The Scorpio Races

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The first thing I do when I get back to the yard is search for Benjamin Malvern. I feel the same slanting, groundless sensation that I felt while training Fundamental, after encountering Puck for the first time. That I felt after the mare goddess told me to make another wish. I’d never realized how changeless this changeable island was until it turned into something different than I’d ever known.

I find Malvern at the gallops with two men at his elbow. He’s got his head jutted forward like he does when he’s with buyers, as if he can bully them into buying. The other two men are standing huddled; they look cold and damp, cats left out in the wet.

The first thing I notice when I draw closer is the filly they’re looking at: Malvern Mettle, a filly with promising speed and heart. She’s generally willing to do more than she’s able, which is always better than the opposite.

The next thing I notice is that one of the buyers is George Holly. When he sees me, realization dawns on his expression. He says something to the other buyer and then to Malvern. Malvern nods his head, smiling but looking like he’s unhappy about it. He points them back toward the house, and George Holly shepherds the other buyer in that direction.

As we pass, Holly juts his hand out in my direction and says, “Sean Kendrick, right? Happy morning.”

I allow him to shake my hand as if we are strangers and I raise an eyebrow at his guile. Then he and the other buyer are gone, leaving me to Malvern.

I join Malvern by the rail of the gallop. He frowns in the direction of Mettle. One of the grooms is riding her, and she’s playing and lazy. Mettle’s got a peculiarly ugly face – ugliness and coarseness are traits that for some reason seem to accompany the fastest of the thoroughbreds – and right now she is flipping up her mule-like upper lip as she gallops. The groom’s not taking her to task, either; I’m not sure if he just doesn’t know what she’s normally capable of doing or if he’s disinterested. But either way, Mettle is taking him for a walk in the park.

Malvern speaks, finally. “Mr. Kendrick. Is this filly always like this?”

I consider how to answer. “She’s out of Malvern Penny and Pound and by Rostraver.” Penny and Pound is one of Malvern’s favorite broodmares and the rumor is that Rostraver’s won so much over hurdles on the mainland that no one will race against him.

“The blood doesn’t always come through,” Malvern says. He spits and looks back to her.

“It came through.”

“And she’s out for a lark in front of the buyers, is it?”

All I can think about is what I’m about to ask him, but it’s not the right moment. Instead of answering, I grip the rail and slide beneath it, walking across the track to where the groom – another one of Malvern’s new ones, no one tolerates the grooms’ quarters and the pay for long – walks Mettle around in a circle, cooling her down. I walk up to Mettle and take hold of her bridle.

“Ho,” the groom says to me, surprised. He’s young as I am. I think his name is Barnes but I can’t be sure. Maybe Barnes was the last one. “Sean Kendrick!”

With my free hand, I reach up and snatch the crop out of his hands. I haven’t even touched Mettle with it and she dances in a circle, pivoting around where I hold her. “Malvern is watching you. You’re going to take her out again and you’re going to make her work. She’s having you on.”

“I was pressing her,” Barnes insists.

I lightly touch the crop to Mettle’s hamstrings and she crow-hops forward as if I’ve slapped her. She knows my voice and she feels my certainty where I hold her bridle. “Maybe you were. But she didn’t believe you, and neither did I. Take this back.”

Barnes takes the crop and gathers the reins back up again. Mettle is trembling and eager now, held only by my touch on her bridle. Barnes looks at me, and I can see that he’s scared of the potential, scared of speed. I think he’d better learn to love it soon.

I release her bridle and lift my other hand as if I’ve still got the crop in it, and Mettle explodes off the mark, down the gallop. I watch her for a moment to see how Barnes handles himself – he’s not half-bad, despite his terror – and to see if Mettle stays on it. I could’ve done better, but still, at least she’s working now.

I walk back to the rail and duck under. Malvern’s eyes follow Mettle as he scratches his chin; I can hear his fingernails on his skin.

I put my hands in my pockets. I don’t need a stopwatch to know that Mettle has bettered her time. For a moment, I’m silent, reaching for something that will give some weight to what I’m about to say. But there’s nothing for it but to just say it. “I would buy Corr from you.”

Benjamin Malvern casts me a look that is cross if it is anything, and looks back to the gallop. He produces a stopwatch, which I see now he’s had nestled in his hand all this time, and clicks it as Mettle reaches the end of the gallop.

“Mr. Malvern,” I say.

“I don’t like having the same conversation twice. I told you years ago, and I can hear that I’m repeating myself, he’s not for sale to anyone. Don’t take it personally.”

I know, of course, his reasoning for not selling Corr. To sell him is to lose a strong contender for the Scorpio Races. To sell him is to lose one of the biggest pieces of advertising he has.

“I understand why you don’t want to sell him,” I say. “But maybe you’ve forgotten what it was to ride for someone else and not have a horse to call your own.”

Malvern frowns at his stopwatch; not because Mettle was slow, but because she was the opposite.

“And I told you before, I’ll sell you any of the thoroughbreds.”

“I didn’t make any of those thoroughbreds. I didn’t make them what they are.”

Malvern says, “You made all of them what they are.”

I don’t look at him. “None of them made me who I am.”

It feels like an incredible confession. I’ve turned my heart out for Malvern to examine the contents. I’ve grown up alongside Corr. My father rode him and my father lost him, and then I found him again. He’s the only family I have.

Benjamin Malvern rubs his great coarse thumb over his chin, and for a moment I think that he’s actually considering it. But then he says, “Choose another horse.”

“I’ll train the others. That’s the only thing that will change.”

“Choose another horse, Mr. Kendrick.”

“I don’t want another horse,” I say. “I want Corr.”

He still doesn’t look at me. If he looks at me, I think, I have him. My blood sings in my ears.

Malvern says, “I’m not having this conversation again. He’s not for sale.”

As Malvern watches the next horse stepping onto the track, I fist my hands in my pockets, remembering how Kate Connolly didn’t back down at the riders’ parade. I remember Holly saying that there must be something that Malvern wanted more than Corr. I remember the mare goddess’s strange voice: Make another wish. I even think of Mutt Malvern, risking everything for fame on that piebald mare. I had always thought that I’d spent my entire life gambling, risking my life each year on the beach, but I now know that I’ve never risked the one thing that I truly was afraid to lose.

I don’t want to do this.

I say, very quietly, “Then, Mr. Malvern, I quit.”

He turns his head and one of his eyebrows is raised. “What’s that?”

“I quit. Today. Find another trainer. Find someone else to ride in the races.”

The faintest hint of a smile moves his lips. I recognize it: disdain. “Are you trying to blackmail me?”

“Call it what you like,” I say. “Sell me Corr, and I’ll race for you one last year, and I’ll keep on training your horses.”

On the gallop, a dark bay gelding lopes along, breathing hard. He’s not in racing condition yet. Malvern rubs his hand over his lips again, an action that somehow reminds me of Mettle.

“You overestimate your importance to this yard, Mr. Kendrick.”

I don’t flinch. I’m standing in the ocean, feeling it press against my legs, but I won’t let it move me.

“Do you think I can’t find someone else to ride your stallion?” Malvern asks me. He waits for me to answer, and when I don’t, he says, “There are twenty boys I can think of dying to get on the back of that horse.”

The image splinters in my heart, and I’m sure he means it to.

When I still don’t speak, he says, “Well, that’s that. Have your things out by the end of the week.”

I’ve never had to be this steady. Never had to make myself so still and fearless. I can’t breathe, but I make myself hold out my hand.

“Don’t play that game,” Malvern says, without looking at me. “I invented it.”

The meeting’s over.

I might never ride Corr again.

I don’t know who I am without him.