The Night Ride Read online

  I join them in the pasture and put two fingers to my mouth and whistle. Ricochet’s head swivels like I’ve got him on a lead, and he comes trotting up to me. Ears pricked and tail high, like he’s just as glad to see me as I am to see him. His coat is warm and silky under my hands.

  “How did you do that?” Astrid is standing in the doorway, mystified. “Are you some kind of horse genius?”

  “No.” I can’t stop smiling. Astrid called me a horse genius. “But Ricochet and I go way back.”

  “Look at him!” She shuffles a bridle, trying to put it in order. “What a beauty he is! And clearly smart, if you’ve taught him to come at the whistle. Is this the horse you’re saving for?”

  “How—how’d you know?”

  “Simple. Why else would you teach him tricks?” She shrugs and disappears into the stable before I can tell her that’s not what I meant.

  I meant how did you know I was saving for a horse?

  Soon enough, Ricochet is tacked up and I’m on his back and I take a long moment, there in the horseway, to sit with the flood of joy that comes with riding this horse whom I love that’s almost, almost mine.

  I’m not worried that Ricochet will spook on the trail. Fleet trainers lead mares along paths in the greenwood with their foals trailing along so the babies get used to the sound of squirrels chattering and birds rattling the branches. As they grow up, the colts and fillies won’t be scared when things crash or chirr, or when their hooves clack against rocks.

  They’ll be sure-footed and steel-hearted if they and their riders ever happen upon bandits.

  We wander at a lovely walk along the paths, around trees, past boulders, uphill, and across the meadow. Astrid finds a new half-trail that none of us have ever seen, one that’s thick with brush and morning glory, but it’s more exciting than scary. When I’m with Ricochet, I can do anything.

  Ricochet is eager. He’d like to go faster, but I keep him to a walk. He’ll be back at the royal stables by suppertime, and I want to make every moment count.

  “Not for long, though,” I murmur, patting his neck. “Only a few more months. Then you’ll live here. There’s got to be room, and it can’t cost much. We’ll ride this trail every day. You and me.”

  Just the thought makes me smile. How possible it suddenly feels. Possible is not something you’re used to in the lanes.

  When we get back to the outrider stable, Jubilee is gone. I smile bigger as I untack Ricochet, give him a quick grooming, and turn him out. The doctor must have come by, just like Lucan said, and now she’ll be fine.

  Supper is grilled sausages, and I pile three on my plate along with a heap of fried potatoes and a handful of carrot sticks. When I get to our table, there’s a boy I don’t recognize sitting between Ivar and Ravik. His head is shaved and there’s a gold ring in his ear, and his plate is barely visible under a mountain of food.

  “Ah. Hello.” I take a seat across from him, but he only half-glances at me while chewing.

  “This is Gowan,” Astrid says from the other end of the table. “He’s joining the cadre.”

  “In case you don’t stick around,” Ivar adds, and when he smiles, I know for a fact he’s running a pay table on it.

  “Why wouldn’t I stick around?” I ask coldly.

  Ivar gives me a pointed you know why look, and I fight a scowl.

  “Well. How can he be in the cadre already?” I stab some potatoes. “There’s no way he could have taken the test.”

  Ivar shrugs. “Some guys you just trust.”

  My hand freezes with my fork halfway to my mouth. Because when Ivar says guys, he doesn’t just mean boys. He means boys from caretaker families who bring their laundry to the sweatshop where my mother works.

  I slam down the fork, get up, step over the bench, and head out the door.

  The sky is glowing, a thousand shades of every color from red to orange to deep, rich purple. Everything smells sweet and summery, fresh straw, new flowers, honey. I plow down the horseway and I don’t stop till I’m at the outrider pasture. Ricochet is there, already part of the herd, grazing.

  I press my forehead against the top fence rail. Just being near him makes me feel better, and right now I need all the feeling better I can get.

  “Sonnia?”

  Astrid. Standing behind me in a cute pink tunic and trousers. Give her a ribbony headband and she’d fit right in at a townhouse garden party.

  “Don’t listen to that bonehead,” she says. “Gowan’s all right. I know him from home. Come back and eat with us.”

  I snort-laugh. “Why? I’m not one of the guys.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “Of course you are!” I tweak a fold of her tunic. “In all the ways that matter, at least.”

  “Maybe,” Astrid says, “but I earned it.”

  “Earned it?” I growl. “Help me understand how you earned being born in a caretaker family.”

  She laughs. She laughs, and I grit my teeth because I have to let kids like her laugh at me if I want to stay.

  Finally she says, “I shouldn’t have to explain it to you. How lane kids must earn everything twice.”

  “But you’re not—”

  “Scow End,” Astrid cuts in. “By the public rubbish pile.”

  I snap my mouth shut. The red jacket. The nice boots. The pink tunic and cute haircut. That forthright, fleet-footed confidence.

  I was so sure.

  Finally I manage, “I-I won’t say anything to the others.”

  “Sonnia.” Astrid waits till I look at her. “We’re all from the lanes. Lucan. Marcel. Gowan. Every kid in the cadre.”

  “Oh,” I breathe, and it feels like all the air leaves my body because if they’re not from caretaker families, maybe the rules really are different here. Maybe one day, I could be like them in all the ways that matter.

  Only if I stay, though.

  It works so much better when everyone’s in.

  I thought Deirdre chose me special. That I turned up at the track and she remembered the sticky little kid she used to watch.

  “That’s your horse, right?” Astrid gestures to Ricochet, obviously changing the subject, and I can’t help but smile, the way she says your horse like it’s already a done deal but also how she understands that neither of us really wants to talk about Ivar, or what he said about me staying, or how she came by enough dinars for that red jacket, or how she was the one to follow me out here.

  Ricochet flicks his tail again. Tomorrow I’ll come for morning chores and he’ll likely be gone. The outrider stablemaster must know by now there’s a stray in his pasture, and when Perihelion’s trainer calms down, he’ll explain and they’ll call a boy to ride Ricochet back to the royal stables.

  I’ll say goodbye now. I’ll stuff Ricochet full of treats and brush him and tell him how beautiful he is so I don’t have to think about anything harder.

  I put two fingers to my lips and whistle. Ricochet raises his head, then turns and comes toward me, first at a trot and then a canter. When he arrives at the fence, I climb up enough to run my hands over his shiny chestnut back. He turns an ear toward me, which is his way of giving me a hug.

  Astrid elbows me and points up the horseway. The track stablemaster is approaching on a big spotted gelding. Perihelion’s head trainer is with him, and to my surprise, so is Deirdre.

  I jump off the fence and back away a few paces. Ricochet is in enough trouble without me adding to it.

  “That him?” The track stablemaster gestures to Ricochet. I frantically try to catch Deirdre’s eye, but she’s careful to keep her brown pony in line with the others.

  “He’s the one,” the trainer growls. “After what happened with Perihelion, he ought to be made into dog food.”

  White on his forehead, white on his feet.

  The track stablemaster turns to Deirdre. “You want this horse to stay?”

  She puts a hand to her chin like she’s thinking it over. Then she glances at me and says, “Yeah, he’
ll make a good outrider. No need to bother the royal stables.”

  Perihelion’s trainer starts to bluster, but the track stablemaster asks to have a look at the big gold stallion, so the three of them ride on, up the horseway toward the huge fancy barns.

  “What just happened?” I breathe, but Astrid grins and bumps my shoulder.

  “That’s great news for you!” she says. “Runcible gets to stay here!”

  “Ricochet,” I reply, and then it hits me that she’s right and I scramble over the fence to hug him around the neck.

  “You’re staying!” I squeal into his mane. I kneel and press a hand over the hoof that’s mine, then gently run my hand upward over the foreleg that I’ll soon have the coppers for. “We’ll go riding every day. We’ll get to know that trail—”

  The trail.

  If Ricochet is an outrider horse, it won’t be long before one of the junior racing cadre takes him on the Night Ride.

  Flying headlong through the greenwood in the dark, with only the moon to guide his footfalls, urged on by a kid who only thinks to put dinars in their pocket.

  I press against Ricochet, and my twenty-two coppers feel lighter than ever.

  8

  THE STABLEHANDS HAVE no idea why Deirdre might ride with the track stablemaster. They shrug it off like it’s no big deal, how he not only asked for her opinion on whether Ricochet should stay, but he also overruled the trainer of the king’s prize stallion and told him to walk on like he might to an old cart horse.

  The kids are more interested in what kind of pie there’ll be for dessert. Especially Gowan, who barely talks but eats his body weight in whatever’s put in front of him.

  After morning chores, I go looking for Deirdre. She thought she was doing a kind thing, keeping Ricochet here for me, but she has to help me get him back to the royal stables.

  The first place I check is the racetrack, but it’s quiet except for the draft horses pulling the giant metal contraption that rakes the dirt even. A horseboy tells me there’ll be breezing runs later, so I wander the complex while I wait, hoping to bump into her. I walk past receiving barns and troughs and a little window with a small grill of metal bars that must be the betting office.

  Next to the barred window is a big board with a wooden frame. There are six slots running down the edge, each with the name of a racehorse painted on a thin piece of wood and slid inside a metal holder. Perihelion, Maximiliana, Ishtar. Beside the horses are six more slots, which must be the names of jockeys because they’re things like Benno and Felix and Simon. The rest of the board is painted black and covered with numbers chalked in a grid, which I’m not sure what to make of.

  I’m not the best at school, but I can tell that none of the jockey names are Deirdre.

  When the racehorses finally turn up, the jockeys are close behind, but Deirdre isn’t among them.

  I check all the racehorse barns and even try the jockey house, where the lot of them live, but the man who answers the door says she isn’t there.

  “I’m kind of worried,” I tell Paolo as I watch him fill hay nets in the storage shed. “What if she got dismissed the same way Ricochet did? What if the track stablemaster blamed her for Perihelion losing and got rid of her?”

  “Nah,” Paolo replies. “Doesn’t work that way. Sure, Deirdre blew her big chance to impress the king and win a share of a fat purse. It was beyond humiliating, so she’s probably sulking somewhere. She definitely won’t ride in the next race, and possibly the one after that. But the track stablemaster likes her. He’s not turning her out anytime soon.”

  “He—ohhh.” That would explain a lot. Why they were riding together. Why the track stablemaster would ask her opinion, why he’d ignore Perihelion’s trainer, and why the stablehands wouldn’t think anything of it.

  In my mind, Deirdre is still a kid, older than me but too young for things like courting. But it’s been a long time. She’s grown up enough for a sweetheart.

  Although the track stablemaster has the years to be her father, which is more than a little weird.

  One morning after breakfast, the kids don’t head for the field with their ball or toward the bunkhouse with their books. Instead we gather in the horseway, and Lucan is grinning when he tells me, “It’s payday. The best day!”

  For once, I don’t mind giving up time with Ricochet. Today I’ll finally be able to keep my promise to send money home and I’ll own one of his forelegs, unlucky white markings and all.

  We don’t head toward the track’s main office near the entry gate. We don’t go to the betting window where there must be a cash box. Instead, we end up in a dim stable tucked behind the compost heap at the far end of the horseway. The stalls are clean but empty. The other kids fold into a line against the wall in front of a little red door next to a chalkboard covered with feeding instructions. I join them, baffled.

  Ravik is first, and he opens the door and steps up what must be a staircase.

  Ahead of me in line, Astrid and Julian are talking about the Night Ride. Julian is frustrated that he can never seem to finish higher than fifth.

  “You ride timid,” Astrid tells him. “You can’t be afraid. Fear makes you doubt yourself, and that means your horse will too.”

  “Benno said that as well,” Julian murmurs. “He said I’d be out of the cadre if I can’t make the pay table interesting.”

  Astrid snorts. “You know Benno can’t just decide that, right? He’s a greedy jerk, and he’s trying to scare you.”

  “It’s working!” Julian’s voice warps. “I can’t get kicked out. I just can’t.”

  Father sounds scared like that when he and Mother are short on the rent. They agonize over what to pawn—Grandma’s locket? Our winter quilts?—or we go without food for as long as it takes, because the landlord will not hesitate to turn us all out on the street if we’re even a day late with the coppers we owe.

  Marcel sounded excited for the Night Ride. Ivar jangled his winnings at me.

  It never occurred to me that the kids may only be doing it because they have no choice.

  “That’s got to be why Gowan’s here,” Julian whispers. “Benno doesn’t make threats.”

  Astrid puts a comforting hand on Julian’s shoulder. “Trust me. You’re not why Gowan’s here.”

  She cuts the smallest glance at me and my throat goes tight.

  “Maybe you should pick a different horse,” Astrid goes on. “Maybe that would help.”

  Not Ricochet. Choose him and I’ll—

  I’ll what? I scuff my heavy work boots against the concrete floor. Beat Julian up? That might work once, but it would make Deirdre look bad and I’d be dismissed from the cadre and there’d be no one to protect Ricochet from the Night Ride.

  “No one will choose him,” I whisper. “He doesn’t know the trail.”

  Yet.

  One by one, kids come down the stairs and drift out the stable door. They all look happy, even Gowan, who hasn’t worked long enough to earn much pay. Since I’m last in line, I’m alone in the stable when Ivar goes upstairs. When he returns, he smiles at me, slow and sly as if he knows something I don’t.

  I ignore him and climb the narrow, rickety staircase. It’s dim and steep, the steps noisy like chickens an hour past their feeding time. At the top, there’s a tiny landing, barely big enough to balance on, and a curtain made from feed sacks stitched together with hay twine.

  I tap the doorframe and say, “Hello?”

  “Come in.”

  I was expecting a beaky-nose underling from the purser’s office, or maybe the outrider stablemaster. Not the girl who threaded ribbons through tiny Greta’s toes to keep her busy while she showed Torsten and me how to peel an apple in one long continuous delicious strand.

  When I push the curtain back, Deirdre is perched on a fruit crate with a metal strongbox on her knees. She’s wearing riding clothes, and her hair is braided back tight, like she’s about to put a helmet over it.

  I think my mouth is frozen
open.

  Deirdre smiles. “You’re still here. I like being right.”

  Everything about her is approving. It warms me like a coverlet made of afternoon sun.

  The room is barely big enough to turn around in. There’s a window cut into the wall, but no frame or glass in it. The saw marks are still on the wood, and it’s not anything near a perfect square. There’s a pile of blankets, an apple crate, and something that once may have been a chair.

  “I knew you were a good bet.” Deirdre flips open the cash box and gestures for me to hold out my hands. There’s the soft, musical plink of coins and her fingers are warm where they brush mine, but when she pulls away, there’s a bronze half-dinar coin and a scattering of coppers.

  Greta’s always teasing me about my figuring, but even I can count, and this is not what I was promised.

  “So…” I’m trying to find a way to say this nice. “You told me that I’d earn three hundred coppers a month.”

  “I also told you it would cost to stay here.”

  My stomach drops. I poke through the coins in my hand, but they are blurry and there’s too much figuring.

  She did tell me it would cost, but if I’m honest, that part galloped right past because all I could think about was Ricochet.

  Deirdre puts aside the strongbox and stands up. At first I think she’s going to hug me, but she gets right in my face and growls, “You have your own room. Dry. Comfortable. With a lock on the door. Yes?”

  It stops me. I never once worried about the door to my house. My father was there, and Torsten.

  Unless that’s not the door she means.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Good food, as much as you want, three times a day. Second helpings. Thirds. Meat at every meal. Fruit and vegetables. Not squishy or rotten, either.” Deirdre folds her arms. “And you’re complaining.”

  “You told me I’d get three hundred coppers a month. Bed and board can’t cost so much that this is what’s left.”

  “You’re mad about the money?” She puts a hand to her forehead, then whips it away quickly. Her face is a mask. “You know what? You should go home, then.”