The Emperor's New Pony (17 page)

Except for twenty-three. Twenty-three, even when Edera had memorized it to the point where she could recite to Ranin every movement, had never made the same sense to her that all the other tests had come to make.

Now, in the imperial ring, after Ranin flicked his whip to tell her to begin test one, the next time Edera thought of anything, it seemed to her, they had finished test sixteen. The emperor was applauding. Edera would not put it past him to be applauding precisely so that she and Ranin would stop to think, and lose their focus.

“You’re doing fine, sweetheart. Just fine,” Ranin said. Standing again in starting position in the center of the imperial ring, she looked into his face for a moment, searching for any sign that he was worried about twenty-three. She saw none. Suddenly she desperately wanted to know what standard five was. Maybe she could make a mistake, and do the wrong twist and still pass standard five?

They started test seventeen, and thinking about standard five made Edera miss a step of her first elevated trot. Ranin did not even seem to notice, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lord Haq turn to the emperor and say something, to which the emperor nodded. Had she already lost? Was she going to be fucked by Lord Haq and her love with Ranin discovered? She looked at Ranin, and he looked steadily back, as he made the motion with the whip that indicated a back step. Her mind did nothing, but her body obeyed the whip, taking the precise step backward, and then she realized that she had perhaps never actually trusted Lord Ranin Versal enough. He had trained her, and he knew what she could do better than she could. He knew she could get through twenty-three—thus, she knew it, too.

When twenty-three began at last, a good fifteen minutes later, during which her mind had quieted so far that Edera hardly knew that time or movements were passing, the initial series of steps, trot-canter-walk-trot-canter-trot-canter-walk, which had never made the slightest bit of sense to her before, suddenly transformed themselves and became entirely new. By some trick of her memory, because surely the composer of the test had never been to Amidia to ride up into the hills as Edera had done when she was a girl, those steps became the turnings of the bridle path that led up from the royal palace of Amidia City to the hill of the kings, high above.

Then the entirety of test twenty-three followed suit, and Edera was riding her palfrey into the hills with her friends, as a girl, racing them to get up the bridle path. There was Melisan in front of her, but Edera knew she could catch up, and she did, her golden hair flying in the spring breeze down from the mountains.

Test twenty-three went by in a flash, and twenty-four succeeded it—and the test was an Amidian country dance that she and her friends danced in the great hall after they had returned from a day in the hills, with smiles of joy that even the bit in her mouth could not erase from Edera’s face as she took the elegant slow walk to the center, and dropped her head into the low bow out.

Now Lord Marshal Haq was the one applauding, Edera saw when she lifted her head to look up toward the balcony, but the emperor scowled a bit. Qartin and Morqan stood impassively, as if awaiting the judgment of the emperor.

Chapter Nineteen

“Are you certain?” Comnar said to Lord Haq.

“Yes, your imperial majesty.”

“But surely she had more than the one fault?”

“You must allow,” said Lord Haq, “for the differences between equitation and… this—your filly program, I mean. But if Edera really were a filly, and Versal were her rider, I cannot deny that they would have passed standard five.”

Master Morqan put in, “Nor I. I thought you would surely have had them, your imperial majesty, but is it not even better thus? To have a master as skilled as Versal, to cast down at your pleasure? Even if you wish to do it soon, in the great race, and make that an example to all that it is not wise to rise too high too fast?”

Comnar turned to look at Morqan. The master had not shown any enthusiasm for Comnar’s idea of placing standard five in front of Versal, in order to curb the Amidian who had won the crowd in the arena. He maintained that Versal posed no threat. In Comnar’s experience, those who posed the greatest threat were the same people who seemed to pose none. But the notion of using the race to cast Versal down, before the court and the people of Maq, did seem a sound one.

Comnar restored his calm composure to his face, though it had slipped a little when Haq had told him that with the one fault in test seventeen, Edera had passed standard five, which specified that a single fault was permissible.

“Haq, this is your last chance to deflower the most beautiful girl in the stable,” he said. “All you need do is invent a fault.”

Haq looked nervously from Morqan to Qartin and then back at Comnar. “Your imperial majesty, I must confess that I concur with Master Morqan. Throw Versal down at the races, if you must. For now, give him his princess to mount—that will keep him busy, at least.”

That made Comnar smile. Yes, it probably would keep Versal busy—and out of sight of the court. He turned to where Edera stood in harness, her head still bowed, and Versal stood to the right of her and a few paces behind her, still in a low bow, waiting for the performance to be acknowledged.

“Master Versal,” the emperor called down. “Go fetch that mounting saddle and give us a show.”

Versal came out of his bow and looked up at Comnar. “Thank you, your imperial majesty,” he said. There even seemed to be tears in his eyes. How touching: the thought of deflowering Edera still distressed him.

“We will expect the race to be carried out splendidly, upon Moon Festival Eve. That’s a month away, so you’ll have plenty of time to train the Amidians and the Hadians. You will drive the Amidians, and Lord Haq will drive the Hadians. Marshal against marshal. And, as I promised, the people’s pennies for the entertainment shall go to you.”

“Thank you, your imperial majesty.” He bowed again, this time a master’s bow, with his hands on his knees.

“Alright, alright. This filly here won’t fuck herself, after all. Make sure she feels it, now.”

“Yes, your imperial majesty.” Versal straightened again and walked to the mounting saddle. The saddles were on wheels, but they also had anchors to secure them into the dirt of the ring. Versal pushed this one—the most splendid of the ten Comnar had had built, with gold filigree on the leather that covered the curved top of the bench, and bronze hooks for fastening the filly—into the center of the ring.

Edera’s eyes remained downcast. Comnar saw a shudder go through her body. Oh, this scene was much better than it would have been with Haq. After the strange events in the arena, when Versal had defied him, Comnar had lost his grip on the vision of the former chancellor fucking his princess, and for a time he had known the urge to have Haq do the defloration instead. But his suspicions of Versal were clearly false: the grimness with which he fastened Edera to the saddle, loosing her wrists from her waist and hooking them to the saddle horn, securing her knees to the sides of the main support so that her rump opened fully to him, told of a man under authority, acknowledging Comnar as his sovereign.

“Look at me, filly Edera,” Comnar called down. The girl raised her face from where she had been looking at the dirt of the ring as Versal prepared to fuck her.

“You will be a mare, soon. Are you not grateful to me that it is a man of your own country who will first enjoy that sweet cunt of yours? You may nod in assent, since you are so prettily bridled.”

Edera’s brow furrowed and her chin quivered, but she nodded. A tear rolled down her cheek.

Versal’s breeches were open, and his tunic was up. He moved his filly’s snow-white tail aside gently with his left hand and stroked her back, tracing the straps of her harness. Comnar could not see his cock now as he positioned it, but the look on Edera’s face made the moment even more wonderful than the mere sight of a cock going into a virgin cunt would have been.

Versal put out his hands and took hold of her harness at the shoulders. He seemed to take a deep breath, and Comnar saw his lips move as he murmured something to the princess he had no choice now but to fuck. Then he gave a thrust, and Edera closed her eyes with the evident pain of it, her face contorting in discomfort, and cried out loud around the bit in her mouth.

Versal held himself into her for a long moment, while his filly sobbed, and then he began to move gently in and out.

“So sweet,” Comnar said to the men watching with him on the balcony.

“Yes indeed,” Haq replied. “I do envy him, but he gained the right of it very fairly.”

“Look at him go,” said the emperor. “I venture to say that cunt is tight indeed. What do you say, Qartin?”

“Yes, your imperial majesty.”

Versal fucked hard now, making Edera cry out with each thrust, using her harness for the exquisite leverage that, they told Comnar, let a man get his cock so deep inside a filly’s cunt he thought the gods had come down to make the earthly heaven. Edera clung to the saddle horn as if for dear life, and Comnar found himself terribly moved by the sight of the man so overcome with the pleasure of deflowering a princess that he could not help ravishing her as hard and relentlessly as he could.

“The bottom, now,” Comnar called down.

Versal closed his eyes and stopped his fucking. Edera caught her lower lip in her teeth, in clear alarm. Again the man murmured something to his filly, and Comnar watched the girl nod slowly, still chewing on her lip, still clinging hard to the saddle horn.

Her tail came out, and Versal set it in its place in the saddle as a lovely adornment and an indication that a rump was to be fucked. Comnar watched him take the vial of saddle oil from his pouch, and then—his favorite part of all—he watched Edera’s face as her trainer prepared her rear entrance, knowing that now it would not be the tail but his cock she had to bear there.

Versal put the vial back in his pouch, and again stepped up to his filly’s backside. Comnar heard him say, “Be brave, sweetheart,” and then Edera moaned in discomfort, and Versal said, “Open for me now, Edera. Open this bottom up now.”

Then he, too, gave a moan, of fierce pleasure.

“Master Morqan,” Comnar said. “What do you think of his technique?”

“I have never seen better,” said the stable master. “He is a trainer after my own way of thinking. I believe these Amidians know how to train their fillies.”

Lord Haq laughed. Versal had begun to move in and out of the girl’s rump now, not as hard as he had thrust in her cunt but just as resolutely. Edera gave a little whimper each time her trainer pushed in, and again when he withdrew, only to drive inward once more.

Versal held her around the waist, his big hands encompassing the girl’s slimness completely. Comnar saw him look down at where his cock impaled her, and quicken his pace as if the pleasure of the sight had proven too much for him, and he must ride to his release.

Now the hard driving of her trainer’s cock made Edera scream around the bit, and Versal responded by reaching out and putting his hand in her hair, working his fingers under the strap of her bridle. He pulled her head back, to make her arch and present her bottom more fully, and Comnar looked into her face as she was covered: the girl’s eyes were closed, and her face was a mask of submissive pleasure such as made Comnar feel that perhaps his cruelty had a higher purpose.

With a shout, Versal came inside his filly’s rear, holding her bottom cheeks, at the last, around his cock while she made a mewling sound in her chest, almost like a kitten rather than a filly. His face wore a stricken look, as if he could hardly comprehend the violation he had just visited upon the girl who had been his princess. He closed his eyes and stroked her back as she sobbed.

“Very commendable, Master Versal,” Comnar called down. “You may go and wash her down now. See to it that her tail goes back in immediately, to remind her of what just befell her backside.”

He turned to walk into the palace, Lord Haq at his side. Qartin and Morqan remained on the balcony to discuss the preparations for the chariot-race.

“Your imperial majesty,” Haq said. “I have a matter of secrecy to discuss.”

“The preparations for the invasion of Jersala?”

“No, your imperial majesty.” Haq lowered his voice. “I believe I have uncovered a plot against your life.”

Comnar affected a laugh. “Oh, another one of those. Can you not simply tell Qartin to have the police take care of it?”

Haq stopped walking. Comnar turned to him in surprise. The lord marshal’s face wore a frown, and Comnar suddenly realized what that frown must mean. “Not Qartin?” Comnar asked softly in disbelief.

Haq nodded. “And Morqan.”

“Master Morqan? But that’s impossible, Haq. Your mind is playing tricks on you. Morqan owes everything to me.”

“He is suborned, I believe, by Qartin’s gold.”

“Find me evidence, and I will give you leave to arrest them with your imperial guard.”

“Your imperial majesty, I have as yet no idea how far the plot stretches. I have reason to believe, though, that they have involved the Amidian Versal.”

“Now I know you are dreaming, Haq. Qartin would never plot with a man like Versal; the steward is much too proud.”

“Gods grant that you are right, your imperial majesty, but Qartin tried, I believe, to enlist me in their plot.”

“How, my lord?”

“Lord Qartin used a metaphor, but I am sure I understood him correctly. He said that if I cared to see a fair race again, I should back the Amidians.”

“It was a strange thing to say,” Comnar conceded, “but I cannot think that it means a conspiracy.”

Haq’s whisper became urgent. “Your imperial majesty, I believe you should cancel this race while you can. That large a gathering, with so much excitement, could pose a grave danger.”

“Only if this strange story you tell me is true,” Comnar replied. “I thank you, my lord, but I shall not cancel a pleasure to which I look forward so greatly.”

“At least let me triple the guard.”

Comnar considered. “Yes,” he said, “You may do that, and of course I do not forbid you to investigate this tale of yours. Only please do not come to me with so little proof of your allegations again, my lord.”