The Princess and the Foal

by Stacy Gregg

  Up the centre of the arena the four riders fan out and draw alongside her to pull up dramatically and halt, kicking up the sand with their hooves as they skid to a standstill in a perfect row beneath the Royal Box. Haya looks up at her father and brother, the four judges stony-faced in the seats directly below them.

  “Company, present arms!”

  It is Haya’s voice, high and sweet on the air as she gives the command. There is a titter from the crowd at the squeak of this young mouse leading her lions. Haya ignores the murmurs of amusement; she keeps her expression serene as she raises her flag and holds it out in salute. Her arm trembles from the effort of keeping it aloft. Beside her, the men draw their swords to salute their King. Their salutes are a bit raggle-taggle compared to Bashir’s officers and Haya knows this will cost them. She can feel the beads of sweat forming on her forehead, the flag is so heavy. The King returns her salute and finally she can lower her arm. With relief, she hands the flag to the bannerman on the ground to carry to the Royal Box. Her muscles are spent. She has to try really hard to stop her arm from shaking as she takes up her reins.

  “Company, to the left, march!” Haya’s voice has more depth this time as she gives the order. The men fall into step behind her and she trots Bree, reins held in one hand, saluting the crowd with the other as she pushes the mare into a bouncy canter. Down the centre line at a canter they turn, then spin on their hocks 180 degrees so that they are facing the opposite way and Radi, who was at the rear, is now leading them. They split up, going this way and that, making two lines then crossing neatly between each other across the arena. As the riders pass back and forth in perfect time, Haya finds herself grateful for those boring quadrille classes with Mrs Goddard!

  The energy of the crowd carries them as they gallop one more time around the perimeter, then fan out into a line and halt with precision in front of the King for their final salute.

  Haya’s father stands to acknowledge their efforts and she sees a faint smile play on his lips as his hand sweeps to salute his daughter. Beside him Ali screws up his face at her as he salutes. Haya manages to suppress her grin as she turns Bree and rides at a gallop once more to leave the arena. The riders storm back into the stables, their horses blowing hard from the gallop. Haya’s face is flushed and sweat soaks her cotton shirt.

  “Was it OK?” Haya asks Zayn. “Did you see my hand wobbling on the flag? I couldn’t hold it straight …”

  “You were great,” Zayn reassures her.

  “It was brave riding,” Santi says as he joins them, “but Bashir was very polished. We will wait and see what the judges think.”

  In the corridors of the stables the riders crowd together and stare out at the five flagpoles in the arena, waiting for the first flag of the tournament to be raised. Will it be the blue and the white of Al Hummar? The riders are silent; there is only the snorting and stamping of the horses as they watch the bannerman take his order from the judges and the flag is attached and hoisted high. A cheer goes up from the crowd.

  It is red and gold.

  “Remember Bashir’s men drill like this every day,” Santi reassures his team. “We never expected to take them in this challenge.”

  “If I hadn’t let the flag wobble …” Haya says. But Santi shakes his head.

  “There is nothing to be gained by looking back, picking the garment apart to look at the stitches. We must focus on the next challenge. There are still four flags to be won.”

  *

  Three riders have been chosen from each of the teams to race in the tent-pegging and the ululations of the crowd call the six chosen riders out on to the golden sands. Bree is quivering with excitement. She knows the race is coming. She is ready to explode.

  “Not yet,” Haya tells the mare trembling beneath her.

  “Riders, on your marks …”

  The moment she hears the word “Go!” Bree explodes forward. They are the first off the line as the thunder of hooves rocks the stadium. This is nothing like their training; riders are jostling and shoving as they gallop and nobody sticks to their line. To the right of her, a rider on a chestnut crowds Bree, and Haya swerves, only to encounter the rider on a grey mare to her left.

  “Get out of my way!” Haya shouts. But the Mounted Police rider ignores her entreaty and rides her off her line.

  Haya almost loses her balance and grabs at a hank of mane to stay onboard as Bree’s stride falters. They have lost ground, but they recover as Bree stretches out, her strides devouring the ground. Haya stands up in her stirrups and rides like a jockey, perched off the mare’s back to let her run. Bree has her ears flat back as she gallops for all she is worth.

  The grey mare is right in front of them and running fast too. There is nothing in it, no more than a stride, as Haya eyes her target. She drops her right shoulder low to the ground, her arm poised with the spear as if she were about to plunge into the water after a fish. In one swift motion, she thrusts the spear down, piercing the paper clean through the middle. Then she raises the stick aloft, her fluttering prize on the end, turning Bree and spurring her towards home. Behind her two of the Mounted Police riders have missed their target and are left circling a second time, but the rider on the grey mare and Zayn and Yusef have all hit their targets. They race close behind her.

  Haya leans down low over Bree’s neck, urging her to the finish line. She can hear Bree’s snorts coming in thick rasps. Haya knows that the grey mare is not far behind them. She risks a quick glance over her shoulder. They are even closer than she thought! But the finish line is close and the crowd are roaring. She will be first to the line!

  As she crosses, just ahead of the grey mare, she stands in her stirrups and holds her spear aloft, but suddenly there is a groan of dismay from the grandstands. Haya does not understand, but then she looks up at the stick in her hand. There is no paper! It must have flown off before she reached the line. Beside her the rider on the grey mare raises his own spear high, the white paper still intact. He pumps the air with his fist to the cheers of his supporters.

  Bad luck. That is what her teammates say to Haya back at the stables. But no one ever says it was good luck when you win, do they? If only she had speared the paper more cleanly, held the stick lower as she galloped, then maybe the paper wouldn’t have flown off. Maybe …

  “Never mind,” Santi tells her firmly. “Focus on the next challenge if you want to win.”

  But the two red and gold flags of the Mounted Police fly in her face and sting like a slap across the cheek. The next challenge is crucial. There are only three flags left and they have no more chances.

  wo drops of blood fall from Haya’s hand to the golden sand. Thick and dark like treacle. She holds the severed bird wing out at arm’s length as she inspects it. It will make a good lure. She gives it another shake to get rid of any more stray droplets, then she binds the long string around to secure the wing, making sure to knot it tight. Then she puts out her arm to Sama on his perch and when the bird feels her nudge against his belly he hops obediently on to her gloved fist.

  “Come on,” she says, holding the sakret aloft. “It’s our turn.”

  There are five flags and they have already lost two. And here she is, in the arena with Sama, hoping that the sakret will deliver their first victory. She feels the weight of the bird on her hand. Sama has grown much heavier in these past weeks. He has all his adult feathers and has nearly doubled in size. This week Haya has flown him off the long string three times and each time he has returned to her hand. But that was in the garden at the palace; they are not at home any more.

  Haya shoves the bird-wing lure back into her shoulder bag. Then she steps out with Sama into the arena and walks to the centre of the ring where a wooden post has been erected in the sand. She lifts Sama to the post and he hops obediently off her fist on to the perch.

  Sama is wearing his special hood today, the one that the falcon trainer gave her for the occasion. It has a crown of colourful feathers that stick up from the
centre, as if the sakret were wearing a pineapple on top of his head. Haya thinks he looks very grand, but she suspects that Sama feels ridiculous. A plain leather hood would suit him better.

  Haya strikes the leather braces and removes the hood with a deft pluck, pocketing it with her right hand. The bird’s amber eyes go wide at the sight of the stadium, filled with a thousand faces staring down at him. “It’s OK, Sama,” Haya tells him. There is a hush in the air, the atmosphere heavy with expectation as Haya steps away from the sakret and begins to step out her strides until she is twenty metres away from the wooden post.

  Sama cocks his head and watches as Haya pulls the lure out of her shoulder bag. She tosses the bird wing out to her right, keeping hold of the string in her gloved hand, guiding it with the other hand. She begins to swing it like a cowboy starting off a lasso. As the string goes taut, she sweeps the lure in a low circle beside her. In ever-increasing circles, Haya eases out the string until the bird-wing lure looks as if it is flying on its own. It rises up and arcs into the sky.

  Looking up from his perch, Sama catches sight of the lure, gives two swift wing-beats and lifts up into the air. He is airborne so fast, Haya must be careful that he does not strike before she is ready. This is meant to be a dance between the handler and their falcon. Sama must only take the lure when she is ready to give it.

  In the sky, Sama tracks a circle above the lure and then stoops, diving at it with talons outstretched. Haya anticipates him and alters her trajectory. Sama has to pull up in midair and turn to attack again.

  Haya is a matador and Sama the bull as he makes another play to snatch at the bird wing. Once again she anticipates and correctly adjusts the lure’s flight path to keep it tantalisingly out of reach.

  Their dance looks fluid and effortless as Haya makes Sama duck and dive, but she can feel the sweat forming beads on her brow. She has the lure at full length now and she knows that the longer she plays out the game, the more risk there is that she will make a mistake and the lure will crash down. Or worse, the bird will become bored or be startled by the crowd and vanish into the air never to return.

  So, just after she jerks the string and makes Sama stoop to a particularly challenging line, she throws it up again, swinging the lure like a propeller blade. She relinquishes her hold and lets it fly free from her hand. The lure reaches the top of its trajectory and hangs above Sama in midair. With a swift dart, the sakret takes his quarry, grasping the bird wing in his claws.

  Haya holds her breath as she watches him dive from the sky, the wing in his talons. This is their final test. She holds her gloved hand out for him and whistles. Sama looks up and, in an instant, he takes flight. He returns to her, prey still grasped tight in his claws.

  The drops of blood that fall on the sand are red, but the third flag that is raised is the colour of the sky. The blue and white flag of Al Hummar.

  *

  Haya remembers what Santi said when she first told him that she wanted to ride in the King’s Cup. This is not some pretty showjumping contest like they have back in England. Perhaps, if she had really listened, she would not be so shocked by the sight of the jumps that are being erected in the arena today.

  The first is a warm-up fence, a straight rail with a ground line, set at just under a metre high. The next jump is a spread, almost a metre twenty, with a width intended to get the horses stretching out and using their frames. But it is the third fence at the centre of the arena that sends murmurs through the crowds at the stadium.

  It is a spread with the top rails set at a metre forty – almost as high as the Grand Prix fences that Haya rode back in England. But the top rails of the spread are very wide apart at a width of a metre twenty.

  “That is a huge gap,” Haya observes as the lower rails are put in place on the jump stands. “They need to put flowers or straw bales or something underneath the spread. Otherwise the horses will try to treat it as a bounce stride and land between the rails.”

  “I don’t think they’re using flowers,” Zayn says. He gestures towards the arena gates. “Look.”

  A silver car is being driven across the sand by one of Bashir’s riders. It is a silver Honda Accord and its tyres cut like snakes into the soft sand, leaving tracks behind them. The driver swings the car out wide around the first fence, taking a route along the edge of the arena. Then he drives at a right angle straight towards the third jump.

  Haya watches in disbelief as the car stops dead in the middle of the jump, parked between the two rails of the spread.

  “You can do this,” Santi says. “You’ve jumped higher than a metre forty at Shepperlands Copse.”

  “Not on Bree,” Haya says.

  “She can make the height. She has been jumping almost that big in the training sessions.”

  “Not over a car!”

  “Do not think about the car, only think of the rails.”

  “How can I not think about the car,” Haya asks, “when it is right there in the middle of the fence?”

  The rules of this challenge are simple. Only one jump matters – the car. The riders are each given three chances to clear it.

  Haya has seen a contest like this once before. It was the puissance, a high-jumping competition at a horse show in Sussex. The Ramsays had taken her to the show and she stood on the sidelines with Jemima and Lucinda and watched as the stewards erected a huge wall out of big wood bricks. The wall was so high the riders couldn’t even see over it as they approached.

  The riders urged their mounts to take deep, powerful strides, collecting up so that their hocks were right beneath them to push off and make the height of the wall. That was when Haya realised that the big jumps shouldn’t be taken in a fury of speed and adrenaline, but with ice water in the veins.

  Haya also knows that jumping a car has different demands to a brick wall. When she approaches, she will need enough power in Bree’s hocks to push up to make the height, but also enough speed to carry them over the width. If she gets it wrong then things will be very bad indeed. It doesn’t matter what Santi says. If you land on top of it or crash into it, the results could be extremely nasty.

  The excited crowd can’t wait for the event to begin. Haya stands in the darkened stable corridor holding Bree’s reins, looking out anxiously into the arena. “Are you watching?” she whispers to the bay mare. Bree gives her head a shake at that moment as if to say that she is most definitely not.

  “OK,” Haya says to her, playing affectionately with Bree’s forelock. “Maybe it is better if you don’t look. But I am going to watch, OK?”

  She is glad that the Mounted Police have chosen to go first.

  “Have they started yet?” Zayn is puffing and panting, having run all the way here from the other end of the stable block.

  “Not yet,” Haya says. “The first rider is just about to go …”

  The first rider into the ring is the man on the grey mare who beat them in the tent-pegging. He rides out at a frantic gallop.

  “He’s going too fast,” Haya tells Zayn. “It’s too wild and furious. That is not how you should approach this jump.”

  She is proven right a moment later when the grey mare does a power slide, slamming on the brakes right in front of the car. She does it two more times and the rider is disqualified.

  Rider after rider it is the same. The Mounted Police do not seem to know how to tackle the car. They rush it too quickly or approach too timidly. By the time Bashir’s turn comes the crowd are disillusioned and they think that no one is ever going to make the jump.

  Haya does not want to watch Colonel Bashir take his turn. She is in the practice arena, warming Bree up over the cross rails. She hears the roar of the crowd as Bashir makes his approach and the groan of dismay as he too fails in his bid. There is silence as Bashir leaves the arena, shaking his head in dismay. All it will take for Al Hummar to win this flag is for one rider to make the jump. And their first rider in the arena is Haya.

  Santi and Ursula are at the entrance wai
ting for her. “Remember,” Santi says as she does up the strap on her helmet, “ignore the car. Your eyes must not go there. Keep them up, Haya, always above the rails – to where you want to go. If you look at the car, you are looking down and Bree will stop.”

  It is one thing to assess the mistakes of other riders when you are on the sidelines. Now that she is in the arena, Haya feels as though her training is trickling out through her ears. Can she keep it together? She picks up the canter and begins to circle. Stay calm, stay relaxed.

  But it’s a car!

  She can do this. She has jumped this high before at the Ramsays’ yard.

  Yes, but never on Bree.

  They canter in boldly to the first fence and Haya is only a few strides out when she feels the mare back off. Haya has been so preoccupied with the car that she is not riding on strongly enough into the first fence. Bree is going to refuse it! Haya gives the mare a firm nudge with her heels, sending Bree on just in time.

  They are over! It was a little ungainly, but they are clear. Haya pulls herself together, preparing for the second fence. The crowd are hushed as they approach the spread and focus on the jump. This time Bree comes in on a lovely forward stride and flies it with ease. Haya gathers up the reins. Ahead of them lies the third jump, the wide spread, and beneath the rails, glinting in the sunshine, is the silver car.

  Ignore the car!

  Lining Bree up, she comes in at the jump. She is riding well, she can see the stride, she is holding the mare on her line, but then Haya looks at the silver car and hears the cries of the crowd. With all of those eyes upon her, a switch flips in her head. Suddenly Haya’s confidence is gone. Doubt grabs at her gut.

  Bree feels her rider’s sudden hesitation and responds, instinctively backing off the fence. Their anxiety snowballs as horse and rider feed off each other’s nerves. When Haya puts her legs on and growls, “Get up!” all Bree hears is the uncertainty in her voice.

  At the last minute, just when she is supposed to jump, the mare reels back, suddenly forcing all of her weight to her hindquarters, throwing herself into a skid. Bree’s hocks dig deep into the sand beneath her, but it is not enough to slow her down. There is a collective gasp as the mare barrels into the car, crashing into its metal doors, and bringing the rails of the spread tumbling all around.