SHORT STORY
Horses of the Sun — Part 2
A fantasy of a sacred racehorse named Edel
This is a work of fiction.
Read Part 1 here!
Horses of the Sun, continued:
Prize 3. A shoe from a winning young mare, if you have bet on her. The shoe of a two-year-old filly placed inside your household’s butter churn will ensure that witches, sorcerers, and demons cannot touch your food supply.
The farrier is back, taking two shoes this time, one for each of the winning bettors. I wince at how abruptly he pulls the shoes from Edel’s hooves. She will need more new ones — an insurmountable expense only a month ago. Now, with her winning purse money, I can manage it fine.
You may not remember, Papa, but two months ago we had so little food that a demon wouldn’t have bothered to touch it.
Back then, I worked for a savory-seller along the shore. The building was made of crumbling marble, its walls sticky from a hundred years’ worth of confections and sweets.
You would have been horrified if you’d known.
But I had to come up with money somehow, not just for our meals but for the rudimentary medical care that keeps you alive. Every day I pray that you may somehow get better, so that my strong Papa may return to me, lifting burdens that two servants couldn’t carry. The mere thought of what you were brings tears to my eyes.
You think that I can pay for everything because a few generous creditors gave you the benefit of the doubt. But I know better. No money lender would be so lenient.
You’ve bet at the Track since you were fourteen, digging such a deep hole for yourself that, even if you had remained healthy, you could never climb out. Your gambler’s brain doomed us, and still you believe that if only you could bet on one more race, you could win it all back.
So while you laid in our shabby rented hut all day, dreaming your fool’s dreams, I toiled at the savory-seller’s, twisting strips of dough and scorching them in the oven, then dipping them in melted butter and cinnamon.
That is why, when the crazy man came out of the rain leading a black horse, I accepted his bargain.
It was the day of the great storm, the one that tore the roof off of our shack. I was struggling home along the shore after working at the savory-seller’s. No one was going to venture out to buy anything.
Though it was the height of day, the sky was dark, and with the wind blasting the ocean foam into the air, twenty, thirty feet away from where the waves tore at the shore, I had to raise my hand to my face to keep the water from stinging my eyes.
I was walking into the wind and it was slow going; a couple times I sank to my knees and had to rest for a moment, panting, until I felt up to continuing.
The second time I struggled to my feet, I saw it — a great dark shape emerging out of the waves. It seemed to come from the ocean itself, some strange, dark creature born from the storm and the surf.
It took me some moments to realize that the shape was a black horse. I stared at it, quavering a little as it came near me, snorting the water out of its nostrils and tossing its head wildly, upset by the storm.
Would it trample me? Did it even see me standing here? Would it run right through me? For it was running up the beach now, a long, liquid gallop, right toward me.
I was so transfixed by fright that I didn’t notice the man running behind the horse until he was quite upon me. I screamed at the shock of seeing him, and he seemed just as startled to see me, staggering backward. At my scream, the horse stopped also, and stood there quivering in the storm.
“You must take her!” shouted the man.
“What?” I shouted back, certain I’d heard him wrong in the wailing of the wind.
“Take her! Or else they will take her away from me.” He stepped so close to me that I saw the unshaven whiskers on his chin, the whites of his wide eyes. “I’ve bet too much! They’re taking everything. They’ll take her, and make her race, because she’s the fastest horse you’ve ever seen! But she can’t race!” The man grabbed me and shook me by the shoulders. “She’s meant to be free!”
I raised a hand to pry his fingers from my collar, but he’d already let go.
“Take her!” he shouted, shoving a crumpled piece of paper into my pocket “Keep her free!” He turned away, back toward the shore.
“I can’t take a horse!” I shouted — but he was already disappearing back into the storm, his back to the wind.
I stared at the tall horse in front of me. She stood still as if waiting for me to lead her. She wore a bridle, but the possibility of reaching up to that massive head made me want to throw up.
This was crazy. I couldn’t take a horse.
I turned and began to trudge back up the beach toward home, panting, hearing nothing around me but the wailing of the wind. I ran when I could, trying to put as much distance between me and the crazy man and horse as possible.
Finally I reached the shack and stood at the door, trembling. I turned to look back the direction I’d come — and jumped when I saw the black horse standing a few paces from me.
She had followed me!
I pressed myself against the door, frightened, but the horse merely stepped up to the shack and pressed her soaking black body against the wall. She was sheltering from the wind, I realized, and paying me no further notice. My arms shaking, I opened the door and stepped into my own shelter.
Hours later, after I had fed you your soup, Papa, and changed into a dry set of clothes, I remembered the paper the crazy man had shoved into my pocket.
I went to my wet jacket where it hung on a peg near the fire and extracted the paper. Uncrumpling it, I saw a pedigree sheet for “Edel. Two-year-old filly. Black.”
And beneath that, in a section that said “Ownership: I, Toma Mak, owner and breeder of Edel, hereby transfer ownership of said filly to ___” and a blank line, for anyone to write their name upon.
I stared at it. Perhaps I’ve inherited some of your poisonous optimism and faith in the track, Papa, for echoing in my head were the words, “They’ll take her, and make her race, because she’s the fastest horse you’ve ever seen.”
Prize 4. The shoe of your winning horse, if you are soon to join with a woman. To secure a happy marriage, a bridegroom must carry a horseshoe in his pocket on his wedding day.
People are beginning to take note of Edel. She’s won four in a row, the latest victory in miserable slop against the best-bred fillies at the track this season.
Twelve grooms-to-be bet on her to win today, which means that only four of them won the lottery for a shoe. The others might spend weeks more at the track, spending the last of their savings in the desperate attempt to receive a marriage blessing from the Horses of the Sun.
You have your flaws, Papa, and I detest you for them. But I also adore you for betting for bridegrooms’ horseshoes many times over.
It put us further in debt, but your securing these luck tokens and gifting them to poor men in the neighborhood, even to complete strangers, was your saving grace.
For many of those men, I expect, it was the most costly, important gift they ever received.
“Need some help here,” says the farrier, snapping me out of my reverie.
“What?”
He motions at Edel, still standing in her harness. “No grooms to hold her.”
“Where did they go?”
“To watch the next race. That white whirlwind, Ishq, is starting. She’s never lost a race!”
Strangely, the statement irritates me. My Edel is just as fast, if not faster! The race she won today had a huge audience and a large purse.
True, Ishq’s career earnings are greater than Edel’s, but that’s my own fault. I underestimated her at the beginning, choosing races against lesser company. I couldn’t believe that a horse I owned could trot fast enough to be a real star.
The farrier beckons me closer, and I step up cautiously to take hold of Edel’s bridle. I’ve never been that close to her apart from the day she came to me (after that, I hired a man from the village to take her to the Track).
I hadn’t realized how tall she is — taller than some grown stallions I’ve seen. And so, so beautiful.
Hesitantly, I run my fingers through Edel’s long, silky mane. When she makes no move to strike at me, I rub her neck just above the tight chest-piece of her harness.
She leans into my hand, stretching out her head with pleasure. Somehow she seems wise, knowing. Are they aware of their sacredness, these Horses of the Sun? Are they just dumb beasts, beautiful or no, or do they have an intelligence to rival our own?
Perhaps if Edel could speak, she would reveal herself to be a superior being. Perhaps she has a language of her own — just not one that we can hear.
But maybe I don’t need to hear it. I just need to trust Edel.
I’m still uneasy, though. Not at holding her, for she’s gentle as a lamb, but because of the last thing Toma Mak said to me before he disappeared back into the storm:
“Keep her free.”
