BLACK Horses for the KING ANNE MCCAFFREY. Part five

Part Five

GLEIN

A FEW MONTHS OF CONSTANCLY BEING on guard with no incidents or unexplained alarms, we gradually began to relax. While it was certainly an unchristian attitude, I did hope Iswy’s sins had caught up with him somehow, somewhere else. At any rate, I became more engrossed in my training with Canyd and Alun, and in the nurture of the Libyan mares and foals.

I don’t know where the time went to over the next few years, but months sped past, season sliding into season-from winter to spring, summer to autumn-and then the cycle of tasks to be accomplished began again.

I studied continually under Canyd, milking him of every scrap of information, determined to transfer his knowledge to my head. Who could know what obscure

detail might be of a certain use to Lord Artos? I acquired three new apprentices and found that teaching was the most admirable way to remember, and refine, my own understandings. I fancied myself a good teacher, for my scholars seemed to understand my explanations and my cautions. Particularly about the position of the nails so as not to inadvertently puncture the thin wall of the protective horn and wound the foot with nail bind.

Smiths from distant provinces came themselves or sent other capable smiths for instruction. The farm was so busy that Teldys once complained-though in a teasing manner-that the sandals caused more company than the Libyans. But all were made welcome in Lord Artos’s name.

“I dunna know why you keep badgering me, lad,” Canyd Bawn said once when I kept after him over a foal’s malformed hoof, which we were trying to reshape with the use of a special sandal. “For I tell ye, ye know as much as I do now.”

“I’ll never know enough,” I replied fiercely, keenly aware that what I did know would not save the foal or allow him to gambol with the others in the field.

“Ay, then you’ve learned the most important lesson in your life,” Canyd replied, nodding his head. He patted me on the shoulder. “A good man is what you are, Galwyn.”

I only half listened to praise from such an unlikely quarter, because I grieved so at this failure.

“Sa-sa, lad, look at what you have done,” Canyd said, waving at the horses being schooled by Rhodri that day, all of them striding out sound and sure in their sandals.

Though I was busy enough at the forge, making sandals and teaching others how to, from time to time I was also called on to deliver messages. That these excursions also gave me a chance to demonstrate the horse sandals elsewhere made the trips doubly beneficial. Certainly the state of Ravus’s hooves proved the merit of using the sandals.

Ravus and I made many journeys from Deva to Cam-elot. If I saw Lord Artos at all on those occasions-and I would try to-he would solemnly ask me if I felt I had learned enough yet to come to Camelot.

“I am at your service at all times, Lord Artos,” I would reply.

“So you are, good Galwyn, so you are!” he would say, one hand gripping my shoulder with what I liked to think was appreciation.

Once I rode all the way to Londinium with an urgent message for Artos from the princes of the Atrebates and Cantiacii. They needed his reassurance that he and his Companions would help keep the Saxons from moving south into their lands. I was told to verbally repeat the written message. It was an honor for me to do so.

Many of these journeys were not made at the headlong pace that pushed both Ravus and me to our limits. Those more leisurely trips were when we traveled to acquaint someone new with horse sandals. Most frequently, however, I went to Prince Cador’s principal residence, for his horses required constant attention and his smith would not take time out from weapons manufacture to forge sandals. He didn’t consider them important.

Prince Cador was one of Lord Artos’s staunchest supporters, and when he was not fighting off invaders, he traveled much on the Comes’s behalf, arguing with other local princes and tribal leaders to join the noble cause and drive the Saxons back to the sea. His horses always seemed to lose their rims at awkward moments, requiring the prince to stay wherever he was until I could reach him to repair the problems. I began to suspect this was a ploy when three times in a row, the sandal was merely loose and a nail only needed to be tapped hard to solve the problem. But then, some people are difficult to persuade, and the silver-tongued prince of the Dumnonium liked nothing better than to sway men’s minds to his thinking. I kept my counsel, though I often saw Prince Cador’s amused eyes on me, as if he knew what was in my thoughts.

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