“My name is Clarence. Just Clarence. You are the spy Lord Aaron told me about?”
“Thief. I’m a thief, not a spy.”
She made a “same difference” sort of gesture and snapped an order at the bucket boy. “I’m to give you and your woman horses. How well do you ride?”
Gregory hesitated. “I’ve been on a horse,” he said slowly.
“
“When I was growing up, I attended all the local hunt meets,” I said with quiet pride.
“You hunted?” Gregory asked, puzzled. “You don’t strike me as the type who goes in for blood sports.”
I smiled demurely. “I rode on behalf of the foxes, actually. As an alchemist, one of the first things I learned to make was a fox scent that fooled all the hounds. After a few decades of without so much as a single fox appearing, the meet broke up.”
“A job well done,” Gregory said, approval shining in his eyes.
Clarence entered into the stable, saying over her shoulder, “As you’ve riding experience, we’ll let you have Bottom.”
Gregory and I followed her into the dark confines of the stable. The delicious odors of alfalfa, horse, and saddle soap mingled and made me think of days long gone when I’d ridden to and fro over the countryside, sending the mortals and their dogs on all sorts of wild-goose hunts. “Why on earth do you call the horse Bottom?”
A horse’s head snapped up at the nearest stall, his eyes wide, and his nostrils flared as he took in our scent. He bared his teeth and let loose with a whinny that just about deafened me.
“I have a nasty suspicion as to the identity of that horse,” I told Gregory.
He shuddered. “I can say with all honesty that I am sincerely grateful for Old Mabel.”
Clarence strode past us, unlatching the stall. Gregory and I backed up as the horse, black as midnight, charged out, hooves flashing, ears flicking forward and back, and eyes rolling in his head as Clarence caught him by the halter and cuffed him affectionately on the shoulder. “Aye, you old murderer. You’re going to have a nice long run, aren’t you?”
“Oh, goddess,” I said softly.
“To answer your question, he’s called Bottom because you’ll need a hell of a seat to ride him.”
The stableboy led another horse, a solid-looking cob who didn’t so much as flick an ear to where the black devil was now tap-dancing in his attempt to get away from Clarence. She threatened to use a twitch on him if he didn’t behave himself and thumped him again on the shoulder as she half led him and was half dragged herself out into the sunshine.
I sighed.
“Thinking of that vacation again?” Gregory’s voice was as warm on my ear as the breath that touched it. I shivered at the sensation.
The stable seemed to be a small bubble of privacy. Rays of sunlight streamed in through gaps in the boards that made up the walls, motes of dust and hay drifting in lazy patterns like little golden fireflies. The stable itself was quiet, the noises from the yard muffled and distant, as if coming from a very long way. For a moment in time, the world was made up of only Gregory and me.
I turned my head slowly. Our noses brushed first, then our lips.
“We’ve got to stop doing this,” I said against his mouth, suddenly too weary to fight the attraction that seemed to swamp me whenever he was near.
“Why?”
I searched his eyes, but I saw nothing there but honest curiosity. “Because you are who you are, and I’m who I am, and my moms are who they are.”
“And never the twain shall meet?”
“Something like that.” I licked the corner of his mouth. He moaned softly and would probably have kissed me as I not so secretly wanted him to do, but the world intruded upon us once again, heralded by the cry that we should get our arses in gear because some people had work to do and couldn’t stand around lollygagging all day.
The feeling of being suspended in time dissolved.
“Don’t be so sure that you have
“Did you just call me a know-it-all?” I asked him as Clarence gave us instructions on how to treat Aaron’s horses while they were on loan to us.
“I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing.”
“Then why did you say—”
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to actually pay attention—” Clarence’s voice cracked like a whip around me. Guiltily, I turned toward her and put on my best listening face.
“Sorry. Go on.”
The look she gave me wasn’t any too friendly, but duty won out over personal satisfaction, and she didn’t tell me to go to hell, though she obviously wanted to. “You are to walk next to the horses for one hour out of every four that you ride. This saddlebag”—she patted a canvas bag that had been strapped to Mable’s ample back —“contains grain. They are to get that no more than once a day. Hobbles are in the other bag. Use them when you stop to rest, and in the evening. The horses are trained to return here if they are left unattended and unhobbled, so fair warning.”
“This is going to sound like an odd question, I’m sure,” I said, unable to keep from voicing the question that had been uppermost in my mind ever since I saw Bottom up close. Even now, his ears were flattened, and his back hooves had a tendency to fly out whenever someone drifted into the large circle of what he considered his personal space. “But why aren’t there cars here? Or planes, or helicopters, or for that matter, personal jet packs? Why do you still use horsepower when Aaron mentioned having a computer, and he’s building some monstrous machine to chew up Ethan’s warriors?”
“Lord Aaron distrusts modern machinery on the whole, unless it has something to do with his project. He’s always saying that a horse is reliable, whereas a man-made vehicle isn’t. Right. Up you go.” She gestured to Gregory, who approached his horse with reluctance. She got him into the saddle, showed him how to hold the reins, and gave him a basic ten-minute lesson on riding while she led him around the stableyard.
I preferred to watch Gregory learn how to how to use his legs and hands as cues rather than watch the stableboy dash forward and attempt to strap assorted bundles and a small picnic basket to the treacherous Bottom’s saddle.
At least they had remembered to feed us as well as the horses.
It wasn’t until another lad staggered up with a bunch of metal in his arms that I had an inkling that things were about to go from bad to worse.
“Your armor, my lady,” the young man said as he came to a halt before me, panting with the exertion.
“Oh. I suppose Aaron figures I’ll need that. Um. OK. I guess I can take it with me. Go ahead and put it on.”
He looked at me like I was a Velociphant. “You want me to put it on?”
“Yes.” I waved at the black equine devil, who was standing still by virtue of Clarence’s brilliant contrivance of shoving a pail of grain in front of the brute. The horse happily chomped away while the last of the bundles was strapped to his saddle. “I don’t know where you’re going to find a spot to hook it to, but maybe we could readjust some of those packages.”
“The armor ain’t for him,” the boy squeaked, shoving it at me. “It’s for you.”
“I understand that, but I won’t need it until we reach the camp. I can’t carry it, and I certainly am not going to wear it while riding, so it’ll have to be attached.”
The boy opened his mouth to say something, but an older boy arrived with a familiar sword. “The Nightingale, Lady Gwen.”
“Where did you find that?” I asked, taking the sword. I had to admit it felt good in my hand, almost as if it was made for me.
