Thorn (10 page)

Helántor turns to me. “First, you and Corbé take these geese outside. Then you return and clean this barn. Corbé will show you. Then you will go back to the geese. At night, you help bring the geese in.” He turns once more to Corbé. A few more words and, without a backward glance, Helántor leaves.

Corbé opens the gate for me. I step in, following him across the enclosure. The floor is covered with straw and feathers and goose droppings. I grimace, my slippers squelching in filth hidden beneath the straw. The barn itself smells so strongly of both goose and droppings I have to hold my breath to keep my stomach settled.

On the back wall hang shovels, rakes, a pitchfork and a variety of staffs. Corbé mimes raking the ground to collect droppings, points to the shovel to lift them, and then shows me a barrel by the door to dump them in. A ladder against the wall leads to the loft, and Corbé points to a trapdoor towards the center of the loft and mimes throwing down more straw. Finally, he points to the staffs and then myself, holding up his own so that I understand him.

With a shout he rouses the geese, driving them towards the gate. I grab a staff and hurry ahead, opening the door at his nod. The geese pour past me into the open yard. With another shout and a few pebbles expertly thrown, Corbé herds them around the corner of the stable opposite, towards the city gates, gesturing for me to follow behind. I do, hesitantly using my staff to hurry along the stragglers. A few of the geese try to nip me, turning and honking at me when my staff comes too close to them; I have to push them with it harder than I like in order to get them to follow after their brethren.

It seems like a long walk around the stables, through the city gates, and on down the road to their pasture. The land here lies untilled, kept as meadowland for the king’s geese and other livestock, sheep or goats. The same low stone walls run along the road, occasionally dividing one pasture from the other. We come to a crossroad and I pause, looking up and down, but I cannot tell where it runs. By the time we finally leave the road for a narrow path between two short stone walls, and from there turn through a break to a pasture, I am heartily sick of the geese, having received several hard pecks.

Back in the barn I rake up the goose droppings. The work is tiring and dirty, and by the time I am done and ready to shovel the mess into the barrel, I am drenched with sweat. It is noon before I have thrown down more straw and raked it out evenly. My arms and back ache with the unaccustomed lifting. I push a tendril of red hair behind my ear, the feeling of wrongness so slight now that my hand hardly wavers before completing the movement.

Before I leave for the pasture, I return to the stables hoping to find a common room like the one I remember from home. I see two of the hostler men in the hall, talking together as they look in at a horse. They glance curiously at me as I pass, and a moment later the elder of the two—perhaps ten years my senior and built like a bear—sticks his head into the common room to check on me. I freeze as if caught stealing, but he takes a glance at the small piece of flatbread I have found, and nods with understanding. He produces a burlap shoulder sack from a cabinet, as well as some cheese wrapped in a cloth and two apples. He adds a tin cup, and hands the sack to me with a smile.

“Shurminan,” I say belatedly, as he steps through the door.

“Ifnaal,” he replies.
You are welcome.

***

I reach the goose pasture after only one or two false turns onto likely looking paths from the main road. Corbé does not even glance at me. I cross to the geese wondering if I have inadvertently offended him. I can’t think of a thing.

The geese have congregated around a small stream running through the pasture, resting and splashing by the water. A goose opens her clipped wings and flaps them in vain, beating at the air, straining with all her might and managing only to ripple the water around her. My fingers graze a bruise on my thigh from a peck this morning, but still, watching the geese now, I pity them.

The afternoon passes quietly. I eat my lunch, sitting in the shade of a tree that has grown up alongside the wall. I must doze off at some point, for I rouse to the sound of Corbé shouting to bring the geese together.
 

Out return is slow going; Corbé ignores wherever I am and so I must constantly turn aside for wandering geese. It is only when we reach the city gates that Corbé takes full control of the flock, gesturing once for me to go ahead to the barn and then turning them into the yard. I hurry past the stables to open the gate and let the feathery crowds in. Corbé considers my morning’s work while I put away my staff. He nods once, almost sullenly, and turns his back on me.

I open my mouth to speak and then close it. None of my language tuitions ever included the words to ask a goose boy why he dislikes me; or whether I had not done a good job cleaning a barn. I return to the second stable, my feet dragging. The sounds of voices raised in conversation carry down the hall from the common room. I peek in from the doorway. A group of hostlers sit together over their dinner. They laugh as they converse, their manner easy and assured.

One of the women glances up as I waver on the threshold. Her eyes are a gentle brown, laughter lines softening them just as age has softened the skin of her cheeks, left her fingers gnarled and callused. She raises her hand in greeting, and at once the attention of the room flits to me.

I rub a fold of my skirt with my thumb, gripping it tightly in my hand. They bob their heads and then wait, watching me. I feel as out of place among them as one of my charges might among theirs. They are all of them certain in themselves, strong and purposeful, their movements sure.

The gentle-eyed woman stands up and pulls a stool to the table, speaking words that shuffle across the distance between us and slip out the door behind me. How useless are the courtly words and phrases I have learned! She gestures to the stool, then places her hand on her breast and speaks one word: “Darilaya.”

I smile hesitantly, point to myself. “My name is Al—“ The choker snaps tight around my neck, and I break off, shocked at the pain, at the way the walls spin, that I should so easily have given this woman my name.

A hand closes over my elbow, and as I begin to cough, regaining my breath, I find that I have been hustled to the stool. The woman pushes a cup of water into my hands. I smile gratefully, sip the water as I recover myself. The hostlers eye me cautiously, as if I might fall over before them.

I set the cup down on the table and point to myself again. “Thoreena.”

Reassured by my ability to speak, the hostlers introduce themselves in a quick round of pattering, sing-song names I cannot catch. They ladle out a bowl of stew for me, hand me a flatbread, and wait patiently as I eat, only occasionally murmuring a comment to each other. I leave as soon as I am done, smiling and nodding to them, as glad to escape, no doubt, as they are to have their common room returned to them.

The same woman hands me a bowl of cinnamon-spiced porridge in the morning, gesturing to the table. Other than her, the common room lies empty. The porridge has been kept warm in a ceramic bowl wrapped in a blanket, and is more delicious than most breakfasts I can remember. We never had cinnamon for our porridge at home. The woman looks up from the pieces of a harness set out before her, smiling at my look of rapture, and pours me a cup of spiced milk. I want to ask her name again but she returns to her work at once, deft fingers piecing the harness together.

My day passes much like yesterday. Corbé gives me no greeting, his broad face hard, black hair pulled back in a tight tail. He opens the gate and drives the geese out without a glance at me. I return from the pasture, a different one from the day before, and spend the morning cleaning out the barn. That is the worst part of the day; the best is my afternoon in the pasture. There is a particular peace to the land, a quiet that the honking of geese and flapping of wings only enhances. There is only the slowly creeping shadows of the rocks by the stream, the waking and napping of our charges.

When it is time to return, driving the geese back to the road and up through the city gates, I find myself coming awake as if from a dream. I hurry ahead, throwing the barn gate open just as the first geese get to it. I close it behind Corbé, but still he does not speak to me. I wish he did not dislike me so.

I eat dinner with the stable hands again, and today they speak more among themselves, welcoming me and then hesitantly forgetting me except to make sure I have what food and drink I wish. I watch them covertly, studying the three men, who are all within a few years of each other, and whose features carry a certain resemblance mirrored by the younger woman at the table. I wonder if they are all siblings, and if so, if the older, gentle-eyed woman is any relation of theirs as well. I listen to the patter of their conversation, their words are quick and their meanings, I guess from the frequent laughs and lasting smiles, varied. It is enough to make me want to shout—what use was my studying courtly phrases? Why couldn’t have Bol taught me the language of living and laughing? I will have to learn, I think wearily. Somehow, I will have to teach myself.

Before I leave, I touch the older woman’s sleeve and show her a small wild rose I had found beside the goose pasture. “Thoreena.”

She looks at it. “Thorn.” She points to the thorny stem, nodding, and turns to her companions before I can stop her, speaking quickly.

“Thorn,” they say, pointing from the rose to me.

“No, no,” I say quickly. I have to resort my own tongue, explaining uselessly, “Rose and thorns together: the whole plant–thoreena.”

But they do not understand, and when I leave a few minutes later I am only “Thorn.”

I venture forth from the stables, twirling the rose between my fingers, unsure whether I should laugh at myself or shout with frustration. Outside, the night air is chill. I leave the rose by one of the drinking troughs and cross the empty yard to the first stables. Curiosity carries me through the still open doors to walk past the stalls in the hopes that, perhaps … yes, there.

The white turns his head to watch my approach, ears pricked forward, his face faintly luminescent in the half-light.

“Well, it’s about time,” he murmurs as I reach him. “What do you find so amusing?”

“Did you miss me?”

“No,” he replies immediately. If he were human he might have blushed. “Do you realize I’ve been locked in this stall since we arrived?”

“They didn’t take you out to the practice ring?”

He snorts in disgust. “They tried to saddle me. Can you imagine? A hostler riding a true Horse? Unheard of!”

“I suppose you didn’t let them, then?”

“Of course not,” he snaps. “Would you?”

I blink, try to imagine myself being taken as a beast of burden. “I don’t know,” I say, wondering if I have always been that, if I have only just now escaped it. He glares at me, and I say quickly, “I hope not.”

“Well then.” He looks at me expectantly. I look back. “Let me out!”

“I’ll have to put a halter on you, for form’s sake.”

He acquiesces and with a minimum amount of fumbling with tack on my part we walk out to the ring together. As I unbuckle the halter, the ring’s gate closed and latched behind us, I ask, “What’s your name?”

He shakes his head free and then pauses, dark eyes meeting mine, “Falada.” He takes off, running at breakneck speed around the edge of the ring. I climb up to the top of the fence and sit there to wait.

It is not even a quarter of an hour before a hostler comes sprinting out of the stable. He glances around, spots the halter hanging over the gate, and the next moment has climbed into the ring with it in hand. I sigh and jump down again, watching as the hostler tries to corner the white. Falada will have none of it, prancing away, then breaking into a canter and swerving around the poor man.

“Falada!” He comes to me at once, the hostler watching grimly. I turn to him with a forced smile and hold out my hand for the halter. He crosses the sand with a few long strides, studying me carefully as he hands it to me. He is as old as the hostler woman in my stable, tall and sinewy. He watches me as I reach towards Falada with the halter, and I hope I have not angered him as I did Sarkor. Falada cooperatively lowers his head to me, and a moment later I hand the hostler the lead. Falada promptly plants his feet apart and refuses to move.

“Falada,” I say again, gently, and with one hand on his crest I reach out and touch the hostler’s shoulder. The man makes no move. “For God’s sake, don’t be an ass; go with this man.” Falada snorts and glares at me, but when the hostler tries to lead him out of the ring again, he follows.

In the stables, the hostler ties the lead to a ring and leaves, returning with a box of brushes and hoof picks. Recognizing disaster when I see it, I take the box from the man, gesturing to Falada and then myself: I will care for him. The hostler looks at me again and I wonder what he has heard about me, what the rumors say of the princess’s cast-off companion. His gaze is measuring, knowing. He steps back, tilting his head. He will watch me work.

Only after I have vigorously brushed out clouds of white hair and picked out all of Falada’s hooves does the hostler seem satisfied that I know what I’m doing. I am grateful to Redna for humoring me many an afternoon, teaching me how to help her with Fleet Wind, and I murmur a soft prayer for her as I work. Still, the hostler relaxes only once Falada is back inside his stall, the halter hanging from the hook by his door.