Free The Shadow Matrix by Marion Zimmer Bradley Page A

see them.
    Mathias was off his steed and walking toward the stables, his broad shoulders stiff, as
    if he expected the worst. He disappeared beneath the shadowed door of the barn, and
    Mikhail heard a curse. A moment later he emerged, his sober and normally tranquil
    face red with rage. "That's no way to treat good stock!" he thundered, and looked ready
    to knock Duncan down.
    Mathias had grown up with the horses for which the Alton Domain was famed, and
    had a passion for the animals that most men reserved for women. The expression on
    his normally pleasant face was outraged. The situation in the stables must be worse
    than Mikhail had assumed.
    "What do you mean, Mathias?"
    "I only took a glance, but it was enough! Some of the animals are standing in ditches
    up to their hocks, and the stalls are filthy. I never saw anything like it."
    "I don't have time to take care of those animals," sniveled Duncan, looking a little
    ashamed. "It's all I can do to just keep the wood chopped for the fire, and . . ."
    "It's going to take a lot to muck out those stables," Ma-
    thias interrupted, "and the roof needs repair. This place is a disgrace!"
    Mikhail agreed with him, and hoped that the house itself was in better shape. He had
    spent enough time at Armida to know the ins and outs of good management, and was
    rather surprised to realize how much he had learned without knowing it. He had
    mucked out stalls, curried his horses, sat up all night with foaling mares, broken his
    own steeds, and dealt with cases of colic and other equine troubles. But the stables at
    Armida were very well run— Dom Gabriel Alton would not have permitted anything
    else— and the horses were well-treated. It made him sick to think of the poor animals
    within this stable.
    It was still an hour to dusk, and he felt an enormous reluctance to go into Halyn House
    now. It was a strange sensation, a kind of prickling of his skin, a chilliness that had
    nothing to do with the cooling of the air. Instead, he turned to Daryll and Mathias,
    nodding. "Let's see what we can do to make the place livable before dark."
    Daryll and the other Guardsman exchanged a look. It was one thing for Mikhail to do
    chores while they were on the road, and quite another now, the look suggested. And
    under ordinary circumstances, they would not have been reduced to stablehands either,
    for there were always grooms around, and boys learning their craft. It was clear they
    were uneasy about the situation, trying to balance Mikhail's dignity with the need to
    make some order.
    He did not wait for them to agree, but marched into the dank and gloomy building.
    Mikhail was glad his belly was fairly empty, for the stink was enough to make his
    gorge rise. He went to the nearest stall, slipped alongside the miserable horse there,
    and took the hackamore from its hook along the wall. He slipped it over the horse's
    head and carefully backed the animal out.
    The beast was too disspirited to offer any resistance. There were sores on its legs. It
    had not been farried in a long time, so the hooves were grown out, and the poor thing
    was cowhocked. The skin hung along its ribs, and the animal was listless, too weak to
    show any spirit. He recognized the horse as one that Vincent had ridden four years
    before, a fine animal that deserved good treatment. Mikhail turned it around slowly,
    then led it out of the stable and
    into the yard. He looped the lead over a rail, and gave the horse a pat on the neck. It
    looked at him with enormous dark eyes, then shifted uncomfortably from hoof to hoof,
    as if its legs were painful.
    "Can either of you clip his feet? I never quite got the knack of it."
    Mathias grunted, went to his own horse, and took a leather bag off the back. In a few
    moments, he had a sickle-shaped knife in his callused hand. "I always carry this— you
    never know when you will need it." Then he bent down and took the nearest hoof and
    started to slice off the excess cartilage.
    Daryll had