The Arabs, which two of the men and one of the women were riding, seemed to take a strange delight in herding the cows. But with the exception of Alyssa, none of the others could get a single individual cut out. Alyssa was able to control her mount well enough, using mostly knee control and shifting weight, to manage the feat at least once. Kane, likewise, was able to control his mount to do the work.
In Herzer’s case, he swore Diablo was prescient and, like the Arabs, the young stallion seemed to enjoy the herding. All that Herzer had to do was get him pointed at the right cow and let him do the work.
After a sweat-soaked hour of running cows around — Myron came over while it was going on and remarked that they’d probably run a month’s grazing off the herd — they headed back to the corrals. But the day wasn’t over. They rode, mostly at a canter, back to the corrals and had a light lunch. Then Kane produced implements for a sport he called “Cowboy Polo” and broke them into two teams. The object of the game was using long mallets to strike an inflated rubber ball about a third of a meter across and drive it from one end of the massive pasture to the other, then through a small “goal” designated by two fence posts.
They played that for the rest of the day, changing horses twice although never people, and by the end of the day Herzer was exhausted but satisfied. He had played on Alyssa’s team and while they had lost, four goals to Kane’s team’s six, he had scored three of the goals.
Again Diablo, who had played almost half the game, seemed to have a knack for running down the balls. It was like the chase game with the cows in a way. In the brief intervals between “chukkers” Kane had explained the genesis of the game. Supposedly it had been invented by the ancient Mongols and the original “balls” had been severed human heads. He also said that the usual “ball” used was about the size of a human fist. Having mis-hit the much larger ball any number of times, Herzer had as much disbelief in that as the human head story.
He had fallen off, been “unseated” as Kane put it, only once and had remembered to fall as “bonelessly” as possible. His prior combat training had come to the fore permitting him to turn the fall into a roll.
“You need to get right back up,” Kane said, riding over. “If you fall off and you don’t get right back up, you’ll have one hell of a hard time riding again, ever.”
Herzer shook his head to clear it and then nodded. “Get right back up. I’ll remember,” he said muzzily.
When he got back up the replacement for Diablo had been patiently waiting, cropping at some of the sparse grass on the recently cleared field. So he had remounted and gotten back in the game.
However, at the conclusion, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to see a horse again. Unfortunately, he desperately needed a bath and to have his clothes washed. And while riding over to the baths was an unpleasant prospect, walking over was about the only thing worse that he could imagine.
Kane had told them to go get a bath and to take a horse if they wanted to. Obviously the intent was not only to get the smelly, sweaty group cleaned up but to get them some more practice riding, so Herzer reluctantly walked over to the corral after the last chukker and whistled up Diablo.
The horse looked at least as uncertain about being ridden as Herzer felt about riding, but he soothed the animal with scratches and finally got the saddle on and adjusted. Riding over was very unpleasant but when he thought about walking he had to admit that riding was at least shorter.
There were at least six others headed over to the baths at about the same time. All the other riders, however, were reenactors who were old friends of Kane and Alyssa. While they didn’t deliberately cut Herzer out of the conversation most of it was so “in” that he couldn’t even keep up with the names so he just rode along in silence, nursing his various hurts.
At the baths he gladly handed his now dry but crusty clothes over to the ubiquitous Darius and headed for the baths. He had parked Diablo around the corner on a long enough lead that he could crop some grass and when they got back the horse was due for a good feed and a roll.
He scrubbed hard in the cold water of the showers and then nearly screamed when the hot water struck his raw spots. But the pain quickly subsided and as the heat penetrated all his abused muscles it induced a pleasant euphoria that lasted for some time. By the time he felt he could drag himself out of the bath it was dark and the kitchens were nearly closed. He got his clothes, trotted down on Diablo — sensibly riding high in the stirrups to protect his abused bottom — and got some of the last of the scraps. After that he rode back to the corrals, fed his horse, brushed it down, got it a good feed, put away his gear and staggered off to the building designated as a bunkhouse. He found his basket in the dark, rolled out his fur and was asleep practically before he could get his boots off.
“Edmund,” Sheida said, appearing in his office as the town council filed in the door.
“Sheida, we’re busy here,” Edmund said. “Could you just call me or something? Maybe, just once, leave a message?”
The rest of the council stopped, shocked, at the sight of him chewing out a council member but Sheida just nodded in sympathy.
“I’m starting to forget that people don’t split,” she sighed, stroking the image of her flying lizard. “I’m sorry, Edmund.”
“What is it this time?” he asked, still exasperated.
“I’ve freed up enough energy to have virtual meetings for the constitutional convention and more important, for the writing of the first draft. I want you to be on it.”
“Great I’ll slide that in my free time between figuring out how to feed three thousand people and defending them from raiders.”
“Is it that bad out there?” she asked, frowning.
“McCanoc is back,” he growled. “He burned Fredar.”
“Oh,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know how that one passed me by. But it’s not the first by a long stretch.”
“Nor will it be the last,” Edmund agreed. “And we may be next.”
“Do you know his current location?” she asked. “He has come up… at a higher level lately.”
“No, somewhere west of Fredar on the plains presumably,” Edmund said. “When is this meeting?”
“When would be convenient?” she asked, looking around and nodding at the council members. “Sorry for taking your time.”
“No problem.” “Quite all right…”
“Tomorrow evening?” he asked.
“Eightish?” she said, glancing in the distance. “That will… work. See you then,” she added and vanished.
“To have the power…” Deshurt said.
“I wouldn’t want her headaches,” Talbot responded. “Okay, if you’ll all grab a seat, the first order of business is another crack at the banking code…”
“Rachel,” Daneh called as her daughter was heading out the door of the infirmary. It had been a long day at the infirmary, it was late and Rachel was due some time off. But she had put this off long enough.