If Wishes Were Horses Read online

  I knew before my mother answered that the war would not be short or a four-day rout: one of those awful premonitions to which I was prone. I tried very hard not to let them insert themselves in my mind, but they appeared as they chose. Like waking one morning, when I was ten, and knowing that Father’s best stallion had impaled himself on a stake in the top field and bled to death. Or knowing that my youngest sister, Desma, was choking on a pea that had fallen out of her rattle. But Mother had known, too, and reached her in time to scoop out the impediment and open the path of air to her lungs.

  “The war will take whatever time is required to end it,” Mother told Tray, which was not the answer he wanted. “Do close your mouth, Tray. You wouldn’t want to swallow a fly.”

  I also knew what else worried my twin, but then we were closely bonded in our twinship. My father had promised Tracell the pick of the young horses for his sixteenth birthday, one that he could train on his own. Right now our fields and stables were virtually empty of all but brood mares and the one stallion too old for battle. And the foundered Cirgassian.

  “If the war lasts very long, there won’t be a horse for me on my sixteenth birthday,” Tracell complained as we followed Mother inside Mallafret Hall.

  “If that should be the case,” Mother said cheerfully, “I’ll be sure to do something about it, my love. You will have the promised steed on your birthday. I’ll see to that.”

  That was reassurance enough for Tracell, who lost his worried frown and quite pranced.

  “Of course,” Mother went on with a sly glance at him, “you must now share with me many of the duties your father undertakes, for I shall need a strong man at my side during the times to come.”

  “But Sir Minshall is Seneschal,” my brother said.

  “And he is very well known to have been a fine soldier, winning many battles . . . in his day,” my mother replied. “He will look finely fierce if I am required to give audience to men of rank, but it is on you whom I rely: you and Tirza.”

  “Yes, of course, Mother,” we said in chorus.

  * * * *

  So that was one reason that I knew that we were in for a long separation from Father, which increased my original foreboding.

  I said nothing but clasped Mother’s hand tightly when hers closed on mine. So she knew that I knew and was warning me not to speak. Unlike Tracell, who speaks without thought most of the time, I somehow have the sense to know when to keep silent. Of course, with such a collection of brothers and sisters all demanding attention, I had little opportunity to get words in edgewise. Tracell had always talked for the pair of us, even when we were learning to speak and I had been content to let him. Until the time I heard Nurse fretting to my mother that she worried that I talked so seldom.

  “Ah, but when she does speak, she speaks in good sentences and to a purpose,” my mother had said, stroking my hair and hugging me. “My gracious silence,” she added, smiling at me and her smiles were worth all the words in the world.

  “If you say so, milady,” my nurse had replied, still dubious.

  After that, I made an effort to talk, though sometimes the only things to be said were so obvious that it was almost a waste of breath to mention them. Why comment on the obvious? Like a sunny day. Or a good soaking rain to encourage crops and flowers to grow. Or how well the youngest twins were doing.

  By the time I was twelve, I learned that some people would say one thing — as often my father’s tenants did — and yet you could hear what they should have said, or wanted to say and didn’t dare. There were times when I knew I should mention the disparity to Father or Mother. Sometimes I did not. Unless, of course, Mother took me to one side and asked, “What does my gracious silence think?” Which meant it was proper for me to speak out.

  Unlike Tracell’s anxiety to be given a fine horse for his sixteenth birthday, I had always known that the present that would be mine when I became sixteen was safely in Mother’s locked chest, hidden behind the fireplace in her room. I knew that the crystal had been there since my birth, for it was a distaff tradition that crystals were given to each daughter on the occasion of her sixteenth birthday. Even the ones for my other sisters — Catron, Diana and Desma — were safely in keeping. (Mother had known the outcome of each of her pregnancies: that my next youngest sister, Catron, would arrive by herself. Followed by two more boys, Andras and Achill, then Diana and Desma.)

  * * * *

  The rest of that auspicious day when Father answered the call of his prince was odd, for we were both elated at how quickly the muster had been made and then suddenly bereft of important tasks to be done. I did help Tray with the Cirgassian. He had the most delicate pointy ears — still drooping in his exhaustion. He would need much care if he were to survive.

  “I’ve never seen a Cirgassian before,” Tray remarked to Surgey as they gently groomed the last of the hardened lather and dirt from its flanks. It stood, head down in the stable, golden straw up to its belly. Tray would offer it water from time to time but kept the portions small.

  “Worth our effort, sor,” Surgey agreed.

  “Maybe you’ll cure him well enough to be ridden again,” I suggested, though I wasn’t all that sure of it. It would be very good for Tray if the animal recovered. For my brother was much too long in the leg anymore for his pony.

  “Well, I shall certainly see what I can do about this fellow,” Tray said, hands on his hips. He sounded so like Mother that I stared at him until he was aware of my astonishment and gave me a grin. “After all, Mother only does what needs to be done and I know what needs to be done with him.”

  Which was, of course, the exact and complete truth, and so I was quite as happy to help my twin as I would be to assist Mother.

  * * * *

  Of course, as messages began to arrive from the battle lines, there was much more to think about. Father’s troops had responded so expeditiously that they shamed the musters of other villages on the way into doubling their efforts to swell the ranks at Princestown. And thus our Prince Sundimin was able to meet the initial attack of the aggressor, Prince Refferns of Effester. That prince, thinking to find an easy mark in our Principality, did not. In fact, he was pushed back across the River Shupp, which was the boundary between our Principalities. If my father’s messages to us singled out the most valiant of our townsmen, and those whose bravery had cost them their lives, the messages the heralds proclaimed suggested that our father’s leadership had been the primary cause of our success. Prince Sundimin was an older, cautious man who had not previously had to take up arms to defend his borders. I could see that the “games” my father had played with Tracell and those he had inveigled into their maneuvers had been far more beneficial than many such other pastimes.

  But the war dragged on because, Prince Refferns, deprived of an easy victory, employed mercenaries to strengthen his weakened lines, certain from the ease and force with which his army had been beaten back across the Shupp, that Sundimin would press the advantage. So, perforce, Sundimin had to make alliances with other Princedoms, west and south of our Principality to be sure that Effester, now advised by professional soldiers, did not outflank him.

  “We can see them across the wide river,” Father wrote Mother — she always read his infrequent letters to us (though perhaps not every word he wrote) “and they us, but there isn’t a bridge left now for many leagues on either side of the Shupp. All have been burned, so do not look for the usual supplies from the east. Be sure to gather in the harvest and preserve it well.”

  Mother had not needed that advice. The day after Father and his company had left, she had distressed Siggie the head gardener to the point of tears when she made him dig up all the flowers — save for the roses — and plant vegetables, using the arbors for beans, tomatoes, squash and peas. She sent word to all our villagers that they were to do likewise, and had the gamekeepers increase the snares for rabbit and coney, and for pheasant and grouse, and culled the deer of the old or lame which would have been a
llowed to die as their time came. She had us all out in the ornamental lakes of the formal gardens, deepening the long rectangles so that we, like the farmers, could stock pond waters with river tench, bream and carp. The wood lakes received her attention as well, and the forest streams so that we had racks and racks of drying fish while the cooper’s apprentices were increased to twenty as the orders for kegs, barrels and tubs came in. I have never spent such a busy summer but somehow Mother had the knack of making the work seem both novel and one more way of keeping Father and all our friends in his company well supplied when winter came.

  At harvest time, while the battles seemed to seesaw across the Shupp by way of pontoon bridges or other craft tied together, even the oldest villagers were put to work, sitting down if they could not stand or glean, or perched on high stools to flail the seed from the full heads of the crop. She had the hedgerows scoured for useful herbs, which were dried against need. And because we children worked beside her and the villagers, no complaint came to our ears as we worked all the long summer hours God gives a day in our latitude.

  “Sure’n’ we could feed all Prince Sundimin’s armies with what we’ve here,” someone remarked.

  “Sure’n what else are we doing this for?” was the doughty response.

  So it surprised no one when my father sent a letter asking for what supplies could be spared, for the armies were wintering along the river Shupp, neither force willing to withdraw. And more princelings, further down the river, all the way to the seaport, began to eye each other across the broad Shupp. Since Mallafret had huge, dry cellars, much had been stored with us as well as in the three great village barns. The last of our horses pulled the wagons. Our farmers themselves accompanied the drays pulled by their oxen, determined to return with the beasts no matter what. They managed, but only because Father sent an escort along with them to be sure of their return. And because meat — even haunches of our venison — had been part of our offerings, the oxen did not have to be sacrificed.

  In one exception, Mother had also had us older five children secrete a portion — a tithe, she called it — in the deepest and darkest cellars of Mallafret where few would look for anything other than seemingly blank walls. And she enjoined us to secrecy.

  “You mean the war is going on and on, don’t you, Mother?” Tracell said gloomily, for we were both now fifteen.

  “I said I’d see what I can do about your birthday horse, Tracell,” she said firmly.

  “Mother, you’re as clever as you can stare,” Tray said with a certain maturity in his voice — for his voice was now a firm tenor, “but with so many horses needed by the army, however will there be one for me? Besides Courier, who can barely walk without wheezing.” For that was what we had named the Cirgassian who had somehow survived his ordeal.

  “I intend to see what I can do.” And she walked off on some other of the many duties that were her never-ending responsibility in Father’s absence.

  “Tray, I could kick you,” I said, keeping my voice low but meaning him harm, “to doubt Mother so.”

  He gave me a long look. “I have every respect for our mother, Tirza, but there are some things even she will find it difficult to provide in these times.”

  * * * *

  The unmistakable sound of cannon and the discharge of other weapons wakened us one cold wintry morning just before Solstice. While rousing the rest of us to close and bar the shutters of the all-too-many windows of Mallafret Hall, Mother sent Tray to see what had happened and to offer shelter to the villagers. The barrage was at least sporadic and the Shupp, half a mile beyond the village, was full of wintry snow and rain, running too rapidly to allow ice to form — and thus preventing easy access from our enemy. Tray, hauling his long legs up almost to his chin, galloped bareback off on the pony, who was speedier of foot than the poor wind-broken Courier.

  “While he’s gone, we must see what we can do to protect ourselves should the enemy somehow cross the river and seek to pillage,” Mother said and briskly gave her orders.

  “But what can we do, milady?” Sir Minshall demanded, for Mallafret was a manor house, not a castle, though it was stoutly built of the native golden stone.

  “Sir Minshall, we may be women and young folk, but there is much that we all can do. And will!” she said so staunchly that he blushed with shame. “We have lances, we have the old long rifles — and powder and shot for them, if I am not mistaken. We have crossbows and quarrels from an even earlier war, and bows and arrows even now used to hunt deer. We have heights from which we can pour boiling oil on those who might seek to enter Mallafret. First, girls, go shutter every window. Sir Min-shall, Surgey, Siggie, be so good as to pull the heaviest chests across the doorways. Livvy, Tess, Tirza, take our largest kettles and boil oil. Not the new pressings. The old will do as well, and be sure to have lighted torches so we give them a good roasting once they’ve been soaked in oil.”

  “We have so many doors, milady,” Sir Minshall said anxiously.

  “And quite likely as many nails. Fetch the stout planks we use to clean the ceilings and refresh the chandeliers. I’ll see what else I can do.”

  When I helped carry the first of the cauldrons up the many flights of stairs to be settled just over the main entrance, I could see that the village was afire. Leaving Tess and Livvy to arrange the “welcome” blessing of hot oil, I raced to tell Mother.

  “Tray will know to bring the survivors back to us. Let us devoutly hope some have weapons,” she said. “Stuff my lavender scarf through the shutters above the secret door, for that is the only one unsealed. Tray will have sense enough to see what is meant by it.”

  “No one can have used it in hundreds of years,” I said, for although we of the Eircellys knew of its existence, not even Tray or I would have dared use it — for fear someone might oversee us.

  Mother favored me with a smile. “Not used, to be sure, but kept oiled and passable. One never does know when something like that will be needed.”

  Somehow that forethought of hers turned my fear to resolution. Whatever we must do to secure Mallafret from pillage and destruction would be done and be sufficient to our need.

  * * * *

  Tray did return, four small children sitting numbly on his pony, and behind him, carrying what they had been able to save, walked many of the village women. Luckily the pony fit through the secret door, though first the children had to be taken from his back.

  “The men have all stayed to defend what homes remain,” Tray said, his face covered with smuts and one hand blistered. He also carried a musket someone had supplied him. “But Effestrians cannot cross,” he added fiercely. “Not that they didn’t try, but they did not take into account the current and have been carried so far below us, toward the first rapids, that I doubt they will survive the journey or make another attempt. Farms are sending reinforcements to assist us, so I shall return now, having discharged my duty to our people.”

  “Only after I have seen what I can do about your hand, my son,” my mother said proudly and shortly attended his injury. As he left, taking the pony with him out the secret door, I saw her hand clutching the crystals. She saw my gaze on her action and nodded solemnly. “He will be all right,” she murmured before she drew me back to help her attend others. “Now let us see what we can do to settle these people.”

  “Yes, Mother,” I said, following.

  “Who is hurt?” she called in a voice that could be heard across the Great Hall, now filled with weeping and fretting folk. “Tirza, we will need hot water and tea, and perhaps a tot of something stronger to restore spirits.”

  “Let us do that, milady,” the cooper’s wife said, stepping forward. She had served at the hall before her marriage and knew where things were kept.

  “That is an excellent thought, Merva,” Mother said, “much appreciated. Tirza, if you will separate the injured from the sound, then we can continue with our preparations to defend Mallafret.”

  “I doubt they would be able to co
me ashore, milady,” Merva said stoutly. “Not only is the current swift but the river itself is filled with . . . things . . . that bump and slither and can easily overturn the silly rafts they made. An’ as soon as the first cannon went, so my man took the last horse with four good legs and rode to summon such as are left to come to our aid.”

  “Well done, but Quiman has always been sensible,” my mother said approvingly and Merva preened before she recalled herself to the tasks at hand.

  With all the heavy cauldrons full of hot oil, every other pan of size in the kitchen had to be used to cook a morning porridge while other women continued with the bread which Livvy had set to rise. By the time all stomachs were full of a warm and nourishing meal, Mother had a good idea of the destruction wrecked on the village from talking to those as she served them. Only two of the cannon balls had landed on targets, yet so many cottages had been built butt-on-butt that almost the whole riverside row, including the inn, the school, and the church had burned. That left over a hundred and fifty without shelter and deprived of most of their belongings — beds and clothes being the most critical of the losses in this depth of winter. And the Solstice but a week away. Handcrafts made for the celebration, new clothing, and other gifts as well as foodstuffs hoarded for a good feasting were likewise so much ash.

  “I’ll have to see what I can do,” Mother said, fingering her crystals, and I did wonder how she would manage to rise to this disaster. Especially with Mallafret not yet secure from attack.

  Midafternoon a troop raced up the avenue led by sons of nearby estates, too young yet to be mustered — although if the war continued much longer, they too would be called up. Tray, of course, rode in the lead, proudly astride his pony, his legs stuck out in front of him so they wouldn’t drag on the ground.