Hap grinned and said, ‘I thought you might!’ and swept into the opening notes of a song.
Days passed, with dinners and introductions and then entertainments with other young nobles of my age that I should cultivate. Lady Simmer organized my social schedule. My brothers came to visit me, some with wives and children, a few at a time. I found that I scarcely knew any of them any more. I loved them, but it was a distant love, the same they accorded to me. I watched them with Nettle and her child, their jests and their advice and their ‘do you remembers?’, all hearkening back to a family I’d never been a part of. They were kind. They brought me the sort of gifts one would give to a young female relative. Riddle sat beside me for those visits. He spoke to me so that I had someone for a conversation, and taught me how to smile at strangers who loved me and had no idea of my ordeal—especially as I had no desire to share it with them. At such times, I was glad that Per had suggested I erase my scars. When I spoke at all, I told them of seeing ships turn into dragons and moving figureheads and the wonders of Kelsingra. I am sure they discounted half of it as a child’s fanciful nonsense, and that was fine with me.
I began to understand why my father wrote at night. And why he burned it afterward.
There came a day when there was an unfilled morning, for the gravid queen had dismissed her ladies. I begged to be allowed to go out riding, and when that was granted, I insisted I would ride only Pris. As I dressed, I was dismayed to be informed that four other nobles, of about my age and two of my sex, would go with me. To my disdain, each would be accompanied by a groom on a mount, and some of their parents would attend us as well. FitzVigilant and Lord Chance would ride alongside me. My heart rose when I saw that Per was there, but he merely held Pris’s head while ‘my’ groom supervised me while I mounted my horse. It was more than I could bear. ‘I know how to get on a horse,’ I insisted, and even to myself I sounded petulant and spoiled.
I did worse later. We were kept to a sedate pace that allowed the adults to converse and the youngsters to say insipid, dull things to me. Per rode far behind us. I looked back and saw him, and for just an instant our gazes met. I leaned forward and told Pris, ‘Run!’
Did I use the Skill on her? I do not think so. But she leapt forth with a will and we burst to the front of the group and I urged her on. She flew. For the first time since I’d been taken, I felt as if I was myself, free and in control, even if I were on the back of a wildly galloping horse. There were shouts behind me, and two shrieks, but I didn’t care. We veered from the trail into the trees and up a steep hill. Down a gully she took me, through a muddy stream and up another steep bank. At first I heard hoofbeats behind me and then I didn’t. On I went, clinging to Pris like a burr and we were so glad of one another. We emerged from open forest onto a grassy hillside. Below us meadowland unfurled like a green carpet, sheep scattered across it like spilled buttons. Pris halted and together we breathed.
When I heard another horse behind me and glanced back, it was all I had hoped for. Per galloped up on a black mount every bit as fine as they had promised he’d be given. He halted beside me and patted his horse’s neck.
‘What’s her name?’ I asked him.
‘Maybelle,’ he replied. He grinned at me, and then it faded. ‘Bee, we should go back. Everyone will be frightened for you.’
‘Truly?’
‘Truly.’
‘A little longer away from them all. They are all so …’ He waited. There wasn’t a word that expressed how they looked at me, and over my head, and that there was always, always someone standing there. ‘I never get to be alone.’
He frowned. ‘Do you want me to leave you alone?’
‘No. I can be alone with you here. You never look at me like I’m something odd in your soup.’
He laughed, and I did, too. ‘How is your life? Are you well treated?’
His smile faded. ‘I’m a stableboy, one of many. The stablemaster tells me often not to be ‘above myself’. Yesterday he chided me and told me I must not have favourites among the horses. I had lingered too long at Pris’s stall.’ He lifted his hand and rubbed the back of his head. ‘He rapped me with the handle of a broom when I said that Lant’s mare needed more oats. “Lord FitzVigilant to you, boy! And do not tell me my business!”’ He laughed at his own tale. I did not find it funny at all.
‘And you?’
I sighed. ‘Lessons of all sorts. A great deal of changing my clothes, followed by sitting still and proper in itchy garments. Lady Simmer always trailing after me, correcting me, keeping me “usefully occupied”. Always indoors.’
‘Do you see much of Spark? Lant and—’ he hesitated. ‘Lord Chance?’
‘Nothing of Spark. Lant and Beloved are almost as good as my father was at leaving me alone.’
Per’s eyes widened and I wished I had not said it. But it was true. For all Beloved’s nattering, I saw little of him except when he was nosing through my dream book or asking me questions.
‘I miss them all,’ Per said quietly.
‘They do not come to see you?’
‘Spark? Not at all. Lord FitzVigilant and Lord Chance? I saddle their horses, and Lant—Lord FitzVigilant always slips me a coin. We look at each other and I know they wish me well. But there are always people watching and appearances to be maintained.’ He patted his pocket and it jingled. ‘I wonder if I will ever be given time to go and actually spend some of the coins.’
I heard hoofbeats. We both straightened and Per reined his horse a little away from me as first Lant, and then Beloved rode out of the trees. They both looked flustered. Beloved rode close to me and said, very quickly, ‘A fly stung your horse and she ran away with you. Per came and caught her headstall. Per, get off your house and hold her reins. Quickly!’ Sternly, he added to me, ‘Bee, you must never put Per in such danger of rebuke again. You must look shaken when the others get here.’
Per did as he was told. Perhaps the anger burning inside me could make me look ‘shaken’. Every time I began to like Beloved at all, he did something to fan those flames. To hear they neglected Per made me want to spit at him. I drew breath to tell him that.
But here came two grooms and someone’s father, all asking if I’d fallen, and the groom sombrely suggesting a more sedate mount ‘until the young lady has better riding skills’.