She obeyed him, though she felt more than a little intimidated by a horse that towered over her so much that she had to reach up to pat his shoulder.

“Now, just run your right hand down his leg till you get to the knee. Then pat his shin with your hand. He’ll pick his foot right up, then he’ll wait for you to take it in your hands, and just rest it there, easy and light. He won’t even shift his weight until you let go of the foot for him to set it down again.”

She did as she was told, and was filled with amazement when the horse did exactly what Grim said he would—with a hoof that was so big it filled both her hands with plenty of room to spare! He didn’t let a bit of his weight rest on that leg, either. She could move his foot around to inspect the frog, and she probably could have cleaned it if she’d had a hoofpick. She let the hoof go, and he put his foot down politely, brought his head around to sniff her, and then put his nose in her hands, as Grim had said Star would soon. She rubbed the soft skin around his nostrils and scratched under his chin. He seemed to enjoy that very much.

“That’s the benefit of early training,” said Grim. “Not a chance in hell we’d be able to control a lad that size without it. Can you imagine trying to shoe that fellow, or trim his hooves, or clean his feet, if he wasn’t used to obeying us without question? It’d be impossible. Come on back over.”

She hopped the fence again, and he produced a couple of pieces of carrot from somewhere, and gave the two false Golds their treats. “My one regret is these boys are going to be wasted on the Emperor,” Grim sighed. “But the good thing is once the stablehands understand what sort of gems they are, they’ll be treated right.” They put their noses over the fence to be rubbed again. “All right, Delia, off with you. You’ve put in a good morning’s work.”

On her way back to the manor, she wondered if other horse breeders took the kind of care and time with their animals that Kordas and his stablemaster did. She didn’t think so. Her pony had taken a lot of persuading before he became the cooperative fellow he was now, and even then, there was only a handful of people he’d work with. On the other hand, as Kordas had often said, her pony was a good judge of character.