Amber and Willem Read online

  ​Amber leapt on to his back and just sat there for a moment, gazing at the colours of the sunrise and feeling the cold air spiral around her. Arrelashantia was the image of his father, Arrelestravandias, but nothing like him in any other way. He was the cleverest and the calmest horse Amber had ever known, even though he was still young.

  ​“Let’s go to the old forest,” Amber said.

  ​“Whatever you want,” said Arrelashantia and he set off at once galloping so that Amber was almost left behind and she laughed. Really they ought to go back for a saddle and bridle; Jessa would be fed up with her, but Amber didn’t care, she couldn’t. Her way of riding was easier without, and this morning, this moment, seemed like a gift from God somehow. She suddenly felt a strange sensation of impending loss.

  ​“What happened in your dream?” she asked the horse as they flew over the moor.

  ​“We were on a clifftop, by the sea. The wind was like a raging giant and it snatched you away and hurled you out into the distance until you disappeared. Then I was all alone. Did you dream about me too?”

  ​Amber had her hands and her arms all tangled up in Arrelashantia’s mane and she could feel everything he said with all of her body. It was not words, like the way people speak, and there was no way really to tell a lie.

  ​“I didn’t dream anything,” she said. “My mother was drunk and she snored all night long.”

  ​Arrelashantia was the first horse Amber had met with whom she could talk about such things as dreams and her feelings about people. He did not understand all of it, but he tried to and he showed sympathy in his gliding gallop. Into the old forest they went, where there were banks and hollows and fallen trees and the two of them were soon lost in a whirl of adventure.

  ​But Amber knew that as much as she might want to, she could not afford to spend too long entertaining herself. She was employed now by the horse-makers, paid money for her work, and without that money she and her mother would barely be able to feed themselves. Amber had learned how to ride horses the way other people did so she could train them to be ridden and she was better at it than anyone.

  ​“You’re late,” Kastie said when they arrived back.

  ​Amber ignored her.

  ​Kastie had a round belly these days, filled with a child due to be born in the autumn and she was sick and weak with it, and most of the time angry as well. “Give that horse here.”

  ​“Why?” asked Amber, caught by surprise.

  ​Kastie laughed. “Because Galen wants him.”

  ​“What for?”

  ​“Why do you have to ask so many questions? I’m supposed to get him cleaned up. I was supposed to have done him an hour ago but you had him, so I couldn’t. You think you own the place already don’t you?”

  ​“I don’t think that,” said Amber, frowning. “Why does Galen want Arrelashantia?”

  ​Since they were children, Amber had always expected she would marry Willem one day, and come to live at the horse-maker’s houses with Arrelestravandias and his sons and daughters for all the rest of her life. Everyone else supposed so too; it was like a kind of secret law that no-one spoke about, but everyone knew. Except now she was grown up and really could marry if she wanted, Amber had stopped thinking about it at all. She loved Willem, more than she loved anybody human, but she could not think of him as someone she might marry. She could not imagine wanting to marry anyone.

  ​“They’re taking him to town, him and five others I think.” Kastie seemed pleased to tell this story.

  ​“What do you mean?” Amber was angry and she did not hide it. “Who’s taking him?”

  ​“Galen, or Willem. I don’t know. It’s not my business.” Kastie put a rope round Arrelashantia’s neck and led him away.

  ​Amber stood and seethed. She knew what it was about; she just didn’t want to know it. She didn’t want it to be real. Someone had demanded horses and so Arrelashantia was to be sent away, just like that. It was what always happened. The horse-makers made horses, but not for themselves. Every foal born was an investment, worth all the time and trouble and fine fodder, usually, but only when someone bought it. So many friends lost. Amber loved all of them, that was the trouble, and losing any made her angry, even though it happened so often. Losing Arrelashantia was unthinkable, and she hadn’t expected it, not yet.

  ​But it would do her no good to throw a tantrum. She calmed herself down and sought out Galen.

  ​“Can I take the horses to town today?” she asked. If she went she would be able to work out a way to stop Arrelashantia being sold.

  ​Galen smiled at her kindly. “No,” he said. “Willem’s taking them. You’ve got better things to do.” He turned and walked away resolutely.

  ​Amber stood a moment, then ran after him, tugging desperately at his arm. “Arrelashantia’s not ready to go yet though. He’s only five.”

  ​“I’ve made up my mind Amber,” Galen said. “I’m not changing it.” He shook her off and walked away. “And don’t go throwing any wiles at Willem either. I’ve already warned him.”

  ​And Amber suddenly felt as if she was back inside her own house, hemmed in like in her dream and unable to move, only this time not bursting out but stuck forever. What difference would it make, could it ever make, to be married to Willem in this place? Things would just go on the same as they always had.

  ​She found Willem sat in the hayloft talking to some pigeons. Willem could get pigeons to fly where he wanted them to, carrying messages, or at least, most of the time he could. And people seemed to notice it more when they wouldn’t than when they would.

  ​“You have to help me,” Amber said.

  ​Willem looked up, guilty and sympathetic. “I don’t see how,” he said.

  ​“Easily, if you want to. Don’t you want to help me?”

  ​Willem rolled over onto his back and groaned. He knew perfectly well what Amber was talking about. “If the horse is sold, he’s sold. I can’t do anything about it. It’s what happens to all of them. It’s what they’re for.”

  ​“You’re just being lazy,” Amber said. She didn’t sit down. She stood looking at Willem stretched out long and thin in the hay. Willem was grown up now too, and that idea suddenly seemed so strange, as if it had only just happened or Amber had only just noticed it. How could Willem be grown up? How could either of them?

  ​“You ought to be gone already, but you’re sat here gossiping with pigeons instead. Anyway, you don’t have to think of anything. I’ve got an idea.”

  ​Willem levered himself up sleepily. “I’ll get in trouble.”

  ​“You are in trouble,” Amber said. “With me! It’s easy enough.” She stamped her foot in determination. “You just have to tell them he’s a devil when he’s in, won’t settle, jumps out and all that. Tell them he’ll get out of the paddock and run off after the mares on the moor; they won’t want him then.” She grinned and her eyes gleamed.

  ​Willem got up and stood crooked. “Well I can try, I suppose, but it won’t work.”

  ​He believed it too, or at least it looked as if he did. Amber shook off her triumphant defiance since it was having so little effect. “Willem, please help me,” she said, stepping up close and taking his hand. “I can’t live without him.”

  ​“I know,” Willem said, frowning. “I’m sorry.” And he turned abruptly, limped across the loft to the ladder, and clambered down it, lopsided as ever.

  Willem did not mind riding out to town with a boy and a string of horses; it was the kind of job that fell to him often and he was used to it. In a way it was an escape to be out in the colour and space of the world, away from the cares of humans.

  ​What did it matter if they sold horses or if they didn’t, when the heather sparkled with dew and the song of the blackbird tore your heart so? But all the same it did matter. At the Featherstone Fair back in spring they had barely made any profit at all, despite their colts and fillies being much finer than any other horses ther
e. People hadn’t seemed to care about quality, but only about the price. Willem’s mother couldn’t afford the new stock she’d wanted, so now she was going off into the hills to try to rope wild horses instead. If Willem didn’t sell Arrelashantia it would certainly make Amber happy, but what about everyone else?

  ​The blackbird stood up on Kolina’s poll singing his wild song of love and life, and Willem found himself pulled irresistibly away into that world. It was so much easier and safer there.

  ​By the time they arrived in town Willem was less than half in his physical body. A murmuration of starlings flocked in patterns from tree to tree and an old magpie rattled a cheerful greeting. Willem knew his way without needing to think, and the boy, Tully, was the kind who rarely spoke but learned everything through watching. There was nothing Willem needed his human mind for anyway, not really. The horses were for the manor. Mostly, the horse-makers sold their stock at the fairs, but sometimes people from the nearby towns sent for horses and it was lucky when they did, for there was no competition to bring the price down.

  ​So Willem looked for the doves in the dove cote as he rode up the manor drive, but he did not notice the buildings, those grand horse-houses. He had seen the manor plenty of times and it did not interest him much. The doves were dull creatures who talked endlessly of their own family and knew of little else, but Lady Davina kept peacocks on her terrace and Willem kept an eye out for them. Those peacocks were mischievous and friendly and always worth talking to if you got the chance.

  ​“Who are you? I was expecting Galen.”

  ​Willem gazed blankly in the direction of the human voice he had vaguely heard. It belonged to a tall young man; nobody he knew. “We’ve brought the horses you wanted.” Willem didn’t bother to introduce himself. He swung down from Kolina’s back and staggered, since all that riding had sent one of his legs off to sleep.

  ​“Are you all right?” The tall man’s voice was still distant, but he caught hold of Willem’s arm to steady him and shared a look of concern that woke Willem up a little, enough anyway to notice that man was fine looking and confident, as well as being as smartly dressed as anyone Willem had ever seen.

  ​“Oh, yes,” Willem said, smiling absently. Possibly this man was a lord, but Willem didn’t care. The yard people were taking the horses, and Tully, the boy, began to edge away in a direction he seemed familiar with.

  ​“Where are you going?” Willem asked him. He was supposed to be in charge after all.

  ​But the boy just threw him a disdainful smile and disappeared.

  ​“What can you tell me about these horses? Why should I buy them?” That fine man certainly had a loud voice.

  ​“They’re the best horses in the land,” Willem said without thinking. He looked after Tully and wondered whether he might be able to slope off too. He could see a pigeon on the roof, one of those he had been talking to in the loft before he left home, Shawbian, preening his feathers, fully recovered from the flight that had taken him almost no time at all compared to Willem’s long slog over the moor.

  ​“Really? How so?”

  ​Willem was so surprised he blinked the colour back into the human world. These people had sent for the horses, so surely they knew? How could anyone doubt that the sons and daughters of Arrelestravandias were the best in the land, the best in the world? There stood Arrelottolyrian and Amber’s beloved Arrelashantia so proud and strong and beautiful. And there were Kolina and Delphi too, the two grey mares like twin rays of dappled moonlight.

  ​The man was smiling. “I do like the look of these horses,” he said. “I need two for myself, but those greys are beautiful. I think my mother might like them. What do you think Stem? Would her ladyship like those greys?” He turned to one of the people stood about him.

  ​“Undoubtedly, my lord,” the man called Stem said in a voice that sounded as if it had been designed to agree unreservedly.

  ​“They look very well, anyway,” the tall man, who was a lord, it seemed, went on, “but what are they like to ride? Can you show me?”

  ​Willem laughed in surprise and then felt the weight of those two men’s gazes upon him and wished he hadn’t. “I don’t really ride,” he said, looking at his feet. “I mostly just look after them.” He looked up again to find everyone had given up on him and was studying the horses once more. “They’re well trained,” he said quietly. “You’ll get none better.”

  Willem spent the rest of the afternoon not left to his own devices at all but instead holding horses in a meadow while that elegant young man rode them one after the other. There was no sign of Tully, but that didn’t matter, not really; those horses hardly needed holding. Immalia huffed as she tore at the grass, and Willem watched swifts race over the fields, but he kept looking at the man riding as well for there was something bird-like about him. Perhaps he was a charmed kestrel; he had that look, neat and pointed. He wasn’t much of a rider, as it turned out, no better than Willem himself, but his confidence increased minute by minute since he was riding Arrelashantia, and his smile did too.

  ​“This horse is a wonder!” He turned his mount and hurtled off towards a fallen tree. The horse flew over it neat and precise, and the man managed to stay on while he did, laughing.

  ​“Oy, Willem!”

  ​Willem heard the rustle of a pigeon’s wings in the air and his voice at the same time. And he smelled him too; pigeons smell strong.

  ​“Shawbian,” Willem said. “I saw you in the yard. What are you doing here?”

  ​“Don’t know, but Amber sent me. She waved me off like a riot, no message or anything. I thought you’d know what it was about. You’d better tell me, I’m dying of curiosity.” The pigeon came down to stand on Willem’s shoulder.

  ​“Amber?” Willem remembered all at once. There was Arrelashantia walking back up the field, with that man riding him, beaming from ear to ear.

  ​“So, what was she going on about?”

  ​“Lord Dariel, have you made up your mind?” The man called Stem was back again, without Willem having noticed him arrive.

  ​“Indeed I have,” the kestrel man said. And Willem wondered idly what made one person a lord and another not, if it was anything you could put your finger on, or just chance. “I’ll certainly have the four for now. Does Galen have any others like these?”

  ​Willem was startled to be addressed. He jumped. “Yes, lots, but…”

  ​“Oy, Willem!” The pigeon pulled at Willem’s ear and the tall young man, Lord Dariel, laughed.

  ​“Who is your friend?” he asked.

  ​“What?” Willem was confused, and then he was embarrassed, for the kestrel man was staring at him with an intelligent kestrel eye. “Shawbian. He’s a pigeon.” And Willem wondered if he could possibly have thought of anything more stupid to say.

  ​“Stop ignoring me!” Shawbian demanded.

  ​“Shut up!” Willem snapped back.

  ​“He’s talking to you,” said Lord Dariel, working it out as he went. “And you can understand him! That’s a strange kind of magic. What did he say?”

  ​“Nothing… He just reminded me about something I forgot. Get lost Shawbian!” Willem humped his shoulder and the pigeon flapped away indignantly.

  ​“My lord, the guests will be arriving…”

  ​“What, already?” Dariel groaned.

  ​They were all moving by this time, back to the yard, Willem and the young lord, the man called Stem and all six horses with them. Tully shuffled out from somewhere to take hold of ropes, and Arrelashantia raised his magnificent head and shook his mane, awing anyone looking on into a trance of wonder.

  ​Willem was awed just like everyone else, but looking at Arrelashantia made him think of Amber again, and then he felt nothing but ashamed for being such a coward. “Lord Dariel,” Willem spoke softly but the young lord heard and turned his head. “This horse, he’s not…”

  ​“Not what?” Dariel was smiling rather absently.

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p; ​“He’s everything anybody could want for riding sure enough, but in the yard he’s, well, difficult.”

  ​“In what way difficult?” Dariel stopped smiling. He was looking at Willem in that kestrel way again. Tully was looking at him too, eyes bulging because he knew what Willem was saying was lies.

  ​It was for Amber, to make her happy. And this man didn’t know anything about horses. Willem swallowed. “Won’t settle. He doesn’t like being in; he’ll jump out. I wouldn’t want you to buy him today and find he’s run off tomorrow. You won’t catch him again if he does.”

  ​Dariel smiled, but still with that kestrel look. “That’s very honest of you,” he said. “But he seems perfectly settled now, wouldn’t you say?”

  ​Willem shrugged. “He’s all right with me, but after we’ve gone and left him, I don’t....”

  ​“I have to have this horse out of all of them. I’ve never seen or even heard of one like him. What’s your name?”

  ​“Willem.” Willem found his heart was racing.

  ​The tall lord had stopped walking and was looking at Arrelashantia, looking at him the same way everyone looked at that horse the first time they saw him. “You look after horses; that’s what you said. You look after this one do you?”

  ​“Yes, but…”

  ​“If you were here, looking after him, he’d settle would he, and not run off?”

  ​“I don’t know. I suppose so.” Willem could see Tully from the corner of his eye, trying not to laugh. And there was Shawbian too, fluttering around on the roof, watching.

  ​“So stay here with him! Work for me. I’ll pay double whatever you get from Galen.”

  ​Tully’s laugh escaped and echoed strangely loud around the walls of the yard.

  ​“What’s so funny?” Dariel asked, turning to the boy sharply.

  ​“Double nothing is nothing,” Tully said, creasing up. “Galen doesn’t pay him!”

  ​Dariel looked at Tully as if the boy were an earwig and then he turned back to Willem. “What does he mean?” he demanded.

  ​“M-my father doesn’t pay me to work,” Willem stuttered. “Neither does my mother.”