The great hounds slid away like quicksilver. The horses and their riders jogged up the mountainside, flattening the few surviving rows of vines. The golden horse with the iron bridle ran with them as they charged straight up—but instead of cresting the peak, they rode on up, into the clouds and the storm, which retreated across the sky.
The silver horse and the copper one remained, gleaming in the fading witch light, and watched the Wild Hunt depart.
Dawn broke over the hills, driving apart the last clouds that had accompanied the Hunt.
The silver horse faced me with a sigh, and then snuffled my hair. The copper horse retreated slightly and watched us warily.
“What just happened?” Judith asked somberly, coming out of the barn. “Did you—Tilda! You refused the Wild Hunt and lived to tell about it!”
“Yes, but—uh—but—” It was hard to talk with a horse’s nose buried in my hair, her breath all warm and whuffling, her long whiskers tickling my ears. “But now I owe a debt?” I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice.
“You stole their horses!”
“I did not steal them!” I tried to duck away from the horse’s insistent nuzzles. “I set them . . . free.”
“How much do two magical Wild Hunt horses cost, exactly?” Judith asked. “I don’t suppose you can pay that off in gold marks.”
“No, I suppose not.” As if Alder Brook had enough reserve in its treasury to even consider that. As if I had any claim on Alder Brook’s treasury anymore. “I’m afraid it’s going to be one of those awful prices, like my first-born child, or my immortal soul. . . .”
Judith moved to put an arm around me for comfort, then winced, clutching her shoulder.
“Judith, I’m so sorry!” I said. “We need to get you to a bonesetter right away!”
Judith grunted agreement.
I went back to the barn to pack up our meager possessions—all food at this point—and then we started down the road toward Upper Folkstown.
Judith couldn’t assist me any more than I could assist her, between her shoulder and my crutch. My foot was tender and unpleasant to walk on, but I was in many respects in better shape than Judith. For one thing, I was used to my pain, and she was far from accustomed to hers. She could walk all right, but every step was jarring.
The metal horses came too. The silver mare kept pace beside me. And she didn’t shake me off or back away when I occasionally reached out to her for balance.
WE REACHED THE TOWN gates and knocked for admission at the night portal. It was dawn, but towns did not open their gates until the sun was well up.
“Who goes there?” asked the watchman.
“This is P—Lady Agilwarda . . . of Oak Hill,” Judith said, pointing at me. “I am her servant.”
Judith was a terrible liar.
The night watchman looked at me. “Milady. You’re fair young to be out on your own.”
“I have my servant,” I said serenely.
“What are those?” he asked, craning his neck toward the mares.
“Uh . . . horses?”
“Strange horses,” the watchman said. “That one looks”—he paused, then clearly decided silver was a ridiculous thought—“white. What were you doing out on First Night?”
“First Night?”
“Three nights in a row, round Saint Martin’s Eve, our town gets shook by thunder and storm, and when we wake up, a third of our grape harvest is gone, until by the last night, our whole harvest is gone.”
Judith and I looked at each other. “Yes, well,” I said. “It might be these horses from the Wild Hunt trampling your vineyards.”
The watchman gaped.
“Lady Agilwarda stopped them,” Judith said. “Lady Agilwarda . . . seems to have tamed them.”
“Liar!” I whispered, and elbowed her in the side. Then immediately regretted it when she winced.
“Horses?” the watchman asked. “From the Wild Hunt? The mayor is going to want to hear about this.”
“We need a bonesetter first,” I said.
“Come inside, come inside. I’ll take you to the mayor’s house, then get you a bonesetter,” he said, and cracked open not the night portal, which was barely wide enough for a large man to clamber through, but the gate of the town itself.
We entered the town, and true to his word, the watchman led us up to the mayor’s house. It took no effort to roust the mayor, for he, like everyone left in town, had been sitting vigil through the night. Before I quite knew it, the watchman was ringing a bell and several score of the town’s citizens gathered around, holding torches and lanterns. They stared at us while we tried to explain what had happened. They stared even harder at the horses. How could they not? The mares were bigger than any warhorse I’d seen by at least several hands. And they shone like the moon and a copper dinner plate.
There were rumblings among the people as the mayor thanked us—calling me Lady Agilwarda—extensively for saving most of the harvest, and handed us a disappointingly deflated bag that ostensibly held a cash reward.
Someone in the crowd began a chant. At first I didn’t understand they were cheering for me, but they were smiling, clapping their hands and stomping their feet as they chanted the words: Wein Fürstin. Wein Fürstin.
Wine Princess.
chapter 11
AFTER THE CROWD TOASTED US WITH BLACKBERRY cordial for a bit (since there was no wine to be had in the town), we were invited to the local guesthouse to sleep until the Martinmas feast began at midday.
The horses trailed along during all of this. They were calm in the crowds, as long as no one tried to touch them, and no one did try to touch them—twice.
They followed us to the guesthouse, as well, and we stood in the innyard for a long moment, staring at the horses while they stared at us.
“We’re, um, going inside,” Judith said.
“Looks like the bonesetter is here,” I said, sighting the watchman coming toward us, accompanied by an awkward young man. “You go ahead. I’ll . . . see . . . to the . . . horses.”
“I can help with that,” a familiar voice said.
“Parz!” I whirled about, heart soaring. I threw my arms around his neck and received a swift, tight hug in return. He was alive! I stepped back, embarrassed by my display, but he kindly made no remark. “What happened to you?”
“What happened to you?” he asked, eyes wide at Judith.
So we told him, while the bonesetter determined that Judith hadn’t actually broken anything, she had just managed to yank her shoulder out of its joint. The resetting of the joint looked worse than the actual knocking out, but she said it felt better almost immediately.
We told Parz everything that had happened to us, but explaining it was a different matter entirely.
Parz’s story was simpler but had more tragedy.
“Balmung bucked me off and ran away,” Parz said, his jaw clenching and unclenching. “I followed his trail as best I could but . . .” He shook his head. “He wasn’t wounded, so he’s got a good chance. Horses like to go home when they’re scared. . . . Wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up at Boar House in a day or two.”
He didn’t quite look like he believed it, and he stared sadly at the ground.
“I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand on his arm in a gesture of condolence. Almost absently, he clutched my fingers and held on.
“What about Felix?” Judith asked from where the bonesetter was fashioning her a sling. “He looked—”
“I don’t know. The dragon managed to pull some of our baggage off him in the first two strikes, and I didn’t find many bloodstains when I went back. . . . But Felix was long gone when I returned, wherever he went.”
“So . . . none of our possessions were there?” Judith asked, looking pointedly at the saddlebag he had slung over one shoulder.
“A few.”
A surge of hope rose in me at that moment, but I tried to quell it. I didn’t want to be disappointed if all Parz had managed to salvag
e was a dress or a pair of stockings. “Everything was scattered to the four winds. But I did find—” Parz plunged his hand into the saddlebag and pulled out something I’d not dared to hope for: the blank Handbook. He offered it to me.
I grabbed the book and held it to my chest in a strange little hug. “Thank you, Parz,” I said. “I don’t suppose you found my writing box?”
Parz’s half smile fell. “No, I’m sorry.”
I tried not to lose all cheer at that. The book really wasn’t much use without a pen, but there were all sorts of birds out there willing to donate a quill or two. Just . . . There was no replacing the metal stylus for scribing wax tablets, which conformed perfectly to my hand. Nor the ink I’d mixed myself to the exact consistency I loved. Nor the little wooden box of pins to mark the spacing on a blank page, which Father Ripertus had carved for me. Nor the perfectly sharpened penknife with the mother-of-pearl handle that my father had given me before he left Alder Brook. And the box itself? It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was stained from the ink of all my years of writing and copying, a sign of all my hard work.
I turned away so neither Parz nor Judith could see the bitter tear that slipped down my cheek. I closed my eyes.
Something huge and warm and wet touched my forehead. I opened my eyes into the face of the silver mare, who finished her long lick with a good swipe across my hair.
“Er, thank you?”
She nickered.
“We should water them,” Parz said.
“Almost done here,” Judith said, and waved us on.
Parz went into the stable to get buckets, and I followed to help him.
The horses in turn trailed after us. Parz froze and looked behind us. “This is a little strange,” he whispered. “Try going into that foaling stall, there. . . . See if they follow you.”
I went into the wide box stall, which had an opening to an outdoor pen, and the horses came in with me. I sidled out of the stall, praying I wouldn’t get squished. They didn’t try to follow me back out.
“Is this it?” I asked. “Are they going to stay in the stable?”
“Maybe,” Parz said. He gave them hay, which they ignored, and water, which they played with.
“Should we remove their tack?” I asked.
Parz didn’t look away from them. “Sure. Go ahead.”
“Are you—are you scared of them, Parz?”
“A little!”
“Well, I’m scared, too!” I said.
He took a deep breath, and said, “All right.” He walked into the stall and approached the silver horse, showing absolutely no fear. He unloaded the horse’s saddlebags and slung them into the aisle. They thunked and clinked when they landed. Then he removed the horse’s silver saddle, which he treated a little more gently.
“Amazing,” he muttered, carrying the saddle past me.
“Is it heavy as silver?” I asked.
“Not even, yet it feels like silver to the touch. And just look at these amethysts and sapphires! Those have to be real. Look at how they shine.” He glanced around and then bent over to bite at the edge of the saddle, like one would bite a coin to make sure it was the proper metal. “Ow,” Parz exhaled. He examined the spot where he’d bitten down. “It’s silver all the way through.”
I stifled a laugh, then faced the stall door. I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “All right, tell me what to do,” I said. If Parz could swallow his fear, so could I.
As Parz called out directions, I started divesting the copper mare of her tack and baggage. Her tack’s gemstones were all rubies and aquamarines, and the heavy saddlebags made interesting noises when I put them down.
The saddle almost overbalanced me completely, but Parz took it from me as soon as I was free of the stall. “Do you want to bite this one, too?”
“No, thank you,” Parz said.
Once both horses were free of their gear, they shook themselves joyfully and danced around a little bit.
“Let’s brush them down,” I said, grabbing up a comb and marching into the stall with the silver mare.
She nickered softly and nuzzled my cheek.
“Hey there,” I said.
I lifted the comb to her beautiful silver hair, and suddenly Parz was next to me, showing me how to curry her with circular motions from neck to hindquarters, and then how to flick away the dirt I’d raised. “If you don’t throw up a plume of dust, you’re not doing it right,” he said. “Instead, you’re driving the dirt you curried up back under the hair.”
“Brushing a horse is more complicated than I thought.”
He nodded. “It is. But horses are easy compared to hawks.”
“Do you have a hawk?”
“No. Not currently. My father was falconer to Lord Frederick One-Eye, though, before he married my mother and became lord of Hare Hedge.”
Ah. Parz’s mother was an heiress, same as me, though Hare Hedge was a minor holding compared to Alder Brook. What did that make Parz? It would be rude to ask outright, which was why I never had. But he couldn’t be his mother’s heir if he’d been sent off to squire for a knight as old and as powerless as Sir Kunibert. A younger son, then, of a minor lord.
We worked in silence for a time, until I began to notice some subtle color variations in the horse’s coat. She had a few black hairs in among the silver, but when we brushed them, the black seemed to slough away and reveal more silver hair beneath. And there was depth of color to the silver, with faint tones of orange, blue, violet. You saw that, sometimes, in silver that had been handled a lot.
“Like old coins,” Parz murmured. “Or old jewelry.” He picked at three long tail hairs that had adhered to his clothing and held them up to the light.
“Exactly what I was thinking.” I sighed. “She’s beautiful.”
“Indeed she is,” Parz said, and started pointing out her impressive features: a long, lean neck with a slight arch; well-proportioned limbs; a wide, deep chest. I had no idea why these things mattered, but I listened anyway.
After we were done brushing down the horses, I offered the silver mare a grain bucket. She put her nose politely inside, lapped out a few grains, chewed them thoughtfully—and spit them out at my feet.
“You’re . . . not hungry, I guess?” I asked.
She blew warm, horsey breath into my face, and stamped a foot.
“I don’t think they like grain,” I said.
Parz frowned. “They’ll eat when they’re hungry,” he said doubtfully.
“There you are!” Judith said from the end of the stable. She came forward into our pools of lamplight, her right arm folded up in a sling.
“Judith! Feeling better?”
“Ugh,” Judith said. “I’m tender, but yes, feeling much better.”
Once the horses were truly set, though they wanted none of the food or water we offered them, we gathered in an empty stall and flopped exhaustedly into piles of hay.
We were silent for a long moment, until Judith said, “What’s in their saddlebags?”
Our heads all swiveled as if we were a family of owls to look at the bags lying in the aisle. Parz got up and dragged the two nearest saddlebags over—one copper, one silver—and threw open the first flap.
Hand to fire, the room shone brighter from the bounty inside. Heaps of precious metal seemed to be contained therein. At first I thought it was coins, but from the copper bag Parz lifted out one by one all the pieces of a full suit of mail armor: leggings, hood, shirt, collar, and mittens, and all the padding to be worn beneath it, quilted in a fabric that looked like shimmering copper silk.
From the silver bag, Parz pulled out a silver bridle first. Judith and I both said, “Ah!” at the same time, and exchanged a glance. Parz went on to remove a silver sword with scabbard and belt, and two silver daggers with sheaths, all bejeweled in amethysts and sapphires. There was a belt of silver, and a surcoat of the silky stuff in argent and purple, and a cloak to match.
We opened the other two bags and found that
there were identical sets of equipment: two full suits of matching armor, two sets of weapons, and two bridles.
Parz stared at the copper-mesh armor coat in his hands. “Imagine fighting dragons with these horses.”
I said, “If they wanted to fight dragons. I think that’s up to them.”
“There are three of us,” Judith pointed out. “And two of them. Regardless.”
I sighed with regret. “I’m not a fighter. Never will be.”
“One horse for each of us to fight with,” Parz said, toying with the long tail hairs he’d collected earlier. “If they want,” he added hastily.
Judith set her mouth. “The silver mare belongs to Tilda. Both horses belong to Tilda.”
“I don’t think these horses belong to anyone,” I said.
“That’s true,” Parz said. “But I’ve been watching the silver mare. She is deeply curious about the world. She likes smaller creatures—she was fascinated by the innkeeper’s dog—but she does, in her horsey way, just love you, Tilda.”
I must have looked dubious, because he said, “You told me the story yourself. I think the silver one is the lead mare. And she knows you for a lead mare, too.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You leaped to protect me from the horses,” Judith said. “You leaped to protect the horses from the Hunter. You’re the lead mare.”
“I—I—” I fell silent. We all fell silent, for a long moment, I think each of us considering what life with these horses might be like. Parz started weaving the tail hairs into a little braid.
“What are you going to do with all of this stuff, Tilda?” Judith asked.
“I am not going to do anything with it. It belongs to them. And they belong to themselves, maybe, or to the Wild Hunt. I wouldn’t steal from either.”
“Me neither,” Judith said adamantly, and yawned again.
I laughed a little, not glancing at Parz. I could see he was restless and itchy, and wanted to decide which horse belonged to whom. But I caught Judith’s yawn and realized I was so far beyond tired, I was in another country altogether.
“Let’s sleep here,” I said, and almost before we had agreed to it, I was asleep.
Handbook for Dragon Slayers Page 8