Page 6 of Silverbow
“Sixteen.”
“Are there any in particular that you have your eye on?”
“All of them.”
Her father darted a warning look back over his shoulder, and she raised her eyebrows in return. It wasn’t Enya’s fault if the boy couldn’t make decent conversation. However, her suitor did not seem deterred. As they wound down the familiar trail toward the broad creek bed, he began prattling on about his family’s holdings, what he was set to inherit as the third son, and what he would do to bolster House Ryerson’s famed herd if she were to wed him.
It was all terribly boring and the bits that weren’t boring irked her. Everyone knew horses would fetch higher prices in the Thronelands, but her father always said that the lords of the North and the Westerlands were better customers. She didn’t need Aric bloody Penrose to tell her how to sell horses, even if he seemed determined to try.
Enya suddenly found herself studying the birds that flapped from branch to branch. She didn’t know the first thing about birds, but she wondered where it was they went for the winter months. Somewhere far off, it seemed. Perhaps they had adventures of their own. She was wishing one of them would swoop in and take her somewhere far off when her father blessedly steered them onto a shortcut that would lead back to the house. The gentlemen made polite goodbyes in the yard and Enya watched them trot down to the Queen’s Road.
“Well?” Her father asked.
“Absolutely not,” she snorted. She hopped off Arawelo and stalked into the west wing of the stable.
Liam watched her approach from where he leaned against a stall door, grinning. “My lady.” He spread his arms wide in a mock bow, a pitchfork still in one hand.
“Shove it.”
“Did you fall in love today, En?” He fluttered his lashes at her as he unwrapped a peppermint candy.
Rage boiled over, and Enya grabbed for his gloved hands. She seized the candy, and with a look colder than mountain runoff, she turned to feed it to Arawelo.
“I’m sorry you had to listen to that,” she crooned to the mare, scratching behind her ear. “Lordlings do love to hear themselves talk.”
Liam howled with laughter and went back to his mucking.
Three days later, Sir Wendlyn came leading his gelding into the yard for Del to inspect. When the phantom problem could not be found and the horse was miraculously declared right as rain, her father suggested they take the knighton a tour of the orchard. Enya pointed out there was nothing to see in the orchard this time of year, but found herself being towed along to look at mostly bare trees as the man babbled on and on about his heroics.
“They’ll make anyone a knight,” she muttered to Arawelo as they watched him depart. The mare huffed in response.
The following afternoon, much to her dismay, Sir Westerton had arrived while Enya was riding one of the fresh three year old colts around the training pen in the yard. The burly knight with ruddy cheeks made a good show of being interested in the colt, even as he bucked and squealed beneath Enya like a wild horse from the Zeskayran Sands.
The knight made a comment about her good seat that so shocked her, she was nearly launched out of her saddle. Her face went scarlet. She envied Del, who suddenly realized he had pressing business in the stable.
It was sometimes jarring to glance at the stablemaster and see his son’s face peering back at her. He could have been Liam’s twin, if not for the sun roughened cheeks and lines around the eyes. More than once in the dim interior of the stable, Enya had choked on a wry comment when she realized she’d mistaken father for son, but Liam’s da only ever gave her a knowing look and retreated further into his domain, as he did now.
She glanced at her father whose warm nature cooled considerably. His hands tightened on the fence rail, but Lord Renley Ryerson was too well-mannered to knock a suitor on his backside, so he only continued to watch. The knight continued to offer unhelpful commentary as the fire-breathing colt tried to best her. Once he’d finally quieted enough to call the end of the lesson, Enya dismounted in a hurry and threw the reins at her father before fleeing the yard.
After that came Lord Thornson, the highest of the lords of Westforks, the port city half a day’s ride from Ryerson House. All five of his city-bred sons from fifteen to twenty-five came for a hunt, but they seemed rather put out when Enya was faster on the draw and had taken two turkeys before any one of them had even nocked an arrow. When they rode back into the yard, giving one of the birds over to the Thornson lot was a small price to pay to be rid of them.
As the queue of suitors lengthened, Enya’s fuse shortened. She was not some doe eyed damsel waiting around for a husband. And these men that strutted through the gates of Ryerson House like proud peacocks were the last men she wanted to see.
Worse, with each strained introduction, a whisper of worry started to take root and creep along her insides - worry that she might never find a suitable lord for Ryerson House. It left her in a temper bad enough the stable boys started making themselves scarce. Even Liam stepped lightly, his teasing gone, turning sour looks on the men who came and went.
Enya turned to channeling the frustration into taming the colt, but each day she battled the beast without progress, she found herself cursing the horse, the suitors, and the king all in the same breath. If her father or the stablemaster wondered what the bay had to do with Pallas bloody Davolier, they didn’t ask. They only watched her steer him around the training ring.
“Meaner than a snowcat in summer. Ought to geld him, Ren.”
“I’ve half a mind to send him to Cantavira and see if Carciner can make something of him,” her father answered.
Enya crinkled her nose but didn’t voice her objection. She’d ridden more than one half-trained monster from Carciner’s stable. The southern lord bred only for speed, and it didn’t matter how foul the horse, as long as it kept its jockey long enough to win a purse of gold here and there. Perhaps the colt would fit there.
“I don’t envy the man who has to get him there,” Del spat, knowing full well it would likely be him.
“I don’t envy the man who has to geld him,” her father chuckled.
Either way, as stablemaster, Del would draw the short straw, and all three of them knew he was unlikely to emerge in one piece. A smile flitted across Enya’s face.
