“You’ve told me why. Now tell me how you got into this stable. I’ve seen how Davidow treats the stable help and I can’t see him letting you sneak in and out as you did my tent at the camp at Szarnar. When did you get here?”

“Naleek and I arrived yesterday afternoon. We were put to work immediately and shown how humility and hard labor was going to be our lot in life by Davidow’s foreman. I’m very good at being humble and was duly intimidated and kept my head down but my ears open. Which let me start picking up everything I could from the other workers. I learned that you and Chaos were scheduled to be on the track with three other horses today, and that he isn’t being held in the main stable. But I needed more, so I had to put off approaching you until today.” He grimaced. “However, they worked us so hard from the time we got up that I didn’t get a chance to find out anything about the stable where Chaos is being kept. I had no idea what kind of security I could expect to run into. I had to rely on learning it from you.”

“How did you get in here?”

“You said it yourself: It adjoins the main stable. The workers’ quarters are a big room on the other side of that stable. There are fifty—no, closer to sixty—of us curled up in our blankets on the floor. Some of the laborers work in the house, but most of them are in the stable, track, grandstand, or outdoor gardens. Our day ends at sundown. They feed us and then let us go to bed so that we’re up at dawn the next day. Believe me, it’s no problem slipping out of that room at night. Those laborers are exhausted by the end of their day, and the food they’re given is sparse and not particularly healthy. I’d say most of them are fighting malnutrition.

“It doesn’t surprise me.”

“Anyway, tonight I waited for an hour after everyone bedded down and then started exploring.”

“And you ended up in this stall when I brought Chaos back from the track?” She made a face. “It was probably good he was distracted. He’s usually aware of everything around him.”

He looked back down the aisle at Chaos. “He’s having his dinner? My presence doesn’t seem to bother him.”

“You’re being ignored. Evidently, he feels you’re not enough of a threat to cause a problem even to a person as weak as he considers me. That’s no compliment. He regards me as very stompable.”

“Stompable?” He frowned. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”