Black Horses for the King
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Black Horses for the King». Краткое содержание книги:
After his father's death, young Galwyn Varianus is apprenticed to his uncle, who puts the boy to work on the high seas. But horses, not ships, are Galwyn's passion. Luckily, a passenger aboard, Lord Artos (later to rule as the legendary King Arthur), is bound for the great horse fair at Septimania. Risking his life, Galwyn abandons his uncle to serve the gallant leader. Galywn's calming way with horses quickly impresses Lord Artos and his men. But what no one expects is how crucial Galwyn will be to their upcoming battles--as he masters the secrets of the iron shoes that will protect the exotic horses' delicate hooves. . . .
"You've to train men to make the rims," Canyd said thoughtfully. "You've enough work on your hands just making arms an' tools. A man'd have to be sent along with the horses, an' with plenty o' nails, I 'sped, in case a shoe came loose or got lost." His wink at me was significant.
I stared back at him aghast, silently turning my thumb in my own direction.
"And why not you, lad?" Canyd went on. "You've been in on the work since it started." Then he added slyly, "'Tis one way to get to be with Comes Artos, isn't it?"
I know I must have flushed to realize that Canyd knew of my devotion. But that remark settled my future. I was only glad that Alun agreed, grinning at me with his eyes so lost in the folds of his cheek flesh that only a twinkle remained.
"But… but… you've sons …" I began in humble protest. Even if their suggestion was my dearest wish come true, I was surely not the one to be chosen. "And Ratan, your apprentice-"
"None of whom can ride well enough to move with an army, lad," Alun said. "And I'd need them here." He gestured around the forge, with its buckets of arrowheads waiting to go to the fletcher, and lanceheads, and all the farm paraphernalia. "To do what they've been trained up to do." He nodded emphatically.
"Still an' all, you'll have to train up other lads, like our Galwyn here, to know how to make the horse sandals," Canyd said.
"Aye, I will, won't I? But"-and now Alun pointed his thick burn-scarred finger at me-"you'll need to know more than just how to make the sandals. That's only part of the whole."
"Aye, ye'll need to know the foot of a horse, and the leg, and what can go wrong with both. No hoof, no horse."
I rolled my eyes at Canyd for that but he, too, waggled a forefinger at me.
"I know more ways to ease a lameness than stooping legs in water, m'lad, and you'll have to learn 'em all."
That very day at the evening meal, they approached Teldys, with me in reluctant tow, and asked to have me assigned to them for teaching. Teldys had, of course, been apprised of all their efforts to make a horse sandal, and he even came to inspect the pony who wore the first sets.
"You'll be wanting even more iron, then, won't you?" he said with a sigh of resignation. "D'you know how much it costs these days?"
"Any that's spoiled in practice can be melted down and used again," Alun blithely assured him.
A CARTER CAME ONTO the farm one day, bearing a message for me from my mother. It had been written before the winter solstice and was a list of her present dissatisfactions, including the fact that my sister Flora had been married and I hadn't come to be witness.
Salutations to Galwyn Gains Varianus from his grieving mother, Serena, widow of Decitus Varianus, who is in good health despite her condition and who hopes to find you well.
Have you forgotten how to write and read so that you do not answer my last letter and give us no word of you since the scrawl that the carter brought us? You should have paid more attention to your tutors when you still had them. But there are others, surely, there in the north where you say you went, who are able to read and could have written on your behalf. Your sisters have persuaded me, against my better judgment, that it is possible that you were unable to convince your employers to let you come to your sister Flora's nuptials.
As this was the first letter I had received from anyone, I had to assume that a previous letter, containing the news of Flora's imminent wedding, had not reached me. How like my mother to think I could have forgotten how to read and write!
Lavinia insists that you were unable to come- rather than too lazy to make the journey. But surely you know that it would have been your duty to give your sister's hand, as you are the legal guardian of both sisters, though I know you are fonder of Lavinia than Flora but she is the elder and deserves your courtesy. You could at least have answered my letter.
Had you not left the employ of your uncle Gra-lior you would have been given leave to attend a family Junction. Indeed, he was here where you were not, and still displeased that you left his employ so precipitously. I thought you had been raised with more attention to courtesies and I cannot understand why you would distress your uncle who had great hopes for you in his business.
That was certainly the first I had heard of his hopes for me.
We are well enough here, though the winter was cold and I suffered from it badly with my feet and hands swollen with the chilblains you know I always have when I have to bide in an unheated place like this poor little house I must now occupy.
I am surprised, too, that you have made no attempt to see your family since your father's unfortunate demise. At least for the Winter Solstice, when it is the habit for families to come together. Not that we had much of a celebration but as much as I could manage. You would have been comfortable enough in the shed but it was most unkind of you not to come to Flora's wedding. She and Lavinia cried over your absence but I told them what could they expect of a boy who would leave a good position to go the gods knew where with strangers.
I close this now. Vale, your grieving mother.
The letter was both infuriating and depressing. It was true that Lavinia and I had always been the best of friends, but I would certainly have been happy to have attended Flora's wedding, to see her happy. Even if it had meant being in Uncle Gralior's company. Obviously he had filled my mother's head with nonsense. "Hopes for my future" indeed! I was a lot better off with strangers than I had been on my uncle's ship.
I moped over her unkind words and accusations. Begging a piece of vellum from Teldys, I started to compose an appropriate response, not quite denouncing Gra-lior for the mean and brutal man he was but making it plain to her that I was in a much better situation in Lord Artos's service.
Teldys watched me struggling with the letter each evening and finally leaned toward me across the table.
"To your mother, is it?" And when I nodded, he added, "Sometimes these explanations are best made in person. There are those four horses Rhodri's been training for Prince Cador. You go with them and make it all right with your mother. She's at Ide, is she not? That's not far out of the way."
I was very grateful, for I would never have asked for such a favor. And so I went off with Firkin and Yayin to lead the horses. Yayin also had a personal problem this visit would solve: a chance to see his father, who had suffered a bad sword wound.
We delivered the horses and agreed to meet up on the road back to Deva the next day: Firkin went with Yayin.
MOTHER HAD TAKEN a second husband, a nice-enough man, a combmaker who was so skilled that people sent for combs of his making from as far away as Londinium.
His two-roomed cottage, close up against the walls of the old fort, was snug if certainly not what my mother had had when my father was alive. Odran had made every effort to improve the place and had even managed to have water from the old Legion aqueduct piped to a cistern just outside the door, so Mother did not have far to go to fetch the household water.
I was both disappointed and gratified that my mother didn't immediately recognize me. It was my younger sister, Lavinia, who shrieked in welcome and rushed into my arms to weep all over my chest.
"Galwyn, Galwyn, it is you!" Vinny exclaimed over and over. "Mother, it is truly Galwyn! Don't you know your own son?"
Mother blinked rapidly at me and it was not the first time that I thought my mother did not see well beyond the tip of her nose.
"Well, you certainly took your time making your way here," she said, folding her hands across her waist as if she did not wish me to see that she was plumper now. "Your uncle was terribly upset. At first he thought you had drowned at Burtigala and no one had bothered to tell him."