Страница 66 из 156
"Aoife, I haven't told anyone about that poem you wrote about Liath. And it was really soppy. I bet everyone would laugh and laugh and laugh when they heard you said her eyes were like two pools of-"
"Poem?" Mathilda said, looking up with interest from the book.
He felt a little guilty about blackmailing Aoife-she'd been using scraps of smooth bark for practice and probably hadn't thought anyone would go to the trouble of picking them out of the Hall's kitchen-kindling box. On the other hand, he was a ten-year-old kid: nearly ten: and she was twenty-one, so it was only fair that he was sneaky now and then. Aoife had been so caught up in composing it she barely complained when Uncle Chuck-her father- made her and her friend stay here on guard duty rather than ride with the First Levy.
"Poem?" another voice from the other loose-box said, even more breathless. "You wrote a poem for me?"
"Hey, I'll tell you about it later, all right, honeybunch?" Silence, and then Aoife rose and came around to the door of the stall, brushing straw out of her dark red hair and off her kilt. "OK, sprout. Just on the meadow, though. It's a couple of hours till di
Epona tossed her head as if she knew what was happening, and tossed it again and stamped a foot eagerly as Rudi and Mathilda started to get the tack ready. The big black mare had the loose-box all to herself, and did even when the stables were full; there were three horses in the next, though. The girl's favorite horse was out with the levy, who had first call, but a good solid cob was available from the remains of the common pool kept for Clan business; it crunched a carrot enthusiastically, and then sighed as the saddle blanket was tossed over its back. They led it ambling over to a mounting block so that they could saddle it.
"Lazy old thing!" Mathilda said, shaking a finger at the bay gelding. "See if I give you any more carrots!"
"Well, how would you feel if someone put an iron bar in your mouth and made you run around carrying them on your back?" Rudi said reasonably.
"But that's a horse's job," Mathilda said. "Look at Epona-she'd put on her own tack if she could."
"That's Epona," Rudi pointed out.
"Yeah," Mathilda agreed. "I think she could talk, if she wanted to."
"She does talk, to me. But for most of them, it's just what they have to do cause we tell 'em to," Rudi said. "What they really like is hanging out with their herd, and eating."
He lifted his own saddle-both the children were using a light pad type- off its rest and carried it over to Epona; she stood patiently while he clambered up on a box and laid it carefully on her back over the saddle blanket. The tall mare seemed to be on the brink of a run even standing still; she was glossy black, her mane combed to a silky fall; she was also sixteen hands, and better than a thousand pounds, for all that she was as agile as the sulky Saladin, now looking down at them resentfully from a cross-timber where he'd jumped when pushed off his equine heating pad. Aoife leaned against a wooden pillar with her arms crossed, chewing on a straw and offering comments as he arranged the straps and buckles.
Epona stood still for it, though, with no more movement than shifting weight from foot to foot, not even swelling her belly out when the girth was buckled on. He didn't use a bit, just a hackamore bridle; Epona needed no compulsion to go the way she should.
Liath appeared a few seconds later, blushing furiously when Rudi made a languishing kissy-face at her behind Aoife's back. The two adults carefully checked the harness on both horses, then nodded before picking out mounts and getting started on their own heavier war-saddles, what the oldsters called a Western type. When the horses were ready they pulled on their own harness; padded jackets with elbow-length mail sleeves and leather-lined mail collars and the brigandines that went over that. The torso armors had a heavy, smooth, liquid motion as the warriors swung them on and buckled the straps on their left flanks, making a subdued chinking sound as the small rectangular plates shifted between the i
"Good job, sprout," Aoife said, ru
"I'm glad I've learned how to do it for myself," Matti said. "Now I'll always know how."
Unexpectedly, shy Liath spoke up with a grin and a joke as she strung her long yew bow: "What don't you have a natural talent for, Rudi?"
"Arithmetic," he said, making his face serious. "I really have to work at that."
The warriors buckled on the broad metal-studded leather belts that held their shortswords and dirks and bucklers, then slung their quivers and longbows over their shoulders; Liath took a battle spear from where she'd leaned it beside the big doors, the edges glinting coldly in the stuffy dimness of the stables.
"Don't forget your plaid, sprout," Aoife said. "And your jacket, Matti. Still pretty brisk out there."
"You're worse than Mom," Rudi said.
"You betcha I am! The Chief lets you get away with anything. Put it on. It's a lot chillier out there."
Rudi rolled his eyes, shrugged, then wrapped and belted the blanketlike tartan garment, pi
I feel sorry jor her kids, when she has them, he thought, then shrugged ruefully. She just doesn't want me to catch a chill 'cause she likes me.
Mathilda put on her red woolen jacket and buttoned it; that was a gift from her mother in Portland, and a really nice piece of weaving-Juniper Mackenzie said so, and she was an excellent judge, being the best loomster the Clan had. Then she proudly added a belt with a dirk.
They all led their horses out of the warm, dim stables; the dogs followed along with their tongues lolling and tails wagging, glad to be moving too. The way to the gate turned right from there, past the hot clamor of the smith's shop with its open front and bearded mask of Goibniu Lord of Iron done in wrought metal and fixed to the smoke hood over the forge-hearth, flanked by the Hammer and the great twisted horn that held the Mead of Life. Rudi's feet slowed for a moment. The master smith was sitting at a bench with drill and punch and file, putting the finishing touches on a helmet shaped from a sheet of steel plate, keeping an eye on his apprentices at the same time. One pumped her turn at the bellows with weary resignation. Another at the square stone hearth took an odd-looking thing like a cross between a spearhead and a spade out of the white-glowing charcoal in his tongs and held it on the anvil as he shaped the crimson metal with his hammer, clang! and a shower of sparks and clang! again and then swiftly clang-clang-clang-clang, muscle moving under the sweat-slick skin of his thick arms, face sharply intent on the task.
Then he plunged it in the quenching bath with a seething bubble and hiss of oily steam, held it up for the master to see and got a nod of approval before he returned to the finicky task of putting in the hinge for one of the helm's cheek-pieces. Another apprentice was doing farrier-work, shoeing a horse- one of the big Suffolks-and looked up from the hoof to wave her hammer, smiling around a mouthful of long horseshoe nails. A wave of heat and the smell of charcoal and scorched hoof and hot iron came out of the smithy, and soap and boiling water and wet cloth from the laundry behind it.