Delia paused in the door of the stable. “That soon?” she said in surprise.
“It’s easiest now, before they get any bad habits, and while they still accept every new thing that comes to them, rather than rejecting it,” Grim replied. “I was getting her used to being handled last night, while you and the Duke were already in bed. Here, come with me, and I’ll show you just what the results of this kind of early training are.”
Curious now, she followed Grim to another set of stables, the ones reserved for the “heavy” horses—the Chargers, the Tow-Beasts, and the new line that Kordas was experimenting with. Grim stood at the fence around the pasture, and whistled a particular three-note call, and two huge horses that could have been Valdemar Golds if not for their size picked up their heads and came trotting for the fence. The other horses in the field ignored the call.
They were utterly magnificent, with flowing manes and tails that must have taken the grooms hours to comb out, their hides gleaming like liquid sunshine as they slowed to a walk and approached the stablemaster, heads bobbing. They whickered a greeting as they got to him.
“And there’s my handsome lads,” Grim crooned, as they put their heads down so he could scratch their heads under their forelocks. “Delia, hop over the fence, and come up to the forequarters. Doesn’t matter which one you pick.”
She obeyed him, though she felt more than a little intimidated by a horse that towered over her so much that she had to reach up to pat his shoulder.
“Now, just run your right hand down his leg till you get to the knee. Then pat his shin with your hand. He’ll pick his foot right up, then he’ll wait for you to take it in your hands, and just rest it there, easy and light. He won’t even shift his weight until you let go of the foot for him to set it down again.”
She did as she was told, and was filled with amazement when the horse did exactly what Grim said he would—with a hoof that was so big it filled both her hands with plenty of room to spare! He didn’t let a bit of his weight rest on that leg, either. She could move his foot around to inspect the frog, and she probably could have cleaned it if she’d had a hoofpick. She let the hoof go, and he put his foot down politely, brought his head around to sniff her, and then put his nose in her hands, as Grim had said Star would soon. She rubbed the soft skin around his nostrils and scratched under his chin. He seemed to enjoy that very much.
“That’s the benefit of early training,” said Grim. “Not a chance in hell we’d be able to control a lad that size without it. Can you imagine trying to shoe that fellow, or trim his hooves, or clean his feet, if he wasn’t used to obeying us without question? It’d be impossible. Come on back over.”
She hopped the fence again, and he produced a couple of pieces of carrot from somewhere, and gave the two false Golds their treats. “My one regret is these boys are going to be wasted on the Emperor,” Grim sighed. “But the good thing is once the stablehands understand what sort of gems they are, they’ll be treated right.” They put their noses over the fence to be rubbed again. “All right, Delia, off with you. You’ve put in a good morning’s work.”
On her way back to the manor, she wondered if other horse breeders took the kind of care and time with their animals that Kordas and his stablemaster did. She didn’t think so. Her pony had taken a lot of persuading before he became the cooperative fellow he was now, and even then, there was only a handful of people he’d work with. On the other hand, as Kordas had often said, her pony was a good judge of character.
The main door into the manor was the closest—the most convenient for a Duke who was often in the stables—so that was where she was heading, though she did make sure her shoes were cleaned first. Because she had been raised in a household that had not, at the time, had one of the Imperial “gift” manors, she was struck again by how very odd the manor at Valdemar looked, poking up out of the landscape with nothing to anchor it to the landscape it was in. Her father’s manor just fit into its surroundings, the two-story stone walls echoing the exposed stone of the hills above, and centuries-old trees embracing it. The Valdemar manor stood out. No trees embraced its walls, not even bushes. The walls were smooth, and a rather unnatural shade of pale pink, like the inside of the shell she had among her curios. Not unpleasant, just unnatural. The thing wasn’t made of any stone that could be found around here, like the walls, stables, and barns, which were built of the native gray granite. There were far too many towers. There were no kinds of defensive walls around it. It looked like—
Like a giant piece of sugar-paste sculpture!
There had been something like that as the centerpiece of Isla and Kordas’s wedding feast, a replica of the Valdemar manor with the banners of both houses hanging from the towers. She had thought it too pretty to eat, but that hadn’t stopped anyone else from snapping off pieces to munch. But then again, pure sugar wasn’t something that appeared on tables very often around here. Sugar was something used sparingly in baking, so people who got a chance to have a bite of the pure stuff generally took full advantage of the opportunity. That wasn’t the case, away in the Capital, at least if the things she’d read were true. The Emperor had a kind of chronicle sent to every noble household in the Empire twice a year that, in addition to informing households of any changes or additions to the laws of the land, detailed all the goings-on of the Capital. She used to read the things avidly, wishing she could be there to see the festivals, taste the amazing things described for the feasts—
Until Kordas had pointed out that the sole purpose of this was to make people like him and his household discontented with what they had, and goad them to attempt the same. All that would be a heavy drain on their income, and that would lead to them trying to exploit more out of their properties, all to the detriment of their homes and the people that depended on them.
“The Emperor wants us all in competition against each other,” Kordas had told her. It all made a twisted sort of sense. If you were in competition with people who were your equals or slightly better, you’d be too busy to pay much attention to what the Emperor was (or was not) doing. And if you were spending your income on frivolities, you wouldn’t be building up your own personal army.
She shook her head to clear it of such uncomfortable thoughts. The Emperor was far away, and paid no attention to places as minor as Valdemar.
An intoxicating scent tickled her nose as she entered the high-ceilinged, pink-hued entrance hall of the manor, and instead of turning right to go to her own rooms, she went left, heading for the tower occupied by the six mages who called themselves “the Circle.” It smelled like—
As she opened the door into the tower, the glorious aroma enveloped her.
Sai was making stuffed bread.
Being mages, the Circle had no difficulty in and no compunction about making minor changes to their tower, and one of those changes had been a big oven next to the hearth, because Sai was a baker, and as good a baker as he was a mage, if not better. His particular specialty was stuffed bread. He insisted on doing everything himself, brandishing a giant knife and threatening to cut pieces off anyone who interfered with his work. So, at unpredictable intervals, he’d order servants to bring him the needful things from the kitchen, and the bottom room of the tower would become a bakery, with the finished loaves lined up on one of the built-in shelves that circled the wall. Those loaves didn’t stay there long. Sai didn’t care who ate the products of his genius, as long as his genius was acknowledged. Anyone was welcome to take what they wanted. And when Sai baked, anyone who could smell the loaves rushed to taste them.