“You know it’s a horse, right? I don’t think it really cares if you’re grateful or not.”
“I care. And you said yourself, he’s beautiful.”
Micha stepped away. “He’s ruined. He’ll never be worth anything to anybody.”
“Except me.”
Micha snorted.
“He can still be ridden,” said Thomas. “He just needs to be treated with a little consideration.”
“Words to live by.”
Thomas had run out of things to say. All the talk of Edward and Bucephalus had been unexpected and had left him feeling rather bruised. Micha’s mood was clearly settling into bleak and unhappy, and Thomas felt incapable of handling it. It had been such a beautiful morning, shadowed now by an impending storm of death, lies, and sin. He had always said—maybe even believed—that he wanted nothing from Micha. But that, he was beginning to realise, was just another lie. Though he would never have sought gratification of desires he knew to be wrong, he still selfishly wanted Micha’s smiles. His gratitude. His joy. Gifts, in short, he had no right to expect. “Will you excuse me? I have duties to attend.”
“Of course.” As ever, Micha showed no sign of caring whether he was there or not.
Thomas broke into the sunlight, breathless and panicked, as though he had been deep underwater, and strode rapidly away through the gardens. It was not until he had been walking for about five minutes that he realised he had left his hat and coat behind, and reluctantly turned back.
He entered the stables with apologies ready on his lips, but Micha was standing in front of Bucephalus’s box, his face resting against the proud arch of the horse’s neck and his fingers curling through the animal’s mane.
“That’s my beauty,” he was whispering, in a voice sweeter and far gentler than Thomas had ever heard him use before. “You’re all right. Everything is all right.”
And knowing he was an intruder on this scene, Thomas crept away.
Chapter 12
Micha, however indifferent he pretended to be to Thomas, went riding the next day. Isidore, of course, had taught him, because all freedom, all pleasure, had both its origin and its ending in Isidore. Isidore, who was nothing now except a habit of thinking, a piece of memory and a half-forgotten dream. Once, Micha had wondered where Isidore was, what he had done, who he had become, but then he had decided it did not matter. Not while, poppy-fettered, Micha had dreams instead, though they drowned in daylight, like the shadows of childhood monsters.
He took Bucephalus, not Brimstone. They were both cautious and he went carefully at first, past the village and down twisting country lanes until the world rolled at his feet like a green velvet beast and the sky flared as wide as angels’ wings. Micha knew better than to push his mount, but he gave Bucephalus his head and soon they were travelling at an easy canter. While they did not fly as they might once have done, it was a taste of lost things, and it was enough. The thud of Bucephalus’s hooves was as steady as a second heartbeat, more real, somehow, than his own. The wind ruffled his hair and swept the surface of his skin, like hands that could not touch him. He did not think of Isidore and he did not dream of anything. Creeping through the cracks, like a gleam of pale light, came the suggestion of pleasure.
Somehow, he forgot Thomas’s evasions and lies. They were whisked away on the wind. And he remembered, instead, his laughter. His gentleness. The hope in his eyes. His kindness may have come with a price,but it came with other things too. Like this. A gift Micha would never have thought he wanted. Perhaps even fallen leaves could soar again sometimes.
Later, after they had gone about as far as Micha dared and turned again for home, he heard the sound of hoofbeats behind him, and a strident voice called out, “I say, tally-ho.”
He peered over his shoulder, and Laura—mounted on an enormous bay hunter—came thundering down the lane after him. She was dressed in a green riding habit of rather military design and a tall hat with a plume, from which most of her hair had already escaped. But the air and exercise became her. There was a flush on her sun-freckled cheeks, her eyes were bright, and she seemed far more at ease here than she had at Esther’s.
He slowed Bucephalus to a walk, and she manoeuvred her horse alongside his. He felt an edgy, snappish uncertainty travel through Bucephalus’s body at the sudden closeness of these strangers, but he calmed beneath the touch of Micha’s hands.
Laura touched the brim of her hat. “Fancy meeting you hereabouts.”
“Fancy,” returned Micha dryly.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, all right. Truth is, I saw you from across the field, gave chase, and, well, here we are. Thought you might like a spot of company on your way back to the village. But don’t fret if not—just say the word, and I’ll push off again.”
Micha opened his mouth and then closed it. He could not entirely resolve how he felt on the matter. Something about being cordially invited to tell someone to go away rather took the fun out of it. “Why not?” he said at last, not precisely warmly, but then, he had long lost the habit of friendliness.
“Splendid.” She reined in her stallion so that his long strides would not draw him too far ahead of Bucephalus. They advanced for a while in this companionable fashion, and Micha wondered—rather fretfully for a man who insisted he had no interest in the opinions of others—whether he was supposed to be responsible for making conversation.Conversing with men was straightforward, but young women were dangerous and unpredictable, and he had little experience of them.
“How’s the knitting?” he tried, at last.
“Utterly buggered, but nil desperandum.”
“Are you making . . . well . . . anything?”
“Thought I’d try for a scarf. Seemed a fairly simple proposition. I mean, start at one end, stop at the other, but it seems to have gone all over the bloody place.”
Micha made what he hoped was a sympathetic noise and crashed headlong into silence again. What on earth did women like? “That’s a nice ... outfit?”
