Karigan ignored him. “Fergal, grab your bags and come upstairs.”
When he just sat there glowering into his ale, she said, “Now.” When this failed to produce results, she grabbed his collar and hauled him out of his chair.
“Let go!” His voice held a whiney tone to it.
The merchants were laughing at him. Flushing, Fergal straightened his shortcoat and grabbed his saddlebags.
“Ya need a man, not this runt,” the drunkard proclaimed.
“Shut up, you stupid ass,” Fergal muttered.
“Leave it,” Karigan said. “There’s no use in—”
“Whad ya say?” the drunkard demanded, grabbing Fergal’s elbow. “Whad ya call me?”
“Stupid ass, or are you deaf, too?”
“Fergal!” Karigan said in dismay. Some drunks were harmless, and some weren’t. She didn’t think this man was the former.
“I’ll teach ya to be more polite, boy.” Unsteady on his feet, the drunk rolled up his sleeves and drew both hands into fists. “Come in here with yer fancy uniform an’ all, thinkin’ yer better than anyone.”
“Fergal,” Karigan said in low warning, “come on.”
“Li’l runt,” the drunk said.
Fergal’s expression darkened and his body went rigid.
“Oh no,” Karigan murmured. She went to grab him, but he threw his saddlebags down and launched himself on the drunk. Both went crashing to the floor. Innkeeper Miles rushed in at the clamor, and both he and Karigan stepped in to pull the combatants apart. Karigan hauled on Fergal’s shortcoat, and he rose still swinging, his nose bloody.
Miles pushed the drunk away, speaking placatingly to him.
“I’ll kill you!” Fergal cried.
“Try it, runt!”
Fergal surged in Karigan’s grip, and when she shook him, he turned on her, swinging.
THE KNACKER’S BOY
Karigan sat on the edge of the bed and dabbed the wet cloth at the bulging welt on her temple and winced. Fergal had slugged her hard and her whole head throbbed. When she pulled the cloth away, there was a spot of blood on it. Fergal sat in a chair opposite her, staring morosely at his knees. His nosebleed had cleared up quickly, and though his nose would be puffy and red for a couple days, it didn’t look broken. He was lucky.
“Would you care to explain yourself?” Karigan’s voice sounded tired even to herself.
“No.”
“That was an order, Rider. Not really a question.”
Fergal glanced at her and quickly averted his gaze. “He—he made me mad.”
Karigan waited for more, but Fergal offered nothing. “That’s it?”
He nodded.
Karigan sighed and started to stand, but it increased the throbbing in her head, so she stayed her seat. “You do realize we’re lucky that Innkeeper Miles hasn’t cast us out tonight, don’t you?”
Fergal nodded.
“Look, I don’t understand what is going on with you, but you are a king’s messenger now. When you wear this uniform, you are acting on his behalf, you are his voice. Do you think you represented the king well tonight?”
Fergal shook his head.
“There were some merchants who viewed this whole spectacle, just a few of them, but merchants travel and they gossip. I should know.” She had been the brunt of such gossip herself. People still pointed her out as the girl who rode her horse naked all the way to Darden—never mind she had been wearing a nightgown at the time. “The story of a Green Rider attacking a drunkard will undoubtedly get passed around, and the story will change and grow. Who knows what they’ll say? In any case, it will not reflect well on other Riders or the king. At this point I don’t care if you’d have been beaten senseless, except that you were in an official capacity as a Green Rider.”
Fergal’s shoulders slumped.
“Furthermore,” Karigan continued, feeling supremely old after delivering so many lectures in one day, “you failed to return to the stable to assist with your horse. I’m not sure what I have to do to drive it into your head that your horse is your first priority.”
“She’s just meat.”
“What?” Karigan wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. Maybe he had rattled her brain when he hit her.
“Meat.”
“Meat?”
Fergal nodded.
Karigan’s head was throbbing more than ever, and an absurd image of Fergal saddled up on a giant prime roast came to mind. She shook her head—the evening had become surreal. “And here I thought you were riding a horse.”
Fergal shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Karigan rinsed her cloth in the bowl of cold water, listening to the drips and splashes, trying to gather her thoughts. “Perhaps,” she said, placing the cloth back against the lump, “you could try and explain it. Help me understand.”
Fergal’s expression darkened and she hoped he wasn’t about to explode with another violent outburst. Really, she didn’t know what to expect from him with these mood swings. Had Captain Mapstone known what he was like when she assigned him to her? Had any of them known?
“Fergal—”
“My da’s a knacker, all right? I watched him slaughter horses like Sunny all the time. Horses people got rid of quick ’cause they no longer were quite young enough, or pretty enough, or ’cause their owners needed money bad. Might not be anything wrong with ’em at all, and they were brought in every day. Meat. Meat my da used to throw to the dogs just to see them fight.” Tears formed around his eyes and he swiped at them with his sleeve.
Incredulous, Karigan didn’t know what to say.
“Cav horses ended up at my father’s all the time,” Fergal said. “Just a little old like Sunny, but nothing wrong with them. They’d end up as bits of meat, bone, and hair.” He gazed directly at her. “My da made me work for him.”
With that, he stood and ran from the room, slamming the door behind him. Karigan winced as the sound richocheted through her sore head. She pulled her legs onto the bed and lay down, staring at the cracked ceiling, dumbfounded.
How horrible to see that slaughter daily, she mused. Especially of healthy animals. She wondered how people could do such a thing to creatures that had served their human counterparts innocently and honestly. We repay them not with our gratitude, but with the slaughterhouse.
Would Sunny have been sent to the knacker if the messenger service hadn’t needed her? Karigan shuddered. She didn’t want to know. Messenger horses retired with their Riders, and it was up to each individual Rider what became of them. Considering the close partnership between horse and Rider, she could not imagine any messenger horse dying at the knacker’s. When the time came for retirement, she would provide Condor with the most comfortable life possible.
As for Fergal, at least she now understood his regard, or disregard, for Sunny. He had taught himself not to grow attached to animals because the only end for them he ever saw was slaughter. Karigan could not imagine growing up in such an environment.
The next morning Karigan ate a hearty breakfast of sausages and fry cakes in the inn’s common room, Fergal nowhere in sight. No matter, today they would return to Sacor City. She had thought it over through the night and had decided Fergal was not yet ready even for a training run, that he was just too volatile and could not yet represent the king properly.
Her decision was reinforced when she saw the sickly bruised bump on her temple in the mirror in the morning light. The bruise had spread in a half circle around her eye and looked just lovely.
She drank the last of her tea and grabbed her saddlebags from the floor. She supposed she would have to ready the horses by herself.
She stepped out into the courtyard between the inn and stables, her stride faltering when she saw two horses standing there, their coats shining in the morning sun. The sight took a moment to register—not only were their coats at high gloss, but their manes and tails were combed out, every snarl, every bit of straw, an
d every burr removed. Their tack had been thoroughly cleaned and oiled, and the silver polished so that it sparkled. Even the green saddle blankets had had the sweat and horsehair brushed out of them.
Karigan stepped closer and saw that fetlocks and whiskers were trimmed and eye goo wiped away. Condor arched his neck as though a parade horse showing off his good looks, and Sunny had a horsy look of contentment on her face. The intensive grooming had brought a glow to her coat that made her dapples gleam.
Karigan set aside her saddlebags and inspected Condor’s hooves. They’d been thoroughly cleaned and picked. She released his last hoof in astonishment.
The stablehand stood watching her.
“You do this?” she asked.
“Nope, the lad did.” He nodded his head toward the stable, and Karigan saw Fergal there, standing in the shadows, looking at the ground, hands in pockets. “Been here since dawn bathing and grooming and polishing. Did a good job.”
“Yes,” Karigan admitted, “he did.”
Fergal came out into the sun, still unable to look her in the eye. His shirttails flopped out of his trousers and his chin was smudged with dirt.
“I’m sorry. Last night…yesterday. I didn’t mean to hit you—I swear. I was just so angry at that old drunk. I’ll never do that again.” Finally their eyes did meet, and she saw the desperation in his. “Please don’t make me go back; please—I don’t want to be sent back to my da. I’ll do better, I promise.”
There was more than desperation in his eyes; there was fear.
Apparently Fergal didn’t understand the nature of the Rider call; that he couldn’t be forced to return to his father unless it released him. Karigan wasn’t sure she wanted to enlighten him, thinking she could use his fear to help keep him in line, if necessary, sparing her further trouble. She touched the tender bruising around her eye and winced, his explosive behavior all too fresh in her memory.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” She asked him. When he shook his head, she said, “Please go inside and get some, and wash up.”
She watched him as he shuffled off, looking decidedly beaten. Karigan was not gifted with Captain Mapstone’s ability to read truth or falsehood in another person’s words, but her years growing up in a merchant clan helped her judge character, a talent even King Zachary had made use of in his dealings with petitioners. As far as she could tell, Fergal was being honest with her and would not repeat his mistakes. That he had apologized unbidden was another point in his favor.
She also admired the amount of work he put into grooming Condor and Sunny. Not only did it result in a pair of gleaming horses that looked more ready for a parade than an ordinary message errand, but his efforts also served as a peace offering. A peace offering to her? To Sunny? Himself? Maybe all three. In any case, it was a gesture she appreciated very much.
She patted Condor on the rump. “I guess we’re stuck with him.”
A SHIMMERING IN THE WOODS
After breakfast when Karigan told Fergal that he was to continue riding west and that she was not going to return him to Sacor City, his relief was so palpable that she almost felt guilty about her previous plans.
He remained quiet as they rode, and followed her instructions to perfection, not pulling any of the previous day’s mischief. They continued at a steady rhythm, alternating long walks with long trots. It was a fine autumn day with golden leaves drifting down around them and chickadees fluttering in the branches along the road. Brassy blue jays could be heard bellowing above the clip-clop of hooves.
They encountered a few travelers heading east, the wheels of carts following well-established ruts in the road. During the reign of Queen Isen, major portions of the Kingway had been paved with cobbles, but since the work was left to local authorities, there were long stretches of road between towns and villages that remained dirt tracks through the woods.
By midday, Karigan called a halt so they could rest and have a bite to eat. She found a grassy carriage turn-around next to a stream and they dismounted. Fergal pleased her by immediately turning his attention to Sunny, loosening her girth, and replacing her bridle with a halter so she could graze and drink.
Karigan couldn’t say whether he cared for her out of growing affection or duty. She hoped he at least began to view the mare as something more than “meat,” but it was probably too soon to expect too much.
She tended Condor, then led him to the stream for a drink. When the horses were all settled, the Riders removed from their saddlebags strips of dried meat and fresh-baked bread Innkeeper Miles had supplied them with, and the apples given to them by the farmwife the previous day.
They sat in silence on boulders, the only immediate sounds that of the gurgling stream and the horses pulling at grass and swishing their tails. Karigan found she could no longer abide the silence, and after sloshing some water down her throat, she asked, “You feeling the long ride? Are you sore?”
“It’s not bad,” he mumbled.
“That’s good.” Karigan racked her brain for another way to initiate conversation. “Where are you from?”
“Arey Province.”
“That’s a long way.”
Fergal nodded.
Karigan waited for him to tell her of his travels, how he managed the journey from the northeast corner of Sacoridia and across the Wingsong Mountains, but he volunteered nothing.
She sighed and tore at her bread. It was clear he didn’t feel like talking.
They rode in silence until the evening hours set in. This time they were not near a village or an inn, nor were there any Rider waystations nearby. Populations ebbed and flowed over the eons, and Karigan guessed that during the era of waystation construction, there had been villages or farmsteads in the area that could house a Rider, but they had disappeared with time. It left stretches of road without shelter for wayfarers between villages.
Karigan searched the edge of the road for a trail leading to a campsite Ty once showed her. As time went on and she couldn’t find the signs, she feared she had missed it completely. Then they came upon a massive boulder with tongues of tripe lichen growing on it that looked like strips of peeling brown paint.
In the boulder’s shadow was a cairn of rocks marking the trail. She reined Condor onto it, ducking beneath low-hanging branches. The world muted around them as the woods closed in, the horses’ hoof falls muffled by a deep carpet of pine needles and moss. The air thickened with moldering leaf litter and the darkness deepened.
The horses picked their way over tree roots that arced and snaked across the trail, and clipped hooves on the occasional rock. The trail went on at length before opening up at the shore of a lake. The air freshened like a wave falling over them.
Karigan raised her hand so Fergal wouldn’t speak, and she pointed at a bull moose wading through the shallows. Water rippled away from his stiltlike legs, lighter lines against water that reflected the darkening sky.
The moose dipped his nose into the water after cattail tubers. The water poured off his muzzle when he raised his head. Chewing on vegetation, he shambled toward shore, a giant bearing a majestic crown, and vanished into the woods, never hurrying; regal despite his ungainly size.
Karigan glanced at Fergal, realizing that moose must be even more common in Arey and he undoubtedly saw them as…meat. His features fell in shadow and she could not read them.
“Probably looking for a mate,” she said quietly.
“Probably.”
They tended their horses and while Karigan collected wood and laid it in a charred stone ring a previous camper had built, Fergal squatted at the edge of the lake staring into it, or so she thought. Suddenly he jerked and pulled and there was much splashing. He whooped in delight. To Karigan’s astonishment, he grabbed a large, silvery fish by the gills, pulled it out of the water, and held it up for her to see.
“We will have trout tonight!” he proudly declared.
Karigan was impressed. He showed her his fishing kit of string and odd hooks wrapped with
colorful threads, which he claimed looked like the bugs the trout liked to eat. Having grown up on the coast, Karigan’s experience with the tools of fishing ranged from heavy deep-sea hooks, to nets, weirs, traps, and harpoons. Not that she engaged in fishing herself, but she had spent enough time on the wharves of Corsa Harbor to have known the men and women who fished for a living. If her father had not fled Black Island when he was a boy to seek his fortune elsewhere, she supposed she would have grown up to be a fishwife. The thought was not an appealing one.
After Fergal caught a second monster of a fish, he chopped off their heads and gutted them with expert, deft strokes, then extracted the bones. When he finished, he rummaged through his saddlebags and produced little sacks of spices which he sprinkled liberally onto the fish. He left them in their skins, and wrapped them in leaves to cook among the coals of the fire Karigan had started.
“Learned to fish when I got sick of horse meat,” Fergal said, the flames playing in his eyes as he poked the coals with a stick. “My da thought it was fine when he didn’t have to feed me.”
Karigan waited to hear more about Fergal’s da, the knacker, but he said no more and seemed content to watch the fire. She wasn’t going to press him, considering his actions of the previous night.
The trout, when it finished cooking, tasted better than anything Karigan had ever eaten. Or maybe it was just the alchemy of the cold air and the stars shining above that made it taste so good. Whatever it was, she hoped Fergal had opportunities to catch more trout along their journey.
“It was a long way from Arey,” Fergal said unexpectedly, as though there had been no intervening time between midday, when she tried to draw him out, and now. Maybe it was the companionability of the meal and campfire that inspired him to speak, or the time had simply come. Karigan dared not interrupt for fear he’d withdraw again.
“I thought I was running away from my da,” Fergal continued. “I wanted to often enough, but it turns out I wasn’t really running away, but running to Sacor City because of the call. It came on me fast, so I didn’t take too much with me. Just the clothes I was wearing and my fishing gear. One minute I’m washing down the floor in the shop, the next I’m running out the door all sudden like. Didn’t know where I was going at the time, but I always seemed to want to head west. Slept in barns, under trees, in abandoned cots. Sometimes there was just the stars, like tonight.” He laughed. “Good thing it was summer.”