Airs Above the Ground (35 page)

Beyond the archway the lights grew to brightness. The half-door opened. A horse appeared, his rider sitting still as a statue. He paced forward slowly into the hall, ears alert, nostrils flared, his movements proud and cool and soberly controlled, and yet somehow filled with delight.

There was no hint of stiffness now. Round he came, the dancing steps made even more beautiful by their silence: the beat of the music hid even the muffled thudding in the sand, so the high floating movements of the hoofs seemed to take the stallion skimming as effortlessly as a swan in full sail. The light poured and splashed on the white skin where the last shadows of black had been polished and bleached away, and his mane and tail tossed in thick fine silk like a flurry of snow.

The music changed: the Director sat still: the old stallion snorted, mouthed the bit, and lifted himself, rider and all, into the first of the ‘airs above the ground’.

Then it was over, and he came soberly forward to the salute, ears moving to the applause. The crowd was getting to its feet. The rider took off his hat in the
traditional salute to the Emperor’s portrait, but somehow effacing himself and his skill, and presenting only the horse.

Old Piebald bent his head. He was facing us full on, six feet away, looking (you would have thought) straight at us; but this time there was no welcoming whicker, not even a gleam in the big dark eye that one could call recognition. The eyes, like the stallion’s whole bearing were absorbed, concentrated, inward, his entire being caught up again and contained in the old disciplines that fitted him as inevitably as his own skin.

He backed, turned, and went out on the ebb-tide of applause. The grey half-door shut. The lights dimmed, and the white horse dwindled down the corridor beyond the arch, to where his name was still above his stall, and fresh straw waiting.

Also by Mary Stewart

Madam, Will You Talk?
Wildfire at Midnight
Thunder on the Right
Nine Coaches Waiting
My Brother Michael
The Ivy Tree
The Moonspinners
This Rough Magic
The Gabriel Hounds
Touch Not the Cat
Thornyhold
Stormy Petrel
Rose Cottage

THE ARTHURIAN NOVELS

The Crystal Cave
The Hollow Hills
The Last Enchantment
The Wicked Day
The Prince and the Pilgrim

POEMS

Frost on the Window

FOR CHILDREN

The Little Broomstick
Ludo and the Star Horse
A Walk in Wolf Wood

Mary Stewart, one of the most popular novelists, was born in Sunderland, County Durham and lives in the West Highlands. Her first novel, Madam, Will You Talk?, was published in 1955 and marked the beginning of a long and acclaimed writing career. All her novels have been bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. She was made a Doctor of Literature by Durham University in 2009.