As She’s Told

‘All right. Lift.’

Anders and Svend hefted the crate between them. There was very little shifting of the contents, which was a good sign. Out in the cool of a July dawn, they slid the crate into the truck bed and anchored it to the eyebolts on either side. Anders rechecked his own anchors and then checked Svend’s.

Svend yawned until his jaws cracked, and rubbed his face. ‘Obsessive bastard. Jesus. Quarter to six. Wake me when we get there.’

They loaded the last couple of bags and a cooler, tied a white canvas tarp over the load, and got on their way. It was a Sunday, too early for the cottage traffic, and the roads were practically empty, which was the reason for Anders forcing his brother up at the crack of dawn. Less chance of accidents, less likelihood of his cargo overheating.

Svend was asleep again before they hit the highway. Maia had sat in that seat the summer before, heading up to Orillia. Trading memories and laughing, human because he had allowed it. But not this year. He’d miss that, but there were compensations. Other kinds of exchanges. And there were years before him, to listen to her human conversation whenever he chose.

What was this force in him to construct, this urge to actualize the blueprint in his head? Builder’s hands, builder’s gut. Force, preoccupation, perversion.

Hard sometimes, to be so driven.

Anders had a vision of his Lutheran forebears praying to their harsh god over him, appalled at the waste of his energies on bizarre lusts. He’d compel them to roll over in their graves if he could, with pleasure. But such flexibility was out of the question; those characters weren’t about to change their positions for anything short of Ragnarök.

He had needed a lot more servicing from his slave in the last few weeks, just anticipating the summer. And Maia had been swimming in a remarkable state of aroused apprehension. That submissive DNA in full juice and flower. Her anticipation vibrated just below the surface of his own senses.

Whatever had made them like this, the pleasures to be had were extraordinary. A tractor-trailer loomed ahead, its huge load vibrating.

Anders eased his pickup past it. Safety. The webbing held her safely down on her knees and elbows in the centre of the crate, so that even in a collision she would not be thrown against the sides. The whole inside was cushioned in crash-absorbing materials. Plenty of ventilation. The straps were cinched outside the crate so she couldn’t trip a release with her little mitts. She’d be fine.

She’d crawled into the crate, padded webbing already circling hips and chest, crouched with her head low while he arranged her, her body pulled in little jerks to and fro as they’d cinched her tight. That bridled face had turned up for one more look as they closed the lid. So beautiful. His groin tightened.

Halfway there already. More traffic now, but still easy going. By the time they arrived at the farm, Rizal would be at that job in Scarborough; he’d call him then. The materials should be arriving by noon. Electrical would have to wait until Thursday when he could be there. He wasn’t much worried about his absences affecting his business, but there was no question it would have some impact on his income. Fortunately the influx from Maia’s bank account had put him way into the black.

Just him and Svend until Friday, when Karl would join them. Val not until the weekend after. He would pick Ria up at the airport a week Monday; she was flying in from Amsterdam. She and Karl could have the bedroom with the fireplace; the one in the living room would do for everyone else.

The chimneys were clear; he’d checked. No real environmental harm, a little smoke way out in the country. Smoke detectors and alarm system were all installed. Wiring in the whole place brought up to standard.

The vegetable garden would need weeding, and probably water. He’d gotten that in over a month ago: early producers that would come in handy by July and August.

The two little vehicles he’d made were in pieces in the truck behind him.

Basic harness ready. Despite his rejoinder to Ria, Anders had in fact been training his slave in various gaits. No dressage, no circus tricks, but clean and economical movement, proper display and increasing endurance. He’d also had her break in a slim but solid pair of boots – no heels to speak of –

that would protect her feet on the roughish dirt and gravel. The bumps that might trip her up were made smooth, gravel added where the lanes had gone muddy. He was looking forward hugely to the moment when he got into the pony trap behind her.

Almost there. Back roads now. Anders pulled up at a dusty gas bar and grocery store and sent Svend, now awake, in for milk and eggs. He got out himself and stretched.

When Svend returned he glanced at the truck bed. ‘She’ll be wondering if we’ve arrived, won’t she, and wanting to get off her knees?’

‘Probably. But she’ll last a while yet.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Experience.’

‘Too bad we couldn’t let her jump down on her leash and stretch out by the tailgate.’ Anders laughed. ‘Yeah. Some other world. Come on.’

Down the bumpy, overgrown track, between long fields already high with grass and weeds. From the house and barn you could see anyone coming, ten minutes before they got there. They were on a bit of a peninsula between two fast waterways, one with banks steep and choked with undergrowth, the other too shallow for boats; access from the water was very unlikely. There were no easy ways in apart from this track, no hiking trails.

The farm wasn’t on the way to anywhere. No reason for anyone to come here but themselves.

***

The bumping stopped at last. We must be there this time, I thought; that was no main road. And I could smell grass. Out, please! I was rather hot and thirsty.

For a time there had been the most persistent feeling that every following driver had x-ray vision and could see my naked butt. When that idea faded, what I envisioned was the highway cop’s expression when he opened up the crate. I flexed and wriggled in the webbing, almost immobilized, like a fly in a web, but very safe. See, officer, we’re actually obeying the seatbelt laws ….

And this was nothing but a distraction from my crazy anxiety about what was coming. Eight weeks. They were giving me eight weeks off; my boss had looked ridiculously relieved when I had asked for more unpaid time. They were even planning to close the centre altogether for two weeks in August, they were so short of money, though they assured me that this economy would mean my job would be there as usual when I returned.

The news had pleased Anders no end; he’d used me almost continually to skim off the overflow of his arousal. There was no skimming for me; I was a pressure cooker with an inadequate lid, rattling with steamy fear and jets of excitement. Eight weeks without using words or opposable thumbs.

Eight weeks to sink into life as a dumb beast, a draft animal. Would I ever be able to climb out again? Worrying was pointless. He’d get me out if he wanted me out.

The tailgate went down and I heard the scrape of things getting shifted.

My turn at last. Tipped, swung, down. Terra firma. Bolts shot open to cracks of daylight.

The grass was warm and rough beneath my knees. I took a drink from the water bottle held for me, with a spout that I could manage despite the bridle. The house loomed, way taller than it had appeared in the pictures.

Svend was carting boxes up onto the wide porch. Anders knotted my leash to a little fence around what had once been a flower garden, and then went to heft some bags and a cooler into the house. I looked in surprise at that casual knot, and was disconcerted; metal locks that clicked were what I was used to, mere knots being insufficiently secure as far as my master was concerned. But then neither my fingers nor my teeth were available to undo anything. I shifted my head and gave the knot an experimental yank, just for the hell of it, and then sat back to wait.

When all the other luggage was disposed of, my master came back and untied me, and I crawled after him to a patch of dry, crumbly dirt between two sheds. The message through the leash was clear enough. I was being walked. In broad daylight. I stared at the ground, arranged myself, and let it go. Kicked dirt over it. Crawled some more. Didn’t think. Animal. A cool doorway and straw-strewn floor. Inside were old wooden partitions that reached only partway to the high rafters. There was a row of five doorways, five empty stalls. In the last was a narrow window that showed blue sky; beneath the window was a pile of straw with an old blanket over it and the end of a chain trailing. There was that click I’d been expecting. I looked up the length of my master, to the light eyes looking down, holding me in place more firmly than any lock would do. Those long, so familiar fingers stroked me, tugged lightly on locks and nose and nipple rings, and then were gone.

Another few inches took me to the end of my chain. The edge of the straw pile; no further. The blanket was old but clean. I settled down. I’d spent time on less comfortable surfaces. But almost never to sleep; would I have to sleep here? What about the press of limbs, the weight of his arm, his hand on my breast, breathing in the smell of him, all part of my nightly security along with the locks and chains?

Here the smell was fresh hay, old wood, wafts of hot grass, and my own sweat and arousal. No sound. Yes, a bird. Two birds. Distant footsteps. A thump. That hot, middle-of-the-day high-pitched insect throb.

I examined my surroundings. There was that water bottle again, hung upside-down on the wall, like in a gerbil’s cage. At the sight of it my thirst returned. I crawled over, insinuated the metal tube past my bit into the back of my mouth and drank. Below it was a shallow metal rectangle; a trough.

Empty. Anything else within my reach? Nothing; the place was bare. Hooks up on the wall, all empty except for a long carriage whip that hung by the doorway. Aerobics at home had turned into endless sessions of walking and trotting in a circle on a long chain with my arms folded and locked against my back. This gait, that gait, each movement precise; no shambling, no concessions to fatigue. Full-out running wasn’t practical at the end of a chain; too confined a space. I thought I’d be off the hook for that until the summer. Then my master bought the treadmill. He was turning me into an athlete of sorts. No, that was a human term. Racehorse? Hardly. Useful mare? More likely. It can be trained.

I dozed off for a while; that had been a very early start. Footsteps awoke me, and the sound of clangs, clunks and Danish dialogue. Assembly noises.

After a while this wound down, and Svend appeared in the doorway with a bowl in his hand. He grinned and said an incomprehensible word or two, scraped the bowl’s contents into the trough, and removed my bridle.

Then he watched as I put my face into the food. He’d seen me eat from my dish at home so many times that the singing in my ears was only moderate.

What he’d given me was rather tasteless; a plain porridgy mix, so amalgamated that I couldn’t identify the ingredients. Ugh. Animal feed.

Shades of Carrie in her stables. Was bland food a ponygirl imperative? A saltshaker would have been nice. And a hand to shake it with. My fingers wriggled inside their mitts. New ones, designed for my summer in the country. Stiff padded hide on the palm side, tough but breathable cloth on the other, cooler than my old ones. Luckily my hands don’t sweat much. My palms were well protected when I crawled, and the edge of the hide wasn’t bad for scratching an itch – assuming I could reach it. But I was going to spend eight weeks with appendages that didn’t even come up to the function of paws. Almost no flexibility, and no claws.

Left alone again, I sat back on the straw and wiggled my toes. I’ve never been one of those people with dextrous monkey feet; my toes are just toes.

Still, I could try. Something to amuse my solitary hours. A few attempts with bits of straw or whatever else came to hand. Foot. Would that be disobedience? Violating the spirit of the laws he’d laid down for the summer? Probably. So? Confession was out. What then? Well, that was Anders’ problem. There was a webcam up in the corner. He’d set me up as voiceless. He could keep an eye on me, and whip my butt if he didn’t like it.

***

‘Did you have to bring your entire collection of kitchen paraphernalia too?’ Svend looked around, and nudged a rattling box of pans without enthusiasm.

‘Yeah, I did. But feel free to char hamburgers over a campfire if you like that better.’ Anders was sorting through spice bottles. ‘If I’m the one that puts this lot away I’ll be able to find it all later. Go unpack your own stuff.’

Ten minutes later Svend was back. ‘Do you mind if I take the truck and go into Picton? I want to have a look at the harbour.’

Anders grinned and dug into his pocket for the keys. ‘Let me know if you seduce some lady sailor and end up on board for dinner. I’m making jambalaya; it’ll keep.’

He got the kitchen under control, and then went to finish unpacking in the stable. Bridles and chains and crops and harness, all hung on the stable wall for his slave to contemplate when she had nothing else to do.

Something of a cliché, Anders admitted to himself, but very handy. And, let’s face it, cliché or not, it worked. His slave was taking it all in, wide-eyed, and her breathing was more than audible.

‘All right, girl,’ he said finally in Danish, unlocking her chain and tugging. ‘Up.’

By summer’s end she would know a few more words in his native tongue. Like a well-educated Danish horse.

The sky outside was almost cloudless. Water came first, then a thorough application of SPF-60 sunblock. It took time to get her protected to his satisfaction. Then he took up thick, flexible straps for her waist and torso and cinched them tight, squeezing the pliant flesh between them. Bulging breasts and erect nipples urgently offered themselves. He turned her around and strapped her arms tightly to her back. Then came the lower part of the harness, designed to harmonize with the chastity belt, closely outlining her belly and buttocks, carefully designed for her hipbones to take the pull of the shafts. Anders wanted no pressure on internal organs; at least, nothing beyond what the harness already inflicted.

A change of bridle now, pulling the thick U-shaped bit deep into her mouth. A rubbery surface that wouldn’t harm her teeth. Straps over the bridge of her nose and then up. A strap under her chin. The reins went through rings at her jaw, so that she would feel the pull in her mouth whether she was led or driven. A basic turnout; he’d play with variations as time went on. The shadows of her throat pulsed faintly blue below the hard collar. Lightly Anders stroked that delicate hollow, and then his fingertips descended to trace the contours of her breasts, and she arched, already trembling. ‘You want your bells, don’t you?’ he crooned in Danish, dangling them up above her like a treat, as if her breasts were begging for them. She leaned on his back as he got her feet covered and laced into her boots. The harnessed body jingled and wriggled deliciously against him. Straightening up, he yanked her upright by the reins, forcing her to stretch to her full height and to tip her head back.

‘Behave, hunhund.’ Brown, liquid eyes stared up at him. The pink tongue struggled beneath the bit that pressed it. Anders could feel the excited energy radiating off of her, out of the visible range but well into the infrared.

The light pony trap waited by the big double doors. Anders backed his slave between the shafts, lifted them to her hips and fastened the pins. He didn’t have to lift far. There were a couple of vertical supports fastened to the shafts behind her, with little wheels that would only reach the ground if she tripped. He wouldn’t sacrifice the manoeuvrability and lightness of no more than two large wheels, but trained or not, he wasn’t about to risk the kinds of injuries his slave would get if she fell forward with no hands to protect her.

When he was done, he stood back and drank in what he had wrought. At the pure perverted beauty of pony and vehicle in just proportions, his creature so taut and upright that even her trembling nipple bells were silent.

He ducked beneath a shaft and slowly pulled the straps holding her arms a notch tighter, making her arch her back and thrust her breasts just that much further. A check rein, perhaps? Later, maybe.

Anders stepped out into the hot afternoon sunshine and looked around.

The quiet was incredible. Crickets somewhere close. A tiny, very distant whine, probably of a chainsaw. No cars, no people. Even the squirrels were in siesta.

He took his slave by the bridle and brought her forward, trap and all, then took up the whip and the reins and got in. Behind his mare at last. The rear view was something to savour; framed in the convergence of the shafts, from the firmly-planted boots, up the taut thighs, to the oval buttocks outlined by straps, already marked and waiting tensely for more pain. Those helpless paws, fixed even more helplessly between their little wings of shoulder blades. The enforced curves of her form, outlined in a slight sheen of sweat.

Anders gave the reins a shake and clicked his tongue, and she started forward. Hours of practice had conditioned her to that sound at least. At first she had to lean into the harness, but once she had momentum going she seemed to have no trouble. He drew on the left-hand rein and steered her onto the track that bordered the fields. Then he flicked her with the whip and said, in Danish, ‘Trot.’ Having been trained so far in English the girl was at a loss; she lifted her knees higher and continued to walk. Anders flicked her harder and said the word again, louder. She leapt at the sting, and hesitantly picked up the pace. Again he whipped her, both sides this time, shook her reins and said the unfamiliar word. Her flesh jumped and her pain was audible, but now she was trotting. ‘Good girl,’ he said, and she heard the intonation and settled into the gait.

Trot, walk, trot; the rhythmic sounds of small boots and nipple bells, under the friction of wheels. She had already been trained past some of the awkwardness of constrained arms and shoulders, and at home Anders had begun to see some grace, some economy of movement developing. But the pull and push at her hips was a new element; it altered her centre of gravity, and now again she was hesitating, losing her rhythm, confused. He tried to apply the whip as he had done so often, expert flicks to direct and control, but he had never before done this from a moving cart, especially not one that jolted behind a pony in disarray. He missed his mark, and further bewildered her. It was like trying to manage a clutch in a car that was jolting because you were doing such a lousy job of managing the clutch.

So he pulled her to a stop. She stood, back arched, panting, her smooth skin shining with sweat. Anders yanked the reins back just a little as a signal of displeasure, and then held them firmly while he laid a couple of hard stripes across both cheeks. Her open-mouthed squeals came back to him, and the reins trembled. Carefully he signalled another start. This time when she made the first error he was quicker to get her back into order before she could spoil his aim. He could see that he was going to have to do some learning himself.

Not so easy, this horsemanship. After all, how many times had he been on or behind a horse? A couple of trail rides when they went to Algonquin Park one winter. Janne had been the one interested in horses, really, and the rest of the family had gone along. A cart ride or two with a lot of others when he was what? Eight or nine, at some summer camp. A few pony rides at fairs as a small child. That was about it. No wonder he was better at getting engines to go. This was a very different matter, using a live creature to make your wheels go round.

They were past both fields now, and entering welcome shade beneath the trees. Drawing on the reins, he slowed her to a walk to let his eyes adjust.

The green shadows were rich with the scents of living sap, moving water, a sharp tang of pine; Anders took a deep breath. Then he yanked his slave’s head over to the right and punished her; she’d been trying to follow the leftward curve of the road without direction from him. ‘Never let the horse decide for itself which way it wants to go, or how fast. It must know from the outset that the decision rests with you.’ Anders had perused a couple of horse-training manuals in preparation for the summer. A whimper and a dancing step or two and she walked as the reins directed, onto a deep grassy verge. Anders got out and drew her forward beneath a tree, then looped the reins round a low branch. Taking a bucket from the cart, he walked to the stream, half-filled it and brought it back to gave her a drink. Water trickled down her dusty breasts already spotted with saliva, making streaks of mud.

He squeezed them anyway. ‘There now,’ he murmured in Danish, ‘my pretty thing. What a gorgeous pony you make. Just your back view as you pull the cart is almost more than I can bear.’

Her eyes half closed as she offered her breasts to him, swaying forward, head tipped back by the pull of the rein above her head, her boots still firmly planted at the spot where they had been told to stop. Anders stroked over the striped buttocks to the enclosed vulva and felt her go rigid; his presence there, even on the other side of metal, was making her shake. And he hadn’t even included the dildos. His eyes danced.

He strolled back to the stream, rinsed his hands, and stood for a while watching the light play on the surface. It was rocky just here, and the shallow stream rippled and snagged, swirled in little eddies and caught up with itself before sweeping round the bend. Pretty. Was that a fish? He looked closely, walked a little upstream and then back, spying two more; just minnows. Not much to catch here, but there was a deeper pool further on. Anders returned to his vehicle and got underway again.

Something about the curve ahead, the approaching dazzle where the trees ended, something about the motion of his slave and the cart: a moment of déjà vu. Had he dreamt it? Dappled light on a naked haunch, the humus smell of generations of old leaves, the living reins across his palms, their weight against his fingers. Was it only imagination? A year or more of preparation and planning. Years more of wanting just this: to reduce a woman to the simplest level of physical being, the motive power. Feed calories in. Maintain animal mass, and fuel acceleration, which together equal force.

A mechanical thing then, an engine; pure physics? No, a sensitive, sentient engine, responsive to the slightest twitch of the reins. Processing his signals through a filter of love and fear.

***

The glare when we emerged from the trees hit me right in the face. I squinted blindly against the sun, concentrating on lifting my knees, and on obeying the slight pull against one corner of my mouth. When I could see again the road was straight; the reins shook against my jaw, and a new word came from behind me. I was already trotting; did this mean ‘run?’ A flick at my ass confirmed it; I ran. Another flick: faster. I tried to go all out, but the reins told me otherwise; gratefully I settled into a moderate pace. A dip in the road had me trying to outrun the cart, and panting up the other side. A blow; no slowing down now. The moderate pace was feeling like the 100-metre dash.

Sweat was running down my neck. My head was pulled back in the reins grip, slowing me. Lungs like bellows. Down to a walk. A flick at my thighs.

No shambling! Tired legs lifted their boots and set them down where they belonged. The reins and the bit said Yes. Good girl. I walked. Happy. So happy.

That glow lasted for hours, through supper at my trough, through the long evening, light fading into dusk, with only my chain and pile of straw for company. He’d been pleased with me. Despite mistakes, I’d felt his deep approval, seen it when he unharnessed me, known it in the touch of his fingers against my scalp as I knelt with him in my mouth, and in the astonishing size and urgency of his erection. I was a good vessel, and as a mare I could please him. This pony thing wasn’t going to be beyond me. In fact I fit precisely into the confinement of harness and shafts. Like a round peg designed and trimmed for its round hole, both engineered to within a hair’s breadth. ‘We’re all suitable to our calling,’ as the rag-and-bone man had said in A Christmas Carol. ‘We’re well matched.’

The bridle was off and was hanging invisibly above me somewhere on the dark wall, but I felt the bit’s absence against the vulnerable nerves it had pressed; something missing. What was it they said about horses? ‘A mouth like a glove.’ The glove wanted its owner, wanted to be occupied and commanded.

Tomorrow. He’ll take you out again tomorrow. The promise made wet insides squeeze. I rolled onto my belly, one mitt crammed between my thighs up against metal, imagining it as gauze. Breath caught and held.

Swollen nipples rubbed and pricked against the rough blanket. Only seven weeks since the last time. A real meltdown blow-out for our one-year anniversary. On our way home from the business at the bank, he’d promised to play me like his violin, and my god, he’d kept his promise. This celebratory event had consisted of hours of the most harrowing, drawn-out, agonizing torment imaginable. With, incidentally, full ironic musical commentary and analogies, and some actual music as accompaniment. He’d strung me up as if in catgut, drawn lines on my skin with whipcord and his tongue. Orchestrated my moans and screams. Moved me forward, rolled me back. Teasingly slow movements, little side melodies. I could still feel the near-crescendos of the piece: the ache of my limbs, stretched as if I were the strings themselves, the whips and teeth and fingers and tongue playing me to desperate unresolved rhythms. Like those classical pieces with one near-ending after another, each approaching finale promising to be the real one, except that the final chord of the final phrase rises in pitch instead of descending, and on it goes….

And then the real climax. Climaxes. Resonances so violent they shattered flesh and bone, dissolved connective tissue and coherence, and devolved me down into formless ooze. How greedy of me to want more.

At last I released the breath I’d been holding, and lay inert against the straw, nefarious hand still outside the keep, defeated as always. Curses!

Foiled again!

I was unable to conjure up another occasion before Christmas that would call for gift-giving. Something told me the summer was going to be one long protracted tease. Unless the August civic holiday inspired him to a generous festival mood; not likely.

Full dark now at last. We were barely past midsummer; it would be ten o’clock or so. I could pick out subtle variations in the darkness. No moon; perhaps just starlight. Cricket noises, the rustle of straw when I moved.

Occasionally the sound of a deep voice in the distance, a door opening and closing. Windows were open over at the house. The heat had lifted, finally. I rolled myself in the blanket.

It had been hot in the information centre, this whole last week. We’d had the air conditioning guys in twice. Would Jagrati take care of the cataloguing and the utilization reports as she’d promised, or would I have a mess to deal with when I got back? Vera had got herself a research job at York University (my pleased congratulations had been entirely sincere), and Jagrati was her replacement, far more friendly and willing to collaborate, but so far a bit short on follow-through. And she’d only have her half-days to get things done. That interim report on the lawn pesticide by-law…I should remind her…. No. I felt a little laugh bubble in my throat. I wasn’t reminding anyone of anything for a while. The report would have to take its chances. I had a different function altogether now. There was the weight of the shafts, the pull against my hips, the huge presence controlling me invisibly from behind.

A voice from the house: Svend. Tomorrow, would he be – ? Probably.

Bound to be, sooner or later. Holding the reins. The others? Karl, Ria, undoubtedly. Even Val. I shrank into a ball.

That close, charged circuit between me and my master was one thing. A bizarre and blissful thing. No shame. Joy.

But the others? These strangers from outside the circle.

How to bear it. The reflection of myself in their eyes.

***

‘Take the reins up tighter. Not too tight; that’s a signal to slow down.

Just enough so she knows you’re there. That’s it.’

Svend’s eyes dropped past the reins to the rhythmic shimmy of that gorgeous butt. It wasn’t easy to keep an eye on the road as well; no driver was ever so distracted.

‘All right, see if you can touch her up without tangling with the reins this time.’

‘Once! I only did that once.’ With a half-practiced motion of the wrist, Svend managed to flick one shuddering buttock, adding a new mark and prompting an increase in speed. Pleased, he decided to press his luck. ‘Look, even my backhand is improving.’ This was not as successful; the stroke was higher up, almost on the left hip; the filly shied slightly and he had to shake the reins to keep her speed steady.

From the corner of his eye Svend saw his brother grimace and reach reflexively for the whip. Exactly like the same hands’ reach for the steering wheel when Svend was learning to drive. He held whip and reins away from his instructor. ‘Relax; I’ll get the hang of it.”

“Try not to undo all her training while you’re at it. Look, steer, would you?”

“I’d rather she watched the road and I watched her.”

“Too bad. Steer!”

“A real horse would know enough to follow a road.’

‘She’s not a real horse. I don’t need her that smart. Steer or give up the reins.’

‘Oh, fine,’ Svend grumbled. He used the reins to guide the girl away from the road’s edge, and was interested despite himself in her responsiveness. Like a very fine sailboat, well-rigged, responding to a touch of the rudder.

This pony business might be more than a prick-engorging game after all, he thought. It could be like sailing. Svend’s hands relaxed into a more confident position on the reins, and he leaned back.

His brother glanced at him, interested. ‘What’s up?’

‘I just got the connection with sailing.’

Anders laughed. ‘Whatever works.’

‘All the rigging should have clued me in.’

‘It is like sailing, come to think of it.’ Anders rested his eyes on the trotting figure before them. ‘Challenge and power. Skill and finesse.’

‘And the fun when it all comes together and you’ve really got control.

Yes, I see. No, don’t slow down, girl.’ He used the whip again, to good effect. ‘A boat can cruise a whole lot longer. This one’s getting tired.’

‘She’s all right for a while yet. Don’t let up.’

‘All right. Hoist the main sail! Close hauled; a couple more points to windward. Here we go.’