“Yes, but he’s been resting ever since,” Julia pointed out. “And this is urgent.”
“All right,” Chrestomanci said, half opening his bright black eyes. “What is it then?”
Janet bravely cleared her throat. “Er, we need a horse each.”
Chrestomanci groaned softly.
This was not promising, but, having started, both Janet and Julia suddenly became very eloquent about their desperate, urgent, crying need for horses, or at least ponies, and followed this up with a detailed description of the horse each of them would like to own. Chrestomanci kept groaning.
“I remember feeling like this,” Millie said, fastening off her thread, “my second year at boarding school. I shall never forget how devastated I was when old Gabriel De Witt simply refused to listen to me. A horse won’t do any harm.”
“Wouldn’t bicycles do instead?” Chrestomanci said.
“You don’t understand! It’s not the same!” both girls said passionately.
Chrestomanci put his hands under his head and looked at the boys. “Do you all have this mania?” he asked. “Roger, are you yearning for a coal-black stallion too?”
“I’d rather have a bicycle,” Roger said.
Chrestomanci’s eyes travelled up Roger’s plump figure. “Done,” he said. “You could use the exercise. And how about you, Cat? Are you too longing to speed about the countryside on wheels or hooves?”
Cat laughed. After all, he was a nine-lifed enchanter too. “No,” he said. “I can always teleport.”
“Thank heavens! One of you is sane!” Chrestomanci said. He held up one hand before the girls could start talking again. “All right. I’ll consider your request – on certain conditions. Horses, you see, require a lot of attention, and Jeremiah Carlow —”
“Joss Callow, love,” Millie corrected him
“The stableman, whatever his name is,” Chrestomanci said, “has enough to do with the horses we already keep. So you girls will have to agree to do all the things they tell me these tiresome creatures need – mucking out, cleaning tack, grooming and so forth. Promise me you’ll do that, and I’ll agree to one horse between the two of you, at least for a start.”
Julia and Janet promised like a shot. They were ecstatic. They were in heaven. At that moment, anything to do with a horse, even mucking it out, seemed like poetry to them. And, to Roger’s disgust, they still talked of nothing else all the way home to the Castle.
“At least I’ll get a bicycle out of it,” he said to Cat. “Don’t you really want one too?”
Cat shook his head. He could not see the point.
Chrestomanci was as good as his word. As soon as they were back in Chrestomanci Castle, he summoned his secretary, Tom, and asked him to order a boy’s bicycle and to bring him all the journals and papers that were likely to advertise horses for sale. And when he had dealt with all the work Tom had for him in turn, he called Joss Callow in and asked his advice on choosing and buying a suitable horse. Joss Callow, who was rather pale and tired that day, pulled himself together and tried his best. They spread newspapers and horsey journals out all over Chrestomanci’s study, and Joss did his best to explain about size, breeding and temperament, and what sort of price a reasonable horse should be. There was a mare for sale in the north of Scotland that seemed perfect to Joss, but Chrestomanci said that was much too far away. On the other hand, a wizard called Prendergast had a decent small horse for sale in the next county. Its breeding was spectacular, its name was Syracuse, and it cost rather less money. Joss Callow wondered about it.
“Go and look at that one,” Chrestomanci said. “If it seems docile and anything like as good as this Prendergast says, you can tell him we’ll have it and bring it back by rail to Bowbridge. You can walk it on from there, can you?”
“Easily can, sir,” Joss Callow said, a little dubiously. “But the fares for horse travel —”
“Money no object,” Chrestomanci said. “I need a horse and I need it now, or we’ll have no peace. Go and look at it today. Stay overnight – I’ll give you the money – and, if possible, get the creature here tomorrow. If it’s no good, telephone the Castle and we’ll try again.”
“Yes, sir.” Joss Callow went off, a little dazed at this suddenness, to tell the stableboy exactly what to do in his absence.
He reached the stableyard in time to discover Janet and Julia trying to open the big shed at the end. “Hey!” he said. “You can’t go in there. That’s Mr Jason Yeldham’s store, that is. He’ll kill us all if you mess up the spells he’s got in there!”
Julia said, “Oh, I didn’t know. Sorry.”
Janet said, “Who’s Mr Jason Yeldham?”
“He’s Daddy’s herb specialist,” Julia said. “He’s lovely. He’s my favourite enchanter.”
“And,” Joss Callow added, “he’s got ten thousand seeds in that shed, most of them from foreign worlds, and umpteen trays of plants under stasis spells. What did you think you wanted in there?”
Janet replied, with dignity, “We’re looking for somewhere suitable for our horse to live.”
“What’s wrong with the stables?” Joss said.
“We looked in there,” Julia said. “The loose box seems rather small.”
“Our horse is special, you see,” Janet told him. Joss Callow smiled.
“Special or not,” he said kindly, “the loose box will be what he’s used to. You don’t want him to feel strange, do you? You cut along now. He’ll be here tomorrow, with any luck.”
“Really?” they both said.
“Just off to fetch him now,” said Joss.
“Clothes!” Janet said, thoroughly dismayed. “Julia, we need riding clothes. Now!”
They went pelting off to find Millie.
Millie, who always enjoyed driving the big sleek Castle car, loaded Joss Callow into the car with the girls and dropped him at Bowbridge railway station before she took Julia and Janet shopping. Julia came back more madly excited than ever with an armload of riding clothes. Janet, with another armload, was almost silent. Her parents, in her own world, had not been rich. She was appalled at how much riding gear cost.
“Just the hard hat on its own,” she whispered to Cat, “was ten years’ pocket money!”
Cat shrugged. Although it seemed to him to be a stupid fuss, he was glad Janet had new things to think about. It made a slight change from horses. Cat was feeling rather flat himself, after the south of France. Flat and dull. Even the sunlight on the green velvet stretch of the lawns seemed dimmer than it had been. The usual things to do did not feel interesting. He suspected that he had grown out of most of them.
Next morning, the Bowbridge carter arrived with Roger’s gleaming new bicycle. Cat went down to the front steps with everyone else to admire it.
“This is something like!” Roger said, holding the bike up by its shiny handlebars. “Who wants a horse when they can have this?” Janet and Julia naturally glared at him. Roger grinned joyfully at them and turned back to the bicycle. The grin faded slowly to doubt. “There’s a bar across,” he said, “from the saddle to the handles. How do I—?”
Chrestomanci was standing with his hands in the pockets of a sky blue dressing gown with dazzling golden panels. “I believe,” he said, “that you put your left foot on the near pedal and swing your right leg over the saddle.”
“I do?” Roger said. Dubiously, he did as his father suggested.
After a moment of standing, wobbling and upright, Roger and the bicycle slowly keeled over together and landed on the drive with a crash. Cat winced.
“Not quite right,” Roger said, standing up in a spatter of pebbles.
“I fancy you forgot to pedal,” Chrestomanci said.
“But how does he pedal and balance?” Julia wanted to know.
“One of life’s mysteries,” Chrestomanci said. “But I have frequently seen it done.”
“Shut up, all of you,” Roger said. “I will do this!”
It took him three tries, b
ut he got both feet on the pedals and pushed off, down the drive in a curvacious swoop. The swoop ended in one of the big laurel bushes. Here Roger kept going and the bicycle mysteriously did not. Cat winced again. He was quite surprised when Roger emerged from the bush like a walrus out of deep water, picked up the bike and grimly got on it again. This time his swoop ended on the other side of the drive in a prickly bush.
“It’ll take him a while,” Janet said. “I was three days learning.”
“You mean you can do it?” Julia said. Janet nodded. “Then you’d better not tell Roger,” Julia said. “It might hurt his pride.”
The rest of the morning was filled with the sound of sliding gravel, followed by a crash, with every so often, the hefty threshing sound of a plump body hitting another bush. Cat got bored and wandered away.
Syracuse arrived in the early afternoon. Cat was up in his room at the time, at the top of the Castle. But he clearly felt the exact moment when Joss Callow led Syracuse towards the stableyard gates and the spells around Chrestomanci Castle cancelled out whatever spells Wizard Prendergast had put on Syracuse. There was a kind of electric jolt. Cat was so interested that he started running downstairs at once. He did not hear the mighty hollow bang as Syracuse’s front hooves hit the gates. Nor the slam as the gates flew open. He did not see how Syracuse then got away from Joss Callow. By the time Cat arrived on the famous velvety lawn, Syracuse was out there too, being chased by Joss Callow, the stableboy, two footmen and most of the gardeners. Syracuse was having the time of his life dodging them all, skipping this way and that with his lead rein wildly swinging, and, when any of them got near enough to catch him, throwing up his heels and galloping out of reach.
Syracuse was beautiful. This was what Cat mainly noticed. Syracuse was a dark brown that was nearly black, with a swatch of midnight for his mane and a flying silky black tail. His head was shapely and proud. He was a perfect slender, muscly build of a horse, and his legs were elegant, long and deft. He was not very large and he moved like a dancer as he jinked and dodged away from the running, shouting, clutching humans. Cat could see Syracuse was having enormous fun. Cat trotted nearer to the chase, quite fascinated. He could not help chuckling at the clever way Syracuse kept getting away.
Joss Callow, very red in the face, called instructions to the rest. Before long, instead of running every which way, they were organised into a softly walking circle that was moving slowly in on Syracuse. Cat saw they were going to catch him any second now.
Then into the circle came Roger on his bicycle, waving both arms and pedalling hard to stay upright. “Look, no hands!” he shouted. “I can do it! I can do it!” At this point, he saw Syracuse and the bicycle wagged about underneath him. “I can’t steer!” he said.
He shot among the frantically scattering gardeners and fell off in front of Syracuse.
Syracuse reared up in surprise, came down, hurdled Roger and the bicycle, and raced off in quite a new direction.
“Keep him out of the rose garden!” the head gardener shouted desperately, and too late.
Cat was now the person nearest to the rose garden. As he sprinted towards the arched entry to it, he had a glimpse of Syracuse’s gleaming brown rear turning left on the gravel path. Cat put on more speed, dived through the archway and turned right. It stood to reason that Syracuse would circle the place on the widest path. And Cat was correct. He and Syracuse met about two-thirds of the way down the right hand path.
Syracuse was gently trotting by then, with his head and ears turned slightly backwards to listen to the pursuit rushing up the other side of the rose garden. He stopped dead when he saw Cat and nodded his head violently upwards. Cat could almost hear Syracuse thinking, Damn!
“Yes, I know I’m a spoilsport,” Cat said to him. “You were having real fun, weren’t you? But they don’t let people make holes in the lawn. That’s what’s annoyed them. They’ll probably kill Roger. You made hoofprints. He’s practically ploughed it up.”
Syracuse brought his head halfway down and considered Cat. Then, rather wonderingly, he stretched his neck out and nosed Cat’s face. His nose felt very soft and whiskery, with just a hint of dribble. Cat, equally wonderingly, put one hand on Syracuse’s firm, warm, gleaming neck. A definite thought came to him from Syracuse: Peppermint?
“Yes,” Cat said. “I can get that.” He conjured a peppermint from where he knew Julia had one of her stashes and held it out on the palm of his left hand. Syracuse, very gently, lipped it up.
While he did so, the pursuit skidded round the corner and piled to a halt, seeing Syracuse standing quietly with Cat. Joss Callow, who had been cunning too, and limping because Syracuse had trodden on him, came up behind Cat and said, “You got him then?”
Cat quickly took hold of the dangling lead rein. “Yes,” he said. “No trouble.”
Joss Callow sniffed the air. “Ah,” he said. “Peppermint’s the secret, is it? Wish I’d known. I’ll take the horse now. You better go and help your cousin. Got himself woven into that cycle somehow.”
It took Cat some quite serious magic to separate Roger from the bicycle, and then it took both of them working together to unplough the lawn where Roger had hit it, so Cat never saw how Joss got Syracuse back to the stables. He gathered it took a long time and a lot of peppermints. After that, Joss went to the Castle and asked to speak to Chrestomanci.
As a result, next morning when Janet and Julia came into the stableyard self-consciously wearing their new riding clothes, Chrestomanci was there too, in a dressing-gown of tightly belted black silk with sprays of scarlet chrysanthemums down the back. Cat was with him because Chrestomanci had asked him to be there.
“It seems that Wizard Prendergast has sold us a very unreliable horse,” Chrestomanci said to the girls. “My feeling is that we should sell Syracuse for dog meat and try again.”
They were horrified. Janet said, “Not dog meat!” and Julia said, “We ought to give him a chance, Daddy!”
Cat said, “That’s not fair.”
“Then I rely on you, Cat,” Chrestomanci said. “I suspect you are better at horse magics than I am.”
Joss Callow led Syracuse out, saddled and bridled. Syracuse reeked of peppermint and looked utterly bored. In the morning sunlight he was sensationally good looking. Julia exclaimed. But Janet, to her own great shame, discovered there and then that she was one of those people who are simply terrified of horses. “He’s enormous!” she said, backing away.
“Oh, nonsense!” said Julia. “His head’s only a bit higher than yours is. Get on him. I’ll give you first go.”
“I – I can’t,” Janet said. Cat was surprised to see she was shaking.
Chrestomanci said, “Given the creature’s exploits yesterday, I think you are very wise.”
“I’m not wise,” Janet said. “I’m just scared silly. Oh, what a waste of new riding clothes!” She burst into tears and ran away into the Castle, where she hid in an empty room.
Millie found her there, sitting on the unmade bed sobbing. “Don’t take it so hard, my love,” she said, sitting beside Janet. “A lot of people find they can’t get on with horses. I don’t think Chrestomanci can, you know. He always says he hates them because of the way they smell, but I think it’s more than that.”
“But I feel so ashamed!” Janet wept. “I went on and on about being a famous rider and now I can’t even go near the horse!”
“But how could you possibly know that until you tried?” Millie asked. “No one can help the way they’re made, my love. You just have to think of something you’re good at doing instead.”
“But,” said Janet, coming to the heart of her shame, “I made such a fuss that I made Chrestomanci spend all that money on a horse, and all for nothing!”
“I think I heard Julia making quite as much fuss,” Millie remarked. “We’d have bought the horse for her in the end, you know.”
“And these clothes,” Janet said. “So expensive. And I shall never wear them again.”
>
“Now that is silly,” Millie told her. “Clothes can be given to someone else. It will take me five minutes and the very minimum of magic to make them into a second set for Julia – or for anyone else who wants to ride. Roger might decide he wants to, you know.”
Janet found herself giving a weak giggle at the thought of Roger sitting on Syracuse in her clothes. It seemed the most impossible thing in all the Related Worlds.
“That’s better,” said Millie.
Meanwhile, Chrestomanci said, “Well, Julia? You seem to have this horse all to yourself.”
Julia happily approached Syracuse. She attended carefully to the instructions Joss Callow gave her, gathered up the reins, put her foot in the stirrup, and managed to get herself into the saddle. “It feels awfully high up,” she said.
Syracuse contrived to hump his back somehow, so that Julia was higher still.
Joss Callow jerked the bit to make Syracuse behave and led Syracuse sedately round the yard with Julia crouching in a brave wobbly way on top. All went well until Syracuse stopped suddenly and ducked his head down. Cat only just prevented Julia from sliding off over Syracuse’s ears, by throwing a spell like a sort of rope to hold her on. Syracuse looked at him reproachfully.
“Had enough, Julia?” Chrestomanci asked.
Julia clenched her teeth and said, “Not yet.” She bravely managed another twenty minutes of walking round the yard, even though part of the time Syracuse was not walking regularly, but putting his feet down in a random scramble that had Julia tipping this way and that.
“It really does seem as if this animal does not wish to be ridden,” Chrestomanci said. He went away indoors and quietly ordered two girl’s bicycles.
Julia refused to give up. Some of it was pride and obstinacy. Some of it was the splendid knowledge that she now owned Syracuse all by herself. None of this stopped Syracuse making himself almost impossible to ride. Cat had to be in the yard whenever Julia sat on the horse, with his rope spell always ready.
Two days later, Joss Callow opened the gate to the paddock and invited Julia to see if she – or Syracuse – did better in the wider space.
The Pinhoe Egg (UK) Page 5