Free The Boy Who Plaited Manes by Nancy Springer Page B

ease to dress the lady’s palfrey when he was bid. Lady Aelynn went forth to the next hunt with tiny bells of silver and gold chiming at the tip of each of her mount’s dainty ribbon-decked braids, and eyes turned her way wherever she rode. Nor did the boy ever seem to arrange the mane and tail and forelock twice in the same way, but whatever way he chose to plait and weave and dress it seemed the most perfect and poignant and heartachingly beautiful way a horse had ever been arrayed. Once he did the palfrey’s entire mane in one great, thick braid along the crest, so that the neck seemed to arch as mightily as a destrier’s, and he made the braid drip thick with flowers—roses and lilies and spires of larkspur trailing down, so that the horse seemed to go with a mane of flowers. But another time he would leave the mane loose and floating, with just a few braids shimmering down behind the ears or in the forelock, and this also seemed perfect and poignant and the only way a horse should be adorned.
    Nor was it sufficient, any longer, that merely the lady’s milk-white palfrey should go forth in braids. Lord Robley commanded that his hot-blooded hunter also should have its mane done up in stubby ribboned braids and rosettes in the Auberon colors, and the horses of his retinue likewise, though with lesser rosettes. And should his wife choose to go out riding with her noble guests, all their mounts were to be prepared like hers, though in lesser degree.
    All these orders Wald passed on to the boy who plaited manes, and the youngster readily did as he was bid, working sometimes from before dawn until long after dark, and never seeming to want more than what food he could eat while standing in the kitchen. He slept in the hay and straw of the loft and did not use even a horse-blanket for covering until one of the grooms threw one on him. Wald, ashamed of the boy’s shabbiness, provided him with the clothing due to a servant, but said nothing to him of a servant’s pay. The boy seemed content without it. Probably he would have been content without the clothing as well. Though in fact it was hard to tell what he was thinking or feeling, for he never spoke and his thin face seldom moved.
    No one knew his name, the boy who plaited manes. Though many of the grooms were curious and made inquiries, no one could tell who he was or where he had come from. Or even what he was, Wald thought sourly. No way to tell if the young snip was a halfwit or a bastard or what, if he would not talk. No way to tell what sort of a young warlock he might be, that the horses never moved under his hands, even the hot-blooded hunter standing like a stump for him. Scrawny brat. He could hear well enough; why would he not talk?
    It did not make Wald like the strange boy, that he did at once whatever he was told and worked so hard and so silently, reaping for Wald the lord’s praise; Walk disliked anyone to whom he was obliged. Nor did he like the way the boy had arrived, as if blown in on a gust of wind, and so thin that it nearly seemed possible. Nor did he like the thought that any day the boy might leave in like wise. And even disliking that thought, Wald could not bring himself to give the boy the few coppers a week that were his due, for he disliked the boy more. Wald believed there was something wrongheaded, nearly evil, about the boy. His face seemed wrong, so very thin, with its set mouth and its eyes both wild and quiet, burning like a steady candle flame.
    Summer turned into autumn, and the boy braided the palfrey’s mane with asters, smiling ever so slightly as he worked. Autumn turned to the first dripping and dismal, chill days of winter. The boy used bunches of bright feathers instead of flowers when he dressed the palfrey’s mane, and he did not ask for a winter jerkin, so Wald did not give him any. Seldom were the horses used for pleasure at this season. The thin boy could spend his days huddled under a horseblanket in the loft.
    Hard