Karigan Riding
S ome punishment, Karigan thought. She slapped Storm’s muscular neck as she rode him into the paddock of the royal stables.
Certainly the weather could be harsh for riding this time of year, and of course it was in addition to her regular duties, but she found her “punishment” quite pleasurable and therapeutic for her grief.
Time with horses was always a balm, but it was even more deeply so in light of her loss of Aunt Stace.
The man Zachary trusted to exercise his horses had slipped and fallen on the ice one day and broken his arm.
There were few people, Zachary said, whom he would trust with his horses.
Horse Master Riggs was one, but she was too busy with her own regular duties to exercise his horses.
So, he’d ordered Karigan to fill in. His warhorses, in particular, must be in good condition by spring.
Storm, whom she’d once called Pumpkin because she hadn’t known his real name, huffed and steam plumed from his mouth and nostrils. During Second Empire’s siege of Sacor City, she’d ridden him in full armor at Estora’s behest to attend a parley with the enemy.
Zachary possessed no fewer than six heavy war steeds like Storm, eight light warhorses, and various saddle and carriage horses.
She was to concentrate on the warhorses.
It actually required quite a bit of extra work.
She needed to rise earlier than usual and work late in order to fit in as many horses as possible for a proper level of exercise.
Riding out in the countryside would help, but the prohibition on her leaving the city remained in effect, so the west castle grounds and occasional jaunt into the city would have to do.
At least the city gave the horses a change of pace.
Battle training for heavy cavalry horses, with all their offense and defense maneuvers, was a whole other discipline in riding that Karigan knew little about.
Unlike the heavy cavalry, messengers were skirmishers and used speed and agility in combat—their horses were not battering rams to plow into the enemy.
In any case, Horse Master Riggs said it was all right to give them a break from their usual training maneuvers to stave off boredom.
She dismounted at the stable entrance and loosened Storm’s girth.
The royal stables were a grand home for horses though she doubted they appreciated the statuary and other architectural flourishes that adorned it.
She did think they liked their big airy stalls.
The stable master, Dix, hobbled out to take Storm.
He was not an old man, but was bent from too many years, he said, of farrier work.
“How was your ride?” he asked.
“Lovely,” she replied. “Storm is such a gentleman.”
“Will this be all for you this afternoon?”
“I can fit in one more, I think.”
“Let me get Storm brushed down and blanketed, and I’ll fetch another.”
“No worries. I’ll saddle up someone myself.”
“You’re spoiling me, Rider,” he said as he led Storm away.
She shook her head in wonder that Zachary’s usual exercise rider did not help. She walked down the aisle, thinking to take out Tucker, but a big stallion she hadn’t seen before occupied a stall that was usually empty. The door bore no name plate.
“Well, hello,” she said, approaching him slowly.
He watched her with soft brown eyes. When she reached him, he whiffled her hand.
“Aren’t you handsome,” she said. She patted the soft, silken hide of his neck. His silvery coloring was unusual, but not unheard of. He bore a star on his forehead. He must be a recent acquisition of Zachary’s.
He snuffled her shoulder and sneezed, and she laughed, which brought his ears to point.
“Want to go for a ride?” she asked.
He scraped the floor with his hoof and bobbed his head as if to say that was exactly what he wished.
She hesitated. She didn’t know this horse, but he was clearly as well-mannered as the others. And come to think of it, she hadn’t known the others, with the exception of Storm, before she began her punishment. The stallion stomped impatiently.
“All right, all right,” she said.
He was similar in size and conformation to Tucker, about seventeen or eighteen hands high, but not as heavyset as Storm.
Tucker’s gear, she thought, should fit. He appeared to be freshly groomed, so it was but a matter of tacking up.
When she bridled him, he mouthed the bit as though it tasted strange, a look of hard concentration in his eyes.
“Not your usual bit, eh?” she said. “If it doesn’t work, I can switch it out.”
He nudged her arm as if to tell her to get on with saddling him, which she did. At first he shook himself after she tightened the girth and gave her a side eye as if this was entirely too undignified.
“Hey, you said you wanted a ride,” she told him.
He snorted.
She laughed as she led him out for he was stepping funny and wiggling his body.
She’d never seen anything quite like it.
Was he unbroke? Usually an unbroken horse reacted much more strongly, and he had accepted the bridle, bit, and saddle, even if he’d given her funny looks.
Maybe it felt strange to him because it wasn’t his usual gear.
He was no yearling, but a youngish adult.
She lifted his upper lip to check his teeth, but he pulled his head back and huffed in affront.
This was, she thought, going to be an interesting ride.
The stallion had plenty of personality. He almost reminded her of a messenger horse.
The question was, how well trained was he?
He stood quietly by the mounting block. At first she just lay across the saddle to see how he would react to her weight on him without committing herself to a full mount and possibly learning the hard way he was untrained.
His only reaction was to twitch an ear in her direction and glance back to see what she was doing.
“All right,” she said, “let’s give this a try.”
She mounted up and his ears flicked back and forth. He didn’t start bucking, so that was a good sign. After she adjusted the stirrups to the appropriate length, she gave him a gentle squeeze to start walking. He froze, then hopped, and froze again, his front legs slightly splayed.
“What was that?” she asked, tensed at the prospect she was in for a wild bucking ride, but it never came.
She squeezed again and he walked on. She sighed in relief and patted his neck. “Good boy.” But she’d remain wary. He must be green.
She guided him to the path that would take her past the castle to the west castle grounds where they could exercise.
As they went, she admired his coloring in the direct daylight, with its silvery shimmer.
It was odd, she thought, but then it faded, and she guessed the dappled shimmer had been a trick of the sunlight.
His ears were active as he paid attention to what her hands and legs were doing. After a while, he responded to her every cue almost as if he could read her mind. She relaxed.
No one paid them attention as they passed by, not even when she gave a cheery greeting. Rude, she thought. It was like she was invisible.
When they reached the west castle grounds with the snow churned up by other horses, she put him through his paces.
He flowed from one gait to another in such a way that she could not feel the transition.
He was wonderful to ride, like floating on a cloud.
She laughed when he surged into a gallop.
Zachary ought to enter him into the Day of Aeryon races, she thought. Imagine a heavy warhorse beating Crane!
The cold fresh air against her face and the ground blurring beneath the strides of the great stallion melted away all the strange experiences and difficulties that had come her way of late and lay heavily upon her.
This was pure. It was freedom. She rode the wind and the world righted itself to the rhythm of hoofbeats.
Z achary leaned against the window casement, gazing out upon the west castle grounds as he often did, either to clear his mind or watch who might be drilling or exercising their horses.
He was about to leave for a meeting when, by chance or subconscious intention, he spotted her below putting a horse through its paces.
Not one of his own, but a very fine specimen.
He longed to ride with her, to see the joy on her face, the pink in her cheeks.
She rode as though she and the horse were one, the stallion listening to her slightest cues. It was almost as if they flew.
Wild spirit, she was, and fey, never to be captured—cautious in her approach like a woodland doe, but tenacious and willing to give her full heart to those she loved. He thought he might be one of them. He prayed it was so, and feared it could not be.
Mysteries surrounded her, mysteries beyond his ken. Parts of her he could not understand for she walked in other worlds. He feared he would lose her to them. Could any mortal in the here and now lay claim to her?
He watched as the horse moved into a fluid gallop.
She’d been conscientiously working his horses as her “punishment” for the incident at the merchants guild.
He was relieved she was moving so well and able to ride, for Ben Simeon had given him a full accounting of her condition when they’d found her in the city jail.
Anger surged in Zachary’s chest at her treatment, as well as that of the other inmates.
Thanks to Lieutenant Brennyn’s words about the state of the jail, he had ordered it inspected.
Upon examining the report, he ordered the lord-mayor to fire the warden and implement improvements to the jail.
“Sire?”
“Hmm?” He dragged his gaze away from the window to find Castellan Javien standing in the doorway.
“The Rhovan embassy awaits your presence in the Red Room.”
War talk, Zachary thought. Endless war talk. “Very well.”
He glanced once more out the window, but Karigan and the horse were gone. She’d be at it again tomorrow, exercising his horses, and he’d be trapped indoors in meetings, wishing he could ride with her, free in the wind.