Chapter 7
He was reaching for the carriage door when he heard the voices.
"Please, mister? Please?"
"Can we pet your horses? They're so big!"
"I want to touch the one with the white bit on his nose!"
He turned. A cluster of children had gathered near the carriage; not the mocking children of his usual passages through the village, but smaller ones, five or six years old at most, their faces bright with uncomplicated curiosity. They were looking at Wellington and Cromwell, the matched greys who had pulled his carriage for the past three years, with the wide-eyed wonder that children reserved for things that were large and beautiful and possibly magical.
"The one with the white bit is Wellington," Frederick heard himself say. "He's quite gentle, actually. More gentle than he looks."
The children turned to him with expressions that mixed uncertainty with hope.
"Can we pet him?" The boldest one asked. A girl, maybe six, with her hair in lopsided braids and a smear of something, jam, possibly, across her cheek.
Frederick should have said no. He should have maintained the distance that his position required, the formality that his father had drilled into him. Dukes did not permit random children to pet their horses. It wasn't done.
"Yes," he said. "You may."
The girl's face lit up like sunrise. "Really?"
"Really. But gently. He doesn't like sudden movements."
He moved toward Wellington, making the soft clicking sound that the horse recognised and responded to. The greatgrey head turned toward him, nostrils flaring in greeting, and Frederick reached up to stroke the velvet nose.
"You have to approach from the side," he explained, as the children crept closer. "So he can see you. Horses don't like surprises."
"Why not?" A boy asked.
"Because in the wild, surprises usually meant predators. Lions and such."
"There aren't any lions here."
"Wellington doesn't know that. He's never seen a lion. So he has to assume they might be anywhere."
This seemed to satisfy the children's curiosity. They gathered around, reaching up with small hands to touch Wellington's neck, his shoulder, the soft warmth of his flank. The horse bore their attention with the patience of a creature who had long since learned that small humans were mostly harmless.
"What's his name again?" The girl with the jam-smeared cheek asked.
"Wellington. After the Duke of Wellington. He was a famous general."
"Was he brave?"
"Very brave."
"Is this horse brave, too?"
Frederick considered. "I think so. In his own way. He carries me through villages where people don't like me very much, and he never complains."
The girl looked at him with the uncomplicated directness of childhood. "Why don't people like you?"
It was such a simple question. Such a devastating one.
"I don't know," Frederick admitted. "I've never done anything to hurt them. But I've never done anything to help them, either. And sometimes that's just as bad."
The girl absorbed this with a thoughtful frown. "My mum says if you want people to like you, you have to be nice to them first."
