loops for a man’s foot to go into?”
Rhodorix grinned in sheer admiration. “That just might work splendidly, once we got the horses used to the device. Stick your foot in the loop and swing your free leg over.”
“Just so. I’ll go to the armory and ask.”
The People knew their craft work. One of the prince’s armorers delivered a saddle with the new idea attached the very next morning. Rhodorix first accustomed Aur to having straps dangle against its sides, then tried out the new way of mounting while the armorer stood watching. Although the foot-loop certainly made getting onto the horse’s back easier, the simple saddle twisted to one side under the pull of his weight. Rhodorix dismounted and led the horse over to Andariel and the armorer.
“We need to work on the saddle,” the armorer said through the crystals. “Give it back to me. I think I see what’s wrong.”
Back and forth the saddle went over the next eightnight between the armory and the horse yard. Each time it returned, it was heavier and stiffer, until finally the leather ended up stretched over a wooden frame. The cinch had spawned two additional straps. One went round the horse’s chest, one round its behind, and the new side loops included iron bars to keep them open and stiff. Although Aur disliked this new version of its usual tack, Rhodorix heartily approved.
With the armorer and Andariel in tow, he rode down to the first terrace, then galloped along its length once. As he walked the horse back to the waiting men of the People, he tried standing with his weight on the new, reinforced loops, then sat back down and howled with laughter. He walked the snorting, dancing horse over to Andariel, who was watching from the side of the courtyard. Still grinning, Rhodorix leaned down to retrieve the black crystal from the captain.
“A man could swing