Page 59 of Trickster King

“Has she been bred this season?”

“Yep.”

“Twins again?”

“I hope not?” I laughed, patted the stallion, and guided him to the trailer, aware he struggled, although it appeared he lacked energy versus suffering from significant pain. “I expect so. She’s predisposed, Baby is the sire, and those two like trying to give me gray hairs. I’m not permitted to know the ultrasound results until she’s at least six months in. That way, if there are any procedures, I don’t learn about them. All I know is that she has been successfully bred and she’s doing great. If it’s twins again, the vets are old hands at dealing with her. They’re trying to have a closer look at Morning Glory to see why she’s so good about having twins. Her complications were minor both times, and she drops them one after another as pretty as a picture.”

“Larger birth canal?” Hawkins suggested. “She’s pretty broad for her breed, so maybe she just has enough space for both.”

“And she throws small foals. That helps. They grow worse than weeds, but they’re born on the smaller side.” I suspected magic played some part in my mare’s success with twins thus far. “My wife says these horses don’t count against my limit. Before we both lose our tempers over this, tell me what you’ve got that I might like.”

“There are a lot of dumps going on right now; too many sellers, not enough buyers. Some of the horses will go to new ranchers. They’re good animals and ready to work. There are a few behavioral problems you might like, though. I’ve got an aggressive mare you’ll enjoy gentling. I don’t know if she’s going to be good at anything, but she’s healthy. Her owner used harsh training methods. As a result, she’s skittish around people. You won’t be able to use a lunge or crop with her to start with, and I wish you luck with anything other than a halter. The owner’s response was to beat her for misbehavior.”

I huffed. “Better than being sored, but not by much.”

“I have a soring victim I’m going to toss your way. He’s five. Before you flip, it wasn’t a Texan that sored him. He’s an import. Once you get him through the soring damage, you’ll have a spectacular carriage horse, and if I had the time, I’d try him at dressage. I have his papers, including his import registrations.”

“Breed?”

“He’s a Hackney stallion.”

I raised a brow. I understood the carriage horse commentary; the palace kept a team of Hackneys for when we had to pull out a carriage or wagon for Royal events. However, none of ours were sored—none needed to be sored, as they’d been bred to high step at the trot and did so with grace, poise, and breathtaking beauty. “Someone sored a Hackney?”

“There’s stupidity, and then there’s stupidity,” Hawkins replied.

Sometimes, I hated people with a burning passion. “If he’s not part of our lines, adding a new Hackney to the mix will earn me the approval of my wife; we have a very limited breeding stock of them.”

“They’re in decline.”

“Dare I ask how much the auction house bought him for?”

“Three hundred.”

I fought the urge to curse. Rather than spew profanities, I controlled my temper, standing with the stallion while Hawkins and Jerrod set up the ramp to get the animal into the trailer. Unlike the trailers we kept at home, Jerrod’s was designed to have a door into every stall in addition to being able to load them from the back.

“Your Majesty, this is a back-facing trailer. It’s easier on the horses. I’ve got padded bars and slings in this setup to help ease stress. When you load him in, make sure you face him the right direction. I’ve sent someone back to the center to get our travel slings; I hadn’t anticipated needing them.”

“Travel slings?” While I expected a fight, the stallion eyed the ramp leading into the trailer, and while slow and wobbly, he went in with some encouragement and patience. I praised him, and as my wife wanted me to shower our new rescues with love, I tested giving him a kiss on his nose.

It took ten minutes longer than usual to escape the trailer as the horse drank up the affection.

Jerrod chuckled, removed the ramp, made certain my new stallion was secured in the trailer, and closed the door. “It’s a belly band we install to help them balance if we think they might be unstable. Honestly, we use them more for the foals. We don’t want them to be hurt during transit. We’ve found it works really well with weaker or injured animals. It’s not enough to keep them off their hooves, but it is enough to prevent a fall. We’ll secure them all that way. It’s a good test to see if they’ll tolerate the slings in the stalls. Honestly, they’re exhausted, so they don’t have the life left in them to fuss over the slings.”

“And they’re so damned hungry that any time we give them even a handful of grain, they’re going to be more worried about making sure they get their next meal than dealing with a sling.”

We’d have hungry, begging horses for weeks to come, but given time, they’d fill out, the fear of them developing colic would ease, and we’d be able to put them out to pasture, although we’d use feeding muzzles on them initially until certain they wouldn’t get sick on us.

The next few weeks would involve a great deal of expense, especially if I couldn’t con RPS agents into helping with the load.

“Exactly so. Let’s load up as many as we can, and we’ll save the filly for last. We can monitor them in the trailer as easily as in a stall, and they’re less likely to fall once we have them in their slings. The vet bill is going to be atrocious.”

“We have a bunch of machines at the palace now, and we keep vets on salary,” I replied. “As long as we don’t need specialty care, we can do most of the work at the palace. Until they can realistically be transported, they’ll stay here, and I’ll just pay for local machines to be used.”

Jerrod nodded. “It all depends on what the scans show.”

“A great deal of damage,” I predicted. “I’m picking up a sored stallion and an aggressive mare as well. We may need to load them after the filly.”

“I’ll make sure the filly is placed far from the troublemakers. We’ll put the troublemakers all the way at the back of the trailer. That’ll give a good gap between the animals. We’ll keep the rescues together as they were together at the hellhole they endured.”

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