Prince of Macedonia by Katherine Roberts

Author:Katherine Roberts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horses, Alexander the Great, Ancient Greece, great commanders
Publisher: Katherine Roberts
Published: 2014-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

~ PETASIOS ~

That was how I got the girl-filly as my personal groom, and life improved. Although I still had my dark stall at the back of the mule stables, it was now cleaned properly every day so that I could feel the cobbles massaging my hooves again. I got proper grooming and exercise – long walks through the streets of Pella and along the riverbank with Charm at my head. I learnt all the smells, until I knew I could find my way back to the stables from any part of my new home in Macedonia.

With an outlet for my energy, I grew much calmer in my stall. After a sharp talking-to by their Mulemaster, the muleteers stopped banging their sticks on the bars to tease me, and the other grooms were relieved they didn’t have to come near me any more.

They were so impressed when Charm led me out of the stable the first time and held on to me grimly while I plunged about in excitement, they never suspected she wasn’t a man-colt like them. Most man-colts think girl-fillies can’t do things like that. And Charm was clever. She smeared my dung on her face to hide her smooth girl-filly’s skin, which made her look a bit strange. But since she smelt so strongly of me, I didn’t need to dominate her.

The Horsemaster narrowed his eyes when he saw Charm leading me out, but he was too busy to bother us. Charm said he couldn’t decide whether to be glad I was behaving myself, or be angry he didn’t have an excuse to try the Scythian thing on me again.

Summer turned to winter and back to summer again, and still Alexander did not return from his Aristotle school. I was starting to think he had forgotten me. But the Horsemaster had not forgotten the one-eyed king’s last order before he went away fighting – that his son was not to ride me again.

One day, when Charm leads me out to exercise, I see a strange horse being put through his paces on the riding ground with the rest. He is bright red like the rising sun and very full of himself, although only half my age and size. When he sees me, he gives a cheeky squeal. So I squeal back to put him in his place. The red stallion loses concentration, and the Horsemaster scowls at me.

“Quiet, Bucephalas!” Charm says, frowning. “We’d better go down to the river. That’s a special horse the Horsemaster’s training for when Prince Alexander gets home.”

This is bad news. Alexander is going to ride me when he returns, not some half trained youngster who won’t know the first thing about looking after such a headstrong man-colt in battle.

There’s only one thing to do. I rear up on my hind legs, ripping the lead rein out of Charm’s hand. I leap the fence from a standstill, find some of the red stallion’s dung and dominate it. Then I make myself huge and gallop straight for him, my ears flat and my mouth open.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.