On the way back from the south of France, Chrestomanci’s daughter Julia bought a book to read on the train, called A Pony of My Own. Halfway through France, Chrestomanci’s ward, Janet, snatched the book off Julia and read it too. After that, neither of them could talk about anything but horses. Julia’s brother Roger yawned. Cat, who was younger than any of them, tried not to listen and hoped they would get tired of the subject soon.
But the horse fever grew. By the time they were on the cross-Channel ferry, Julia and Janet had decided that both of them would die unless they had a horse each the moment they got home to Chrestomanci Castle.
“We’ve only got six weeks until we start lessons again,” Julia sighed. “It has to be at once, or we’ll miss all the gymkhanas.”
“It would be a complete waste of the summer,” Janet agreed. “But suppose your father says no?”
“You go and ask him now,” Julia said.
“Why me?” Janet asked.
“Because he’s always worried about the way he had to take you away from your own world,” Julia explained. “He doesn’t want you to be unhappy. Besides, you have blue eyes and golden hair —”
“So has Cat,” Janet said quickly.
“But you can flutter your eyelashes at him,” Julia said. “My eyelashes are too short.”
But Janet, who was still very much in awe of Chrestomanci – who was, after all, the most powerful enchanter in the world – refused to talk to Chrestomanci unless Julia was there to hold her hand. Julia, now that owning a horse had stopped being just a lovely idea and become almost real, found she was quite frightened of her father too. She said she would go with Janet if the boys would come and back them up.
Neither Roger nor Cat was in the least anxious to help. They argued most of the way across the Channel. At last, when the white cliffs of Dover were well in sight, Julia said, “But if you do come and Daddy does agree, you won’t have to listen to us talking about it any more.”
This made it seem worth it. Cat and Roger duly crowded into the cabin with the girls, where Chrestomanci lay, apparently fast asleep.
“Go away,” Chrestomanci said, without seeming to wake up.
Chrestomanci’s wife, Millie, was sitting on a bunk darning Julia’s stockings. This must have been for something to pass the time with, because Millie, being an enchantress, could have mended most things just with a thought. “He’s very tired, my loves,” she said. “Remember he had to take a travel-sick Italian boy all the way back to Italy before we came home.”
“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
