The Night Ride Read online

  I own one of Ricochet’s hooves. If I do what I’m told and do it well and don’t ask questions, he’ll be all mine by summer’s end.

  That’s the only thing that matters.

  6

  THE NEXT MORNING, I sit on the edge of my bed for a long time. I know I need to get moving. I can smell the cookhouse and breakfast from here—pancakes and honey syrup—but my whole stomach is tumbling.

  I don’t know how to face them. What to say.

  In the cookhouse, after I get a big plate of food, I scan for a corner to eat in, but Marcel waves me over to the table where the stablehands are sitting. There’s already a spot for me when I arrive, between Lucan and Roland. The kids are laughing and talking over each other, asking how I slept, apologizing for how bare the bunkhouse is, pretending to steal one another’s bacon.

  It’s like the Night Ride never happened.

  I eat till I’m full while they tell stories about going on post parade with the outriders, the crowd roaring and the racehorses prancing and the jockeys crouched up on racing saddles like graceful sculptures.

  It seems like a strange way to learn to ride racehorses, but maybe it makes more sense when you’re doing it.

  When we go to the outrider stable for morning chores, I head into the tack room to get started cleaning saddles and bridles. Everything should be stiff and sweaty, put away in the dark last night, but I stop short in the doorway.

  It’s all clean. Every loop of leather is hung up dry and tidy. The saddles perched on their sawhorses, the damp pads in a wicker laundry basket.

  Of course someone sneaked in and cleaned everything. The last thing the junior racing cadre wants is to get caught.

  I go outside to drain the troughs and pump fresh water. Astrid comes to help me, but all I can think to say has to do with the Night Ride. How wrong it is, how dangerous, and she’s not going to want to hear it.

  So I just work the pump and keep quiet.

  I do what I’m told, and that’s barn chores in the outrider stable. Rattling grain into feed bins and shoveling manure out of stalls and the pasture. Curry and comb and pick hooves. Stiff bristle. Soft bristle. Brush and detangle.

  I do it well. None of the outrider horses is Ricochet, but I get to know them, and it’s not long before I love them, too.

  Playful Gladiola, who loves to pull the cloth ties off the ends of my braids while I’m cleaning her hooves.

  Shy, sweet Mandalay, who will nose his big head under my elbow to get me to scritch him.

  Hollyhock, who likes to play keep-away in the pasture when it’s time for grooming. He reminds me of our pony Boris with his cheerful, can-do nature, and when it’s time for trail rides in the afternoons, he’s the horse I choose.

  I will never do the Night Ride, but I can’t pass up any chance to spend an hour or two in the saddle.

  Every day the trail becomes less scary, and I start to notice where the paths go, where giant boulders create bends in the trail, and where the uphill stretches are rocky and where they’re smooth.

  Each time we take different little half-trails, curving around new trees and past different bushes and rocks, but pretty soon I’m not worried. We always end up in the same place—that long straight stretch that leads to the back pasture gate. Besides, Hollyhock knows the way, and it’s not long before I do too.

  “Race day tomorrow,” Lucan says one afternoon as we’re turning the outrider horses into their pasture. “So no trail ride. But the good news is that after the outriders are bathed and braided in the morning, we’re free to do what we like.”

  What I like is going on trail rides, but I don’t say as much. Besides, tomorrow will be Ricochet’s big day, out on the track with Perihelion. Even if I’m not the one who gets to ride Ricochet, I want to see him, and I want to see everyone admiring him. I’ve also heard Deirdre will be riding Perihelion, and maybe she’ll wave to me in the crowd.

  I brighten and ask, “Can we watch the races? Does it cost anything?”

  “Ah.” Lucan frowns like I asked to drink paint. “I guess.”

  I must look alarmed, because he goes on, “There’s no admission fee for track workers and we’re allowed to watch. It’s just that none of us want to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Stablehands either win the chance to ride or we…” Lucan runs a hand through his long hair, then spins it into a knot by his pale neck. “It’s hard, is all. There are ten of us in the cadre, but only six at a time get to go on post parade with the outriders on the track with the racehorses.”

  As he says it, I picture myself on Hollyhock’s back, mere lengths from Ricochet, all of us sharing the excitement of the moments before a race.

  “So do you take turns, or…?” I trail off as Lucan shakes his head.

  “The top six finishers,” he replies quietly. “You ride to win. Or you sit out race day.”

  Cadre is a word bandits use to describe how they ride—in a group, tight together. Seems like the last thing you’d want in a junior racing cadre is anything that makes it hard to stick together.

  * * *

  Race day dawns clear and glorious, and I hurry through morning chores because the stablehands are in charge of making six of the outriders shine. We lead each horse onto a concrete slab near the pump, pour water over them, then towel them off.

  Across the horseway, an army of grooms in royal purple are sprucing up the companion horses. Ricochet is among them, looking as lovely as ever. Paolo spots me and waves, and I slip across the horseway to say hello.

  “Perihelion’s in the last race, along with a gorgeous brown mare belonging to the duke,” he tells me. “Word is that the king has wagered the duke a basket of fine cheeses that Helie will leave that mare in the dust. The duke has put up a barrel of wine.”

  “Really? Not money?”

  Paolo shakes his head. “The king thinks people should watch horses run because it’s exciting. He doesn’t like the idea of wagering on the outcome. There’s a minimum of fifty dinars at the track betting window just to keep people from doing it.”

  Fifty dinars. If I had that kind of money, I sure wouldn’t waste it on a guess.

  Lucan is waving me over, so I say goodbye to Paolo and get back to work. Pretty soon the outrider horses are ready to go. Six kids wearing their best riding gear mount up and join the procession toward the receiving barn, where the racehorses will wait for their turn to run. Ivar is there, and Marcel and Roland and two boys I don’t know well.

  Astrid is among them, wearing her red jacket. All six are having a cheerful debate over which trainer has the most ear hair, and my heart goes pang because watching her makes it all feel so possible.

  I put my hand over my Ricochet coppers in my inner pocket and press them close.

  Sure enough, once the outriders have left for the receiving barn, the remaining stablehands drift in all directions. I wash up at the pumphouse, then head straight for the races.

  The track complex is busier than I’ve ever seen it, and there’s a lively festival air to the place. Dozens of horses from nearby kingdoms have arrived to take part in the races, and it feels like there are ten times as many people. Someone is playing a lute, and there are carts where you can buy candied apples and fried things that smell heavenly.

  I slip past shoulders and dodge under elbows and squeeze myself in a gap near the rail. If I crane my neck, I can see the king in his royal viewing box draped with the city crest. His daughters are there too, one on either side of him, and they’re throwing flowers down to people below. They’re about my age, with black hair in long braids like mine, and I feel a little better about not having a sassy cut like Astrid’s.

  The races are as exciting as I hoped they’d be. Everyone holds their breath as the horses gather at the chalk line, and you jump when the starting bell goes off.

  Your fingers sting as you grip the rail, and you can feel the drum of hooves as the pack comes around the turns.

  At some point you realize you’re
yelling, and everyone around you is yelling, and when a horse thunders past the finish line ahead of the rest, your whole heart leaps because what you just saw was simply, gloriously breathtaking.

  A bay gelding from a neighboring kingdom wins the first race by almost three lengths. He has the look of a cart horse, all raw bones and a straggly tail, but he shatters the competition. The king’s black mare wins the second race, but only by half a length. The anointed sovereign of Mael Dunn leaps to his feet cheering like a prizefighter when she flies across the chalk line. A white mare wins the next race, and a flashy roan stallion the one after that, and then it’s time.

  The last race, starring Perihelion.

  Horses from other kingdoms come out one at a time from an entryway and walk along the track. People applaud and cheer and comment aloud on who has the best chances of winning. I spot Astrid in her red jacket alongside one of them, riding Gladiola, and there’s Marcel on Mandalay.

  But the moment Ricochet steps onto the dirt, I can’t look away from him. Paolo waves once to the grandstand, cheerful, but then he’s all business, keeping Ricochet walking between Perihelion and the crowd, because it’s obvious that Perihelion needs calming.

  The gold stallion is dancing all over the place, tossing his head, kicking air. Deirdre on his back can hardly keep him moving forward, and this only makes the crowd more excited. The cheering and noise get louder.

  Perihelion half-rears, then swerves toward Ricochet. Paolo can’t move out of the way in time, and the horses sideswipe hard into each other. The stallion leaps forward and his rein snaps and he takes off at a bucking canter-gallop that lasts until well beyond the first quarter turn, until Deirdre can lean forward enough to grab the flapping piece of broken rein and Astrid can match their pace on Gladiola and help her bring Perihelion to a staggering, kicking halt.

  The king is on his feet. He’s pressing both hands over his mouth like someone just peed in his cider. His elder daughter is covering her eyes and the younger is looking away like she’s embarrassed.

  Perihelion is whisked into the receiving barn and fitted with a new bridle, but it doesn’t matter. The duke’s brown mare wins handily, and Perihelion comes last by almost ten lengths.

  The crowd cheers its heart out, and nearby the line judges prepare a carpet of daisies to drape over the winning horse’s withers. Deirdre guides Perihelion down the backstretch on his cooling lap. The other horses are well beyond the three-quarters turn, and the winner is already moving toward the victory circle.

  The companion horses are waiting at the gate to the receiving barn, and as each racehorse arrives, they pair off and walk through together.

  Ricochet isn’t there, though, and Perihelion walks in alone.

  7

  NO ONE IS sure how they tell time, but the outrider horses are always waiting in their stalls for morning feeding. They’re allowed to come and go from the pasture, even at night, and walking into the stable every morning and breathing in their horsey smell and giggling at how impatient they all seem is a gift I get every day.

  But today there are only eleven pushy noses hovering over feed boxes. In the pasture, a cider-colored blur shifts in the shelter by the three-quarters turn. It’s Jubilee.

  When I get nearer, I notice she’s holding a foot off the ground.

  I get a hoof pick, then run a hand gently down her leg, lift the hoof, and turn it toward me. There’s a bit of crud, which I gently flip out with the pick, but right away it’s pretty clear what the problem is.

  A crack. By the looks of it, one that hasn’t been treated properly.

  Supposedly there’s an outrider stablemaster, but I have yet to meet him, so instead I find Lucan tossing soiled bedding onto the manure sledge.

  “What do we do when one of the horses is hurt?” I ask.

  His smile freezes. “How hurt?”

  “A cracked hoof.” I gesture at Jubilee hunching beneath the shelter. “Nothing urgent, but it still needs looking at.”

  Lucan’s whole body relaxes. “Right. Sure. I’ll take care of it, okay?”

  I thank him, but it’s hard to go back to work even though horses get little injuries all the time. They’re not exactly careful.

  After breakfast and chores, there’s not much to do till our afternoon trail ride. Some of the boys kick a ball around the empty field in front of the greenwood. Marcel and Astrid like to read. They can sit for hours in the shade in front of the bunkhouse quietly turning pages, and occasionally trading books.

  For kids who are supposedly learning to ride racehorses for the king, the junior racing cadre doesn’t spend a lot of time near jockeys, or the track, or the trainers, or the horses themselves.

  No one has said a word to me about the Night Ride for a while now. No invitations. No pleas. No demands.

  I can almost forget it’s still happening.

  I spend my free time leaning on the four-board fence surrounding Ricochet’s private pasture. There are too many racehorse caretakers around for me to call him over, but no one seems to mind me watching him.

  Ricochet’s not outside today, and when I peek into the barn, there’s a bustle of grooms and horseboys crowding the aisle. They must still be trying to figure out what happened with Perihelion last race day. Mixing him different feed. Giving him more vitamins. Trying out new pairs of blinkers.

  I drift into the horseway. If Ricochet is busy, Paolo will be too. I could ask to join the ball game, and the stablehands would probably let me play, but it feels uncomfortable somehow. Joining them for anything.

  It works so much better when everyone’s in.

  From the road, I spot Jubilee in the shelter. Her hoof is still up. Her nose pointed at the ground. There must be a homemade foot soak that could help—

  “Hey!”

  I spin around at the thunder of hooves. Ricochet is galloping full tilt out of the racehorse barn. He looks terrified, snort-whinnying with every step, eyes wild. Paolo sprints after him, a bridle dragging in the dust, and somewhere in the barn Perihelion is screaming and neighing like Ricochet just cheated at cards.

  I hurry toward Ricochet with my arms raised, trying to get him to slow down. He angles past me and leaps over the four-board fence and into the outrider pasture. The other horses look up, everything from curious to alert to wary, but Ricochet drops into a canter and heads to the far end of the pasture. The others drift away from him as if they know he needs space.

  “What’s going on?” I demand as Paolo trails to a stop in front of the pasture fence.

  Paolo’s shoulders are shaking as he holds a hand to his mouth, and I edge close, concerned. When lane boys cry, they tend to do it in private.

  But Paolo isn’t crying. He’s laughing.

  “Good riddance!” Perihelion’s head trainer is broad like a draft horse’s rear end, and he lurches out of the racehorse barn with a handful of leg wrappings in one fist and a broken lead rein in the other. He flings the scrap of leather into the horseway, in the direction Ricochet fled. “I’ll have you sent to the butchery pens, you nag!”

  I flinch. The constables are always threatening the butchery pens when they check and recheck our pony ride license.

  Paolo steps into the trainer’s way, still giggling. “Come now, you have to admit a horse being bitten on the backside is pretty funny.”

  “Funny?” The trainer twists the leg wrappings till his knuckles turn white. “After what happened at the track? Do you have any idea how bad Ricochet made the king look? A racehorse worth five thousand dinars, losing by ten lengths!”

  But—Ricochet didn’t do anything! Perihelion was the one who collided with him.

  “That wretched animal is finished as a companion horse,” the trainer growls. “I want him out of my barn and out of my sight.”

  Paolo gestures grandly to Ricochet in the outrider pasture. “Already done.”

  The trainer mutters something full of swears, turns on his heel, and storms back to the racehorse barn, where Perihelion has quieted
and the crowd of grooms and undertrainers has grown.

  Paolo turns to me with a grin. “Poor Ricochet. We should give him a treat. It must be rough, being dismissed. Even if the job stinks.”

  I’m not used to someone else caring about Ricochet. Not grooming or feeding him, but how he feels. If he’s happy, or needs attention or cheering up.

  I like it, though. It’s the same as having a friend in common. “I’ll show you where we keep the apples.”

  The outrider stable is dim and cool in the heat of the day. I open the hinged lid of the apple bin and choose several of the small green ones that Ricochet likes best. We cross the pasture, and Ricochet sees us and comes over. Paolo pets and fusses over him in a way I thought would annoy me, but makes me smile.

  “I guess this means you’re dismissed too.” I offer an apple to Paolo. “Need a treat?”

  He laughs. “Nah. Perihelion will have a new companion before the day is out, and that means I’ll have a new friend too. Best get back to it.”

  Paolo takes the apple anyway and tosses it from one hand to the other as he heads toward the racehorse barn.

  “I guess this means you’re going back to the royal stables,” I say to Ricochet as he crunches his apple. “Back to being a fleet horse. But you know what? Everyone should be gathering soon for the trail ride. We could go together, before you head home.”

  Ricochet noses me, and even though Paolo probably already groomed him today, I grab a soft bristle brush and run it over his coat to help calm him.

  “I know you didn’t do anything to Perihelion at the racetrack,” I murmur. “It’s not your fault he lost. Someone’s got to be blamed, though. It’s never someone highborn.”

  When Ricochet seems happier, I turn him loose to graze, and I find some bits to scrub. It’s satisfying, making things in a stable clean and perfect.

  Before long, there’s a chatter of voices in the horseway, and the stablehands appear in their riding clothes.