33 Winter, 516 AV Just follow along, just learn the routes, where the grain is, where the tack is, be calm and focus now, no reason to get upset - "Are you all right?" Dovey glanced up, startled out of her reverie. Holly, the sweet-faced groom Serena had sent to show Dovey her way around Windmount, had stopped walking and was eyeing her with concern. "You look worried," Holly offered, fingers plucking at the folds of her skirt. "All sort of puckered up in the face. Is everything - " Dovey smiled as wide as she could manage, lifting a hand to forestall the girl's words. "I'm all right. Thank you for asking." Holly nodded, shrugging, and turned away to lead her new coworker on through the stable hall. "I'm glad, love," she said warmly over her shoulder. "Now if you come this way, the door over here to the left lets us out near the north work arena..." Dovey followed, sighing. It wasn't Holly's fault, of course. Dovey hoped she hadn't given her that impression. It was Syliras - being here alone, what with the newness of it all, was scaring her - and then too, it was being in a stable again. Last time she'd been in a place resembling this one, she'd been safe at home in Kenash. Last time, her mother had still been alive. She swallowed the lump that had arisen in her throat with difficulty, coming through the open door after Holly and into the fierce sunlight of that year's strange winter. Squinting in the sudden brightness, Dovey made out a sturdy gray building a short distance from them which she supposed must be the arena. The doorway was wide and tall, blocked by a solid wooden gate about half the height of the doorframe, and a gangly lad leading a great black horse was presently fumbling with the latch. "Aldwin!" Holly slipped away from Dovey's side and trotted over to the gate. "I can help," she said hastily, "it pushes up from this side if you work at it, you just get a proper hold on Thunder - " All the while she spoke her fingers had been busy, slipping into the gap between gate and wall, and nudging the latch upwards. For a moment, stubborn, it didn't budge; then, with a suddenness that startled Holly visibly and sent her hands slipping from the latch, the bar sprang up and the gate came open. From her position by the stable wall, Dovey saw a horse's soot-black shoulder, formerly pressed against the gate, shift first to the side and then abruptly forward when the barrier swung out of the way. Holly leaped aside, and from somewhere behind the stallion came Aldwin's cry of shock as the lead rope slid from his grasp. Dovey pressed herself back against the stable as the horse surged past her, huge hooves kicking up earth as he ran, trailing a gray-white lead rope in the dust of his wake. Aldwin rushed immediately to Holly's side. Dovey did the same; the girl had fallen in her wild leap away from the charging horse, and now the two other stablehands helped her cautiously to her feet. "You weren't stepped on?" Dovey asked her urgently. "I couldn't see." Holly shook her head. "You?" "No. Is Aldwin - " The two women looked over to the horse's erstwhile handler, who had released his hold on Holly as soon as she confirmed she was unhurt. "Petch it!" he shouted now, scowling up at the cloudless sky. "Petch, petch - Dira take his sire, the stupid clod - Caiyha hates me!" He threw a punch into his hand and huffed. "Oh, stop sulking," said Holly anxiously, "we've got to catch him before he gets into a pasture and tries to fight or mate or something!" "You think he can jump the pasture fence?" Dovey asked, surprised. "Likely," said Holly. "He's a Tiaden, we don't graze him with the ponies. Not all the paddock fences are tall enough to keep him out." "So what do we do?" The three stood in anxious silence for a moment before Aldwin gave a quick nod. "Holly, go for Serena," he said, and without more words Holly took off back into the stable. Dovey looked sideways at Aldwin. "Then we're going after him?" "Come on." And he set off round the corner of the stable. Hitching up her skirt in one hand, Dovey followed at a run. |