The Night Ride

by J. Anderson Coats

  I follow Father into the house. He stands near the doorway, too polite to ask outright, and my face feels hot as I put the soap flake bag on the table and step back, away from the soft, empty way the cloth folds over itself.

  Father reaches for the bag and his hand comes up fast, like he expected it to be heavier. I want to tell him, but I don’t know how to explain without feeling like an absolute fool who agreed to something without learning the full terms of it.

  Greta pushes the door open with her backside while swinging in a full bucket of water. When she sees me, she grins and squeals, “You’re here! Did you bring coppers? Like you promised?”

  It hits like a cold spike of wind, but I manage a smile and reply in my best teasing voice, “Hello to you, too. I’m well. Thank you for asking.”

  Father has poured the coins into his hand. They fit in one big, work-roughened palm. I try to catch his gaze, but he’s not looking up.

  Greta lowers the bucket by the fire and bounces over. “Let me see. They wouldn’t have given you a hundred and fifty individual coppers. Or maybe they would. It’s not like you’re good at counting.”

  She says it playfully, teasing back, but I know exactly what Father has in his hand, and it’s not what any of them are expecting.

  One glance at the coins, though, and Greta’s eyes come up incredulous. “This is all you’re giving us? What happened to a hundred and fifty coppers?”

  “It’s all I have!” I protest. “I had to pay for room and board.”

  “Sure it is,” she mutters, “after you made sure you kept enough for a fetlock. Or do you have enough for a shin now?”

  “It’s not like that!”

  Greta sighs and shakes her head, then trudges to the bench by the fire where she sits with her back to me and doesn’t reach for a book. Usually she’s reading something thick and heavy that she borrowed from Mistress Crumb, but the little shelf where she keeps books safe is empty.

  “Is it true?” Father asks me. “Is this really all the money you earned? You didn’t keep some back for Ricochet?”

  “Yes! It’s every last copper they gave me. I swear!”

  Father tips his big hand so the coins clink. “I’ll have to speak with your mother, then. I don’t see how this can continue.”

  “What?” I gasp. “Father. No. I can’t quit. I won’t.”

  “We agreed you’d send home enough coppers to cover your share of pony rides. It’s not fair to expect your sister to do all the work while you spend time with Ricochet.”

  “But that’s not—how can you—” I lift my chin. “You expect me and Greta to help out, but Torsten got to leave. How is that fair?”

  “Your brother received an invitation to royal service,” Father replies, and there’s a note of warning in his voice. “Torsten isn’t just a stablehand. He’s a stablehand for the king of Mael Dunn.”

  Father doesn’t mean it to sting. It does, though. Both of us know Master Harold had one big ask, and he’s known my brother and sister and me our whole lives. Master Harold knows Greta loves books and Torsten loves solving puzzles, and I’m the one who wants nothing more than to spend every moment of every day with horses—riding them, currying them, even shoveling up after them.

  He knows Greta should be a teacher and Torsten should be a magistrate, and I’m the one who belongs in a stable.

  Master Harold had one big ask, and there’s no reason he couldn’t have asked for me.

  Except for all the reasons he couldn’t ask for me.

  “I’m not just a stablehand either.” I watch my coins disappear into my father’s pocket, and what comes out of my mouth is “I’ve been invited to join the junior racing cadre and learn to ride racehorses for the king.”

  Greta turns, hooking an elbow over the back of the bench. She seems interested in spite of herself. “You’re kidding. Really? You’re going to be the next girl jockey? So they’ve got you doing schooling races?”

  I must look as confused as I feel, because she goes on, “That’s when you ride a real racehorse on a real track, with trainers watching to judge your form and give you pointers.”

  “Well, no, but…” I stop because I sound clueless. I have no idea what jockey training would look like because the junior racing cadre spends more time on trail rides and cleaning leather than it does anywhere near the track.

  “Surely they’re at least showing you how to sit a racing saddle?” Greta sounds excited now. “How to balance? How to change leads around a turn?”

  “What do you know about it?” I snap.

  “I read books now and then?”

  Greta rolls her eyes like it’s obvious and turns back toward the fire, but my heart is skidding all over the place because, as usual, she’s right. If the junior racing cadre is supposedly learning to ride racehorses for the king, there’s only so much they’re going to gain from trail rides.

  “Your mother will be home soon,” Father says. “We’ll discuss this over supper.”

  He says it like the matter is closed, and I have the sudden, certain feeling that Mother will agree that I should come home and go back to giving pony rides. Walking in a circle, going nowhere, leading ponies while other kids ride.

  I edge toward the door. “You know what? I need to go. It’ll be time for evening chores soon. I love you both, and Mother, too, and I’ll send more coppers when I have them. Bye.”

  “Sonnia. Don’t you dare walk away from—”

  But I’m in the lane, then around the corner, fumbling for a toll road token, moving from a trot to a canter when I hear Greta yelling my name. I mutter a curse, but I slow to a walk so she can catch up.

  “Wait.” She’s panting. She does more reading than running. “Father’s right. It’s not fair.”

  My sister’s nose is peeling. Her braid is falling apart, like it’s been several days since she took it down and ran a brush through her hair.

  “I can’t just not show up for chores,” I tell her. “People at the racetrack are counting on me. You know how horses are.”

  Greta’s face goes hard. “Right. Ricochet. Precious, darling Ricochet. What could possibly be more important than him?”

  “It’s not that!” I can’t look at her, though. “I made a promise.”

  “You made a promise to Mother and Father, too.” She kicks at the mud. “You made a promise to me.”

  I keep walking. Fast, head down.

  Greta trails to a stop. “Okay. I get it. You win.”

  She turns and heads home without looking back.

  I’m left in the middle of the street with nothing I can say. No way to make it better, for Greta or for me.

  Even though I have a whole pocketful of toll road tokens, I take the lanes back to the racetrack. They curve and twist and dead-end into one another, but while I’m walking through the guts of Mael Dunn, I’m not anywhere. Not home. Not at the track.

  Somewhere I’m not disappointing anyone.

  When I was small, I wanted so badly to be like Deirdre. She could reach high shelves and fix broken toys. She could persuade shopkeepers to give us palmfuls of cookie dust and bruised fruit. There was nothing she couldn’t do.

  They probably tell you it’s foolish, right? Wanting something so big? So unimaginable?

  No one has to tell me. I already know.

  By the time I get back to the bunkhouse, I’m not upset anymore. Just the kind of bone-deep tired that whispers how giving up makes sense. At least pony rides are a sure thing. After a while I can buy some candy sticks. Maybe a decent pencil for school.

  I hug Ricochet extra long at evening chores and go to bed early. I’m not even that tired. I’m just ready for today to end.

  It’s the blackest part of night when I blink awake to rapping on my door. Knuckles, fast and urgent.

  Lucan. His outline is cut sharp from the moonlight streaming through the bunkhouse window.

  “Ivar’s saddling Ricochet,” he says in a low voice, and he’s back up the hallway and out the do
or before I fully reckon it.

  It’s the middle of the night. If Ivar is planning to ride Ricochet, there’s only one reason for it.

  10

  I CATCH UP to Lucan in heartbeats, then pass him. I’m running full out, and each step I take fills me with more rage.

  A mounted shadow crosses the horseway, its hooves muffled by dirt. It’s moving with intent toward the field where the trailhead is. There’s a few more shadows near the outrider stable. Marcel. Astrid. Gowan. Bertram.

  But I pass them all and head straight for Ivar.

  Sure enough, Ricochet is crosstied in the aisle and Ivar is tightening the saddle girth. He’s dressed in black riding silks and seems made of darkness. Ricochet nickers when he sees me, and I force myself into something like a state of calm. Horses can tell when people are upset and they’ll act accordingly.

  “Put my horse away,” I say to Ivar in a low, even voice that’s much less violent than I feel.

  “Your horse?” Ivar smirks as he tightens a strap. “Last I heard, you were scrounging coppers still. So I’m riding him tonight.”

  He reaches for the bridle lying over a nearby half door, but I yank it away. The bit jangles against the rings and Ricochet tosses his head, grunting.

  “No one’s riding tonight,” I growl.

  “Sonnia.” Lucan pauses in the doorway like he’s worried something will explode. “The moon’s up. The pay table is set. The Night Ride will be starting soon.”

  I glance at the horseway lit silver. Deirdre couldn’t have misunderstood what needs to happen.

  “People are coming right now to put a stop to this,” I tell them. “If you don’t want to be caught taking one of the king’s horses without permission for an illegal, dangerous race, you may want to go back to the bunkhouse.”

  Ivar cackles. “Yeah, I doubt that.” He steps around us and disappears into the tack room. He’s going to get another bridle. One Ricochet won’t be familiar with.

  “You’re not hearing me.” Lucan steps closer. “The Night Ride is happening with you or without you.”

  I put a hand on Ricochet’s side. His muscles are drawn and he’s whuffling like he does when it’s time to run. On the exercise course at the royal stables, there was a stretch where I’d give him his head and away he’d go, as fast as he wanted for as long as he wanted.

  Ivar reappears with a bridle. Ricochet has only been on the trail a handful of times, and Ivar doesn’t like to lose.

  I can’t wait for Deirdre.

  Before Ivar can get near, I shake the bridle in my hands into shape, slide the bit into Ricochet’s mouth, settle the straps, and swing onto his back. He dances into the horseway, tossing his head. Eager to go.

  “Benno’s always complaining that the pay table isn’t interesting enough,” Astrid says with a grin as she appears next to us on Mandalay. “You riding ought to make him happy.”

  “Isn’t Benno a jockey?” I ask. “What can he—why—?”

  “Come, I’ll show you where we line up.”

  I can’t do this. It’s too dangerous.

  “The rules are simple,” Astrid says as we leave the horseway. “We line up in the field. Last Ride’s winner drops a handkerchief. When it hits the ground, you go. Same trail we ride every day, so no surprises.”

  No wonder it’s the exercise course for the outriders. So they get to know it in the daylight well enough to run it in the dark.

  “There are flags at the first tight turn, the creek, the meadow, and the craggy rock.” Astrid speaks quiet and calm, as if we weren’t riding toward kids dressed in black in a shadowy line across the field, edged with silvery moonlight. “Every checkpoint has its own color. If you don’t turn up with all four flags in the right colors, you’re disqualified. No coppers. No nothing.”

  “What if the first kid takes all the flags?” I ask. “To keep everyone else from winning?”

  “They won’t. It’d be obvious at the finish line and the pay table would be messed up and that’s bad for everyone. Especially the kid that did it.”

  I shudder. “Where’s the finish line?”

  “Back pasture. There’ll be a chalk line at the end nearest the workhorse stable. Benno’s there to call win, place, and show.” She glances at me. “We walk the horses cool in the pasture before we put them away for the night.”

  There’s that, at least. The horses won’t go into their stalls wet and their health put at risk.

  Astrid and I join the line of kids in the field. No one says anything. The horses whuffle and shift.

  My belly is churning. I just won’t go. Everyone else will leap forward and I’ll stay behind. I’ll walk Ricochet back to the stable and put him away.

  Fifty coppers, though. Fifty coppers just for finishing.

  There’s a dulled canter behind me, and up comes Ivar on Banner. He pulls a white cloth from his jacket, holds it at arm’s length, and lets it fall. It’s halfway down before it occurs to me what it means—that the race is starting. I’ve barely had a chance to shift my weight and take a good grip on the reins when all the other horses in the line rush forward toward the dark mouth of the trailhead.

  Ricochet is a whole heartbeat behind them, but he leaps like a burst dam, throwing us forward so hard that I almost fly off. I grip and scrabble for a handhold, gasping for breath. We’re hurtling toward the trailhead and its eerie dark tunnel that leads straight into the greenwood and heavens only know what else.

  No. I know everything that’s there. I’ve ridden that trail every day for weeks now. The main trails and the offshoots. I know where it’s wide and where it’s narrow.

  All I have to do is finish. Lucan said so. And I mean to finish at a sedate, careful walk, or perhaps a trot, but Ricochet has other ideas. He’s among running horses and he’s not listening to my repeated whoa, boy.

  We pass Bertram on Pennant. Then Gowan, who was brought into the cadre solely because someone who matters was sure I wouldn’t stay.

  We’re not last anymore. I grin hard in spite of myself. In spite of the fact that what I’m doing is dangerous and foolhardy.

  The opening in the greenwood is only big enough for one horse at a time, and I squeeze my eyes shut as Ricochet flies through the gap—branches tearing at my hair and jacket—and onto the trail.

  Ricochet gallops along the straight stretch that in daytime is a pleasant, shady path, and with the moon so bright, I start to get my bearings even through the greenwood’s canopy. Astrid said the first checkpoint is the tight turn, which is after this stretch widens and past a series of blackberry brambles.

  Hoofbeats drum behind us, and before I can respond, Ricochet speeds up. I lurch, then move with him, flattening myself over his neck. My eyes start to water from the speed as we fly past a dark horse-shaped blur that’s moving at an uncertain lope.

  I almost whisper good boy before I catch myself. Neither of us should be out here. None of this is good.

  Except fifty coppers, which is very good.

  The tight turn is just ahead, and two horses are paused in the bend. As we canter closer, I can see kids reaching up to loosen strips of cloth from a branch overhead. Whoever tied them knew that horses wouldn’t like anything that flutters, and the strips are in tight bows.

  Ricochet pushes between the riders like he’s done this a million times, and I find myself next to Marcel and Ravik. Each of them works quick and intent, not bothering the other, but both horses are prancing and the boys have to untie their flags one-handed while they keep their mounts in place.

  “Stand,” I murmur to Ricochet, cueing him with my calves. Then I drop the reins, reach up, and untie a flag with both hands. I shove it in my barn jacket and urge Ricochet forward, leaving both Marcel and Ravik cursing behind me, still struggling to keep their horses steady.

  The next part of the trail is uphill, and there are too many rocks for me to hurry Ricochet, so I give him his head and nudge him forward with my legs. “C’mon, c’mon, up you go, friend, as fast as you ca
n.”

  His hooves hit rocks and make sickening clodthuck sounds, but hooves are hard and they’re made for this. The worst part is not being able to see any of it, but Ricochet’s eyes are way better than mine.

  Somehow we pass another dim horse-shaped shadow making its way uphill nearby. One of us isn’t on the main trail, but it’s too dark to know which and I doubt it matters. Astrid said we merely had to get a flag from each checkpoint, and the next one is the creek, which is at the bottom of the hill beyond the next straight stretch.

  Two checkpoints means we’re almost halfway done. No turned ankles. No broken legs. Only a little further and there’ll be fifty coppers in my pocket.

  The creek is about two lengths wide, but shallow, never higher than Ricochet’s stockings. Two horses are balking hard on the gravel bank, and their riders are trying everything they can to urge them across. I guide Ricochet forward, untie another flag from an overhanging branch, and stuff it into my jacket. While I’m doing it, I can see why a horse might think the creek is dangerous—little silvery currents roll along the rocks like snakes and even the shallows seem bottomless.

  But Ricochet is a fleet horse. He’s seen water since he was small, probably at night as well as in the day, and he splashes across the creek like a champ.

  The only problem is that the other two horses watch him do it, and they quickly work out that there’s nothing to fear. They’re behind us in no time, and now Ricochet is cantering and they’re coming up fast behind him. I start to rein him in, to let them pass, but Ricochet isn’t having any of it. He puts on speed, hurtling through the dark toward the steep hill that ends in the meadow.

  I pull in my knees and shift my weight, making myself small on his back. It’s hard not to cheer him on as he keeps two riders behind us along a straightaway and then uphill.

  To cheer us on.

  The meadow is ghostly by moonlight, still crammed with flowers but silent except for the shush-shush of horses moving through tall grass. Three kids are leaning in their saddles to paw through a sprawling leafy shrub. I join them, pushing branches aside, peering for flags, before I notice a turn of cloth near the ground.