Free Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stewart Page B

the corner.’
    ‘No, it is not a good menagerie, I know. It is just a side-show for the children.’
    I said: ‘What good English you speak.’
    ‘My mother was English. I still get plenty of practice, because a circus is a very mixed place, really international. We have just now all sorts: the clowns are French, and the high-wire act is Hungarian, and the trampoline artistes are Japanese, and there is a comic act with a donkey, which is English, and an American juggler – besides the Germans and Austrians.’
    ‘United Nations,’ said Tim.
    ‘Indeed.’ She dimpled at him. ‘And on the whole really united. We have to be.’
    ‘Have you an act yourself?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes. I help my father with the liberty horses . . . and there is a sort of rodeo act near the beginning. But my own act is a riding one. I have a Lipizzan stallion—’
    ‘You have a what?’ Timothy’s interruption was robbed of rudeness by his obviously excited interest.
    ‘A Lipizzan stallion. This is a breed of horse—’
    ‘Yes, I know about them. I’m hoping to get to Piber to see the stud, and later on to see a performance inVienna. But do you mean you have a
trained
stallion? I didn’t think they ever sold them.’
    ‘He is trained, yes, but not at the School. My grandfather bought him as a four-year-old, and my uncle trained him . . . and me also.’
    ‘In high school work?’
    She nodded.
    ‘And you have a riding act of your own? You’re a – a what is it? – an
ecuyere?
’
    She had soared, I could see, in Timothy’s estimation, from being ‘the subject’ or ‘Lewis’s blonde’, to star billing in her own right. I realised that my own estimate of her had been right: a young woman who was capable of the concentrated skill and strength needed to put a high school stallion through his paces was about as fragile as pressed steel. ‘Gosh!’ said Timothy, glowing with admiration.
    She smiled. ‘Oh, not what you will see in Vienna, I assure you! None of the “airs above the ground” except the
levade
, and sometimes the
croupade
. . .’ She turned to me. ‘This is a leap right off the ground where the horse keeps his legs curled up – is that the word?’
    ‘Tucked under him,’ supplied Tim.
    ‘His legs tucked under him, and lands again on the same spot. We tried to teach him the
capriole
, where he leaps in a
croupade
and then kicks the back legs straight out, but this is very difficult, and he cannot do it, so now I leave it alone. It is my fault, not his.’
    In view of the admiration in Timothy’s eyes I half expected him to contradict this, but he didn’t. He was,like her, dedicated enough to know that it is never the horse’s fault.
    She added: ‘But in the other exercises he is wonderful. He is one of the Maestoso line, Maestoso Leda, and he is so musical . . . but there is no need for me to tell you. You will see him for yourselves tonight, and if he is good tonight I will try the
croupade
, especially for you.
    We murmured our thanks. Tim’s eyes were shining. I was going to have my work cut out to keep Annalisa as Suspect Number One in my Case of the Vanishing Husband.
    He was saying: ‘I can hardly wait. Was he with the other horses? I didn’t see him.’
    ‘You were at the wrong end of the stable.’ She dimpled at him again, charmingly. ‘You should have trespassed first at the other end. Yes, he is there. Would you like to come round tonight after the show and see the horses? There will be time before we pull down.’
    ‘You bet I would!’ Then recollecting himself, with a glance at me, ‘Vanessa –?’
    ‘I’d like to very much,’ I said. ‘How many have you?’
    ‘Altogether twenty-seven, and then the ponies. The liberty horses are very good ones, you’ll like them, Timothy, they are palominos, and we have twelve, very well matched. There will be only ten of them fit to work tonight, but it is still very beautiful to watch.’
    ‘“Fit to work”?’ I asked, wondering if she