Chapter 9
Nine
We began our training in the high meadows.
Bagotta coaxed one of our palfreys into a fluid canter.
I tried to absorb the angle of her posture, the straightness of her spine.
Galehaut rode a few paces ahead, a clean tunic hanging airily around his shoulders.
He looked refreshed and alert. He must’ve fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. I wondered if he dreamed of Cymidei.
At a bluff, we broke into a gallop, and I strained to keep up. He shot me a glance as if to say, That’s all you have? Then he clapped the reins and went faster, leaving me in his trampled wake.
At a gated meadow we slowed to a stop. Bagotta nodded to a grazing herd of wild horses.
“We’re going to drive them towards the pen.
You need better horses than these old palfreys.
Look for a colt or filly with good feet.
The hoofbeat should have a hollow ring to it.
See that horse there?” She pointed to a brindled mare running in a circle.
“See how her legs are stiff? Avoid that. Look for supple knees, thick shanks and a broad chest, like that one.” She singled out a blazed sorrel. “Let’s go.”
The horses whinnied and scattered as we flushed them towards the pen. Galehaut seemed to have Bagotta’s instincts for the horse. He anticipated their movements and steered them effectively.
I was less adept. As the scent of the herd—sweet and earthy—flooded my nostrils, I tried to listen for a hoofbeat with a hollow ring. A bay-coated colt burst in front of me with a playful skitter, hooves echoing. I attempted to steer him towards the pen, but he kept darting away.
As the herd switched direction my own palfrey keeled onto her hind legs and I lost my grip on the reins. I felt myself slipping from the saddle, then I was airborne. I struck the ground with a dull thud.
I tried to stand, but I was surrounded by smashing horse hooves. Battering rams mere inches from my head.
“Lancelot!” Bagotta rode off the herd. “Get up now!”
Somehow, I managed to stand. A searing pain shot through my shoulder. I could taste the dirt on my face as I jumped back into the saddle.
Twenty agonizing minutes passed. I floundered about desperately, unable to pen even the slowest of horses. Galehaut was watching my every move.
Finally, Bagotta called me off. I rode over, churning with shame.
“Look at me,” she demanded. I lifted my chin, bracing for evisceration. “Penning a horse is not hard.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing and listen. Penning a horse is not hard, but you’re making it hard. Look at the way you’re hunching your neck and clenching the reins. You’re auguring failure. What’s it feel like?”
“Not… good?”
“Right. Not good. What’s not good about it?”
“I don’t know. I just want to pen a horse. And for some reason I’m not able to.”
“You are able”—she snapped her fingers—“look at me. You are able to do this. But your terrible energy is scaring the horses. Focus less on yourself and more on them. The stakes are not that high.”
I rode back to the herd, conscious of my clenched grip. I loosened my hold and relaxed my shoulders, forcing myself to breathe. A white colt with alert eyes seemed receptive to my presence. He kept casting curious glances in my direction, trotting towards me then pulling back.
Playful. I liked him. Of all the horses he seemed the most willing to diverge from the herd.
Bagotta was right. The stakes were not that high.
The horse would either be broken or he wouldn’t, and the process would unfold as it was meant to.
As I let go of expectations, so too did the colt. He eventually entered the pen.
“It’s about time,” Bagotta said. “See if he’ll take a browband and snaffle.”
I approached on foot and the horse nickered. His eyes were black like river stones, but his coat was almost blue in its whiteness.
I turned to Bagotta. “Can I give him a name?”
He was affectionate, but I sensed in the flare of his nostrils that he would hold on to a bit of his wildness. Most horses, I’d learn, would not break so easily.
She nodded. “Make it a good one.”
The colt lowered his head and I touched the top of his back. We believed the mane of a horse was a gift of the gods, and this colt’s mane was a luxurious, flowing alabaster.
“Blake.” It meant Pale One in our tongue, but it could also mean the opposite. Light and dark were one and the same. He whinnied in affirmation.
If only my connection with Galehaut were as simple.
“That was a rough start,” I said. We were riding back side by side, but Galehaut would not look at me.
Despite penning a horse, I was hot with humiliation.
Only Mazoe, whose cottage lay farther north, made frequent use of the stables.
With aspirations of knighthood, why had I not practiced?
Galehaut clearly had. “You’ve done that before,” I added. “Broken wild horses.”
“It’s not that hard.”
Meaning, Why were you so bad at that? Meaning, We are not equals.
“You can wield a lance, too?”
“Let me guess,” he said. “You haven’t.”
“I’ve never wielded any weapon.”
He cocked his head back in frustration.
“What am I doing here?” he muttered to himself, loud enough for me to hear. I tried to change the subject.
“Do you have tournaments on Giant’s Island?”
“We have everything on Giant’s Island.”
He spoke of his home like it was a palace of the gods.
Their metalworkers were world-renowned. Their millet grew a mile high.
Giant’s Island, it seemed, was a perfect paradise that, unlike the Isle of Women, didn’t rely on trade or magic to thrive.
In his mind our island was inferior. No doubt I was, too.
“You miss it already.”
“I’ve been gone just a few days. It will be there when I return. I shall survive.”
“Surely you miss something.”
He looked down at his horse’s mane.
“Cymidei?” I tried.
“We don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend like we’re comrades.” He waved a freckled hand between us. “I know they say you will be a great knight. I certainly wish you well. I am not your adversary. But I have many friends back home, more than I can count. I don’t need another.”
He nudged his horse into a canter and rode ahead. I had embarrassed myself, and, worse, I worried I was wasting Galehaut’s time. I didn’t fault him his frustration. He’d spent years by his mother’s side, absorbing chivalric skills. I’d swept floors.
I looked to the sky, a soft wisp of clouds. I’d dealt with indifference and antagonism before, I reminded myself. All I had to do was make myself scarce.