Airs Above the Ground (11 page)

Shorn of his jewelled trappings and standing at ease, Maestoso Leda was still beautiful, even though not so impressive as he had been on parade. Seeing one of the famous Lipizzans now for the first time at close quarters, I was surprised to realise how small he was; fourteen hands, I supposed, give or take an inch, stockily built with well-set-on shoulders and sturdy legs and feet, big barrelled, big chested, with the thick stallion neck and the power in the haunches that was needed for the spectacular leaps to which these animals could be trained. Something about the shape of his head recalled those old paintings of horses that one had always dismissed as inaccurate – those creatures with massive quarters, round and shining as apples, but with swan-curved necks and small heads with tiny ears; now I could see where they came from. His was – if one could use the word – an antique head, narrow, and sculptured like a Greek relief, while the rest of his body was massively muscled. The eye was remarkable, big and dark and liquid, gentle and yet male.

He whickered again at the sight of the carrots and bent his head to receive them. Annalisa and Timothy fed him, and the two of them were soon busy with him, almost crooning over him as they handled him. I watched for a little, then wandered off down the lines to look at some of the others. They were mostly stallions, the palominos looking at this close range a good deal more impressive than the Lipizzaner, but all relaxed and resting comfortably. I noticed one or two bandaged legs among the others, and a nasty graze skinning over on one palomino rump, but on the whole it seemed to me that the Circus Wagner had got off lightly. Nothing terrifies horses so much as fire, and if even one or two, in their panic-stricken plunging, had lashed out or broken loose, they could have caused immense damage to themselves and others.

At the far end of the stable one or two of the horses were lying down already, so I didn’t go past them, since no horse will allow you to pass his stall without his getting up, and I didn’t wish to disturb them. But the ponies I talked to, mischievous shaggy little beasts, twice as quick and twice as naughty as their big brothers, and at this moment all twice as wide awake. By the time I had worked my way back to the beginning where Annalisa and Timothy still stood talking softly in the royal box, the two stablemen had gone, and all seemed settled for what remained of the night. In the stall next to the end one – opposite the white stallion – stood another horse of much the same height and build as the Lipizzaner, but very different to look at. He was a piebald, with ugly markings, and he stood with his
head drooping and mane and tail hanging limply, like uncombed flax. I thought at first it was the clever, ugly beast that Annalisa had ridden in the rodeo, then saw that this was an older horse. His feed was scarcely touched, but his water bucket was empty. As I watched, he lowered his head and blew sadly around the bottom of the dry bucket.

I spoke softly, then laid a hand on him and went in.

Annalisa saw me and came across.

‘Because we spend so much time with the King horse, you talk with the beggar? I am sorry, there is no carrot left.’

‘I doubt if he would want it,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t touched his feed. I wasn’t just being democratic; I thought he looked ill.’

‘He is still not eating? He has been like this all the week.’ She looked from the full manager to the empty bucket, and a pucker of worry showed between her brows. ‘He was my Uncle Franzl’s horse, the poor old piebald . . . Ever since the fire he has been like this; nobody else looked after him, you see, always my uncle. He is old, too; my uncle used to say they were two old men together.’ She bit her lip, watching the horse. ‘I think he is – what is the word? – weeping for my uncle.’

‘Fretting. That may be true, but I think there’s something wrong physically, too. The horse is in pain.’ I was examining him as I spoke, running a hand down the neck, turning back the rug to feel the withers. ‘See how he’s sweating; he’s wringing wet over the withers and down the neck, and look at his
eye . . . his coat’s as rough as a sack, Annalisa. Has anyone seen him?’

‘The vet came from Bruck after the fire, and he has been twice more since then. On Thursday, he was here.’

‘And he looked at this one?’

‘He looked at them all. Not this one, perhaps, after the first time, because there was nothing wrong.’ She looked doubtfully at me, then back at the old piebald. ‘Yes, I can see he does not look very good, but if there had been anything . . . anything to see . . .’ She hesitated.

Tim said: ‘Vanessa’s a vet.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You? Are you? Oh, then—’

‘Has the horse been working?’ I asked.

She shook her head. ‘He doesn’t work, he is old, I think more than twenty. My Uncle Franzl had him in Czechoslovakia even before he joined us ten years ago. They tried at first to use him – they had a liberty act then with mixed horses – but he was slow to learn, so he has done very little. He was a pet of my Uncle Franzl’s, or perhaps my father would not have kept him. I told you, we cannot afford to keep a horse that does not work, so in the old days, before there was money for all the tractors and motor caravans, he helped to pull a wagon, and Uncle Franzl used to ride him, and give rides to the children. But now . . .’ she looked distressed . . . ‘if he is ill – we are moving the horses in a few hours, and in three days we have Austria and cross the frontier. I am afraid of what my father will say.’

‘You’ve found something?’ said Timothy to me.

I had indeed found something. Just above the knee on the off foreleg was a nasty swelling. I showed this to them, investigating further, while the old horse stood with drooping head, turning once to nuzzle me as my fingers felt and probed the leg.

I said to Tim: ‘Hold his head, will you? Gently, there, old man.’

‘What is it?’ asked Annalisa, peering over my shoulder.

‘It’s a haematoma, a blood-swelling. He must have hurt himself during the fire, or perhaps had a kick from a loose horse, and he’s torn one of the flexor tendons . . . Look, these, here . . . It wouldn’t show for a day or two, and if he isn’t working nobody would notice. And the rug’s been hiding the swelling. But he must be dealt with now. It’s a very nasty leg.’

‘Yes, I can see, it looks terrible. But how “dealt with”? What will you do?’

I looked up. ‘I? I’m not your veterinary surgeon, Annalisa. You’ll have to get the man from Bruck. I ought not to interfere.

‘He ought not to have missed it.’ said Tim roundly. ‘Anybody could see the beast’s ill.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘be fair. I’m sure in the normal course of things somebody would have seen it, but the circus’s own horsekeeper is dead, and Herr Wagner’s had far too much on his plate this past week. I told you this wouldn’t develop straight away, and if no one called the veterinary surgeon’s attention to it later, it could easily have been overlooked.’

‘What will have to be done?’ asked Annalisa.

‘It ought to be lanced – cut – and drained, and the leg stitched.’

‘Could you do it?’

I straightened up. ‘If you mean do I know how, yes, I do. But you have a veterinary surgeon, Annalisa, you should get him.’

‘On a Sunday night? At nearly midnight? And we leave for the train at six?’

Tim said: ‘Couldn’t you, Vanessa?’

‘Tim, I shouldn’t. I don’t know what the etiquette is here, and I’ve no business to walk in and do the man’s work for him. Come to that, it is professional “work”. It’s probably even illegal, without permits or something. Besides, I’ve no instruments.’

‘There are Uncle Franzl’s things.’ said Annalisa. ‘They were saved. I have them in my wagon.
Please
, Vanessa.’

‘It’s nothing to do with the chap from Bruck, anyway,’ said Tim. ‘He’ll have been paid, won’t he? Now the circus moves on, and that’s an end of him.’

‘Yes!’ She took him up eagerly. Between them the old horse stood motionless, his coat rough under my hand. It felt hot and scurfy. ‘You will be our new vet! I appoint you, I myself! And if it is not legal, then nobody need know!’

A new voice spoke from the tent door, startling us all.

‘If what is not legal?’

Dost think I am a horse-doctor?

Marlowe:
Doctor Faustus

Herr Wagner himself stood there, a thick-set, powerful-looking man, with a big head and a mane of brown hair going grey. He had a ruddy, weather-beaten complexion, and brown eyes under fierce brows. These now took in the scene with lively curiosity.

Behind him was a taller man, a slim, wiry figure in black whom I recognised as the
Star-Attraktion
of the high wire, the Hungarian Sandor Balog. He had dark hair slicked back above a broad forehead with thin black brows ‘winged’ above eyes so dark they were almost black. The nose was flattish and the cheekbones wide, and when he smiled, the lower lids of his eyes lifted, tilting the eyes and giving the face a Mongolian look. The nostrils were prominent and sharply carved, the lips full and well shaped. A disturbing face, perhaps a cruel one. He wasn’t smiling now. He was looking, not (as one might have expected) at the two strangers near the horse’s head, but with fixed intensity at Annalisa.

‘Who are your friends, Liesl?’ asked Herr Wagner.

‘Father!
Lieber Gott
, but you startled me! I never heard you! Oh, this is Mrs March, she is English, staying in the village, and this is Tim, who travels with her . . .’

She included the Hungarian in her introductions. I noticed that she didn’t look directly at him, whereas he never took his eyes off her, except to brush me, momentarily, with an indifferent glance. Herr Wagner greeted us courteously, then his eyes went to the horse.

‘But what was this about a vet? Did I hear properly? And what is “not legal”?’

Annalisa hesitated, started to speak, then glanced at me. ‘You permit?’ Then, turning back to her father, she plunged into a flood of German which, from her gestures, was the story of her acquaintance with us, and the recent discovery of Piebald’s injury.

To all this, after the first minute or so, the Hungarian paid little attention. I noticed that as the name of Lee Elliott occurred in the narrative, his gaze sharpened on the girl, so that I wondered if Sandor Balog, like me, had credited Mr Elliott with ‘intentions’ in that direction. If so, he didn’t like it. But after a bit, it appeared, the narrative bored him. He wandered into the next stall – the end one of the row, where harness hung and trestles stood with saddles over them – and stood there, idly fingering the bright jewellery on Maestoso Leda’s saddle, but still watching the girl.

She finished her story on a strong note of persuasion, where I caught the word ‘Bruck’, and a significant glance at her watch.

But – not much to my surprise – Herr Wagner didn’t
lend his weight to her appeal. He turned to me and in broadly accented but quite fluent English, thanked me for what he called my ‘trouble’ and ‘great kindness’, but finally, ‘believed he must not trouble me’.

‘My daughter is young, and a little’ – he shrugged his wide shoulders and smiled charmingly – ‘a little impulsive . . . She should not be asking you this thing. You are a visitor, a lady, this is not a thing to invite a lady to do.’

I laughed. ‘It’s not that. I am a veterinary surgeon, and I’m used to worse jobs than this, it was only that – well, it simply isn’t my affair. You have your own man. He’d certainly come tonight if you telephoned. If you haven’t got the telephone here, I’ll do it for you, if you like, from the Gasthof Edelweiss . . . or rather, Tim will. He speaks German.’

Herr Wagner didn’t answer for a minute. He had come into the stall and was examining the horse with some care.

‘. . . Yes, I see. I see. I am ashamed that this was not seen. I will speak to Hans and Rudi; but you understand,
gnädige Frau
, there has been so much . . . and always my cousin Franzl he sees to this old horse himself. The boys perhaps were doing their own work – their own regular horses,
verstehen Sie?
– and this old one, he is missed. The poor old one, yes . . .’

He ran a caressing hand down the horse’s neck, gave it a pat that had something valedictory about it, and straightened up.

‘Well, it is late. You will have some coffee before you go, eh? No, no, I mean it. My Liesl always makes the
coffee at this hour . . . This is why I come to find her, she is neglecting her old father.’

‘Thanks very much,’ I said, ‘but if I’m to ring this man up for you, I’d better get straight back. It’s after midnight.’

Herr Wagner said: ‘I shall not trouble you,
gnädige Frau
.’

It was Timothy who understood before I did, who had seen the significance of that farewell caress, and had added to it Annalisa’s reiteration that ‘no circus can afford to keep a horse which does not work’. One could not blame Herr Wagner for his decision to jettison old Piebald now; he hadn’t earned his keep for quite some time, and, according to Annalisa, hadn’t even qualified for a pension. A working circus cannot keep pets.

I saw Timothy stiffen, still holding the headstall, his eyes fixed on Herr Wagner. His free hand crept to the horse’s nose, cupping round the soft muzzle in a gesture at once protective, and pathetically futile. The horse lipped his fingers. Tim looked at me.

I said: ‘Herr Wagner, I’ll operate now, if you’ll let me. It’ll be over in half an hour, and once I’ve got the leg fixed up you can move him to the train. He’ll be as right as rain and fit for work in three or four weeks.’

Herr Wagner stopped in the tent doorway. I thought he was going to brush the matter aside, but Tim said, ‘Please,’ in a voice as young and unprotected as his face, and I saw the older man hesitate.

‘Yes, father, please,’ said the girl.

The Hungarian said nothing. You would have
thought we were all of us separated from him by a glass screen. He had Annalisa’s saddle and cloth over his arm now, and was waiting to follow Herr Wagner out of the stable.

Herr Wagner spread his hands wide in a gesture of deprecation. ‘But we cannot ask you—’ he began.

‘I wish you would,’ I said, and smiled. I put everything I had into that smile. ‘That’s all we need to make it legal.’