The four adults pelted after. Cordelia heard no other cry, but when they turned the corner Miles was lying on the ground, and the horse had stopped further on and lowered its head to nibble at the grass. It snorted in hostility when it saw them, raised its head, danced from foot to foot, then snatched a few more bites.

Cordelia fell to her knees beside Miles, who was already sitting up and waving her away. He was pale, and his right hand clutched his left arm in an all-too-familiar signal of pain.

"You see, Sergeant?" Miles panted. "I can ride, I can."

Piotr, on his way toward his horse, paused and looked down.

"I didn't mean to say you weren't able," said the sergeant in a driven tone. "I meant you didn't have permission."

"Oh."

"Did you break it?" Bothari nodded to the arm.

"Yeah," the boy sighed. There were tears of pain in his eyes, but his teeth set against any quaver entering his voice.

The sergeant grumbled, and rolled up Miles's sleeve, and palpated the forearm. Miles hissed. "Yep." Bothari pulled, twisted, adjusted, took a plastic sleeve from his pocket, slipped it over the arm and wrist, and blew it up. "That'll keep it till the doctor sees it."

"Hadn't you better . . . containerize that horrendous horse?" Cordelia said to Piotr.

" 'S not h'rrendous," Miles insisted, scrambling to his feet. "It's the prettiest."

"You think so, eh?" said Piotr roughly. "How do you figure that? You like brown?"

"It moves the springiest," Miles explained earnestly, bouncing in imitation.

Piotr's attention was arrested. "And so it does," he said, sounding bemused. "It's my hottest dressage prospect. . . . You like horses?"

"They're great. They're wonderful." Miles pirouetted.

"I could never much interest your father in them." Piotr gave Aral a dirty look.

Thank God, thought Cordelia.

"On a horse, I could go as fast as anybody, I bet," said Miles.

"I doubt it," said Piotr coldly, "if that was a sample. If you're going to do it, you have to do it right."

"Teach me," said Miles instantly.

Piotr's brows shot up. He glanced at Cordelia, and smiled sourly. "If your mother gives permission." He rocked on his heels, in certain smug safety, knowing Cordelia's rooted antipathy to the beasts.

Cordelia bit her tongue on Over my dead body, and thought fast. Aral's intent eyes were signaling something, but she couldn't read it. Was this a new way for Piotr to try and kill Miles? Take him out and get him smashed, trampled, broken . . . tired out? Now there was a thought. . . .

Risk, or security? In the few months since Miles had at last acquired a full range of motion, she'd run on panicked overdrive, trying to save him from physical harm; he'd spent the same time near-frantically trying to escape her supervision. Much more of this struggle, and either she'd be insane, or he would.