I grinned, signaling the lad to stop. “Sandals to protect his feet from prods and bad surfaces.”
So, although Ravus was unsaddled, he had to stand about and let me pick up his feet one by one to show Sextus his iron rims.
Tertonius shook his head, drawing his mouth up into a pucker. “Don’t see the need of such things, lad. Choose a horse with a good strong upstanding hoof and you’ll have no problems, whatever you ride him over. But that Artos”-and he shook his head again-“he’s got a lot of fancy notions in that head of his, as he’d be better without.”
Sextus Tertonius was the first smith who did not see the benefit of the horse sandals. But he was by no means the last. I only hoped that he would give Lord Artos’s message a more positive response than he’d given the sandals.
I had a meal while Ravus was washed down, groomed, fed, and readied for me to ride off to my next stop.
I WAS ENCOURAGED TO STAY under cover that night at my third stop, a villa outside Corinium; indeed, the weather had worsened. But my night’s rest was broken by the dogs barking sporadically all night and by the thunder and lightning of a fierce storm. While I didn’t rise, my hosts did, investigating each new outbreak of alarm. In the morning I asked what had aroused them. “Chicken thieves,” my host said, shrugging. “We’ve foxes as well as ferrets hereabouts and they do go for the chickens.”
Ravus was as fresh as if he hadn’t done leagues the day before, and I had to let him gallop the fidgets out until he would settle once more to his easy but distance-eating canter.
In Corinium, too, I took a good-natured dismissal of the horse sandals from the recipient of Artos’s message.
“And what happens if a nail works loose? You’ve to walk the horse then, haven’t you, to whomever can fix it?”
“I know enough to do that,” I replied evenly. I had become so used to a positive attitude toward the sandals that such skepticism made me reticent.
“And weigh yourself down more with hammer and nails, I’ll warrant,” was the reply.
So I handed over the message, courteously refused any hospitality, and rode on to Glevum. There I delivered the last of my messages, but Prince Geneir insisted that I could take time now to rest my horse and myself before proceeding onward to Deva. I was glad enough, for Glevum is a considerable town and I had a few odd coins to spend, given me by the satisfied owners of horses I had shod.
I wandered around the market and bought a set of large wooden spoons for Daphne, who was forever breaking hers, generally on the scullery maids’ hands for being sloppy or slow. I bargained hard for a cloak fastener for Canyd and bought a hot meat pie from a vendor. Then I sat on the wall at the edge of the marketplace to watch the folk coming and going. No one so grand as I had seen at Camelot, but it was so rare for me to have a day in which to please myself that I enjoyed the leisure for its own sake.
When I got back to the prince’s house, there was a huge commotion in the stableyard; Prince Geneir himself was shouting orders. As soon as he saw me, he waved me urgently to him.
“Someone tried to steal that gray of yours, Galwyn.” A spurt of fear was quickly masked by the outrage I felt.
“Was the thief caught?”
Geneir gave an exasperated growl, his fingers rattling the hilt of the sword at his waist. “Slippery as an eel, he was, the moment my hostler remembered that Lord Artos’s messengers travel alone. That’s what the stable lad was told, that you were ready to leave. But the rascal didn’t even know which bridle to use, and that made the boy suspicious, so he asked Gren. When Gren arrived to question him”-and now Geneir was as outraged as I- “he vaults to the gray’s back and tries to ride him out of my yard, bareback and bridleless. But my guards were alert and the gate was shut before he could leave. Gren said he was off the horse, up and over that wall there.” And he pointed to the end of the stable yard where stood a high, vine-covered wall. “I’ve sent guards after him. He’ll not get far.”