Oathblood (30 page)

:You'll get your staring eyes soon enough. Tonight the Bard will let the Lady know you're fit for the High Table, and everyone will be able to stare at you as much as they want,:
Warrl said, a trifle maliciously. He still hadn't forgiven Tarma for the Gate.

Her high good humor was too strong to let a little jibe like that affect her.

She put her tray outside the door and trotted down the hall to check on Beaker and Jodi. As she had expected, Jodi had simply moved in with Beaker rather than trying to make herself understood, figuring that their hosts would get the correct idea when only one room was in use. Jodi was just finishing her own dinner; Beaker had inhaled his and was examining one of the half dozen books that graced a little desk in their room.

“Wish I could read this,” he said wistfully, as he put it down and moved to join Tarma and his partner in the door of his room. “I can speak a bit of their lingo, but the writing's beyond me.”

“You aren't going to have time to read,” she told him. “At least not for the next couple, weeks. Did you see the size of the stables as we rode in? Figure on the sheer number of problem children they've got
^!
”

While Beaker sat down on the hearth rug beside Warrl, using him as a backrest, Jodi's eyes lit up. Jodi was never happier than when she was working.

“I speak the language pretty well, so just let me translate for now,” Tarma went on, sitting tailor fashion on the bed so that Jodi could take the chair. “If we do well here—tell you what, this just might be the long-term position you were looking for. It's obvious they don't know a thing about horse-talking, or they wouldn't be having the difficulty that they are.”

Jodi nodded, pursing her lips. “This is all speculation, of course, but I'll bet that though their foundation stud
did
have a miserable disposition, the only thing wrong with their current crop is that they're too intelligent. They
know
they can get away with misbehaving, so they do. These horses are spoiled, that's what's wrong with them.”

Beaker snorted. “Hellfires, they're expected to misbehave! Expect
anything
out of a horse, and you'll probably get it!”

Tarma grinned, pleased with herself and them. “The big question is, how do you want to play this? Do we demystify our hosts, or do we play this up as some sort of singular mind-magic?”

Beaker chuckled, and ran his hand through his short crop of graying hair. “We don't demystify them unless we decide we don't want to stay here—and right now, I wouldn't mind settling here for the rest of my life!”

On that cheerful note, the three of them parted company, and Tarma stretched herself out beneath a thick woolen blanket with every feeling of contentment.

But the shrill trumpeting of a stallion woke her at dawn, and sent her tumbling out of that warm, comfortable bed with a great deal more eagerness and enthusiasm than she had expected. She followed her nose to the kitchen, where an intimidated servant gave her hot bread and milk, and then followed her ears to the stables, where a battle royal was in progress. And quick as she had been, Jodi and Beaker were there waiting for her.

So was Lord Kemoc, and she took charge of the situation immediately.

“Whoa-up!” she shouted at the two stablehands struggling to get the recalcitrant beast into harness.

“Leave off!”

Startled, they obeyed; she marched up and seized the reins of the horse, a gelding, looking him over quickly to judge his age and guess at the amount of behavioral damage she was going to have to undo. “Stubborn, aren't you, my lad?” she murmured, seeing that he was no more than three with a touch of relief. “Well, I'm not surprised. But you aren't getting away with this nonsense anymore.”

The horse looked at her and snorted, as if daring her to make him behave. She laughed, somewhat to the Valdemaran's surprise. “Lord Kemoc, are these horses ever in harness except at plowing time?”

“No—” came the answer.

She shrugged. “Well, then—what you've got is two problems. The first is that these fellows never get a chance to understand what their job's all about. You shove them into harness, then they get something chasing at their heels for a fortnight or so, then you turn them loose again. The other problem is that you need to speak their language.”

Kemoc's mouth literally dropped open. “We—
what
?” he spluttered.

“You need to speak their language,” she replied firmly. “You're trying to break them, when they're too spirited and too intelligent to be broken, then when they misbehave, you give up. You just need to talk to them, and make them understand that good things happen when they behave themselves. Beaker, show him how to handle a youngster like this one—I doubt he's got too much to unlearn.”

Beaker took the halter of the gelding and led him into a small enclosed exercise yard. Over the course of the morning, he worked what to the Valdemaran probably seemed like a miracle. Using many of the same techniques that Jadrie had used in taming her new filly, he soon had the gelding standing placidly under his harness. But then, instead of hitching him immediately to a plow, Beaker walked behind him, guiding him with the reins as if he were plowing, but without the plow in place; he kept looking back at Beaker in puzzlement, but instead of punishing him for stopping, Beaker simply gave him encouragement. Once the gelding was used to taking his orders from behind, instead of being ridden, Beaker got him accustomed to pulling against a weight—himself, leaning against the harness. Only
then
did he attach a sack full of gravel to the harness and guide him around the yard until he was comfortable with the idea of pulling against something
and
have that “something” right at his heels. Every time the horse began to act up, Beaker went back to the beginning—showing the horse that his behavior was not proper to herd etiquette, rather than punishing him.

Tarma explained what he was doing each step of the way, stressing that it was as important to act on what the horse was trying to tell his handler as it was to get the horse to do what you wanted, but as she expected, the Valdemarans assumed that this was some sort of magic rather than simple common sense and observation. By the time they broke for a little lunch, Lord Kemoc and his stablehands were just about convinced that Beaker was using something akin to a Herald's Gifts. Tarma overheard them muttering about “mind-speech” and “animal mind-speech,” and had to stifle her grin.

They took a short break for a little lunch—eaten, Tarma noted, in a common group that included Lord Kemoc. That boded well for Jodi and Beaker's future. Afterward, she instructed the stablehands to bring in fresh horses two at a time. One by one, Jodi and Beaker took the youngest of the geldings into the exercise yard and ran them through the training routine, only turning them over to the plowmen when they were sure that the horses understood what they were being asked to do. By then, Lauren was nearly beside himself with delight, and Lord Kemoc was eyeing the three outlanders as if he suspected them of far more power than they were demonstrating.

“I still don't understand how you're doing this,” he said, “but I'd be a fool to argue with the results. What next?”

“Next, while Beaker and Jodi keep on with the geldings, I deal with the mares with foals—or rather, I deal with the foals,” Tarma said firmly.

The mares were easy enough to harness up—they were used to being in harness, since they pulled carts and other farm implements all year long when they weren't in foal. They were also not used to being allowed free rein to their annoyance. It was the foals themselves that were the problem, and that problem was solved rather easily. Whenever one tried to nip, Tarma maneuvered quickly so that it nipped its mother instead of the human. Mother reacted predictably, with a squeal and a lashing hind hoof, or by turning to nip her youngster, and the foal was punished for its behavior by the authority it respected, in a way that it understood, and in a way that did not leave it with a fear of the human.

“Now, let the foals walk alongside while you plow,” she instructed the plowmen. “Don't try to separate them from their mothers at this age; they aren't going to trample the plowed earth the way an adult would, and once they understand that mother isn't going to be taken from them, you won't have any more trouble with them. Stop when they need to nurse; they won't take that long. On the whole, I suspect they'll come to enjoy this as a new kind of game.”

That brought them to the end of the first day; fully half of the mares and a quarter of the geldings had worked calmly in harness, and although far fewer horses were out plowing, far more had gotten accomplished on this first day than ever had before. Furthermore, no one had been injured! Lord Kemoc was beside himself with joy, and insisted on having all three of them beside him at the head table, displacing his wife and two of his children. Fortunately, those displaced didn't mind in the least and simply added to the chatter; the whole family seemed to be good-tempered and far less concerned with rank than Tarma had expected. When Lord Kemoc learned that the three of them had served in a mercenary company, he was full of questions, and with Tarma translating, Jodi and Beaker soon had the table roaring with laughter with some of their stories.

:They're doing well,:
Warrl observed, from his place with the family wolfhounds next to the fire at the end of the great hall.
:They're making themselves well-liked as well as respected.:

What do you think of this place?
she thought to him.
Do you think they'd suit here?

:I think they'd fit in like a hand into a well-made glove,:
Warrl replied.
:Lord Kemoc's people are well-fed and content with their overlord, and no one here seems to stand too much upon rank and class.:
There was amusement in his next thoughts.
:I did overhear some of the stablehands though—they think Jodi and Beaker had it “easy” today. Tomorrow they'll get the older geldings, the difficult cases, and the ungelded males. They don't think horse-talking is going to work.:

Well, they're right, but we have more than one trick up our sleeves, don't we?
she replied, just as amused as Warrl.

The next day proved the truth of what Warrl had heard. After Tarma reassured the foals that today would be just like yesterday, and Jodi and Beaker coaxed the young geldings into their harness and plows, the first of the “hard cases” was brought out, rearing and kicking. It took two men to hold him, one on either side, and even then he wasn't what Tarma would have considered to be “under control.”

Jodi took one look, and turned around and went into the stable, but before Lord Kemoc's men could do more than begin to chuckle at her “cowardice,” she had returned, with Graceless and Hopeless in a very special triple harness.

“This lad has a lot to unlearn,” Tarma explained, as Jodi and Beaker replaced Lord Kemoc's two men—and Warrl rose up out of the shadows beside the stable to approach the horse from the front. Never having seen a
kyree,
the horse started and tried to shy, all of its attention on the possible threat and none of it on Jodi or Beaker. As Warrl slowly stalked toward the horse, it backed up willingly, and before the gelding knew what was happening, it was between Graceless and Hopeless. Quicker than thought, Jodi and Beaker buckled the gelding into the harness and Beaker took up the reins as Jodi stood aside.

Warrl turned and loped away, out of sight, and the gelding woke to its situation. Predictably, it immediately tried to kick and rear.

Graceless and Hopeless didn't nip and didn't kick—instead, they
leaned.
They were heavier than the gelding and a half a hand taller, and as they leaned toward each other, the gelding was held immobile between them. They remained that way until he stopped fighting, then they shifted their weight again, freeing him.

He seemed very surprised and unsure of what to do; Jodi clucked to the two mares, and they moved forward a few steps, bringing the gelding perforce with them.
Now
he resumed his bad behavior—and they leaned into him again. A little harder this time, squeezing a bit of breath out of him.

Jodi took the three into the yard and put them through the same paces as before, while Beaker watched. The Valdemarans didn't watch, they stared, with their mouths dropping open.

Tarma took the opportunity to get Lord Kemoc aside. “What's the hardest case you have?” she asked.

“A gelding that stood at stud for a while, and thinks he's still whole,” Kemoc replied, mopping his brow with a cloth.

“Bring him out,” she told him, and went to get Hellsbane and Ironheart.

The chestnut gelding in question needed four men on him; squealing and sweating, he fought every inch of the way.

Bad, or just angry and confused? I can't tell.
There was always a percentage of horses in an inbred line like this that were just—crazed. The only way to tell for certain would be to work him with Hellsbane and Ironheart.

“Turn him loose in that yard,” she said, pointing to a smaller, ring-shaped exercise yard. The men looked at her as if she was crazy herself, but did as she asked.

The gelding entered the yard kicking and bucking, and soon had rid himself of every bit of harness except his halter. That was fine with Tarma; she didn't want anything getting in the way. She let him run and buck in circles for a while to wear himself out; when he finally stopped, so drenched with sweat he looked black, she whistled softly to the two warsteeds, and calmly walked into the yard while the stablehands hissed in surprise.

As she had half expected, the gelding charged her; it was a sham charge—though if she'd turned to run, he'd have chased her right out of the yard. Instead, she stood her ground with the warsteeds on either side of her, and he stopped short, snorting with surprise.