The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

When the brush was clean and the black coat finally gleamed, she stood back and looked at him, and the idea arrived whole.

It was not a thought. It was something nearer a pull, a thread drawn gently behind her breastbone.

”Garrick.”

”Aye?”

”Could I ride him?”

The stable master had been leaning on a post, filling a pipe. His hands stopped.

”Ride him.”

”Yes.”

”Have you ever ridden?”

”No.” She did not lie. ”Not once. We didn’t have a horse in the village. Only the carter’s mule, and I wasn’t allowed near him.” She turned to face him. ”But I want to learn.”

Garrick took the pipe out of his mouth.

”Girl, I’d best be plain. That horse hasn’t let a rider on his back in a very long time. Not since Lord Brannock’s boy was thrown into the paddock fence and lay there for a month. I’ve tried. Four different men have tried.” His mouth twisted. ”If you’re wanting to learn, take the grey mare. Daisy. She’s slow as a church and twice as steady. Or the little bay, he’s....”

Shadowmere stepped forward.

He did not hurry. He put one hoof in front of the other and crossed the swept brick until he stood at her shoulder, and then he turned his great head and pushed his nose against the side of her face.

It was gentle. It was almost courteous. It was the way a person nudges another who has been dithering at a door.

Morgana stood very still.

Garrick stared.

Slowly, he put the pipe back in his pocket.

”Well,” he said. ”I’ll be damned.”

”Garrick?” Morgana called out.

”It seems,” said the stable master, a little hoarsely, ”that he’d like it very much if you did.”

They did not say anything for a moment. A bird sang somewhere out in the yard. The other horses shifted in their stalls and were quiet.

”Right,” Garrick said finally. He pushed off the post and squared his shoulders, and his face took on the particular intent look she remembered from the first morning he had shown her how to pick a hoof. ”If you’re to do it, you’ll do it properly. Hold him there. I’ll fetch the tack.”

***

He brought the saddle himself.

It was a plain one, old and well oiled, with a blanket under it the color of wet slate. He settled it across the black back with hands that were gentler than she had ever seen them. He drew the girth snug, checked it with two fingers, and checked it again. He fitted the bridle with a bit so soft it might have been butter, and he did not look at Shadowmere’s face the whole time, which she understood was a courtesy.

”There,” he said. ”He’s yours. Mind the stirrups when you go up, they’re long. Hold the mane if you need to. Keep your heels down and your back straight. Don’t pull his mouth.” He cleared his throat. ”He knows more than you do. Let him show you.”

”Thank you.” Morgana said.

”Don’t thank me yet.” Garrick replied and took a step back.

She took the reins. Shadowmere put his ears forward and stood still as a carved horse.

She led him down the aisle.

The yard had filled again. Morgana saw them as the great doors swung wide, stable hands and cart-men and the lanky girl with the bridle, half hidden behind the well and the water trough and the corners of the barn. They had not come out. They had simply found reasons to be nearby, and they were watching.

They watched the way people watch a play.

She walked out into the white morning with the reins loose in her hand and a seven-hundred-pound war stallion walking beside her like a lamb. Somebody gasped. A hay fork clattered to the stones. The boy at the well had his mouth open.

”He’s not.....” someone whispered.

”He is. Look at him.”

”Brannock’s boy had a broken back....”

”Shh.” Someone cautioned from the side.

Morgana did not look at them. She walked to the center of the yard, where the cobbles were swept clear and the light fell on the black coat in a long gleam. She stopped. She turned and put her hand against Shadowmere’s flank, warm, and patted him twice.

”Well,” she said softly. ”Here we are.”

The stallion looked at her.

Then, with a slow shuddering exhale, he folded his forelegs, and lowered his great body to the ground.

The silence was total.

He knelt in the middle of the yard like a thing from a legend, head bowed, black mane spilling across the cobbles. Someone dropped a bucket. A hen shrieked and fled. From the stable door, where he had followed her out, Garrick said something under his breath that was not fit for a lady.

Morgana put her hand on the saddle.

It was strange. The leather was warm from the sun, and under it she could feel the whole animal, breath and bone and the tremor of muscle, waiting. Her heart was going hard. But beneath the fear, steady as a pulse, was something that told her to trust.

She set her foot in the stirrup and swung up.

For a moment she thought she would fall. The world tilted. The ground was suddenly very far away. She seized the mane in both fists and clung with her knees.

Shadowmere rose.

He did it smoothly, hind legs first, then forelegs, so that she rocked forward and back like a boat on a swell. She clung. Then he was upright, and she was sitting high above the yard on the back of the biggest horse she had ever seen, and the whole courtyard, the cobbles, the awestruck faces, the sky, was spread below her like an open hand.

She let out a breath.

Shadowmere took a step.

It was slow. Easy. One foot, then the next, a rolling, swaying walk, not too fast and not too slow, as though he were carrying something fragile and meant to prove he could. Her body found the rhythm of it without being asked. Her heels dropped. Her spine straightened.