Chapter Eight: Mounted Cavalry

Author's Note: I apologise that this chapter is shorter than some of the previous ones. It's mainly because I ran out of things to put in the sword lesson fairly quickly; unlike with horses, I've never even touched a sword before. So yeah. x3 I apologise if anyone who actually knows about swords reads this. I got everything off the internet. Google is a marvellous thing.
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Susie managed to tolerate being tacked up and untacked three times, although she did contrive to make life difficult by jerking her head out of reach as soon as Theo came anywhere near with the bridle. But she did at least have the good grace not to bite him when he clumsily put the bit in her mouth, which was something. A little to Theo’s surprise the bridle, with its many leather straps and buckles to do up, was actually easier to put on than the saddle, which had to be placed correctly to avoid rubbing and not bunch up the padded cloth put underneath. This padding was apparently known as a numnah, for no reason Theo could see.
Eventually he managed to get everything on to Hector’s satisfaction, and Susie was led, with great reluctance on her part, out to the school at the back of the stables. Also at the back of the stables were a large spread of grassy fields upon which yet more horses, presumably the occupants of the empty stables he had seen, grazed peacefully. It was yet another minor impossibility, but by now Theo had given up asking how it all worked.
He was made to mount and dismount six times before he did it properly. Eventually he was allowed to remain up on Susie’s back, clutching the front of the saddle with one hand and the reins in the other and feeling incredibly unstable. There didn’t seem to be anything stopping him from simply falling off sideways except the stirrups, which merely seemed to be things to get his feet tangled in.
Hector clipped a lead rein to the bridle and regarded his pupil critically.
“Awright. First off, push your legs down far as they’ll go. That’s it. Stirrup needs to be on the ball of your foot, an’ put your heels down. As me old riding teacher used ta say, toes t’heaven and heels t’hell. There, good. We wanna have a straight line from your shoulder to your hip to your heel; it’s gonna be uncomfortable at first but you’ll get used ta it. And you don’t hold the reins inna fist! Go on, let go of the pommel-that’s the front o’the saddle to you. Thumbs on top and little fingers underneath. No…underneath the rein. There we go. Okay, to make her walk on, give her a nudge with your legs.”
With caution, in case she took it into her head to leap forwards and violently unseat him, Theo nudged Susie’s sides. Hector snorted.
“Harder’n that, laddie. Susie c’n be an awkward cuss.”
Theo obediently nudged harder, and his mount deigned to begin ambling forwards. They did several circuits at a slow walk, with Hector cheerfully picking fault with his position, and then risked a short trot. Trot turned out to be a lot bouncier than Theo had expected. He fell off.
“You okay lad? Anything broken? No? Up you get again then.”
They tried trot again. This time Theo didn’t fall off. He felt this was a minor breakthrough, until he was informed that for the most part when trotting he was expected to do rising trot rather than sit there like a lemon.
He managed not to fall off during his first instruction in rising trot, although he felt like he was going to and consequently attempted most of it bent almost double.
This was incorrect, according to Hector’s patient tutoring, and he was forced to remain upright. Susie spent the whole lesson with her ears laid back.
It was going swimmingly until someone with a broom walked unexpectedly out from behind the stables and caused Susie to dance sideways in paranoid shock.
Theo fell off again.
Once again, he was not allowed to feel sorry for himself.
“Haveta get back on the horse!” Hector boomed happily, pulling him up and boosting him up onto Susie’s back once again. “You ain’t hurt!”
Susie sighed. Theo knew exactly how she felt.
By the end of the lesson, though, he was feeling rather proud of himself. He could ride a horse! Kind of. The Horsemaster had expressed approval in him and said that if all went well he’d soon be off the lead rein. He led Susie back to her stable by herself and managed to untack her by himself as well, under Hector’s watchful eye.
He was then informed that now Susie was his pony, he would be expected to take care of her.
“’Course, most of ‘em don’t,” Mr Ahern said with disapproval, demonstrating how to pick out a horse’s feet. “But you’re supposed to and I hope you will.”
“Sure,” Theo said obediently. “If you teach me how, of course…”
“No problem!” Hector boomed, evidently enthused by the idea of a new willing pupil and effortlessly subduing Susie’s attempts to get her back leg away from his grip. “’Seasy when you get used to it!”
The next thing on Theo’s timetable that afternoon was basic sword fighting taught by someone called Mr Aldobrandino, who turned out to be a little old man with a light Italian accent. The first thing Theo saw when he walked into the room was a table with more types of sword laid out on it than he’d ever seen before in his life.
“Mr Hunt?” Mr Aldobrandino enquired, materialising beside him. “Yes? Good. First we pick out the best sword for you.”
Without further preamble Theo was ushered to the table and required to listen to his new instructor’s passionate spiel about all the different types of what was essentially still a length of metal designed to maim people. It was actually rather interesting; Theo had had no idea there was such variety.
“-Claymores, both two-handed and basket-hilted. Very good swords, Scottish you know. Mortuary swords, basket-hilted…sabres, lovely example here with the curved blade but here also we have straight-bladed sabres with a double edge. Rapiers of course, lovely hilt isn’t it? Also we have here an epee, though it is not a good offensive sword, more for fencing. Hunting sword, for finishing off prey…cutlass, my favourite! Broadsword of course, longswords of many types, bastard sword…”
There were many others, often with complicated foreign names that Theo found very hard to pronounce, and his attention was beginning to wander a bit by the end. His muscles were starting to register complaints about their treatment in the riding lesson and the innumerable lengths of sharp, shining steel laid out before him were becoming almost hypnotising.
“-For you, Mr Hunt, I believe we start with a rapier. You have a good rapier body, I believe. Maybe then the sabre. Mr Hunt?”
“Oh! Yes. Rapier, then sabre,” Theo repeated obediently. Mr Aldobrandino nodded with satisfaction and trotted to a cupboard from which he produced, much to Theo’s relief, a blunted rapier and a wooden curved-blade sabre.
“First you will learn how to hold this sword properly,” his instructor informed him, passing him the rapier. It was much heavier than he expected, and his muscles immediately howled at him. “Now…the flat blade stays parallel to ground at all times; this sword is designed for thrusting, you see. There are many ways to hold rapiers; we will try all of them and see which is best for you.”
Eventually, after Theo’s fingers had been manoeuvred into several different positions on the hilt, each of them uncomfortable in their own fashion, they decided to stick with the one where his thumb rested on the blade.
Then they actually started practising positions, and Theo quickly found that this was even harder work than learning to ride. By the time Mr Aldobrandino expressed the opinion that they were finished with his introduction to the rapier his arms felt about ready to drop off. He’d been using muscles he’d never even realised he had and they hurt.
Mr Aldobrandino grinned at him.
“Sore?”
“Very,” Theo admitted ruefully. The old man’s grin became positively gleeful.
“It’ll get you fit,” he announced. “Now I shall introduce you to the sabre.”
The sabre, it turned out, was held in an entirely different way, more or less between the thumb and forefinger. Naturally this caused different muscles to start complaining.
Eventually Mr Aldobrandino allowed that they might be finished with sabre positions as well.
“Next time we will begin sparring,” he said cheerfully. “You are a good student, you will do well.”
“Thanks,” Theo said in surprise, passing back the sabre. “I quite enjoyed it, thank you.”
“Sword fighting is good fun,” the old man nodded, grinning again. “Very enjoyable. Goodbye Mr Hunt.”
To Theo’s great relief there was nothing more on his timetable for that day. He staggered back to his accommodation, this time only getting slightly lost, and just about managed to climb the stairs, unlock the door and fall onto the sofa.
He was still there when Sashi returned from the zoo. She gave him a startled look.
“Are you all right?”
He raised his head with a rueful smile.
“Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry. My arms are just going to fall off, that’s all.”
For a moment Sashi looked worried, then she tentatively smiled.
“Did Mr Aldobrandino work you hard?” she asked sympathetically, kicking off her shoes. Theo nodded and put on a pout, closing his eyes.
“And your Hector too. Oooh, I’m going to die.”
Sashi’s smile widened a little. Theo peeped at her under one eyelid.
“Go on, say it.”
“Say what?” she protested, a little alarmed.
“Tell me I’m a melodramatic idiot who ought to be put down at once,” Theo purred. “Go on, I know you want to.”
She took a second to realise he was joking, but then her smile returned.
“All right. You’re a melodramatic idiot who ought to be put down at once. And you’re only getting beans on toast for dinner.”
“Hey!” he protested. “I’m suffering here. Beans on toast?!”
“Beans on toast are good for invalids,” Sashi informed him. “You’ll get them ‘till you’re well again.”
She looked so serious Theo’s mouth dropped open.
“…Really?”
There was a pause, and then Sashi grinned wickedly.
“Of course not. Just until you stop being a melodramatic idiot. Savvy?”