the better, honoured one.’
Ranadar considered him with a twisted smile, then shrugged. ‘Very well, perhaps we’ll both come have some lessons with you. Show me what this all entails.’
Rhodorix saddled and bridled Aur, then leapt into the seat and caught the reins. He walked the horse down to the end of the terrace to let it warm its muscles, then trotted back. He dismounted, made Prince Ranadar a bow, then turned to the guardsmen.
‘Saddle up, lads!’ Rhodorix said.
The men rushed off to fetch their horses, since none had yet trained them to come when called. While they struggled with the tack under Andariel’s supervision, Rhodorix lifted young Ren to Aur’s saddle and told him how to sit properly. The boy’s catslit eyes, lavender like his father’s, widened with delight at the sensation of being up so high on horseback. He followed every instruction Rhodorix gave him, then repeated every move on his own. If we live long enough to teach the lads, Rhodorix thought, the People will be as good as we are with horses.
The presence of their rhix and cadvridoc made the guardsmen even more nervous than usual. Several of them refused to use the wooden steps, but the first man to try the leap put too much spring into his jump, overbalanced on the saddle pad, and slid off to fall in a heap. His horse snorted, danced, and very nearly kicked him. He got to his feet, his face as red as a sunset, and stared at the grass to avoid looking the prince’s way until Rhodorix sent him and his mount back to their respective herds. A second man and a third tried and failed. The entire guard unit turned hang-dog, standing heads down with humiliation.
‘Ye gods, that looks difficult!’ Ranadar said. ‘Here, let me try.’
Andariel protested in a flood of words that Rhodorix couldn’t follow, not even with the crystal, but the prince laughed and insisted. Rhodorix brought Ren down from Aur’s saddle.
‘This is the best trained horse in the lot, honoured one,’ Rhodorix said. ‘He’ll stand still for you.’
On his first try the prince very nearly managed the leaping mount. In fact, Rhodorix suspected that if he’d wanted to, Ranadar could have got himself onto the saddle, albeit in an ugly flurry of arms and legs and clutching hands. Instead, the prince made a great show of sliding off and falling into the grass. He laughed and picked himself up before anyone could rush forward to help him.
‘Very difficult,’ Ranadar announced. ‘Don’t feel dishonoured on my account, men.’
The guardsmen cheered him. Rhodorix felt utterly stunned. He’d never seen a man of authority, not Devetianos nor Rhwmanos, voluntarily shame himself for the sake of the men who served him.
On a wave of good feeling all round, Ranadar collected his retinue and his son and left the guardsmen to their practising. Rhodorix watched them as they walked uphill. He’d finally found a leader worth dying for, he realized, someone with ten times the honour of a Vindex or even a Brennos.
At the end of the day, when they returned to the fortress to let the men care for their mounts in the newly built stable, Rhodorix and Andariel discussed the various problems that the lesson had shown them.
‘If we ride to battle, then dismount,’ Andariel said, ‘how are we going to get them mounted again after the fighting’s over?’
‘It’ll be worse yet if they’re unhorsed during a retreat,’ Rhodorix said. ‘You’ll have to leave them behind. They’ll never manage to remount a panicked horse.’
‘We don’t have enough men to leave anyone behind.’
‘Well, then, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s all very well to provide a set of wooden steps here in the fortress, but we can’t carry those with us to battle.’
Andariel sighed and considered the line of saddles perched on a railing. Crystals in hand, the two men were standing in an improvised tack room, part of a storehouse that the prince’s servants had roughly converted to a stable. The saddles were much like those Rhodorix knew from the homeland, simple leather pads with a cinch that went over a heavy saddle blanket.
‘Carry the steps with us?’ Andariel said eventually. ‘That gives me an idea. What if we hung a step of sorts from the saddle itself?’
‘What?’
‘I’m thinking of the rope ladders that lead up to the catwalks on the walls. What if we put straps down on each side of the saddle with loops for a man’s foot to go into?’
Rhodorix grinned in sheer admiration. ‘That just might work splendidly, once we got the horses used to the device. Stick your foot in the loop and swing your free leg over.’
‘Just so. I’ll go to the armoury and ask.’
The People knew their craft work. One of the prince’s armourers delivered a saddle with the new idea attached the very next morning. Rhodorix first accustomed Aur to having straps dangle against his sides, then tried out the new way of mounting while the armourer stood watching. Although the foot-loop certainly made getting onto the horse’s back easier, the simple saddle twisted to one side under the pull of his weight. Rhodorix dismounted and led the horse over Andariel and the armourer.
‘We need to work on the saddle,’ the armourer said through the crystals. ‘Give it back to me. I think I see what’s wrong.’
Back and forth the saddle went over the next eightnight between the armoury and the horse yard. Each time it returned, it was heavier and stiffer, until finally the leather ended up stretched over a wooden frame. The cinch had spawned two additional straps. One went round the horse’s chest, one round its behind, and the new side loops included iron bars to keep them open and stiff. Although Aur disliked this new version of its usual tack, Rhodorix heartily approved.
With the armourer and Andariel in tow, he rode down to the first terrace, then galloped along its length once. As he walked the horse back to the waiting men of the People, he tried standing with his weight on the new, reinforced loops, then sat back down and howled with laughter. He walked the snorting, dancing horse over to Andariel, who was watching from the side of the courtyard. Still grinning, Rhodorix leaned down to retrieve the black crystal from the captain.
‘A man could swing a sword from horseback like this,’ Rhodorix said. ‘It’ll take some practice, but I think we can put the fear of our gods into the Meradan with these.’ He leaned forward and patted Aur’s neck. ‘Whist! You’ll get used to it in a bit, lad.’ He straightened up again and looked at the grinning armourer. ‘A splendid job! Captain, can he make us more of these things?’
Andariel spoke briefly with the armourer, who nodded his agreement. ‘He says,’ Andariel said, ‘that he’ll set his men to work on them this very afternoon.’
‘I have good news for you,’ Hwilli said. ‘Master Jantalaber is going to take the cast off this afternoon.’
‘Splendid!’ Gerontos grinned at her over the white crystal, which he was holding. ‘Although, alas, I’ll miss seeing you every day.’
‘Oh, you’re not rid of me yet! Wait till you see what your leg looks like.’
‘Good.’ His smile turned soft.
Hwilli set the black crystal down on the table beside the bed. She felt uneasy enough to gather up her supplies and hurry out of the
