Dragon's Child (6 page)

And tomorrow, he would begin to learn the art of riding a horse.

CHAPTER III

 

In the early morning, winter announced its arrival with chill, white fingers that left serpentine trails of frost in the drying grass. The days shortened noticeably as the corpses of leaves fell in great, scarlet carpets. A single gate barred the path to the villa, although it was never locked and any child could raise the long, iron tongue that held it closed. The path was deeply rutted by farm wagons and, in winter, it was a frozen agony of hardened mud and dried grass. Settled firmly on deep foundations, the villa and its outbuildings, its rich storehouses, its capacious servants’ quarters and its herds of horses, cattle, pigs and fowl hunched on the low hill overlooking the Roman road, brooding in the fading light.

Provident masters of the Villa Poppinidii had scorned to hide the villa and its wealth behind a strong exterior wall but, ever mindful of the dangers in an outpost colony, they had built their home to last. Over a foot thick, and largely free of any openings, its frame offered a blind, uncompromising face to the casual visitor. Its neat, fruitful orchards, the fields that were a patchwork quilt of prudent agriculture and the verdant kitchen gardens might promise a warm welcome, but the villa’s heavy, studded door was prudently locked at night. The Villa Poppinidii looked inward at its fountains and its atrium garden, rather than outward at the long road that led to Aquae Sulis. In the eyes of its inhabitants, the enclave was their whole world and was complete as it stood.

But, beyond the fertile orchards and fallow fields, the Old Forest brooded. Artorex’s refuge was a constant reminder that the land was not completely safe and, now that Myrddion Merlinus had opened their eyes, Ector and Livinia surveyed their small kingdom with hearts that were weighted with foreboding.

Caius ventured into this winter landscape of grey skies and misty, skeletal trees with his customary elan. Unlike his parents, Caius refused to accept that Rome was dead, so he enjoyed his days with the same careless pursuit of pleasure that had always motivated him. With his hunting hounds and his trained hawks, he rode into the wilderness to harry his prey. He rarely returned with the boars, the foxes or the stags that he killed, preferring to leave their corpses to rot on the bloodstained, frozen earth. The local villagers learned to follow his blood spoor which unerringly provided them with enough fresh meat to last them through the winter months.

At other times, when he was bored with hunting, Caius spent his days and nights with a coterie of young men who were noted for their epicene habits and their conscious, offensive arrogance. Wealthy, idle and bored, they drank, whored and terrorized the villagers with stupid pranks that amused the young men hugely but embarrassed their elders when complaints inevitably came to their doors.

But even a much-loved and cosseted son couldn’t avoid all responsibility, and Caius was expected to put aside play to learn the duties of the villa, although he protested at first. Maintaining inventories, supervising crop rotation and planning new villa facilities crowded the days of the young heir as he learned the myriad responsibilities of a master. If he chafed under the yoke of his birth, Caius chose to hide any impatience under a glacial, patronizing composure suitable to his station.

At the other end of the social scale, Artorex stared out at the delicate winter landscape and envied the few scavenger birds that hung in the fog-wreathed air like black rags. Their freedom mocked his busy schedule of toil, study and the endless, irritating challenges that kept him from the fields and the forest. Even the heady promise of horsemanship was small recompense for a life of tedious, inexplicable tasks that left Artorex confused and frustrated, even when he successfully completed the many tests set by Targo.

Gradually, Artorex learned to ride the working farm horses that were the pride of the Villa Poppinidii but he soon discovered that a steady trot was the best they could manage, no matter how hard he beat the sides of their flanks with the flat of his sword. Easy-natured as these horses were proving to be, Targo attended to the young man’s training with his usual order and precision.

When the old legionnaire led Artorex up to Plod, the farm stallion, with his fringed hooves and massive bay shoulders, the boy felt his knees turn to jelly with fear. The horse stood ruminatively chewing grass with huge, yellow teeth, or piddling amazing streams of hot urine wherever he pleased. By the size of the huge droppings scattered through the stables and fields, Artorex decided he did not want to be near Plod’s backside when he lifted his large, coarse tail.

‘He’s big, isn’t he?’ Targo stated reflectively.

‘He’s too big for me,’ Artorex said flatly.

‘People always think that big means savage,’ Targo murmured. ‘How many times have you been called a barbarian, boy? But it’s not true, is it? Well, Plod here is like his name, for all that he’s a stallion. He’s as sweet as a nut, ain’t you, you old faker.’ Targo proceeded to beat on the horse’s belly and flanks with his open hand, so hard that dust rose from Plod’s winter coat in little puffs and drifts.

Artorex waited for Plod to pound Targo into shreds of raw, bloody meat, but the beast simply snickered his enjoyment at the attention he was getting.

‘See? He’s a pleasure to be around, is this old boy. But he’s useless, mind, except for siring more big bastards like himself, or pulling logs from the forest. Now, lad, I want you to mount him.’

‘How? He’s as big as a small room,’ Artorex retorted. ‘I’ll need a ladder.’

‘You won’t be finding a ladder on the battlefield.’ Targo laughed and wandered off in his usual, aimless fashion.

Unwilling to even touch Plod at first, Artorex approached the huge horse from one side. Placing his hands on the horse’s back, the young man tried to jump on to its broad haunches as he had done with the smaller farm horses. He ended up sitting on the ground with the horse’s tail switching in his face. Plod turned his head and eyed Artorex with a wide, long-lashed stare of amazement.

Even the horse is laughing at me, Artorex decided.

Then he gripped the base of Plod’s mane in his left hand and tried to hoist himself on to Plod’s back by brute strength.

Inevitably, he fell on his backside again.

Plod continued to gaze at Artorex with a total lack of comprehension.

Think, idiot! Artorex admonished himself, not even bothering to rise to his feet. It’s like the post and the rail. There must be a trick to this business of riding a horse as big as Plod.

And so the boy considered his position logically, for he was by now becoming comfortable with devising solutions to Targo’s problems. He determined that he needed to approach the large horse from the front, grip the mane and leap on to Plod’s back, turning as he did so.

The solution worked and he was successful at the first attempt.

Plod ignored Artorex once he was seated painfully on the horse’s very sharp spine. The young man was soon slapping the stallion’s shoulders and trying to discover how to entice or, better still, order the beast to move.

Plod continued to munch on some green shoots near the fence. If he bothered to obey the command to move at all, it was to search out sweeter grass.

‘Aaaah!’ Artorex screamed with frustration after five minutes of fruitless pummelling and shouting; Plod, being well used to the strange ways of humans, took no notice.

Then, in pure frustration, Artorex kicked the beast in the flanks with his heels. Abruptly, Plod obeyed, and Artorex, who had not thought to grip the stallion’s mane, fell backwards over the horse’s flanks.

The horse stopped and turned its head to look back at the boy as if Artorex was mentally retarded, a gaze that was mirrored in the laughter and expressions of two passing field hands.

‘That’s the way, Artor - show him who’s the boss,’ one guffawed as they carried their reaping hooks and hoes out to the fallow fields.

For the first time, Artorex heard the shortened form of his name used by common field hands instead of the regal-sounding name that Lucius had chosen for him at birth.

Artorex persevered and soon began to unlock the secrets that allowed him to control his horse. He practised hard and began to experience the pleasure of feeling such a huge creature move on his command. While Plod’s great muscles surged and bunched under Artorex’s knees, he soon became familiar with the exquisite pain that men experience as their bodies become fused to the unbending spine of a horse.

Not surprisingly, Artorex managed to fall off the workhorse on many occasions, and was almost crushed against the fence until he learned to manipulate the horse’s halter and pull its head back when he wanted the beast to stop.

And so the young man and his giant horse began to learn the rudiments of riding.

Targo allowed him no time for self-congratulation, because the veteran now arranged for Artorex to meet Aphrodite.

This slightly smaller mare had a nasty disposition and hated all men, especially tall, vigorous specimens like Artorex. She gazed balefully at him with a jaundiced, narrowed eye at their very first meeting, and then managed to regularly throw him off her back with casual disdain.

Aphrodite was definitely not the Greek goddess of love.

‘Who’s the smarter? You or the horse?’ Targo asked, with a wicked leer plastered over his seamed and wrinkled face.

‘I am,’ Artorex snarled through clenched teeth.

Then the horse stood on the boy’s foot. Artorex was sure she had broken his toe.

‘Who’s stronger? You? Or the horse?’

‘She is - unfortunately.’

Targo laughed, coughed and then spat on the ground.

‘So how do you control something that is far stronger than you?’ Targo asked.

‘Cheat a little?’ Artorex said hopefully.

‘You must convince her that you are stronger and nastier than she is,’ Targo lectured. ‘Horses are like little children. And how do you stop little children from misbehaving?’ Targo mimicked the slapping of a naked bottom. ‘For truly difficult horses, trainers use a quirt, or a small whippy branch. They don’t use it overly much, mind, for if you brutalize a horse you’ll only make it dangerous. Just a taste is all you will need, not enough to hurt but sufficient to demonstrate to Aphrodite that you’re in charge.’ He smiled. ‘Here’s a suitable branch. I’ll return when you’ve mastered her.’

Targo walked away with his usual lack of concern, but he had just handed the boy his greatest test - and the most dangerous temptation to date.

Targo was a hard man, in fists, in swordplay and in the business of living. He had few illusions about the goodness of heart of the people with whom he mixed, nor was there much love left in him. But to those he did love, he was faithful forever.

During his long life, he had seen men who appeared to be honourable on the surface but who took unnatural pleasure in the infliction of pain and brute force. Targo had never understood such flawed creatures, for he hardly considered them to be human. They brutalized anything and anyone within the ambit of their power, so they would beat a horse until it was a quivering and broken-spirited creature, simply because they had complete mastery over the animal.

Targo didn’t know if the boy was such a person. Often, these human beasts had felt inadequacy as children, or had been bullied and brutalized themselves. Targo knew that Artorex had never been forced to exercise power over anything that breathed, so he hoped that the boy wouldn’t fail this crucial trial. The snake-eyed Luka would be certain to ask the question on his next visit.

Artorex could never have guessed the fearful tenor of Targo’s thoughts, so straight was the old man’s back as he strode briskly away.

As was becoming his custom, Artorex approached this latest problem with logic and reason. He cut his own quirt in full view of the wild-eyed mare, slicing his hand with the thin wand of alder in the process. It hurt!

Yes, he thought to himself. No horse would enjoy a blow from this weapon.

Then, for the very first time, he looked at Aphrodite with real attention. She was an ugly mare at best, and it was obvious that she had felt the quirt before, judging by the narrow scars on her shoulders and her flanks.

The horse looked back at him defiantly and Artorex recognized that the mare’s hatred was directed at the narrow wand in his hand. In clear view of Aphrodite’s rolling eyes, he turned his hand and dropped the branch to the ground before showing Aphrodite his bare palms. Then he swiftly leapt on to her back, grabbed her mane tightly with both hands and wrapped his legs about her barrel belly.

As usual, she tried to throw him, but this time her heart didn’t seem so set on drawing his blood and maiming him. Artorex pulled hard on her mane, thereby yanking her head upward. The horse corkscrewed and twisted, but the boy continued to pit his will against hers. Even when she eventually threw him off, he went through the same procedure as before, again and again, until, just when Artorex believed his aching bones couldn’t bear another fall, Aphrodite surrendered her will to his. He felt the sundering of her defiance flow through her body and into his hands which were still tightly knit into her mane. He kicked her flanks, and the horse broke into an obedient trot and then a comfortable canter. Artorex began to exult in the pure joy that a man can only experience when a powerful creature gives itself to him, to do with as he pleases.

When Aphrodite had demonstrated that she was a more mobile and speedy animal than Plod, Artorex threw himself from her back and approached her frontally to stroke her great cheek and forehead.

At first, Aphrodite pulled her head away, and the boy could see all the whites around her untrusting eyes, but he persisted until the horse reluctantly permitted him to caress her.

An hour later, when Targo returned from the villa to rejoin his pupil, he discovered a guilty Artorex feeding the horse a stolen carrot top from the kitchens.