frumenty we could eat. I enjoyed myself, though some of the older men drank too much mead and were very unwell the next day. I was determined to show my reliability in caring for Cornix, so I did not overindulge. Indeed, Canyd and I were the only ones sober enough to do the horses the next morning.
CANYD USED MY CONVALESCENT TIME TO teach me more about The Hoof. From a shelf in his little cot, he brought down the bones of a horse’s leg, with the dried tendons yellow against the dark ivory of the bone. He pointed out the small pastern bone, the navicular, which can easily be chipped enough to lame a horse so badly it has to be put down. The larger pastern bone was in place above them. I could actually move the knee and fetlock of this relic. He had dried out a hoof as well, the flesh carved out so I could see into the coronet band and the horny shell that protects the frog, the inside of it striated with fine vertical lines of hoof horn. The hoof wall was actually no thicker than half the nail of my index finger.
“This is like your own finger- and toenails, Galwyn,” Canyd explained, watching me examine the relic. “See here, where there are ridges? Bad year for this horse. See here, where there are cracks? He wasn’t getting the right feed to keep his bones strong …”
He took the hoof in his hand, turning it around and around, obviously pondering some problem.
“Sorry, lad”-and he handed it back. “There is such a thin wall. One would have to be so careful…”
“Of what?” I prompted when the silence continued.
Canyd inhaled and then tapped the hoof. “You know, don’t you, that all the Libyans are footsore-between hoof rot and cracks?”
I nodded, because it had been the talk of everyone in the cot: How was Lord Artos going to use horses who kept going lame? Ponies might not be big enough but they were sturdy and never had such problems with their feet.
“Those big Libyans have nice long hooves but they are accustomed to rocky and sandy surfaces. We have more bogs and marshes hereabouts, an’ I mislike what the wetness does to these hooves, especially with such a high frog, where the mold likes to settle.”
“But it’s all hard,” I said, tapping the shell. “Surely…”
“You’ve scrubbed stables down afore now, lad, and weren’t your nails soft after a day in water?”
‘Tes, they were-but they’re only fingernails, not tough hoof like this.”
“The pony that wore this foot was born and bred on this island. Big and strong as the Libyans are, they will need something to keep their feet up out of constant contact with wet ground. If we could only-” He broke off, frowning to try and catch some elusive notion. Then he reached into a dark corner and brought out some very odd looking pieces of leather. One had strings attached to it. He tapped the surface and I identified it as boiled leather, from which my father’s guards had made their breastplates and the skirts that fell from waistline belts to protect their thighs from arrows.
“D’you know what this might be, lad?”
Some memory struggled to be recalled: something said in Lord Artos’s voice.
“Look at it.” And he pushed the thing into my hand. A rounded piece of boiled leather, all right, a sort of sandal-but for what sort of short and rounded foot… ?
“A sandal for a horse?” Yes, that was what Lord Artos had said of Canyd: He wanted to put sandals on horses to protect the hooves he was always talking about. I picked up the strings. “And these tie it on … ?”
“Good, lad! But leather, as tough as it can be made, is scraped and worn out in several days, and it takes weeks to prepare.”
Then he handed me some flat metal crescents. They, too, had ties, but it didn’t take me a minute to see that going over rough ground would split the thongs and the sandal would come off. Or it would hang by one tie and be a danger to the animal, not a protection.