“Excellent. I applaud your skill,” Demizdor’s new master said. “Do you lie with the mares to make them so cooperative?”

I pulled my wits together, smiled courteously, and asked him with deferential interest, “Do you recommend it, sir? Is it good?”

His friends laughed. I was a dog who could crack jokes as well as ride horses. The golden bear, however, was not finished.

“Well,” he said, “we’ve seen the fancy dancing, but not how you break a horse to your lord’s service. That I should like to witness indeed.” Whereat he turned about and shouted to Erran, “My lord Leopard, have I your permission to get this breaker of yours to tame a beast of mine?”

Erran had been talking with Blue-Sleeve; he left off and crossed to join us. Behind the eye-holes of his mask his eyes were bright with piercing interest, and, more than any other thing, Erran’s eyes told me I should beware.

“Tame a horse of yours, my lord? I believed your beasts were tame already.”

“Every one, save for the red stallion.”

“The red? But you won him at four-headed dice a month back.”

“So I did, my lord. And he has been a curse to me.”

“Surely you exaggerate,” Erran said smoothly, enjoying the dialogue with unmistakable razored anticipation. “That gentle stallion is softer than your lady there, damask Demizdor.”

If he had meant to warn me—to this hour, I am not certain—he could have done it no more plainly.

“Yet, my lord Leopard, I beg your permission,” the bear said.

“Well, then, if you are reduced to beggary, sir, you had better have it. You will not object to exercising this gentleman’s animal, will you, Vazkor?”

“Ask me again, my lord,” I said, “when I have done so.”

The bear had slapped one of his silver men on the shoulder, and the man had gone off down the avenue of statues. After half a minute, a closed-in horse box of black metal was brought at an even pace up the avenue and onto the flats.

The box was a sort of prison-on-wheels, a city object I had never taken to. Now I and the whole company could hear there was some need of it.

Something inside the box was kicking and lashing and bellowing to get out.

Erran’s eyes currently conveyed entire surprise and mystification.

“Why, my lord,” he said to the gold bear, “can your passive beast have grown into a demon overnight? I think we had better withdraw before the creature is let loose. My Vazkor, do you judge you can handle this horse?”

I looked the bear in the face, and said, “I should say this horse had been handled somewhat already.”

Surely a babe yet warm from the crib could have guessed the facts. If they could not doctor my food, they could doctor the food of their horses. From the noise of it, my lord Prince Bear had stoked his animal with the seeds of death for both the steed and whoever should happen in its path.