The next couple days the rebels settled into the pace of castle life. It was so different from the ice palace that it took some getting used to. There was no set schedule, aside from breakfast, lunch and dinner, and most of us spent the day wandering around the castle, learning the passageways and corridors, discovering new rooms. Loki and I spent a lot of time together. He showed me his bedroom, which was absolutely massive. There was a big, oak four poster bed and all the furniture was roughly hewn oak as well. It wasn’t nearly as refined as my bedroom at the ice palace, but I loved the massive stone fire place and the shag carpet that lay in front of it.
Loki had sweet talked the cook into giving us a platter of fruit and a couple mugs of hot apple cider, and I lay stretched out on the rug, feeling the soft fur underneath me, watching the orange flames dance and leap . Loki set his mug down on the hearth and sat down right next to me, he dipped his head down and brushed his lips over mine. I tasted spices, cinnamon, nut meg and apples.
He pulled away and smiled down at me, “my father thinks you should go down to the stables and learn to ride properly today.”
“What?” I squawked, sitting up abruptly. That wasn’t what I’d expected him to say at all! “But….I can ride just fine,” I protested.
Loki raised one brow at me, and I grumbled, “alright, maybe I’m not so good at it.”
“Well you’ll want to get better, since you’ll be riding into battle,” he climbed to his feet and offered me his hand, “come on. We’ll go riding together, it’ll be fun.”
The stables were to the right of the huge castle, and we had to walk by the garden to get to them. On the way past the red fence I went up on my tip toes, trying to see into the garden. Loki chuckled, “Tell you what, we can go walk in the gardens afterwards, as an apology for putting you through riding lessons.”
“Alright,” I agreed, reluctant to get on a horse again, but eager to see what the garden was like beyond the red fence. Loki came to a halt in front of a wide, flat stone building. It had an open front, and I could see an aisle ran down the middle of it. Long, brown faces peeked over the tops of wooden doors. Multiple pairs of massive brown eyes stared curiously at us. I swallowed hard as we entered. It smelled like fresh hay and the musky scent of horses.
“They’re looking at me.”
Loki snickered, “they’re wondering who’s come to visit them. Just relax,” he glanced over at me and shook his head, “you’re already visibly tense. The horse will probably pick up on that.”
“Great,” I mumbled.
There were a few fire jotun in the stables, shoveling hay into the stalls or grooming the horses. Beyond the stable building I could see a couple of large, fenced in rings of packed dirt. There were several horses doing laps around the rings, their jotun riders crouched low over their backs. As Loki and I entered the stall area, I looked up at the horses suspiciously. They were even bigger than the horses the frost jotun rode, probably because the fire jotun were so much heavier. These things were the size of Clydesdales! Loki stopped me in front of one of the end stalls and gestured to a black horse with light grey mane.
“You’ll be riding Sigurd.”
Sigurd and I regarded one another suspiciously. The horse had light brown eyes and a handsome, smooth face. Intelligence lay behind it, a sense of self knowing that made me vaguely uncomfortable. What if he decided he didn’t like me?
Loki patted my shoulder, “Don’t worry, you two will get along great. Ah, here comes Vidar, he’ll show you the ropes.”
A tall, lean jotun dressed all in brown had entered the stables. He looked me over once and then shrugged, apparently I’d passed inspection as “good enough”.
“Welcome to my stables,” his voice was high, and a little nasal. That combined with his skinny stature made me wonder if the other fire jotun had assigned him to the stables to get him out from under their feet. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like him, “I hear you’re not the best at riding.”
I glared at Loki, who smiled apologetically.
“We’ll get you whipped into shape in no time, “declared Vidar, and his voice was almost smug now, “you wouldn’t believe the imbeciles I’ve taught, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. It was official. I didn’t like him. Vidar didn’t seem to notice that I was glowering at him, he continued, “Sigurd might be a bit much for you, but that’s what Surtr ordered, and what the king wants, he gets,” he winked at Loki, as if the two of them were sharing some kind of hilarious joke. Loki grinned at him, but when Vidar turned to pet Sigurd, Loki made a horrendous face at his back. I had to stifle a giggle behind my hand.
“We’ll start by teaching you how to get the horse ready to ride. Follow me to the tack room,” Vidar took off down the hallway between the stalls without even looking to see if I was following, I had to jog to keep up with his long legged stride. At the back of the stable was a tiny room with no door. On the walls were hooks that held leather saddles and long leather straps fixed with metal hoops and chains. I stared up at the wall in dismay. How on earth was I supposed to know what any of this was?
Vidar grabbed a flat piece of fabric from a nearby shelf, “first you need to saddle pad,” he said, “that goes underneath before you put the saddle on.” He shoved the fabric at me, and I took it, making a face at him as soon as his back was turned again.
His nasal voice was already starting to get on my nerves as he continued, “this is an English saddle,” he wrapped his hands around the leather base of one of the saddles, pulling it off the hook, “soft, supple and handmade. If this goes missing, I’ll have your head.”
I pursed my lips to prevent myself from saying anything, looking up and down his skinny frame. I’d love to see him try.
Vidar hadn’t noticed my examination, or my assessment of his skinniness. He continued to lecture, “The stirrups on an English saddle should be run up the leathers, and the offside stirrup of a Western saddle should be hooked over the horn or folded over the seat. What did I say this saddle was?”
“English,” my voice was flat. I was unimpressed with the kindergarten class questions. Beside me, Loki had his hand over his mouth. His shoulders were shaking. I shot him a look and he actually had to turn around and put his hands on his knees. Jerk.
My teacher continued to be oblivious, “Very good, so the stirrups should be run up the leathers.”
Whatever that meant.
“You want to fold the cinch back over the saddle,” he explained, “you don’t want to hit the horse's back as you lift the saddle over and place it on top…”
I was starting to zone out.
Finally we had all the gear (after Vidar had spent what seemed like hours explaining every little piece) and I watched as he saddled the horse. I was thankful that he went slowly, because there seemed to be a ton of straps and buckles you had to remember.
“Notice that I checked Sigurd’s back for dirt or bits of grit, or whatever might get caught under the saddle before I put it on,” he lectured, “a bit of grit on an hour ride or during battle, can turn into a major pain for a horse. And you don’t want a mad horse, you want a happy horse.”
Pearls of wisdom. I just barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes at him. Loki had finally subsided by now, and was watching my reactions to everything with mild amusement.
“Are you ready?” Vidar stepped back and motioned to the horse like he was gesturing at a jeopardy prize, “jump on.”
“Right,” I mumbled, “just jump on. Okay.”
Hesitantly, I moved toward the huge horse. Sigurd surprised me, because just as I was grabbing for the saddle horn he swung his head around and surveyed me gravely.
“What’s he doing?” I said, alarmed.
“He just wants to say hi,” Vidar folded his arms over his chest and gave me a smug grin, “wouldn’t you want to properly meet the person you were going to be hauling around?”
I grimaced at him, and then turned back to Sigurd, who was regarding me with solemn brown eyes, “uh, hi.” I wasn’t sure what to do, so I held out my hand, the way you did with dogs. Sigurd dipped his head down slightly and snuffled his nose across my palm. I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my face. It tickled. He lifted his head once more, whinnied quietly and then faced forward again. I guess I had passed some sort of horsey test. Carefully I set my foot in the stirrup, hauling myself up and onto the saddle. I had done that before, so I couldn’t help rolling my eyes when Vidar congratulated me like I was a child taking my first steps.
“Very good,” he gushed, “now let’s go out into the ring. You’ll just practice moving naturally with the horse as he walks for today. Later on we’ll get you at a trot, a canter and a full gallop.”
A flat out gallop. My eyes must have gone wide, because Vidar chuckled, “you’ll be charging into war, so you’ll have to learn to stay in the saddle. Can’t have the princess dumped off her horse halfway there. Very embarrassing.”
I was at the perfect height to reach out and smack him in the back of the head as he turned, and it took all my force of will to resist doing it. I could practically hear my teeth grinding. Vidar took the reins and led the horse forward, and once again I found myself bouncing up and down. So my tail bone was going to be bruised by the end of the day, that was for sure. I gave Loki a grumpy look. It felt like my bruises were just healing. He just gave me another brilliant grin, and then he fell back and I couldn’t see him anymore as we came out into the open ring. Upon closer inspection I could see the ground was mulch, which I guess was best for the horses or something, and good for me when I fell off, which was pretty much inevitable.
The ring beside me was occupied. There were two fire jotun doing laps on massive black horses, both running at a trot around and around the ring. I watched them for a minute, before Vidar jerked my attention back down to him,
“Now, your posture is what’s giving you a hard time,” he reached out and poked my leg, “you’re slouching in the saddle like you’re a pool of melting jello.”
I didn't like being compared to tasteless, sugary dessert. I glared at him. He kept talking,
“You want to form a straight line. Your ear, shoulder, hip and heel should be lined up. Straighten you back.” He handed me the reins, “now hold them out in front of you, give him some slack while you’re just standing there. Sigurd is a smart horse, he knows what he’s doing more than you do.”
That wasn’t saying much. I glowered at him and held the lines as instructed.
“Your elbow to the horse’s mouth should be another straight line,” Vidar said, “now, in a second I’m going to get you to slowly squeeze his sides with your heels and get him to walk. Don’t interfere with your horses movement, just try to go with him.”
He stepped back and nodded, “okay, go ahead, take him around a few times.”
As instructed, I squeezed my heels into the horse gently, and Sigurd started forward so abruptly that I nearly fell backwards. We went around a couple times, me jolting like a bag of flour in the saddle, and Vidar shouting instructions. Sit up straighter, don’t slouch, pull your shoulders back, don’t hunch over….
Finally he waved at me to stop and Sigurd and I halted just in front of him. Vidar ran his hands through his hair and let out a puff of air in frustration, “this might take a while.”