Free Gwenhwyfar by Mercedes Lackey Page B

wheel in place and charge the fence on the other side. Repeat until the young riders were starting to get the rhythm of things. Go back to riding in a circle. Split into two groups, charge each other, making sure no one collided. Wheel and repeat. Go back to riding in a circle. Trot to the fence and stop, then back. Wheel in place and repeat.
    Then the groom ordered them all out of the paddock, and Gwen thought they were going to be allowed to just ride, on a jaunt across the grazing meadows, as she used to on the pony—but no. The groom directed them to another part of the training field where there were padded poles set up down the middle, and when Gwen saw them, she knew what they were going to be doing. As she expected, the groom set them to weaving through the poles, down and back, first at a walk, then a trot, then a canter. They didn’t go up to a full gallop, but right next to them was another set of poles, around which another set of slightly older warriors-in-training were riding at an all-out gallop, and with the reins in their teeth and their hands held out to the side, keeping their seats only through superb balance!
    All this was taking an entirely different set of muscles than she used in riding the stolid little pony. She could feel every pull and strain and knew she was going to be very, very sore. And yet—she would not have traded this for anything. And no matter how sore she was, it was going to be worth it.
    The groom finally led them back to their original paddock, but of course, the work was not over. The horses had to be unsaddled, walked cool, rubbed down, and put in their proper stalls, with saddle arranged on a stand and bridle hung on a peg. Then, and only then, were they allowed to go.
    It was sunset, and suppertime, by the time she limped back to the Great Hall. The servants had brought in the kettles of stew and the remains of last night’s feast, and people were settling onto the benches and tucking in. The Hall was nowhere near as crowded as it had been last night; at least half the guests had packed up and headed homeward this morning, and the rest would leave tomorrow. Gwen was not altogether sorry to see them go; she was already tired of being polite and always on her good behavior even when some of the boy guests behaved outrageously.
    Her father and mother were already seated at the High Table—on the day after a feast, no one really stood on ceremony—when a shriek and a wail arose from the back of the hall where the bedrooms were, and a moment later Gynath and Cataruna came storming out of the room, the one angry, the other lamenting, with ruin in their hands.
    “My best slippers!” shouted Cataruna, her cheeks aflame with rage.
    “My belt! I just finished embroidering it! I only wore it once!” wept Gynath, consumed with grief.
    The pretty leather slippers had, very clearly, been given to the dogs to play with. They were chewed to shapelessness, and the seams had come half unsewn.
    As for the belt, someone had taken it out and trodden it into the mud until nothing of the bright colors that Gynath had so painstakingly sewn into beautiful patterns could be seen for the dirt and stains.
    A sinking feeling in her stomach, Gwen walked slowly to the bedroom. She dreaded what she would find. Which of her possessions had been taken and ruined? Behind her, she could hear her sisters telling their parents how they had found their things—and Cataruna added shrilly that Little Gwen was nowhere to be found.
    Little Gwen. Of course it was her. She’d wanted something, gotten it, and didn’t like it—so her first thought was to take whatever her sisters took pleasure in and ruin it. Gynath’s new belt had been the admiration and envy of the other girls, for Gynath was the best needlewoman in the castle. And Cataruna’s slippers had made her feet look very handsome indeed in the dancing; more than one young man had said something about them in ways that had made the blood rise to