She adjusted the stirrup irons to a comfortable length, settled into her seat, and squeezed the horse’s sides. He didn’t budge. She kicked more insistently, but he stood his ground.
“You’re a stubborn, ill-trained horse,” she said.
The horse snorted and walked toward the North Road of his own volition.
“Hey!” Karigan pulled back on the reins. “Whoa. Who do you think is in charge here?”
The horse stomped his hoof and shook the reins. Karigan tried guiding him toward the Kingway again, but he refused. When she let up, he gained a few more steps toward the North Road. She dismounted in disgust. She would lead him onto the Kingway by foot if she had to. The horse tossed his head back and jerked the reins out of her hands. He took off down the North Road at a trot.
“Hey, you rotten horse!”
More horrified than angry that the horse was running away with the important message, she chased after him. He looked back at her as if to laugh and kept jogging for nearly a mile. Then he waited patiently, cropping the grass that grew in the road, for an infuriated Karigan to catch up. When she was just within an arm’s reach of the reins, he swished his tail and trotted off again, leaving her to shout a number of curses in his wake.
The third time, Karigan made no attempt to grab the reins. She stood huffing and puffing before him with her hands on her hips.
“All right, horse. Maybe you know something I don’t. Maybe the Kingway is more dangerous because it’s the most direct route to King Zachary. We’ll try this road for a while.”
At this compromise, the horse allowed her to gather up the reins and mount. He responded to her commands as a well-trained horse should, and Karigan frowned at his duplicity.
“That’s right, you rotten horse,” she said. “Pretend nothing happened.”
He then adopted an uncomfortable gait that jarred every bone in her body.
“I do believe you’re doing this on purpose.”
The horse made no indication he had heard her, and continued on in his ambling, bouncing, potato-sack gait. Karigan clucked him into a canter which was equally jarring, but would make better headway. If foes were on their trail, she wanted to keep as far ahead as possible.
Red squirrels raced across the road before them. “Road” was laughable. It served more as a streambed when the ditches were too overgrown or filled with debris to drain properly. When Karigan reached King Zachary, she resolved to inform him what a sorry state the road was in, and demand that taxes be put to good use in repairing it. Well, maybe not demand. One did not demand anything of a king, but she would make a strong recommendation nevertheless.
Later that afternoon, she slowed the horse to a halt and dismounted. She threw her pack to the ground and searched through the saddlebags to see what would prove useful during her journey. To her delight, she found not only dried beef, bread, apples, and a water skin, but a thick green greatcoat, caped at the shoulders. Though it was a little long in the sleeves, it fit fairly well.
“Now I won’t go cold.” She took the food and water and plopped on the ground for a feast, and groaned. “Am I sore.” She glared at the horse who nibbled innocently at some grass.
After her light supper, Karigan wrapped herself in the greatcoat. She dozed off, and in a dream, imagined that a filmy white figure approached the horse and spoke to him. The horse listened gravely to every word. She heard nothing but a low whisper. Who are you? she wanted to ask. Why do you disturb my rest? But her mouth would not work, and she couldn’t shrug off her slumber.
A nudge on the toe of her boot woke her up. The horse gazed down at her and whickered. It was dusk.
“Are you telling me it’s time to go?”
The horse waited for her on the road.
“All right. I’m coming, I’m coming.”
They trotted along the road again, the flutelike song of thrushes echoing in the twilight. The horse compelled Karigan to ride through the night. It was an uncomfortable ride although his gait lacked its former tooth-rattling agony.
As she rode, the woods and the abandoned road began to take on a new, ominous character. Tree limbs clinked together like old bones, and clouds blanketed the moon and stars. Her breath fogged the air, and she was glad of the warmth the greatcoat provided.
A number of times she glanced over her shoulder thinking someone was following behind. When she saw no one, she pulled her coat tighter about her and tried singing some simple songs, but they died in her throat.
“Can’t keep a tune anyway,” she muttered. She urged the horse into a canter, but still the unseen eyes seemed to bore into her back.
DISAPPEARING ACT
By the time morning arrived, bleak and gray, Karigan rode hunched in the saddle. She was exhausted, but the sensation of being watched had disappeared with first light and she finally felt safe to stop and rest.
She slid from the horse’s back onto wobbly legs and groaned. Riding class had been one of her best, but nothing had prepared her for endurance riding. Too tired to even eat, she loosened the horse’s girth so that he might have some comfort, wrapped herself in her stained blanket, and fell into a deep sleep.
She guessed it was late morning when she awakened. Gray clouds foretold showers to come. She leaned against a gnarled ash tree and slipped her chilled hands into the pockets of the greatcoat, and found, to her surprise, a piece of paper. Curiously she unfolded the crisp, white sheet. It was a letter written in bold script, addressed to one Lady Estora.
“A letter from our dead messenger?” she asked the horse. He blinked at her with long lashes.