She tried not to be alarmed, but it was difficult. When it all came down to it, she was, after all, a woman of the city, who walked nearly everywhere.
The beast Eric led out to her in the courtyard towered over her. She watched him lead it up to her with growing apprehension; it was a dark brown with a black mane and tail, and she thought it was looking at her with utter contempt, as if it knew exactly how bad a rider she was.
He tied it up to a stone pillar with a ring in it — evidently there for just that purpose — and laced his hands together. “Put your left foot there,” he ordered. “I’ll boost you up into the saddle.”
Nervously, she got a good grip on the pommel with both hands and did as she was told — and in the next moment found herself flying upward. Somehow she managed to get her leg over the saddle before she fell off on the other side. It took a few more moments of fumbling with her feet for the stirrups before she could find them. The horse was not only tall, it was very, very wide. Much wider than her little mule, or the few “lady’s horses” she had ever ridden. Already her legs were starting to hurt a little and she knew that she was going to need a hot soak very badly when this was over.
Eric puttered about both sides of the horse, actually grabbing her feet and moving them to where he wanted them, shortening the stirrups a little — which helped her legs — and pulling the belt that went around the middle of the horse a little tighter. Finally, he seemed satisfied, and took a long line that had been tied to his belt and fastened it to the horse’s bridle. “Take up the reins,” he said, backing up. “You remember this from when you first learned to ride, yes?”
He eyed her critically. “All right. Here we go.” He clucked to the horse, and it moved out in a walk and then just as she grew accustomed to the pace, into a trot.
She was terrified she was going to get bounced off, and the horse seemed to be having a wicked good time at her expense, but she tried to do everything Eric said, and slowly, it all started to come together. The jouncing wasn’t as bad…in fact, it slowly stopped being jouncing as she and the saddle stopped meeting painfully in the middle.
She heard him cluck to the horse again, and the beast stretched out his legs and went into a canter, which was both a relief, and terrifying. A relief, because it was an infinitely easier gait! But terrifying, because the horse was going so fast!
Three times around, with Eric turning elegantly on his heel as he kept the horse moving on the end of the line, and it started to be less terrifying and more exciting. She hadn’t fallen! And the speed — so amazing —
“All right, that’s enough for now!” he called, and the horse slowed — slowed quite quickly, in fact, no more than a couple of paces at the trot before he was walking again. And then stopped.
Eric coiled up the line, walking toward her, then held the horse at the bit. He looked up at her with a faint smile on his face. He didn’t look nearly as intimidating with that expression on his face, and with her looking down on him. “Not bad. At least whoever instructed you the first time didn’t give you any bad habits.”
She didn’t answer; she just swung her leg over the pommel of the saddle and slid — a bit painfully — down to the ground.
“Here.” He had pulled the reins over the horse’s head; now he thrust them into her hands again. “Walk him cool — it won’t take long. A good rider never lets his horse stand after he’s broken a sweat until he’s cooled down naturally. It’ll help you work out some of those cramps, too.”
So she limped around the courtyard under his critical eye, until he judged the horse ready to go back to the stable. Then he whistled, and one of the Spirit Elementals came to take reins and horse from her.
She started to head back into the Manor, and noticed he wasn’t following. “Aren’t you coming?” she asked.
“It’s a full-moon night so I’ll be out for most of it. Sebastian and his servants are seeing to it that he’s locked up, but if he breaks free again, we can’t afford to take the risk of someone else being attacked. The next person might not be as lucky as you were.” He shrugged. “You’d better get inside, though, and tell the servants to give you supper in your room. Preferably in a hot bath. Oh, and congratulations on not growing hair and fangs last night. Looks like you’ll only be our guest for three moons, after all.”
“Erm…thank you,” she said awkwardly, and turned to go inside. When she paused at the door to look back, he was already gone from the courtyard.
It would definitely be an early supper, but she was ready for it, and was thinking quite strongly of trying to sleep early, as well. If she could, with the howling. She wrote her letter to her father and tucked it in the box before she let Sapphire lead her to the bathroom. By that time, she had begun to stiffen up. Supper in the bath had been a very, very good idea. Even better was the rather tall flagon of mulled wine that Sapphire brought her. The servant seemed to have resigned herself to Bella’s male attire; she had taken it away with none of the theatrics she had evidenced when she had laid it out.
One of her own jars of liniment came floating into the bathroom as she got out of the bath. Wryly, she thought how glad she was now she had made so many…though she certainly had been thinking of the horses, and not herself, when she had!
With the liniment rubbed into her sore, sore legs — and the Godmother’s ointment applied to her face — she climbed into her warmed bed, feeling just slightly muzzy from the mulled wine. The last light of sunset was fading from the sky, and Sapphire came to pull the curtains shut over the windows, and light the candles in the headboard of her bed. She had settled in with a book that Sebastian had given her to read yesterday, when she noticed that Sapphire was still there, holding a ball of what looked like beeswax.
“Wax?” she said, puzzled, taking it.
The slate rose. “Ears,” Sapphire wrote.
For a moment, she stared at the word, puzzled. Then it dawned on her what Sapphire meant. “All right, I’ll try it,” she agreed, and rolled the lump of wax in her hand until it was soft, then divided it in two and stuffed it in her ears.
When the howling began, she could still hear it…but it was muffled, and she could even pretend to herself that it was far, far distant — the howl of something out in the woods, on the other side of the walls. Some wild thing, and not a man she knew, trapped in the mind and form of a beast… The intense relief she felt that she was not going to be suffering the same fate was tempered with pity for him, now that she could afford it. Two more months, and she could go home! But he would still be trapped here, a prisoner three days of the month — and right now, a prisoner every other day, as well, by his own decision.
Hmm. We’ll see about that.
The book caught her attention immediately, however, and soon she was too engrossed in it to think much about poor Sebastian — because it was about The Tradition. It went into much more detail than Sebastian had, though that detail was more along the lines of how Traditional power worked in the world, with examples, and possible solutions to common problems. She noted that it must have been written for magicians, not Godmothers, because more than once the solution to a problem stated simply “call on a Godmother”.
She had to work very hard not to get too angry at this faceless thing that they called The Tradition, because of all things, she detested being manipulated, and this was manipulation on the grand scale.
Though if she was going to be honest, she would have to admit that she hated being manipulated in part because she did so much manipulation herself. Pot calling the kettle black, she noted wryly. Still…she’d never manipulated anyone but Genevieve and the twins, and that had been to keep peace in the household. Someone had to, or Genevieve all by herself would wreak the havoc of confusion — not to mention shatter the monthly budget. And…well, she more or less manipulated the rest of the household. She called it “managing,” but there was some manipulation, too. But wasn’t that what a good household head was supposed to do? You couldn’t just order people to g
et along and expect that they would do it. You had to make them want to.
Oh, yes, there is another excuse. It’s all “for their own good”. Sapphire brought her another flagon of mulled wine, and she took a sip to take the nasty taste of truth out of her mouth. And another, because she knew very well when she got home she wasn’t going to stop manipulating them.
Ugh. Truth was not fun. And often not pretty.
But this Tradition is already manipulating them. I’m just trying to counter it… And that was true — it was right here in black and white. When Stepmothers weren’t Wicked, or downright Murderous, they were generally Vain, Petty and Vindictive. And Stepsisters were perpetually Jealous, just as Petty and Vain, and Greedy. All by herself, without even knowing what she was doing, she had mitigated all of that, so the worst that could be said of Genevieve was that she was lazy and vain, not even Vain with the capital V. And the twins were entirely sweet-natured and well-intentioned. Well, all right, she hadn’t known she was doing all that before now, but now that she knew about the blasted Tradition, she could be more careful about what she did and how she did it. Only for real good, not for my good, and certainly not telling myself that it’s for their good. It was going to be a very hard vow to keep, but she knew she was going to have to do just that.
She sipped and read — the wine did a fairly good job of keeping her from getting too angry — making mental notes as she went along. Finally, the last of the wine was gone and she put the flagon up on one of the shelves in the headboard, and blinked, feeling it hit her with more force than she had expected.
Well, then, time to sleep… She blew out the candles, and set the book aside…and the next thing she knew, it was morning.
For a moment she was confused by how muffled sound was, until she remembered the wax and pulled it out of her ears. It was a brilliantly sunny day, and she groaned as she started to get out of bed, feeling her legs aching and sore despite the hot bath and the liniment.
I hurt in muscles I didn’t even know I had! she thought, and moaned a little again. Sapphire whisked into the bedroom at that, bringing the liniment with her, and Bella was very glad to see it, too.
It seemed that Eric had planned more of the same for her today, for another of Sebastian’s old suits had been laid out. But there had been some additions to it — some lovely embroidery at the square neck, and a little lace at the cuffs and neck of the shirt. Nothing that Sebastian would have worn, she was sure, since she had a good idea of his taste now. She smiled to see it, though; this had to be Sapphire’s work, and Sapphire was determined to make sure no one forgot she was a girl!
But the first thing she did was go straight to her mirror and her message box. She read her letter with one eye on the mirror; she wanted to see her father’s reaction to his. She had written to her father about her adventures in weaponry and horseback riding, and to her relief, he seemed more amused than anything else. His letter had been full of news about the way that the servants were taking care of him, “cosseting me” in his words. And how Genevieve seemed to be working with the Housekeeper, which was nothing short of astonishing so far as Bella was concerned.
The vague, uneasy thought flitted across her mind. What if they don’t need me, after all? Would she still be welcome? Wanted? It vanished a moment later, but the taste of it lingered.
Meanwhile she waited, watching, for him to get to the part where she told him that she had not changed on the first night of the full moon. And when he did, the sheer joy in his face practically took her breath away.
And it quelled the unease. There was no doubt he wanted her back home.
She went down to breakfast to find Eric there; he didn’t seem to notice the little additions to her attire.
“Well, how sore are you?” he asked without preamble.
“Very,” she replied, as the servant put buttered flatcakes on her plate and drizzled honey over them. “And please, do not tell me that the only cure for the soreness is to get on the wretched horse again. My first instructor told me that. Why are your horses so…wide?” she added.
“Because they all have destrier blood in them. Knight’s horses. Heavier bones, better for jumping and going over rough country, since they’re bred to carry a rider and all that armor.” He was consuming ham single-mindedly as he spoke. But at least he didn’t talk with his mouth full.
“This morning we’ll be working inside, now that I know you’ll at least not break mirrors and windows when you shoot,” he continued. “There’s a big room here they used to use for balls, but it’s made for practice with weapons. Swords, generally, but we can use some light hand-crossbows in there, and you can practice your knife work.”
“Oh, I’ve been there,” she said. “Sebastian gave me leave to explore as much as I wanted.”
“Well, good. As soon as you’re finished, we’ll go straight there. I told the servants to build up the fires so it won’t be hideously cold.” He began mopping the last of the ham juice from his plate with a roll, so she hastened to finish her flatcakes.
“Are we riding this afternoon?” she asked, as they walked toward what she could only think of as the “music room,” and at his chuckle, she groaned. “Of course we are,” she said, answering her own question. “Or at least, I am.”
“Take heart. You’re going to be less sore tomorrow. In a week, you’ll be fit for the trail on a proper horse instead of that puny little mule.” He handed her a much smaller crossbow than before. “Several things occurred to me. Outside, you have to deal with windage. You don’t in here. And I thought the regular crossbow might be too heavy, considering how many arrows you drove into the dirt. So I reckoned that this might work out better for you. It will still kill a man, or make him hurt quite a lot. It just won’t do so instantly unless you get an insanely lucky shot.” He shrugged. “Unless we’re in a situation where someone wants to kill us, I’d as soon a good healer could save him. He’ll serve as an example to anyone else who gets ideas. Now, try that out, and see how you like it.”
It was certainly easier to cock. She fitted a bolt into the guide, and took aim at the target — which had been placed against a generous number of straw mattresses leaning up against the wall. Either Eric, the servants or both were taking no chances on her ruining the wood paneling.
Her very first bolt hit the target! So did her second, and her third!
None of them got near the bull’s eye, of course, but at least now she was hitting what she was supposed to hit!
He nodded, suggested corrections, until finally, her trigger finger was actually starting to ache, and she was placing the bolts inside the first ring, consistently.
“Now for your knife work,” he said, collecting all the bolts and setting them and the crossbow aside. He handed her a wooden knife with blunted edge and point. “First thing — it’s not a duel. Someone who attacks you with a knife means to kill you. Knife work is dirty work, not gentleman’s work, and anyone who’s attacking with a knife is a ruffian at the very best, and he’s probably murdered before. You have to be dirtier than he is.”
He picked up a wooden knife himself. “Now, assuming you actually see me coming with the knife, what do you do?”
That seemed perfectly obvious to her. “Run. I run very well, and I am lighter than you. Even if I can’t run faster than you, as long as I can keep out of reach, I can probably run longer than you. And if I can keep running long enough to get to some place where other people are, he’ll give up.”
He actually grinned. “Well done! Ninety-nine men out of a hundred wouldn’t give that answer.”
“Women are more practical. And we have no problem with being called cowards,” she pointed out, wryly.
“Right. So, against someone with a knife, your first priority is going to be to escape. Your second, if you can’t outrun him, is going to be to evade him or hurt him so you can escape. You are unlikely to ever find yourself facing someone your size or smaller, so this is how it’s done.”
He coul
dn’t show her everything in one afternoon, obviously, but what he began with was very interesting indeed. Using a cloak wrapped around one arm as a shield, for instance, and the pattern of move out of the way, block the next blow, strike back while he’s off balance, run.
Mostly, though, he showed her how to evade, how to tell the way that someone was coming at her, and how to squirm out of the way like a ferret. How to cut or stab if she could, and if not, how to punch her attacker with the hand not holding the knife. “He’ll be concentrating on that hand,” Eric pointed out. “Not on the hand he thinks isn’t dangerous. And this is a good time to have a nice, heavy rock, a piece of wood or half a brick in that hand if you can.” He chuckled a little. “I once put a man down with a horseshoe that way. I’d picked it up and put it in my pocket — no point in wasting a good horseshoe.”
She hardly noticed that as she warmed up with the exercise, she hurt less and less, until, when he called a halt for dinner, she realized she hardly hurt at all!
“You are being rather nicer to me than you were when I first got here,” she said lightly, as they left the music room to clean up before dinner.
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