Fergal gave the colt one last stroke down his nose before turning away, Damian’s hand still on his shoulder.

Lady greeted them in the doorway, lamplight gleaming around her. Her arms were crossed and she held a ladle. Aromatic scents of roasting meat and apple pie wafted past her into the night air.

“It’s about time,” she said.

Damian danced up the porch steps. “Lady, my lady, my dear, but we’ve had an eventful day on the plains among the wild ones.”

She rolled her eyes and stepped aside. “If you find my roast tough tonight, you may blame yourself.”

Karigan and Fergal went to their respective rooms to clean up, and when they returned to the kitchen they found Gus and Jericho already seated at the table, and Ero sprawled in front of the hearth. Damian carved a roast of lamb and as the juices flowed from it and the cutting revealed pink meat, Karigan did not expect it would be tough. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation.

Lady, trying to work around the hearth, placed her hands on her hips and declared, “Ero, you are not a hearth rug.”

Ero’s only response was to yawn and stretch his long body even longer. Lady shook her head.

Everyone ate as though famished. Ero abandoned hearth duty to sit beside the table. He was more than tall enough to rest his chin on the tabletop and gaze longingly at food as it was consumed by his people. Damian and the boys slipped him some scraps.

Meanwhile, Damian recounted to Lady the day’s events.

“Did you see the patron, too?” Lady asked Karigan, her blue eyes intense.

“Yes.”

Lady nodded as though she had expected all along that she would.

“I didn’t,” Fergal said.

Lady reached across the table and patted his wrist. “Maybe another time. You are both welcome to visit whenever you want.”

Fergal brightened. “Really?”

“Really,” she said. “As your duty to the king allows.”

When dinner was finished and Karigan stood up to help clear the table, Damian motioned her to remain seated. “We have business, you and I.”

Karigan nodded in understanding and excused herself to retrieve her message satchel from her bedchamber. By the time she returned, most everything had been cleared, and Lady was directing the boys to take a bucket of scraps out to the pigs. Karigan sat next to Damian at the quietest end of the table.

She removed a packet of papers and handed them to Damian, waiting while he inspected them.

“Ah, a letter from your captain.” He read along, then, “Hee hee.” He glanced up at Karigan. “I am to remind you not to drive a hard bargain. I had not realized you were from an important merchanting clan.”

“We don’t trade in horses,” Karigan said with a smile, remembering the captain’s admonition that she agree to whatever Damian asked for anyway.

“Heh, I guess that’s lucky for me.”

He read on, and when he got to the documents of trade, both he and Karigan signed in the appropriate places, and Karigan dripped wax on the document, which she imprinted with the winged horse seal of the Green Riders.

“Delivery will be late spring, early summer most like,” Damian said. “There’ll be some yearlings in the mix, including Fergal’s little colt, as well as older beasties, which the boys and I will gentle over the winter so they are ready to train for service with their new Riders. The Riders will have to see to the overall gentling of the yearlings themselves beyond some halter training, but that’s nothing new.”

It was all new to Karigan. She wondered who would be in charge of training.

“I’ll write Red a letter to confirm it all. It’ll be ready by the morning.”

The business concluded, the Frosts surprised Karigan and Fergal by entertaining them with music. Jericho fetched a beat-up fiddle and Gus took a pipe out of his pocket. Damian, muttering to himself, searched through the kitchen till he stood triumphant holding two silver spoons.

“Damian!” Lady cried. “My mother’s good spoons!”

He grinned. “They make fine music.”

Lady sighed and shook her head, and the music began. While the Frosts did not possess the finesse of the students of Selium, they played well-known, rollicking tunes to which all could sing. Lady’s voice was a lovely counterpoint to Damian’s gruff baritone and even Fergal sang well. Karigan, tone deaf as always, sang quietly, content herself to enjoy the others and clap to the rhythm.

The last song of the evening was sung solo by Lady, with only Jericho accompanying her on the fiddle. The song was slow, full of long notes textured by a haunting melody. The lyrics took Karigan back to the plains, past the broken towers of Kmaern where the wind blew in mournful voices. She returned to the valley with its trickling stream, and farther beyond the song led, to the wide open and lonely expanses, touched by lightning and blanketed by blue-black storm clouds. Then came winter and sheets of blizzard snow shrouding the scene, a band of wild horses trudging through it, heads bowed against the wind, their coats plastered by snow and ice. Then it was spring again in the valley, newborn foals taking their first shaky steps.

On the song went, through a full cycle of seasons and from life to death. When Lady stopped singing and the last note on the fiddle sighed to fading, Karigan sagged on her seat, exhausted. No one spoke and everyone looked as though they were awakening from a dream. Except Ero who snored by the hearth.

It was no wonder Lady could sing the horses in, considering the spell she’d put them under.