Free The Skeleth by Matthew Jobin Page A

reached for the brush that lay in the corner of the stall. “I can’t stay long.” She swished it along his muscled neck and down each of his forelegs. He blinked and stretched his lips, enjoying the attention as he always did, but that only made her feel worse.
    Indigo was not hers anymore, not even to raise and train. Her papa was marshal of the stables no longer. None of them were ever going back to the farm. Home was home no more.
    â€œPapa, come home safe.” It was not the swirling chaff that made her eyes water so. “Come home soon.”
    She felt a prodding at her arm. “You must think me a fool.” She stroked the whorl of fur between Indigo’s eyes. “I fear for things that have already happened, and for things that may never happen at all.”
    Indigo tossed his head up and down. He bent to drink from his trough.
    Katherine whistled, then warbled a song to hold the misery at bay, her voice always weaker than she thought it should be, breaking and trailing to a lisp over the ends of the notes. Papa would come back. All would be well, even if they had to live somewhere else, even if they had to make their living a different way and never trained horses again. She could wallow deeper into the mire of her worry, or rest upon all that had proven good.
    â€œTom is free.” She swished the brush along Indigo’s broad, straight back, then down his muscled hock. “Did you know that? His stupid old master will never find him now. Lord Tristan will take him in and take good care of him, I’m sure of it. Maybe he’ll make a man-at-arms of him, somehow. Wouldn’t that be grand?”
    Indigo turned an eye on her, big and brown, full of what she would always say was sympathy.
    â€œPapa won’t be long.” She reached for the curry comb andswept it in tight circles through his coat. “He’ll have a talk with his old friend Tristan, and together they’ll set everything right. You’ll see.”
    She spun out her tale of dreams come true for her own hearing. “And Harry, too—I’m sure he’ll return before long.” She whisked bits of chaff from Indigo’s withers. “You’re promised to be his, but he’ll still let me train you, so in a way, you’ll still be mine.”
    Indigo whickered, then blew out a snort. Katherine spoke no more of Harry, or of where her thoughts of him always led. There were some dreams she dared not speak into anyone’s ear, not even Indigo’s.
    She bent down and took one raised hoof in her hands. “I’ve no right to ask for an easy life just because of what we did up in the mountains.” She scraped the mud from the insides of his metal shoes. “It doesn’t work like that, does it?”
    Indigo nuzzled at her side. Dust drifted in the sunbeam.
    â€œWe faced the Nethergrim itself.” She rubbed a hand under his chin, just the way he liked best. “We might have made all the north safe for years to come—
that’s
our reward,
that’s
our thanks.”
    Indigo pushed his head against her. She stroked his black mane. She felt like herself again.
    â€œPapa will be home soon, and all will be well in the end.” She took up his tail to comb it straight. “I really shouldn’t worry so much.”
    A voice broke loud over the silence of the stable. “No, no, run along, now. We’ll see to his horse ourselves.” The hingesof the stable door creaked, and autumn wind raced down the passage. “What, does your lord not attend to his own steeds, at times? Ha! You surprise me not a bit.”
    Footsteps approached—soft shoes, then hard boots, then the plodding clop of hooves. Katherine looked left and right for a place to hide. She considered simply leaping out, babbling an excuse and scurrying past with rags and bucket, but then the men started talking again, and what they said froze her to the spot.
    â€œI believe we