“Oh, thanks. That really sells the experience. How do I get up there?”
By way of reply he grabs my waist and lifts me right up off the ground. I squeak in alarm and grab the little arms on the sidesaddle and jerk myself into place. He’s so strong. I’ve never been lifted up like that. My heart is still pounding as he steps back and admires me in my seat. Somehow he manages to check out my legs beneath my elaborates skirts.
I thought it was the armor. It’s mechanical somehow. It must be, but there is still incredible power in his compact form. He mounts easily, almost leaping into the saddle.
Then they give him a bird. A hawk, I suppose. It has a little hood over its eyes. He holds his arm out and the bird sits perched on his forearm, talons digging into a thick leather gauntlet.
He urges his mount forward and mine just follows. I sit there dumbly holding the reins, wondering how the hell my life reached this point. The point at which hawking became involved.
“What exactly does hawking mean? What does that thing do?”
“She hunts,” the prince says casually.
“Are you always so cryptic? Hunts what?”
He eyes me, glancing back at the retinue of people following us on other horses. I think I need to watch my tone.
“Ah, what does she hunt, my prince?”
“Small animals. Squirrels, hares, perhaps another bird.”
“When she, ah, hunts one, what do you do with it?”
“Do? She eats it.”
“Oh my God,” I blurt out before I realize what I’m doing. “You’re going to let that thing fly off and rip up some innocent animal?”
He rolls his eyes. “You have a problem with that?”
“Yes! You can’t just kill some little animal.”
“Your country—”
“Can we please not do the ‘your country’ thing again? Yes, people kill animals in my country. I’m pretty sure people train raptors for falconry or whatever, too. That doesn’t mean you have to do it. I don’t want to watch that thing rip up some innocent little animal. What the hell kind of activity is this?”
“It’s a tradition,” he grates, sounding more exasperated with every syllable.
“Can we please not do this? At least let me go back to the car. I don’t want to see any squirrel guts today.”
He reins in his mount and hands off the bird, slowly turning his horse to face me.
“This is absurd. You are absurd. It’s a hawk. It eats other animals. If I let it fly away it would eat other animals.”
“Yeah, but you could just feed it meat or something. It doesn’t have to kill.”
He stares at me like I just stepped out of a flying saucer.
“Are you mocking me?”
“No! I just don’t want to hurt a little animal, is that so wrong?”
“You just told me to feed her meat. Where do you think meat comes from, tomatoes? She has to hunt.”
“I don’t have to watch. I’m going to sit here with my eyes closed and not watch.”
I close my eyes to prove my point.
“You’re acting like a child.”
“Whatever, my prince. The bird has to eat. You don’t have to get your rocks off watching it eat. I’m not going to look.”
I open my eyes when he lets out a noise that’s half groan and half growl. He barks an order at the retainer holding the damn bird and the man wheels his mount around and heads back toward the stables.
“Fine. I grow hungry. Lunch.”
The prince heels his mount forward and mine just sort of follows him. I hold on to the stupid sidesaddle and sit there, trying to figure out if my butt is actually slipping and I’m going to fall in the mud, or I’m just imagining it. God, this is dumb. Why can’t I just sit in a regular saddle?
Besides the skirts, I mean.
It’s hot out here. I’m starting to sweat. The heat doesn’t seem to touch the prince. When he stops on a rise and sits up tall in the saddle, I forget for a moment that he’s a complete monster. With the sun at his back his hair glows a little, shifting subtly in the light breeze. It would be a good pose for a painting.
He looks back at me and heels his mount forward again. I don’t have much of a choice but to be carried along.
At the end of the ride is a wide, low pavilion. The prince dismounts and the retainers fall back, doing the same. I start to scoot my ass off the sidesaddle but finally give up and wait for him to lower me down, again by the waist. To steady myself, I put my hands on his shoulders this time, but pull them back as if I’ve touched a hot iron as soon as my slippers touch the carpeted planks.
God, this is so silly.
There are servants waiting for us, which I guess shouldn’t surprise me. I sweep my skirts under the table as the prince pushes a heavy, rough-hewn chair in under me then dashes to take his own seat.
“You can feed me all you want. I’ll just get fat. I won’t like you.”
“You could stand to plump up a little. Working in that aid camp has made you skinny.”
I flinch and grit my teeth.
“I can see you bristle at that. Does it insult you to be called skinny?”