The Night Ride Page 2

  Soon we’re passing through the southern gate. There are no houses or shops outside the walls here, just the racetrack sprawling into the open space all the way to the greenwood. There’s a series of grandstands for townhouse people and special viewing boxes for the nobility and royal family and any visiting dignitaries. The stables and outbuildings stand on the left-hand end of the oval, and beyond them lie ancient, dense forests that span as far as a horse can run in a week.

  I shiver. I can’t help it. There are bandits in the greenwood, but they don’t stay long near the city walls. They drift through the forest, moving from place to place, stealing anything that’s not nailed down—especially horses.

  This forest all but overhangs the pastures. It must be full of rangers. Just in case.

  It’s not a race day, but the track is busy regardless. Horses are everywhere, and riders too, and stable grooms and trainers and the occasional owner in fancy brocade. They’re boys and men, but I’m used to being the only girl not in riding clothes in places with lots of horses.

  I can’t look away from those horses. Bays, roans, grays, chestnuts. Shiny black horses and splashy pintos and horses scattered all over with tiny spots. Braided manes. Arched tails fluttering like banners.

  It’s like paradise.

  Paolo gently directs Ricochet toward a series of long stable buildings facing one another across a wide dirt horseway. The buildings on the left spread out big and glorious like a nobleman’s country estate. There are racehorses in the pastures attached to those stables.

  I love Ricochet, but he is nowhere near the horse that any of them are. You can tell at a glance that those horses have been bred, trained, fed, and fussed over—vitamins, rubdowns, supplements, insulated blankets—so they’ll look like this. So they’ll perform like champions and win races and fat purses.

  A pale gold stallion dances in front of the closest stable, surrounded by a dozen grooms and trainers. He’s huge, easily seventeen hands, and so muscly that the jockey on his back looks like a little kid.

  “That’s Perihelion,” Paolo says over his shoulder. “Let’s get down.”

  I slide my legs over Ricochet’s rump, but I’m barely on the ground when Perihelion grunts and rears, forelegs thrashing, and grooms and trainers leap out of his way. His rider shortens the reins and leans forward, and when the stallion comes down, he kicks and stomps at the dust.

  Master Harold was right. Perihelion does need a calming influence, because he almost threw that poor jockey twenty feet into the hard dirt of the horseway.

  Perihelion’s rider swivels him in a circle, trying to calm him, singsonging, “Dang it, Helie, what is wrong with you lately?”

  That voice.

  All at once I’m small again and sitting on the back step and Deirdre is teaching me to braid so I can make Greta a friendship bracelet, but then Deirdre surprises me with one made from red and blue string which I wear till it rots off my wrist.

  “Deirdre,” I whisper. Then I squeal it, loud and delighted and disbelieving. “Deirdre!”

  The jockey looks up, and it’s her. Years older, hair shorter, but it’s her, it’s our Deirdre, and only Perihelion and his hulking size and fast-kicking hooves keep me from rushing over for a hug.

  But Deirdre stiffens when she sees me. Her eyes get big, and she pushes down the brim of a fancy black riding helmet so her face is in shadow.

  “It’s Sonnia,” I go on, and I am remembering how hard I cried when she stopped coming to watch us. How Greta toddled through the house for days, peeking behind doors and under our table, repeating Deedee? in a bewildered, hurt voice. “From Edge Lane? You used to—”

  “Sonnia. Of course.” Deirdre slides off Perihelion and gives me a quick, light hug across the shoulders that also guides me several paces away from the big horse and his trainers and the groom holding his halter. Lower she adds, “Yes. I remember you.”

  Deirdre would let us finger paint with water on the kitchen floor and eat all the blackberries we could handle from the bushes down the common. She’d be the stablemaster when Greta and I crawled around the house, pretending we were misbehaving ponies.

  “You’re the girl jockey?” I gesture around us, at the racetrack and the dozens of beautiful horses moving past. “But you weren’t raised by—”

  “Yes. It’s me.” Deirdre leans close. “People say a lot of things. Winning this spot wasn’t easy, and neither is keeping it. So if you’d lower your voice, it would do me a lot of good.”

  She tips her chin at the knot of trainers clustered around Perihelion as they examine the stallion’s forelegs and gesture to his big haunches.

  I nod slowly. Deirdre grew up in darker corners with a lot less hope than I did. Bandits are criminals, but they’re practically born in the saddle. The nearest to horses most lane kids get is collecting their dung for burning.

  “What are you doing here?” Deirdre’s voice is calm but careful, like there’s a right answer and a wrong one. “You don’t come to the racetrack much. That’s more than obvious. So you didn’t come about the cadre. Why are you here?”

  Another shiver goes down my back when she says cadre. It’s a word bandits use to describe how they ride—in a pack, like wolves. How they move together through the greenwood, day and night, watching their targets, biding their time.

  I’ve never been to the racetrack at all. Not when I can spend hours with our ponies or the horses at the royal stables just up the road, and not when getting here involves so many tolls.

  But I’m stuck on cadre. Shadowy figures outlined in moonlight. Hooves thudding on dirt.

  Deirdre folds her arms tight, like she’s a shield, and I am counting the years it’s been since she stopped watching us and reckoning how she must have spent them. How girls from the lanes spend their years.

  “What are you doing here?” she repeats, sharper this time, and my mouth is so dry that all I can do is gesture to Ricochet, who’s standing a cautious distance from Perihelion while Paolo pats his neck in a calming, reassuring way.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be chasing boys?” Deirdre asks, and I scowl because it’s annoying when adults say stuff like that, but then her expression softens. She smiles halfway and murmurs, “Ah. It’s that horse you love.”

  Hardly anyone understands how much I love Ricochet, but Deirdre saw it right away. It makes me want to hug her. “He’s basically my best friend. After Greta, I mean. He’s a fleet horse at the royal stables, but he’s going to be Perihelion’s new companion.”

  Deirdre still looks unconvinced, and it’s like I’m five again and explaining what happened to the last cookie because I add, “I’m going to buy him one day.”

  Her brows go up.

  Right away I press my lips together. There’s a reason I stopped telling people why I’m saving my coppers.

  You have nowhere to keep him. Boarding will cost you a fortune. You’ll soon be taking hiring fair contracts and your master and mistress won’t tolerate daydreaming. You’ll barely have time to ride him.

  But Deirdre says, low and quiet, “They probably tell you it’s foolish, right? Wanting something so big? So unimaginable? No one thinks kids like us should expect better.”

  Mother says I should be thankful for what I have. Mistress Crumb tells barefoot kids bound for the hiring fairs that scraps of education will improve us somehow.

  Deirdre leans closer and whispers, “The only way kids like us—girls like us—get anything better is when we make it happen for ourselves.”

  She smells like expensive leather polish. Her racing silks look as soft as a horse’s ear. A girl born two streets over from me, who never set foot in a schoolroom, who was no older than I am now when she started minding me and Greta and Torsten.

  A girl who’s achieved an unimaginable thing, telling me it’s okay to want unimaginable things while standing in front of me as proof they’re possible.

  Deirdre steps away, toward the beautiful gold racehorse. Away from me and my thirdhand
trousers with cuffs halfway up my shins.

  “He’s not a want,” I say fiercely. “Ricochet’s not a dessert or a jump rope. He—” I pull in a stuttery breath and blink hard. “He’s waiting for me. I can’t let him down.”

  Deirdre regards me for a moment that feels too long. Then she gestures to Ricochet and says, “He’s a beauty for sure. A horse like him is going to cost a lot of coppers. Are you at the hiring fairs yet?”

  I shake my head. “I’m old enough, but Father says it’s better if I keep on with the pony rides.”

  Deirdre growls, short and wordless, and I study my feet. I’m lucky. I know I am. Plenty of parents haul their kids by the elbow to the big grassy plains on the north side of the city and make them join the long lines of available workers while magistrates and sergeants-at-law peer into their faces and demand to know if they’re honest and diligent, as if there’s any answer other than “Yes, m’lord.”

  Father says he’d never in a thousand years send us to the hiring fairs, but what he doesn’t say but has to mean is he won’t send us, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never have to go.

  That changed for Torsten when he went to the royal stables. My brother will never have to stand in a hiring fair line and take the best contract he can get.

  There’s no question that in a year or two, I will.

  No one’s going to hire a girl for horse work, and that means a kitchen. That means scrubbing pots and floors, the only time outside on trips to the well. That means only a precious few spare coppers to keep Ricochet.

  Assuming I ever get to five hundred.

  Deirdre smiles sadly. “Well, I guess that’s that, then. Nice seeing you.”

  “Wait. I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

  “I thought perhaps I could help you, but it looks like I can’t,” she replies. “If your father doesn’t want you at the hiring fairs, he’d never let you work here as a stablehand.”

  “At the racetrack?” I can’t keep the wish out of my voice. “There’s no way. I’m not from a caretaker family. The king would never approve.”

  “The track operates entirely separately from the royal stables. The king’s racehorses win big purses and bring him lots of fame, and as long as that happens, the track stablemaster is allowed some… liberties.” Deirdre squints. “I could make it happen, but you wouldn’t get a share of the track profits. Only coppers.”

  Only coppers. I want to be the kind of person who has so many coppers in their pocket that they stop knowing exactly how many there are.

  “How many coppers?”

  “Three hundred a month.”

  I pull in a sharp breath. It’s hard to imagine that much money in my hands all at once. Father can get the stable roof redone in slate. Greta can go to school for the whole day session.

  More than that, I’ll see Ricochet all the time. I’ll be able to walk past his stall and pet his nose and whisper all my promises to him.

  Even more than that, I’ll never have to set foot at a hiring fair, and best of all, my Ricochet money would pile up so quickly, he’ll be mine in a few months, way before the king might think to sell him.

  “I will be the best stablehand!” I squeal, before I remember that I need to seem like a responsible person that can be trusted with the king’s horses. “You don’t even have to train me. There’s been a stable full of ponies in my yard for years now, and I’ve been spending time with fleet horses since I was ten.”

  “Well, this place is nothing like the royal stables,” Deirdre says, “but you’ll get along fine if you do what you’re told, you do it well, and you don’t ask questions.”

  “I can do that,” I say. “I absolutely can.”

  “You’ll have to live here, too. In the bunkhouse. It’s not free.”

  I nod. It makes sense. Torsten lives at the royal stables because horses don’t care about curfew.

  She peers at me. “You keep nodding. But what about your father?”

  “I’ll talk to him. I know he’ll say yes. Mother, too. This is nothing like the hiring fairs. I mean, it’s you. You used to change Greta’s diapers. And it’s three hundred coppers a month!”

  Deirdre bites a thumbnail like she’s deciding whether to accept a merchant’s price. “I’m sticking my neck out for you because I know what it’s like to be a girl in the lanes. So if you do take this job, you can’t make me look bad.”

  “No. No. I would rather die.”

  If Greta were here, she’d tease me for being dramatic, but it’s not every day that someone is willing to take a chance for you. Take a chance on you. Like there’s something in you that only they can see, that they want to help along. A tiny flame that needs to be gently blown on, or a seed tucked in spring-dark earth.

  Someone must have done the same for Deirdre. She must have come to the track when Mother had no more need of a babysitter and found someone to teach her to ride. She must have had her own Master Harold to bend a rule here and there.

  She must want to pay it forward.

  “I would rather die,” I repeat, and I glance at Ricochet fierce and loving.

  Deirdre smiles faintly. “Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.”

  3

  “RIDER.” ONE OF the trainers beckons to Deirdre, a hand on Perihelion’s haunch.

  “Wait here,” she tells me over her shoulder, and she walks toward the men and boys around the big horse like she’s always worn silks and never gone barefoot.

  Without a hint of a curtsy.

  “So you’re staying, then?” Paolo’s voice is even, almost cautious, and he makes that gesture again, bringing both hands to his belly button like he’s holding reins. He stays that way, studying my face, but when I fidget with Ricochet’s mane, he drops the odd pose and grins, open and friendly.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to overhear.” Paolo nods at Deirdre where she’s arguing with both hands at Perihelion’s trainers. “I think you’ll like being a stablehand for her.”

  I’m about to ask what he means—I’m going to be a stablehand for the racetrack, not Deirdre—but he goes on, “They’re good guys over there. Marcel’s a bit of a show-off. That kid’s got three pairs of boots that are each worth more than a laborer makes in a month, and he wears them everywhere, even to muck stalls. Ivar’s the redhead. He’s gonna make a pay table for everything and he’ll want you to lay wagers, but he doesn’t like to lose. Just saying.”

  “Over where?” I ask. “Can you show me?”

  “Sorry. I mostly know of them. I don’t get to talk to them much.” Paolo pats Ricochet on the shoulder. “They’ve got their own bunkhouse, and I have a bed next to this guy’s stall.”

  I keep smiling somehow. That could be me, sleeping next to Ricochet and spending every moment of the day with him.

  “Sonnia. This way.” Deirdre appears behind me. Her cheeks are red and she’s trembling like she’s holding in bad words. To Paolo she says, “Perihelion’s off to the track. Breezing runs. You’re to ride along.”

  Paolo snaps a cheerful salute and swings atop Ricochet. They make a small parade up the horseway—a boy leading the riderless gold stallion, eight trainers walking two deep around him, and Paolo and Ricochet, bringing up the rear.

  Wasn’t Deirdre supposed to ride breezing runs on Perihelion?

  But she’s already halfway across the horseway, heading toward a smaller building opposite, and I hurry to follow. Inside, there’s a series of empty stalls, each with a metal gate that opens onto a pasture out back, and the floor is hard-packed dirt. The whole place smells comfortingly familiar—hay and horse and yes, okay, manure.

  “This is the outrider stable,” Deirdre says. “Outriders are the fleet horses of the racetrack. It’s not a race day, so they’re all in the pasture.”

  Through one of the stall gates, I can see about a dozen horses grazing peacefully in a single green space bounded by four-board fences.

  “Make sure you do a good job, okay? The trainers know there’s a new stablehand, t
hey know you’re a girl, and they know I personally argued for you to work here.”

  “Got it. Got it.” Thankfully, everything also looks familiar. Straw brooms with crooked wooden handles, latched feed bins, well-scrubbed water troughs, a hayloft.

  “I’ve got business with the trainers,” Deirdre says. “You can figure this out, right?”

  “Yes.” I say it firm and confident. Grown up, like someone who figures things out all the time.

  She nods approval, and it’s as good as a hug. Then she’s out the door, adjusting her helmet as she goes, and after she’s gone, I realize I’m not sure what I’m meant to figure out.

  I haven’t even told my parents where I am. Or that I’ve taken a job without asking them first.

  There’s a shuffle of feet in the horseway outside, and a handful of kids my age trample in. They’re all boys, and they stop as one when they see me.

  “Are you lost?” The kid nearest to me swaggers like a rooster. His boots are dark heartbeat red, like he just walked through knee-deep blood.

  “I’m the new stablehand.” I brace for him to laugh or say mean things, but none of the kids even seems surprised. “Sonnia.”

  “You’re in the right place, then.” The boy next to him is all forelock, like Buttermilk, with the sort of face that seems made to smile. “We figured someone new would turn up soon to join us.”

  Marcel may be the show-off in blood-red boots, but there’s not a ragged cuff or muddy shirt among any of these boys. They’re all dressed to ride in well-made jackets that went on their backs new and breeches that don’t bunch or sag.

  Deirdre said the track stables had different rules than the royal stables, but clearly not that different.

  A redhead who must be Ivar mutters something that ends in girl, and a blond kid at the edge of the group straightens abruptly. The moment we lock eyes, I realize she’s not a boy, even though most of her head is shaved, all but a short section of silky palomino hair on top that slashes over her pale ears and across her eyes. I feel like a baby with my careful braids brightened up with little bows of pink cloth.