The Emperor's New Pony (18 page)

Race training, to Ranin’s surprise, proved truly enjoyable. There was only one gait to worry about, the gallop—which was for the fillies simply a run—and only two things needed mastering: keeping the team in step and turning when Ranin wanted them to turn, with the inside girl, Edera, moving very differently from the outside girl, Melisan.

Chariot racing with horses depended on strength and speed, but with human fillies the contest concerned only precision. His girls did have to exert themselves, and the light chariot that he rode behind them did sometimes travel with some pace, but victory was a matter of making fewer mistakes than the other team. Many challenges confronted Ranin in trying to put on the show the emperor required, but unlike the tests of imperial standard horsemanship, the difficulties of chariot racing could be solved physically, by devising the proper training program for his fillies’ bodies, rather than having to memorize endless patterns of movements and stations.

And since the day in the imperial ring when they had, to Ranin’s astonishment, attained standard five of the manual of imperial standard horsemanship, according to which a single fault is permissible in the execution of all twenty-four tests, he and Edera had thrown caution completely to the winds in carrying out their trainer-filly liaison. When they reached the stable door, after walking there on legs shaky from all they had done upon the mounting saddle, Ranin picked Edera up in his arms, harness, bridle, tail, and all, and carried her up to his tiny chamber. He felt he could do nothing else: he must lie with her on a bed, any bed—even his little pallet—and look into her eyes and kiss her for hours.

He laid her down and took off her bridle, her harness, and her tail. He laid himself down next to her in the narrow space of the bed, and put his arms around her as she shivered with aftershocks from the events in the ring. Ranin had no intention of renewing amorous pursuits, but she whispered, “Soothe me, Ranin?” and of course he could not refuse the girl who had just saved both of them. So he had put his hand down tenderly, and let Edera sob out her climax into his chest, her fists holding tight to the homespun fabric of his tunic, her eyes closed and her face puckered into an expression that looked so much like suffering that he stopped for a moment and whispered, “Am I hurting you, my love?”

But Edera moaned, opened her eyes, and said, “Don’t stop! Please…” Ranin began again, and she cried out, “Gods!” Her eyes closed, and she arched hard against him on the little pallet. He kissed her over and over, frantically, until she giggled and buried her face in his tunic.

Finally, she whispered, “Ranin, what’s standard five?”

He stroked her cheek gently with the backs of his fingers. “It’s the highest standard of imperial chivalry. It means executing all twenty-four tests with no more than a single fault.”

“And I did that?”

“Yes, my wonderful filly, you did. When you missed that step in seventeen I thought we were finished, because I expected you to turn the wrong way in twenty-three.”

“Why would I turn the wrong way in twenty-three?” She giggled.

He felt he had to do something to reward her for that lovely, light-hearted giggle, so he taught her how to ride astride his face, facing his feet, while he, for the very first time, kissed her and tasted her there where he had ridden her over the mounting saddle. Ranin knew then that nothing could ever smell, or taste, as wonderful as the muskiness of her loins from the exercise in the ring and on the saddle, as she cried out the passion of mounting her trainer that way. To make sure she remembered that she was a filly and not a trainer, he took her arms and held them fast behind her, as she posted over him, so that it was Ranin who controlled her motions over his lips and made her cry out her submission.

Needing his own release, he stopped her halfway through and said, “Open my cock flap, my love, and take me in your mouth.” With a grateful, submissive whimper, she obeyed him. Only when she had swallowed his seed like a good filly did he allow her to have her own climax.

From that day, when she had been very good in the traces of the chariot, Ranin rewarded her in that fashion, back in her stall. Edera loved the feeling of his lips and tongue there so much that he could command her attention on the racing practice course merely by saying, “Filly Edera, keep that gait even, or there will be no reward for you this evening.” Then, later, he himself would lie upon his back in the straw so she could crouch over him, facing his feet, her harness, bridle, and tail all still on because, she had shyly confessed, “I rather like it that way, and I don’t have to worry about making so much noise the others will know.”

The others did know, of course, and wished them joy. Melisan, Adilan, and Alira all had knights of their own now. Even Melisan confessed that she thought certain parts of life as an imperial filly lovely: her knight was quite wealthy, and had told her that if she bore him handsome Aurian-looking children, he would keep her in style. Alira’s knight was trying to get her with child now, and Alira adored his rough way with her. Adilan’s knight was quite tender, it appeared, and had even promised to buy her from the emperor and marry her.

Sir Lennar had not been sent into the galleys. Lord Haq had taken him into the imperial knights, Ranin had heard, along with the other knights of honor guard.

The lessons with the tutor Master Ropiq had broadened all four Amidian girls’ minds in a way Ranin found almost alarming. The traditional Aurian way of women’s education kept them in ignorance of such things as politics, but in the stable schoolroom the boys sat on the left and the naked girls on the right, and Master Ropiq gave both sides a political education that would allow any of his pupils to navigate the treacherous waters of the imperial bureaucracy. Ranin had begun to attend the lessons to make sure Edera was left unmolested, but he continued even after he had reassured himself on that score, to learn the ins and outs of life in Maq. And Ropiq was a wise man, as well—Ranin was not sure, but thought it likely that the elderly tutor was in fact the leader of the conspiracy whose most junior member Ranin had become.

Edera’s intellect blossomed under Ropiq’s instruction, too, in a way her Aurian tutor had never succeeded in fostering. Part of the reason for Ranin’s anxiety was that his princess’ political education seemed to him to come along too fast, and in a way that might endanger them both.

One day in that twelfth moon, when they were in the midst of the race training and the Moon Festival loomed only a week away, Ropiq gave a lesson in the imperial succession. Ranin could see that nearly all the boys, and all the fillies except for Edera, found the lesson extraordinarily boring.

It was highly unusual for one of Master Ropiq’s lessons to be boring, and as the old man droned on about pedantic questions of heredity and heraldry, Ranin began to wonder whether Ropiq might be intentionally lulling the stable boys and the fillies to sleep. He kept looking pointedly at Ranin himself, and occasionally at Edera, as he made certain points about what would happen should any question arise about the validity of an heir’s claim to the imperial throne.

“If,” he said, “a doubt should be proven concerning the legitimacy of all the emperor’s heirs, the succession would pass to the cadet branch of the house of Qol.”

He paused, as if to make sure that Ranin paid close attention, then continued, “It seems absurd to contemplate, but none other than Lord Haq is the sole remaining man of that house.” Ropiq accompanied this last point with a long look into Ranin’s, before he passed on to talking about the ceremonial of the imperial coronation.

Why had Ropiq wanted Ranin to know about Lord Haq’s place in the succession? Lord Haq could not be part of the conspiracy, could he? The time Ranin had observed Lord Qartin talking to Lord Haq, when Edera herself had, to his dismay, seen the conversation and remarked on it, Ranin had been sure that Haq could not be involved, for Qartin would never risk being detected conversing openly with another conspirator.

Master Ropiq must be telling him that as the heir, Lord Haq had the most to lose if a conspiracy should be detected without Haq himself doing the detecting—and of course that he would do everything in his power to ferret out whatever conspiracy there might be against Comnar. That must be it, Ranin thought, his confidence increasing. Haq was clearly besotted with Salana of Muad, his filly. Comnar’s imperial stable system gave Lord Haq the life he clearly loved as lord chief marshal of Maq, and the man who mounted the second most beautiful filly—as Ranin reckoned it, anyway—in the stable whenever he chose. When he wanted to, he could even marry her.

But why did any of that matter? Comnar’s three sons were safe with their mother in Shaqor. Then Ranin remembered the rumors about those sons. It was said that they all looked very much like Comnar, but even more like Qolana. And what was it Master Ropiq had said just before he talked about what would happen in case of a question of heredity? Hadn’t it been that imperial custom denied all possibility of female succession? So if there were a way to prove that Comnar’s sons were not actually his, the throne would go to Lord Haq.

Then Ranin thought of the thing that had always struck him as perhaps the strangest about the imperial stable: the way that the emperor never mounted the fillies. The official version was that the wisdom of Comnar dictated that he show his lords and knights his selflessness in letting them have the fillies, and at first Ranin had thought it plausible: by providing the stables as a charitable, if twisted, service to his court, Comnar ensured their loyalty. But now, with Ropiq emphasizing possible problems in the succession, Ranin began to wonder.

Ranin realized that Master Ropiq had fixed him again with his watery blue eyes. “And if anything should happen to Lord Haq,” the tutor said, “the succession would be entirely unclear and the resulting chaos could well lead to an utter transformation of the government of the empire. Master Versal here will have to be very careful when he races his Amidians against Lord Haq’s team at the Moon Festival.”

The few pupils who were paying attention laughed at that, for how could a chariot race of fillies present any danger? But suddenly it all came clear to Ranin. When the time came, he would be ready. But Edera had also clearly grasped something of what had passed, and though Ranin managed to get her to stop asking questions without having to deliver another spanking, he still felt very uneasy at how much she sensed of the dangerous plans that took shape around them.

The training at least took Ranin’s mind off such weighty matters while it was underway, for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening, with Master Morqan standing in for Lord Haq in the Hadian chariot most of the time. Ranin could lose himself in matters of calculating how many steps Melisan, on the outside, must take on a turn made on various parts of the track, as opposed to how many, on the inside, Edera must take. Nor was it a dry calculation, but it had to be made on the fly in the chariot, holding the traces in his hands, depending on their speed and the position of the other chariot, and then, in an instant, he had to call out to his girls and use the traces to help them understand, while he plied the quirt lightly on their beautiful bottoms both to help their timing and to put on the show he knew the emperor and the crowd would enjoy.

Morqan clearly loved the race training himself, and for the first time since coming to Maq, Ranin found he had a friend to talk to over a cup of wine in the evening. No word passed between them that had anything to do with a conspiracy, or even politics. Their talk was of the day’s racing, laughing hard at their own and each other’s mistakes and evaluating the gaits and strengths of their various fillies. And they talked of real horses: Ranin had never thought he would find a man outside Amidia who understood horses as well as Ranin himself did, but Morqan’s skill with human fillies came from lessons learned in the old imperial cavalry, and each man had an inexhaustible font of tales to tell of mounted warfare and of the hunt.

That the Amidian fillies and the Hadian fillies had become fast friends made one of the most enjoyable aspects of the race training for Edera. On the morning of the day of the Moon Festival, Masters Ranin and Morqan (Edera loved thinking of Ranin as ‘Master Ranin’) exercised the teams only lightly, and then let them sit, out of harness, in the yard, and gave them permission to talk.

Edera loved listening to the Hadian girls talk: their musical accents and their bawdy conversation seemed utterly different from the way anyone else she had ever known had spoken. Melisan and Adilan were always blushing and giggling when the Amidians and the Hadians talked—well, in truth Edera and even Alira would blush at some of the things the dark-skinned girls said.

“Edera-love”—the Hadians called all their fellow fillies “Edera-love” or “Melisan-love”—said Me’kor, the team leader who raced on the inside, just as Edera did, “did we hear you getting a little reward last night from that Master Ranin of you’s?” Me’kor and the others always made little grammar mistakes like ‘you’s,’ something Edera considered part of their charm.

“Did she ever!” Alira said. “How many times did you come, Edera?’

“Alira!” Edera exclaimed, feeling herself turn crimson. She expected this sort of thing from Me’kor, but to have Alira join in was too much. Still, she supposed it meant that Alira, like Edera, had become comfortable with the life of a filly, and with the Hadians in particular.

“What does he do, Edera-love?” Me’kor asked slyly. “Does he put that handsome face of he’s down there where it makes you flow?”

“Me’kor!” Edera giggled. “I… alright, yes.” She loved the deliciously naughty feeling she got talking about matters of love, and she loved Ranin so much, and the way he had with her body—well, her loins, especially.

“How does he do it, then?” Me’kor pursued. “Does he sit on he’s stool and have you bend down in front of him?”

Melisan and Adilan started to giggle at that, as if it were outlandish. Edera had actually never thought of the posture Me’kor suggested, and she felt herself growing warm between her thighs as she pictured it.