Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles) (29 page)

They were wrong.

“Hey!” he shouted, and found himself angrier than he’d have thought. “Hey, you there! Bring me my horse.”

Melissa jumped, the Empress turned on her heel with her eyebrows knit in curiosity, tossing her thick black hair over her shoulder.
Bill could see dirt smudges on Melissa’s blouse and the thigh of her pants. When they moved, he could see Vulpe was standing in the arena, a few feet past them.

“Mountain,” Shela addressed him, straightening.
“I sent Nina to find you—I assume she’s told you—”

Bill waved his hand and cut her off.
The surprise on her face was plain for anyone to see. He was probably pushing his luck here but his temper already had the better of him.

Americans don’t have nobility, and it was hard to keep telling himself that so-called ‘royals’ could to a lot of things to him for mouthing off.

He looked past the two women to the Uman, one of them watching him with the lead line in his hand, and shouted, “I said, ‘
Stop!’
”

The Uman shook the lead line and the stallion trotted, then slowed down to a walk, cooling off.

“I know what you’re doing,” he informed Shela. “Don’t do that to my horse.”

She straightened.
He heard Lee gasp behind him. Vulpe was already climbing the fence and Melissa’s look of actual fear was unmistakable.

“My Lord,” she said, her voice icy, “you have that horse for my husband’s good graces, and you have your
freedom
for the same reason.”

“And I know you can take back both,” Bill said, stopping a foot from the dark-haired Empress.
“But until you do, your Imperial Majesty, that is still
my horse
and I don’t want him treated that way.”
              “Your horse struck out at
my son
,” Shela informed him.

“And you think you’re going to work it out of him,” Bill challenged her.
“But the problem is that he’s a
horse
, and he doesn’t even
remember
what he did with Vulpe, and he has
no
idea what you’re trying to teach him now.”

“My people almost live on their horses,” Shela answered.
The anger on her face was clear now. “This is how you handle a stallion who strikes out.”

“Oh, I’m not saying it won’t work,” Bill said. “You do this enough times, and he’ll be j
aded, and he won’t act up. He’ll be about worthless, too. Let me show you how to do this right.”

Shela’s eyes widened, then narrowed with rage.
Bill knew right then he’d gone too far. Lupus had reminded him there was nothing more important to an Andaran than horses, and Shela was no exception.

“Buh
—Mountain,” Raven whispered.

“No,” Shela took a step back where she could see the both of them.
“No, Raven—let us learn from this old man. Teach me, please, the ways of horse flesh, Mountain of Another Land.”

Bill stepped away from her while he still could.
Now there were a dozen people gathering around them at the stable. It must not be every day that some stranger challenges the woman who called herself
The Bitch of Eldador
.

A sack of carrots, their green stems protruding from the bag, hung from several walls and from the railing a
long the arena. Bill grabbed one up and put a hand on the upper railing to the arena. He leaned back and then pulled himself up over the fence, the bag in his free hand.

Vulpe leapt right up next to him.

They both launched over the fence together. Shela called her son back but the boy didn’t react.

“How old are you, boy?”
Bill asked him.

“I’ll be twelve,” Vulpe informed him, his face upturned.

Bill nodded. “You know your mother’s not going to like you coming out here.”

“I want to learn this,” he answered.

Good enough.

The Uman who held Little Storm’s lunge line offered him the end, but Bill grabbed the whip out of his hand instead.
He handed the bag of carrots to Vulpe and said, “Wait here,” walking the length of the line.

“We’ve barely worked him an hour,” the Uman warned him.

An hour, Bill thought. This horse had been going too long already.

Little Storm stood stock still as Bill approached him.
He had to wonder how many times he’d been through this, how many times these people had run the poor horse to exhaustion for no reason.

He reached up and rubbed the stallion’s nose.
The horse lowered his head and he rubbed the flat space between its eyes. He dropped the whip and unbuckled the line from the halter, dropping it on the ground. Without turning, he said, “Coil that line up and leave here with it.”

“My Lord,” the Uman said.
Bill didn’t know if it was an affirmation or a question. He
did
know better than to take his eyes off of a stallion in his care.

“Just do it, Elleck,” he heard Vulpe say.
The rope dragged away behind him. Shela called for her son again.

The stallion took a step away from Bill.
Bill put himself back in its path. The horse stopped, bobbed its head and tried to take a step past Bill to the other side. Bill moved again.

Now I have your attention,
Bill thought.

He squatted down and picked up the whip.
Using the butt end of that, he kept the stallion face to face with him. The huge animal, as much as seven times Bill’s weight, started to become frustrated. It wanted to wander away from Bill and he couldn’t.

“Bring me the carrots,” Bill commanded Vulpe.

He heard the boy approach from behind him. He held his left hand out toward Vulpe and felt him shove the carrot bag into it. All the time he kept his eyes focused just past the stallion, not making eye contact.

He waved the carrot bag under the stallion’s nose.
Little Storm lunged for the carrots and Bill pulled them away. He did this two more times, and then he actually put his hand on the bridge of the stallion’s nose and pushed the huge animal back.

“These are
my
carrots,” he informed Little Storm, more for himself and his audience.

The stallion pawed the ground.
Bill tossed the bag into the arena sand behind him.

Now the stallion saw that all he had to do was move the man and he could have the carrots.
He tried to shoulder past Bill but Bill put his hand on the stallion’s jaw and turned him. He backed up, bobbed his head, pawed the ground and snorted in frustration.

Bill held his ground.

“That’s what
I
was doing,” Vulpe informed him.

“Just watch,” Bill said.

The horse started pacing to either side of the Bill. He ran around the carrots in a circle, Bill standing next to them with the lunging whip. He snorted, he reared, he pawed the air and called out his challenge.

Bill kept his eyes just to the right of the stallion’s head, or focused on his legs.
He didn’t give any ground and he didn’t take any.

Finally the stallion broke away, trotted about thirty feet from Bill, wheeled on his back legs and came at him at a dead run.

This is it
, Bill told himself. Make or break.

Bill held his ground.
Melissa called out to him from the fence. He heard the Empress say something but he couldn’t be sure what.

All focus
ed on the charging stallion.

Little Storm stopped dead in front of him.
He batted him with his forehead. Bill chuckled and rubbed his ears.

He took a step back, bent down, and pulled a carrot from the bag.
He held it out and Little Storm reached for it. He pulled it away. Little Storm stopped. He held it out again and when the stallion reached for it again, he pulled it away again.

When the stallion stopped reaching for it, Bill held the carrot under Little Storm’s nose and let him have it.

Some of the stablemen actually applauded. Vulpe stepped up next to him.

“Mama’s smiling,” he said.

“Your attention should be on the horse,” Bill admonished him. “You want to train a stallion, you have to keep your focus on him. Your mama has a lot of smiles for you, but a stallion only needs to hit you once.”

“Yes, grandfather,” Vulpe informed him.

Bill nodded. He took a step back from the stallion, put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and then handed him the lunging whip.

“Ok
ay, now,” he said. “You do it.”

* * *

Melissa watched Bill train the stallion from the fence, Shela on one side of her, Nina on the other, Lee standing just inside the fence where Vulpe had been, the hem of her palace dress already smudged either from climbing the rails or from leaping into the arena sand.

Melissa bounced Chawny in her left arm.
The baby was highly interested in the consistency of Melissa’s hair, and how many strands she could rearrange.

Shela at first criticized Bill
—the Mountain—then became more curious. When the stallion trotted away from him, she said, “See—this doesn’t work.”

Then the horse wheeled and stampeded toward the one man.
Several of the stablemen leapt over the fence, but Shela ordered them to stand fast. Melissa called out, “Bill!” without thinking.

“Stop using his name,” Nina admonished her.
She didn’t like Bill, Melissa knew. She wouldn’t care if he died.

But he didn’t die.
The horse slammed to a halt right in front of him. It was a bluff charge—a tactic by the horse to see if he could take over dominance. Bill had taught him otherwise. Now he was teasing the stallion with a carrot.

“Is
—what?” Melissa didn’t understand. “Is that a game?”

“No,” Shela said, and sighed, turning to face Melissa.
“He won’t let the stallion have the carrot until the stallion stops trying to take it. In that way, Little Storm sees the Mountain controls the food. In the herd, the one who controls the food is the leader.”

“Lead the herd, lord the horse,” Lee said from within the arena.
Shela smiled and turned to her daughter.

“You’re an Andaran daughter, aren’t you?” she asked.
“A true Waya Agiladia.”

“I am,” Lee said, and turned her attention back to the arena, where Bill was handing the lunging whip to her brother.

“Hey!” she protested. “I want to do that, too!” and she was hiking up the front of her skirts and charging across the arena sand.

Shela laughed and shook her head.

“Should she—I mean, is it safe?” Melissa protested.

“Hell, no it isn’t safe,” Lupus informed them, emerging from a row of stalls to the east of the arena.
“When are my kids ever doing something safe?”

Stablemen and women bowed to the
Emperor as he approached with a squad of Wolf Soldiers. Shela smiled and reached for him.

“My husband,” she said as he took her hand.

“My wife,” he responded, and kissed the back of her hand. He turned to Melissa. “My child?”

She laughed and handed Chawny to Lupus.
The baby gurgled and beat his face and chest with her tiny fists.

“Ah, this one is her mother’s daughter,” Lupus said, between pummeling.

Melissa turned her attention to the arena and saw Nina was already shadowing the two older children as Vulpe fended off the stallion and Lee held Bill’s forearm and tried to tell her brother what he was doing wrong.

“Let him do it himself, girl,” Bill told her.
“You don’t want him telling you.”

“If
that
works I’ll make him an Earl,” Lupus chuckled.

“You almost had to dig him a hole,” Shela informed him.

Lupus laughed again. “Why do you think I’m here?” he asked. “The stableman sent three apprentices to fetch me.”

Shela turned her attention back to the arena.
“I wouldn’t have hurt him,” she said.

“You wouldn’t have hurt him
badly
,” Lupus corrected her.

“Well, I can’t hurt him at all, now,” she said.
“He was right. I like this way, with carrots. I’ll send this method to my father.”

Lee opened her mouth to say something, looked up at Bill, closed her mouth and clung to his arm.
The stallion reared up on Vulpe and the young man held his ground.

“Now
that
is something you can tell your father,” Lupus said.

“Vulpe’s courage?” Melissa asked him.

“Mountain shut Lee down,” Lupus said.

“I’m seeing it, but I can’t believe it,” Shela agreed.
“She’s actually obedient to that old—she’s, um—”