Part IX<\/p>\n
“It’s a long story.\u00a0 How much farther, do you think, and which will be first, your father’s wagon or the saddler’s?”<\/p>\n
“The saddler’s.\u00a0 Well, the Prince’s wagons of horse feed, tack, and his grooms and saddler will be there.\u00a0 See that pennant?\u00a0 That’s the royal one, so it’s one of those.”<\/p>\n
The saddler, when they found him, had spare halters; they borrowed one.\u00a0 Then he went to work quickly, explaining to Kieri–and Kirgan Marrakai, when reminded that this was the Kirgan’s horse–what needed to be done and why, and what exercises might help even out the muscling of the horse’s back.\u00a0 Kieri and his student, as he now thought of the boy, walked along behind the saddler’s wagon with the horse, now tied to the tailboard, while the saddler worked in his shop, built into the wagon.<\/p>\n
The boy now seemed less angry and fragile than he had earlier.\u00a0 “Why is he using different colors of wool?”<\/p>\n
“Let’s ask him,” Kieri said.\u00a0 “You or me?”<\/p>\n
“Me<\/u> ask?”<\/p>\n
“Surely.\u00a0 You want to know; I’d like to know.\u00a0 You can do it.”<\/p>\n
The boy did ask, and the saddler explained, even handing the boy small tufts of wool to feel: the dark, the light, the softest, the springiest.\u00a0 Several times the saddle went on and came back off the horse, then the saddler said, “Now, Kirgan, time you get up and let me see how it compresses as you ride.”<\/p>\n
The boy looked sideways at Kieri.\u00a0 “If you don’t mind,” Kieri said to the saddler. “I’m a little heavier, and will compress it faster.”<\/p>\n
“Oh.” The saddler looked back and forth at them.<\/p>\n
“It’s all right,” the boy said.\u00a0 “My father wants him to ride him for awhile anyway.”<\/p>\n
“Ah. Well, then.”\u00a0 He offered Kieri a leg up and then walked beside the horse, feeling under the saddle as the horse walked along, seemingly quite calm.\u00a0 “Like you to give him a bit of trot and canter,” the saddler said, and unfastened the halter.\u00a0 Kieri turned the horse out of the line of wagons and trotted him in circles both directions, then cantered, then a hand gallop both ways. The saddler checked again, made one more adjustment, then nodded.\u00a0 “Should be good for today.\u00a0 Bring him back to me tomorrow, after he’s ridden, or any time he kicks up again.”<\/p>\n
“We’ve a walk to catch up with my group,” Kieri said.\u00a0 “To keep our senior commander happy, I’d best ride the horse, but you can tail or use the stirrup leather if you like.”<\/p>\n
“Tail?”<\/p>\n
“Have you never?\u00a0 When you have reason to move faster than walking is comfortable, and not enough horses for all, a horse can carry a light rider, and help along two more at least.”\u00a0 He slid one foot out of the stirrup.\u00a0 “Put your hand there, and see.\u00a0 He will walk faster than either of us would want to.\u00a0 If you were taller, you could hold onto the stirrup leather; right now it would make your shoulder sore.\u00a0 You can also, going uphill, catch the tail and let one pull you along.\u00a0 They won’t kick if the tail’s being pulled–smoothly, not jerking.\u00a0 It doesn’t hurt them.”<\/p>\n
The boy did that, and they passed wagon after wagon, until Kieri saw his troops again, and the prince’s wagons just ahead.\u00a0 They slowed to match them, and Kieri said “It’s our secret, eh?\u00a0 If anyone asks, you’re just good at walking fast,” and when the boy pulled his hand free, set his own foot back in the stirrup.\u00a0 “I suspect many of your friends don’t know about the kinds of wool the saddlers use,” he added.\u00a0 “Now you know some new things.\u00a0 Here’s another.\u00a0 Come meet my sergeant.\u00a0 He used to be in Halveric Company in Aarenis and Lyonya.”<\/p>\n
Over the next few days, the boy asked question after question, mostly reasonable ones, as if he’d been told before that asking questions was unsuitable.\u00a0 Kieri and Siger–and several of the troops–answered as if he were any new recruit or squire.\u00a0 Kieri, remembering himself with Aliam–at first afraid to ask anything and then, in a flood, asking questions all day long and into the night–found the boy far less arrogant than he’d thought earlier.\u00a0 The boy was quick to take suggestions, and Siger treated him like a junior squire.\u00a0 To Kieri’s surprise there was no sulking, no sneering, just a willingness to learn.\u00a0 Why had he been so touchy before?\u00a0 Had it been the other boys, or something else?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Part IX “It’s a long story.\u00a0 How much farther, do you think, and which will be first, your father’s wagon or the saddler’s?” “The saddler’s.\u00a0 Well, the Prince’s wagons of horse feed, tack, and his grooms and saddler will be there.\u00a0 See that pennant?\u00a0 That’s the royal one, so it’s one of those.” The saddler, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,129,73,5],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-2896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-characters","category-excerpt","category-the-writing-life","tag-background","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2897,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions\/2897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}