Centauriad 1 - Daughter of the Centaurs (35 page)

“All right. I will do it,” she says.

The Apex places his right hand over his heart, then raises it, palm out toward her. His hand is huge and calloused, and she sees for the first time that an enormous staring eye is tattooed into the palm in bold red and black ink. Malora has seen the centaurs on the mountain raise their palms to one another by way of greeting, but no centaurs, apart from Orion when they first met, have ever raised their palm to her. Hesitantly, she places her right hand over her heart, then lifts it, palm out, toward him.

“Tell me what you need, and it shall be yours,” he says, lowering his hand.

Malora, having dutifully mirrored his action, gives his question some thought. “Well, first off, you must get rid of Gift. The horses hate him, and he doesn’t deserve to shovel their—”

“This goes without saying.” The Apex cuts short her tirade.

Malora continues, “I will speak to the other wranglers and see if any of them is worth keeping, but I doubt it. The horses will be soured on them. And so I will need a fresh batch of Twani to assist me. I know they will be thinking that it is hazardous duty, but with me around, it will be much less so. And apart from the Twanian rig driver I will be training, I will do most of the work. I would like to have West to start with.”

The Apex looks surprised. “Orion’s Twan?”

Malora nods. “He is a good little man. And in the bush, he treated my horses with kindness. He also owes his life to me and I think would like a chance to repay me. He will help me select a group of trustworthy Twani for my staff.”

“Granted. What else?” the Apex asks.

“I will not use a whip,” she says. “I will
introduce
a whip into the training, but only to accustom the horses to its sound. I will not use it on their flesh to motivate them to go faster. They will go faster because I cue them to go faster and because we have agreed that going faster is the right thing to do.”

“You are the wrangler in chief,” the Apex says. “I leave you fully in charge.”

“And we can’t stay in this cave you call a stable.”

The Apex’s eyebrows fly up. “But it is the most magnificent facility in all of Kheiron!”

“Terrible things happened to my horses in this magnificent facility, and I need to get them away from here to a place with no unpleasant associations.”

“But—but it will take weeks to build a new stable,” the Apex sputters.

Malora frowns. “We need no stable,” she says. “Horses are meant to be outside. Find me some flat land with lots of green grass and we will be happy. Also, I’ll need to visit the track where this race takes place.”

“The Hippodrome? I will ask the Grand Provost if this is permitted,” the Apex says.

Malora snorts. “The one who holds out his hand and looks the other way while whips are used? That’s the least he can do, and that is all I will need.”

The Apex looks bathed in relief. “Thank you, Malora Ironbound.”

Malora bites back a smile and dares to say, “You are welcome, Medon Silvermane.”

She watches as the Apex, flanked by Neal and Orion, clomps up a wooden ramp onto a flatbed lorry with a rail draped with the Silvermane colors. Neal pulls up the ramp and winks at Malora, then gives the signal to the driver to start the long haul up to the Mane Way. Pulling the lorry are a team of four Beltanian draft horses, looking, with their gray coats and manes, like half brothers to the Apex. The Apex, his left hand clutching the rail, places his right hand over his heart, then raises it to the crowd that has gathered at the gate. The Highlander centaurs respond in kind. The Flatlanders do not. When Neal shoots them a fierce look, they comply. Malora glances at the flag of Kheiron, flapping in the wind, with the Ever-Watchful Eye on it. She stares down at the palm of her right hand and then lifts it, along with the centaurs, and keeps it there until the lorry has disappeared into the shadows.

*   *   *

The Apex grants Malora a generous swath of land abutting the Silvermane Vineyard to the north of Mount Kheiron, where a small spring-fed lake bubbles up from the ground and makes the grass green and juicy. There is room for the boys and girls to run around and kick up their heels. Malora’s change of status has a strangely buoying effect on the flagging spirits of the House of Silvermane. Despair over Mather’s banishment gives way to a resurgence of hope and optimism.

The Flatlanders, on the other hand, greet the news with suspicion and gloom. It is not that they believe Malora is capable of bringing victory to the Silvermane Stable, but they dislike the fact of an Otherian trainer entering the competition. Malora is inured by now to the disdain of centaurs, whether Highland or Flat. Undaunted, she asks West and the Twanian wranglers to help her construct a big square paddock divided into fours.

Malora divides the herd into compatible groups of four and five, with the stallions separated from the mares. Mares, Malora knows, have a tendency to dominate and sometimes even terrorize the males. Let them visit over the fence line. If one of the mares should come into season, Malora will give the lucky stallion of the
mare’s
choosing an opportunity to expend his passion in a private pen.

Malora chooses three horses to train for the race. Two of them, Butte and Light Rain, are merely backups because there is, as far as she is concerned, only one horse who can win the Golden Horse—the horse of her heart, Max. When
Malora tells Orion and West that Max is the chosen one, they look at her as if she has taken leave of her senses.

“You are joking!” West blurts out.

“That pitiful bag of bones?” Orion sputters.

Malora deals them both a sharp look.

“I’m sorry,” Orion says, “but surely there are more fit candidates among the remaining Furies than this sad, sorry specimen of horseflesh.”

True, Max is far from being a picture-perfect horse, especially by Furies standards. Whenever Max went missing out in the bush, Malora could always find him by following the trail of buzzing flies. More flies congregate on Max’s mangy, scar-pocked hide than on any other horse in the herd. The poor fellow always seems too tired and dispirited to even twitch them away, much less swat at them with his sparse and graying tail. She has no idea how old Max is, but his teeth tell her he is twenty if he is a day. Raw-boned and swaybacked, with a long, narrow head and big, bloodshot brown eyes, Max doesn’t give the impression of robust good health. His rib cage shows and his hip bones jut and he doesn’t always smell very healthy. But all of this is an illusion.

“Max,” she explains to Orion and West, “was the horse I always rode when we were passing through elephant country. If an elephant bull charged, I knew Max could outrun him without breaking a sweat.”

“Is that a fact?” West says, clearly skeptical.

“Max doesn’t just have the legs for running, he has the
heart
for it. Max will enjoy this,” Malora insists.

Malora has the Twani construct a large circular pen. She wants the fencing high enough to create a work space, but
not so high that horses who want to can’t jump it without hurting themselves. She wants no more horses breaking their backs for the Golden Horse.

Years ago in the Settlement, she watched Jayke train horses to pull wagons, so she has some idea of how to go about it, even though she has never done it herself. “It’s a question of easing them into it,” Malora explains to West as she works with Max in the ring on the first day of training. “First, we get him used to the bit, then to the weight of the carriage harness. We will do this gradually. Not all at once. That was the mistake Gift made. Gift was impatient. You have to be patient with horses and not rush them into things. Rushing makes them feel threatened, and you might as well be a predator for all they will trust you. These horses have never had a bit in their mouths or a harness or saddle on their backs. I rode Sky with a bit and saddle, but these horses know nothing of such things. It will take time for them to get used to tack.”

Malora has an audience lined up along the rail, assorted curious Flatlanders, along with Orion, Zephele, and Honus, who has suspended their lessons until after the race. Malora plans to work most days with Max, since Max is where her hopes lie. But she will also work with Butte and Light Rain, and West will always be on hand, observing and learning. West knows that whichever horse winds up running the race, he is going to be the driver. West isn’t especially happy with this plan.

“Not meaning to shirk my duty, boss, but why can’t
you
drive the rig?” West asks.

Honus answers for her. “Because Twani are the rig drivers.
It would cause an outrage right now for an Otherian to participate in the race. The Apex doesn’t want to call any more attention to his stable.”

Malora takes the bit in hand.

This time, it is Zephele who speaks up. “Excuse me, Malora, my darling dearest. I don’t mean to question your methods, which I am sure are wisdom itself, but why do you need a bit at all? It seems needlessly cruel.”

“The bit is not an instrument of torture. It is a means of communication, from the driver’s hands through the reins to the horse’s head through the bit. But the communication should be a gentle whisper and not a shout. Visit the Thunderheart Stable and you’ll see the bit being used to scream at those horses. Anders’s Twanian wranglers pull and saw away at those Athabanshees’ mouths. The horses run fast because pain, from the bit and the whip, prompts them to. But these horses here are going to run because we have asked them nicely and because they like nothing better than running. Just the way Orion asks you nicely to do things, West, instead of thumping you hard on the head to get your attention, like I’ve seen some centaurs doing to their Twani.”

“Orion is a prince among centaurs,” West says.

“West,
really
,” Orion says, blushing modestly.

Malora smiles. “Yes, well, Orion would make an excellent horse trainer. He is gentle but firm, which is the way you have to be with horses. Out in the bush, horses are prey. They travel in herds for protection, and they look to their leader to tell them when to run and where to go. When you have the reins in your hand, you become the leader of a herd of two, consisting of you and the horse. If you don’t tell your horse
what to do, he will take on the role of leader himself and make you follow. And believe me, you don’t want to be riding in the rig when the horse is in charge.”

West shivers and nods. “Got it, boss.”

Max stands in the center of the ring, his nose down in the dust, flies buzzing around him, looking like the last thing in the world he wants is to be in charge.

“He’s so still and lifeless,” Zephele says with a moan of sympathy. “Are you sure the poor dear is up to this task?”

“Horses
like
to stand still. They do it endlessly. It’s the rest of us who fuss and fiddle.”

Malora approaches Max with the harness in her hand. “Try to approach a horse from the side,” she advises West. “Like most prey, their eyes are set into the sides of their head. When you’re this close, they can’t see you head on.”

Max stirs as she approaches. He rolls his eye toward the harness with bleary interest.

“If you have something in your hand, don’t try to hide it from a horse. Don’t try to hide anything from a horse, especially your feelings. Lying confuses horses, and sometimes it even makes them angry … although I don’t think Max could ever be angry with me, could you, old fellow?”

Max pokes his nose into the harness, sniffing it.

“If you wear this, Maxie, old boy, you’ll win the Golden Horse and everyone will adore you and shower you with yams and apples and kisses, even though you smell like the five-day-old carcass of a kudu rotting in the blazing sun.”

“Don’t insult the poor dear!” Zephele says. “You’ll erode his self-confidence!”

Max seems as indifferent to the insult as he is to the bit.
So Malora does as her father did before her—she drops one hand between Max’s ears and with the other hand reaches into the back of his mouth, to a place seemingly meant for the bit, and persuades him to open his mouth. Max swallows the bit, chewing on it thoughtfully as if it were some new exotic delicacy. Malora fastens the harness beneath his chin.

“There,” she says, tidying his flyblown forelock, “don’t you look handsome!”

Max snorts, as if to say,
Let other horses be handsome. I know what’s important. I have character
.

Zephele applauds, and Max looks over at her and nickers.

“I think he likes me!” Zephele says.

“Of course he likes you,” Malora says drily. “
Everybody
likes you.”

Malora attaches reins to the harness and leads Max around the pen. He seems bored but not uncooperative. They walk in different patterns. They start; they stop. They jog and circle first one way, and then the other. When, a while later, Malora takes off the bit, she rewards him with a cold baked yam, and then turns him out in the paddock with Butte and Light Rain, who trot over to listen to him tell all about this peculiar new game Malora is playing.

The next day, which is sunny and clear, Malora goes through the same steps with Light Rain. She is less sanguine about the bit, so Malora proceeds more slowly. When Light Rain resists the bit, Malora rubs Light Rain’s mouth and lips to calm her. When Light Rain doesn’t resist, Malora lets her be and returns later for repeated tries. Eventually, she is able to get Light Rain to take the bit into her mouth.

In the afternoon, Malora brings Max back into the ring,
attaches long reins to the bit, and walks behind him, approximating the position of the driver in the rig. She is careful to always let Max know that she is behind him and not some stalking leopard. She gives gentle tugs to the reins to direct him left or right. She cues a start by raising both reins into the air, and a stop by hauling back gently and dropping the reins. She adds the words “Get up!” to the start cue and “Whoa now!” to the stop, and after many repetitions, he can stop and go on the words alone. He does all this without complaint, although the look on his face is one of pity that she would want to pursue such absurd amusements.