Egelric and Malcolm cross the field

“Does he mean to play his father’s game and make us chase him all the way to the end of the pasture?” Egelric complained as he and Malcolm plodded across the muddy field.

“Druid prefers to chase me all the way to the edge of the pasture, and make me leap the fence!” Malcolm laughed.

“One of these days that black devil is going to take a piece off of my nose with his teeth.”

“Would that be a bad thing?”

“On second thought, no,” Egelric grinned.

“This black devil will take off your entire face, so watch him.” Malcolm whistled again, and the black horse near the fence lifted his head and whinnied a mocking reply.

“Some gift!” Egelric laughed.

“He’ll make a fine horse,” Malcolm said, and his eyes were bright with pride.

He had found upon his return that his legs had grown noticeably since he had left his horse behind, and he was soon to find himself in the same situation as his tall cousin Malcolm – and worse off, for while the elder Malcolm was tall and lean, the younger was on his way to being tall and broad like his father.

He was beginning to outgrow his little stallion, who was not quite fourteen hands high, and so the King had just presented him with one of Druid’s eldest sons out of one of Sigefrith’s tall, furry-​​legged warhorses. Except for a wisp of hair on each fetlock, this young stallion was the image of his father on a larger scale. Unfortunately he had his temperament from his mother, a full sister of the mad Nebuchadnezzar.

But Malcolm was fifteen years old and nothing daunted therefore. Moreover, if he ever reached a difficult point in the horse’s training, he knew he could count on Iylaine to smooth things over between them.

“You had better polish him up quickly if you intend to ride him to your father’s,” Egelric pointed out.

“I shall, I shall.”

“I believe His Majesty intends to leave in a month or so. He wants to be there for Cubby’s eighth birthday. I don’t see how you will manage,” he added after the horse had kicked up his heels and trotted around to the edge of the fence nearer the forest.

Malcolm whistled to give himself a moment to consider what he might best say. But he had, after all, only a month in which to convince Egelric. “It’s a big, black lamb he’ll be, if Iylaine’s there,” he said softly in Gaelic.

“Oh, is that your plan?” Egelric laughed appreciatively. “It’s his small, fair shepherdess she’ll be! And what will you do once you leave the valley?”

“That was my plan.”

“Oh.… Oh! It’s as your groom you’ll take her, is it?”

“It’s as my guest I take her. As my cousin.”

They stopped in the middle of the pasture, and they stood side-​​by-​​side and watched the horse as he danced nervously along the fence before the trees.

“It’s your mother you’re wanting her to meet,” Egelric said after a while.

“Aye. And my mother to meet her.”

Egelric grunted.

Malcolm watched his horse. On so gloomy a day, the stallion was no more than a moving shadow passing before the dark pines. There was a chill of November in the April air, and more than that, he thought: there was the bitter emptiness of November as well. So many of the green and growing things had been washed away and drowned that year. It was the ugliest spring he had ever lived.

“Don’t get any ideas, Malcolm,” Egelric said. “I shall be going too, you know.”

“I didn’t have any ideas!” Malcolm protested.

“That is just as well, for it’s many opportunities you will have, I fear,” he sighed.

“I shall not avail myself of them, in any event,” Malcolm grumbled. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I trust you as much as I can trust any fifteen-​​year-​​old. More than I trust any other fifteen-​​year-​​old, I should say.”

“I suppose it’s grateful I should be,” he muttered.

“You should! If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t even let you look at her.”

“You let Stein and Eadwyn and all the other boys look at her!”

“That is because I trust her.”

Malcolm had not had the time to fully consider that remark before Egelric spoke again.

“What the devil is that horse doing over there?” he asked, in English now.

For some time the stallion had been standing still at the fence, with his head straining out into the trees.

“You don’t think he’s found something to eat on a pine branch, do you?” Malcolm asked.

“We shall go see.”

They had covered scarcely more than half the distance between them and the fence when the horse wheeled suddenly and ran off. Now Malcolm’s attention was focused on the tall shadow that stood motionless before the dark pines.

“Do you see something?” Egelric asked, squinting.

“I see someone.”

“Someone with a carrot?”

“We shall go see.”

They had covered scarcely more than half the remaining distance when Egelric’s hand fell on Malcolm’s arm and he hissed in Gaelic, “Hold a moment. It’s an elf I’m seeing.”