Dorrin stayed with the cohort to organize their exercise; Kieri and the King’s Squires headed back to the palace. Kieri looked around; from this direction, he could tell the city—town—stretched off to the east, though he could not tell where it ended. He would have to spend a day exploring, or find a map.

As they passed the trees bordering the Royal Ride, Berne stared off down the grassy stretch. “Someone’s there!” he said. “Coming down the Ride.”

Kieri looked. A red horse, its tall rider leading a gray he also recognized. “It’s Paks,” he said. “She’s exercising my mount Banner …” He hardly recognized the feeling that tightened his chest. She was another he would lose, when she left—when Gird or the gods called her away on quest. He wished suddenly he could have met her family, her father. Did they even know what she had become? Would they ever?

She had spotted him now, and waved; he waved back. The red horse lifted into a trot; his gray surged forward, then slowed at a flick of the red’s ear, keeping polite pace without crowding or rushing. As they neared, Paks smiled down at him. “I didn’t think a short trot would hurt,” she said.

“He looks good,” Kieri said. Banner took a step forward, toward him, then stopped, eyeing the red horse.

“Here,” Paks said, tossing him the lead rope. He caught it neatly, and Banner came to him, lowering a velvety muzzle to his hands. “He was no trouble—a bit stiff at first, as you suspected, but loosened up quickly.”

“I’ll take him back myself,” Kieri said, “if you want to ride longer.”

“You? Sir King, one of us can take—” But as Astil reached for the lead, the horse threw up his head and snorted.

“He’s used to me,” Kieri said. “And he’s trained for war.”

“A gray,” murmured Panin, who had said least so far. “You know they’re high-strung, Astil.”

Kieri sensed some bias he needed to know. Stroking the horse’s neck, he said, “Grays are high-strung?”

“Everyone knows that,” Panin said. “They’re air and water—unstable, changeable, capricious. Earth-fire horses, like that—” He nodded at Paks’s horse, standing like a statue, ears forward and only little puffs of vapor coming from its nostrils in the cool air. “They’re much steadier.”

“Hmmm,” Kieri said. Not the right time to question their prejudices, but he’d never seen grays as particularly flighty. Certainly not Banner. He had an impulse to show them how steady Banner could be, but even Banner might act up if he swung up bareback in this strange place. “Come along, Banner,” he said instead, and walked on, the gray horse at his side.

“Do you need me, Sir King?” Paks asked.

“No,” he said, hoping she meant only “for the present” but knowing he must say the same if she was leaving forever.

“Then I’ll let this fellow stretch his legs,” she said. Some signal passed from her to the red horse, or the horse took it on himself to disprove the Squires’ beliefs, for he pranced in place, half reared, then wheeled, and bolted flat-out back up the Royal Ride, wet divots spraying up behind him.