Torin swung up onto Lambo with one fluid motion, much more impressively, making it look very easy and ordinary.
I raised my chin. “What am I supposed to do?”
He gathered Ferrari’s reins in his hand. “Ye will sit there and enjoy the view. We will go slow enough that ye will scarcely ken we’re movin’ at all.”
The horse stepped to the side and there was a jolt of pain in my lower back, then I felt like I was going to fall. “No no no!” I grabbed hold of the saddle horn, clamping my eyes shut. “Whoa, whoa, boy, whoa!”
Torin swung his horse around and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Were ye fallin’? Tis nae possible!”
“It hurt, my back hurts from it all, and I just got scared.” I took a deep breath and sat straight. “It’s fine, no problem.”
I wanted to push my hair from my eyes, but I was gripping the saddle too hard. “Is this because I fell asleep on your arm? Are you doing this to get back at me?”
His hand caressed and smoothed my shoulder, and he said, quietly, “Nae, tis not… tis only that we must conserve our horses as we hae a long ride. Princess, there is nothin’ else we can do.”
He put the reins in the other hand and gently but firmly peeled my hands from the saddle. “Ye are holdin’ too tightly.”
He rubbed my fingers. He was so close, I could feel his breath on my skin. I flexed and straightened my hand. He said, “Now we are goin’ tae ride. Ye are goin’ tae sit upon the horse, not on the side, nae sliding off, and definitely not draggin’ below it.”
“I will not fall. It’s okay. I just wasn’t ready, but I want to voice my opposition to this whole thing. If you were nice, you would hire me a car.”
He turned his horse and said, “Hie!” and set our horses into a slow walk away from the stables.
16
LEXI
1558 - TO GLENESK
Every step felt like an insult to my tailbone. How was therestillthis much bouncing when we weren’t even going fast?
I shifted in the saddle, wincing, then discovered it was easier if I relaxed and kept my back loose instead of clamping tight.
Torin was looking all around at the sky and the landscape. He finally, long after I had forgotten I accused him of being mean for not getting me a car, said, “I am verra nice, but ye daena want a car, Princess, hae ye seen our roads? Ye could hae the finest car and ye wouldna get tae go on it anywhere. Ye would be stuck and I would be tellin’ ye that ye must mount the horse all the same.”
I sighed. “That’s true, so I suppose you ought to have built me a road, you should have had the foresight.”
He nodded and was quiet. Then he sort of turned on his horse, the reins carelessly held on his thighs to converse with me. “How would I build the road for yer car?”
“You would need a grader, a big truck to flatten the earth so it’s straight, then a cement truck to pave it. I suppose you don’t have any of those here?”
“The Romans built roads, smooth and straight, but that was a thousand years ago. The stones are scattered now, pinched for walls and pig pens. I could ride ye a mile or two on one, then we’d both be rattlin’ on dirt paths again, or stuck in the mud.”
We rode in silence for a while. The morning sun was rising high, it was going to be a warm gorgeous day. It smelled of fresh air, which was lovely after the human stench of the tavern and horse stink of the stables we’d left behind.
The landscape was absurdly beautiful. Rolling moor unfurled in every direction, thick with tangled heather and swaying grasses, rippling like the seagrass I’d once walked through on a summer beach trip with my parents to an island in Florida.
I had felt like I needed to stare straight ahead at the path, but as I got a little more comfortable I took in the horizon. I gaped at a line of mountains, hovering in the distance, their peaks dusted white, as if winter were still settled up there, while down here the air was sweet with flowers and grass and the scents of spring.
The horses began to climb, hooves steady on the rough path ascending up the side of a mountain.
I said, “I’m sorry I got irritated with you back there, Torin, I was just getting used to one small little aspect of this, traveling by horse. Then you changed it on me, and… I’m not myself. It wasn’t fair.”
He twisted around in his saddle again to say, “I daena mind, Princess. All journeyin’ companions grow irritated with one another. Ye ought tae hear Max and me spar after a few days on the path.”
“I remind you of Max?”
“A great deal. I am surprised ye let me spar with ye, tis unusual for a lass tae not take it tae heart. Ye daena grow sullen when ye are teased, tis an unlikely but fine quality in a woman.”
