Behind the Cart

Illumina was riding beside the cart the next day and asked Nina, "You came from the north and west didn't you. Did you know the village in the story the Margrave told last night?"

Nina acknowledged she came from there but denied any knowledge of the village, saying it was just a story and she set no store by it. Illumina did not press the issue.

The Prince sat watching and listening, apparently realizing there was some significance to the conversation though he failed to grasp it. Illumina looked at him and saw the realization, seeing something in him for the first time that gave her a glimpse of what he might become and what he might have been at one time. Then the vision was gone and he asserted, in his usual haughty fashion, that today he would ride a horse. He said it as though it were a simple inconsequential thing, as though he had said, 'today I will scratch my nose.'

Among the people of Loro it was not such a simple thing. A person's relationship to a horse was a bond that was never lightly broken or disregarded by passing it on to someone else like a sack of flour to be bought and sold. Illumina was about to say something of this to him but then stopped herself, saying instead, "I will speak to father and see if one can be found."

Nina looked relieved and the Prince looked astonished, asking why in this great crowd of people a spare horse could not be found. Illumina explained to him, in a somewhat tight-lipped fashion, that the people mostly came on their own account and had little to do with the Margrave. They had business in the low country and simply traveled with him for company. If a horse were to be found, it would have to be from among the Margrave's immediate party and there were unlikely to be many spare horses to be found there. The Prince still looked doubtful but said nothing.

Illumina rode off up the line seeking her father. She found him and asked about the horse. He looked doubtful as well, though for a different reason, saying there were no horses to be had. She was grateful that he didn't even mention the idea of her riding in the cart for a while allowing the Prince to ride Cavalla.

The Margrave laughed and said, "We could let him ride Insensato." Everyone in earshot joined in the laughter including Illumina. Then she looked serious for a moment, "But father he's the most stupid and cowardly horse we've ever come across. We only brought him with because the stable master thought he might be useful as a pack animal and might learn some sense following the other horses. Don't you think he and the Prince would make a dangerous combination?"

The Margrave just waved his hand, "No, I think not. Just watch them when we get up in the mountains. Make sure the horse and the Prince don't both fall asleep and ride over the edge of a cliff. I doubt anyone could tolerate his gait for more than a few hours anyway."

Insensato was a large ungainly horse, quite suited for his current role as a pack horse, apart from the fact that he seemed to manage to shift his load no matter how they tied it on. It was necessary to watch him and stop every now and then to settle the load again. Most of what he had been carrying had been left in the King's city so he now had very little by way of a load.

At the midday stop, Illumina managed to get his load distributed among a couple of the carts, find a saddle and bridle for him and bring him round to the cart that carried the Prince and Nina. He immediately demonstrated his genius for doing the wrong thing; he was startled by a sound behind him and turned quickly, bringing his haunches into violent contact with the side of the cart just as the Prince was climbing down the steps. The Prince seemed to think it undignified to come down backwards and always made a point of coming down face outwards, which was awkward, to say the least, on the narrow steps that were built into the inside of the cart's back door. The Prince was poised on the second step just as Insensato collided with the cart. Possibly his only virtue was his size and he banged into cart hard enough to lift one wheel off the ground and tip the Prince headfirst off the steps, landing in an undignified heap in the dust at Cavalla's feet.

Illumina suppressed a guffaw, reflecting that he might have managed to break his neck. It was quickly apparent that he had done no serious damage to anything except his dignity. She managed to ask, "Are you all right?" reflecting that the damage to his dignity wasn't that serious either, given that he had little enough of it left at that point. The Prince comically scrambled to his feet and strutted around, as though he believed that if he acted as though nothing untoward had happened no one would realize anything had happened.

He cocked his head back so he could peer down his nose at the offered horse. He tried to walk round him but Insensato was clearly nervous of him and circled as he circled, trying to keep the Prince in front of him. After the collision with the cart, Insensato had recoiled away from it. The Prince, attempting to circle him, brought him round until he collided with the cart again. He got another huge fright and recoiled away from it, forgetting about the Prince, snorting and stamping his feet in anxiety. The Prince suddenly found himself almost run over by the horse as he shied away from the cart.

Illumina, who had been holding Insensato's reins all this time, rolled her eyes as the horse and the Prince became entangled with each other. She threw the reins at the Prince saying, "He's your horse. You should probably get someone to hold his head while you get on him, maybe you should have someone help you up as well." The Prince automatically grabbed the reins as they struck him in the face but otherwise did not seem to hear a word she said.

Illumina clucked at Cavalla and rode off to where she traveled at the head of the line with her father. There was some pandemonium from back down the line as they got going again at the end of the midday break but Illumina determinedly turned a deaf ear. A couple of times she looked back, catching a glimpse of the Prince perched atop Insensato, usually either going sideways, off the road, colliding with something or someone else, getting in someone's way or some combination of all of these. There was a limit to the mayhem that even the combination of the Prince and Insensato could contrive and eventually things seemed to settle down and Illumina took Cavalla out of the line and waited till the Prince and Insensato passed by.

Again she laughed, although it also worried her, when she saw that Insensato had been tied to the back of the cart Nina was traveling in and was riding along controlled by his connection to the cart rather than anything the Prince might be doing on his back. The horse was plainly suspicious of the cart and pulled away from it every few steps, causing the rope to jerk at his bridle which also worried him as he didn't seem to understand the connection between the rope, the cart and himself.

The Prince was being bounced around like a sack of hay on the back of a galloping horse. Illumina could only imagine what his back, his backside and his legs would feel like by the end of the day. She shook her head and rode up to them, riding alongside the man and horse; Cavalla, very sensibly, keeping a wary distance between them.

Illumina asked if the Prince did not think he had done enough riding for one day. She pointed out that if he was not accustomed to riding it might be a good idea to do just a little to begin with. The Prince stuck his nose in the air, replying that he was perfectly accustomed to it and would ride for as long as it pleased him to do so.

"Well you won't feel very comfortable sitting round the fire tonight, in fact I doubt you'll be able to sit at all." The Prince simply ignored the remark, leading Illumina to feel annoyed with herself for having offered it in the first place; she rode off, leaving him to his own devices.

Sure enough, that evening the Prince failed to appear once the camp was set up and people had settled round the fire. He usually contrived to disappear while the work of setting up the camp took place. Everyone, including the Margrave, took a hand. It was the done thing. Senior members of the party might tell others what to do as much as doing it themselves but there was a clear expectation that everyone should play a role in making camp.

Illumina had been setting a pot of stew over a fire and looked up to see who was about. They had stopped early as they were now getting into the first of the passes leading up into the high country. The next day's travel would start with a steep climb over some fairly rough country that was best tackled in the light of day; this being especially true for the carts. It was still light and she happened to have a good view of the camp with the Prince conspicuously absent. It was cold and people were gathering round the fires seeking warmth and companionship.

Illumina had a sudden sense of remorse and decided she ought to seek the Prince out and find out how he was, if only for Nina's sake. She was quite sure she would find him in the cart and walked towards it. The cart was parked some distance away on the edge of the camp. As she got near to it she heard indistinct moaning, interspersed with mumbled instructions that she couldn't make out though she did catch the odd word or phrase like 'cold', 'painful', 'can't you be more careful'; this last given with a note of rising anguish, which was quite incongruous, given in the Prince's haughty accent. Illumina walked up to the back of the cart and climbed up onto the steps, pulling aside the flap closing off the back of the cart as she did so.

She was greeted by the ludicrous site of the Prince lying face down, his shirt pulled up over his head, his pants pulled down around his ankles. Nina was sitting next to him, a pot of some kind of ointment beside her, her hands poised over his back. She looked up and exclaimed Illumina's name, evidently otherwise at a loss for words.

Illumina could not help herself and burst out laughing, turning round to look out the back of the cart. "I am sorry; I merely came to ask how the Prince was doing." This came out between further bouts of laughter, especially at the Prince's frantic efforts to turn over and cover himself, which provoked further whimpers and suppressed cries of anguish. Illumina could see out of the corner of her eye that Nina effectively had him pinned to the bed, adding for emphasis, "Don't move, if you get this on the bedclothes we'll never get it off."

Then she turned angrily on Illumina. "Well, are you satisfied? It seems that you and the rest of the people in the camp will only be happy once every last shred of humanity has been stripped from him. Is there anything else you'd like to do to him? Walk him naked behind the cart? Paint his face and dress him up as a whore?"

Illumina stood for a moment looking out the back of the cart; thinking about Nina and the odd relationship between her and the Prince. Then she turned, making no attempt to offer any privacy to the Prince, simply confronting the pair of them. "I don't know what it is between you and this pathetic excuse for a man. But you should know, I have tried to be polite to him, despite his arrant rudeness and crass lack of any human decency. He has no dignity because he offers it to no one else. He is incapable of seeing anything decent in any one else because he has nothing decent in himself. Whatever it is that draws you to him or binds you to him, you should be careful not to lose sight of what he is. He is a nothing, a nonentity, a gaping hole of a life with nothing in it worth a tinker's curse."

Illumina could see that Nina knew the truth of what had been said. She almost brought her hands up to her face, just stopping herself in time, holding them away from her eyes, looking at them as though she could not believe what she saw, as though her hands were covered in blood.

To follow this thread in the story go to: Thrifty Man

The next section to read is: Simply Watched

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