Calvino Read online

  The wail of their music went on late into the night and made my hooves want to keep dancing to its wild rhythm.

  By morning, the carnival atmosphere had been replaced by a businesslike air. Buyers moved purposefully from pen to pen, examining animals and writing up contracts of sale.

  A rancher from the north bought two colts and twenty head of Moreno cattle. A spice merchant from the city chose a bright chestnut filly as a wedding present for his daughter. Near the end of the day, Inez’s father stopped by and spoke for the rest of the cattle.

  Joaquin and Rico prepared for the journey back to the estate while Ana Sofia sat on the high seat of the cart, counting pieces of silver from a velvet purse. Her brow was knotted with worry, and she turned the bag over again as if hoping more coins would fall into her palm.

  Nearby, a shepherd boy released a seemingly endless stream of sheep from their pens. To my surprise, I noticed a man pushing his way through the flock—it was the rider of the bay stallion I had seen yesterday.

  “Buenos dias,” said the man as he reached our party. He was out of breath, and his elegant clothes were covered in curls of Merino wool. Ana Sofia and Rico echoed his greeting. Joaquin only grunted and swung the heavy ranch saddle onto my back.

  “Your horse impressed me greatly during the acoso y derribo tournament,” the man continued. “I have just been compensated for a large sum of silver that was stolen during my journey, and I am now at liberty to make an offer for him.”

  “He is not for sale,” Joaquin said brusquely, and cinched the girth beneath my belly with a sharpness that made me bare my teeth.

  “I am prepared to pay three thousand reales.”

  “Why, that is a king’s ransom!” cried Ana Sofia, lifting the hem of her long skirt and stepping down from the cart.

  “Then it is fortunate that I represent a king, señora,” the man replied. “Forgive me, for I have not introduced myself—I am Diego López de Haro, horse master to His Majesty King Philip the Second.”

  Ana Sofia seemed at a loss for words. Finally, she regained her composure and introduced herself and her sons. Rico’s eyes were wide as he took in the man’s ornate attire, more lavish than anything Master Moreno had owned. “Surely you could find more exotic and valuable animals here,” said Ana Sofia. “A Barb from Africa, or a destrier with the strength of five ordinary horses.”

  “The king believes the horses bred in Andalusia to be without equal,” replied the horse master, “and he wishes their reputation to spread throughout the world.”

  De Haro stepped forward and ran his fingers through my mane, as if he were a silk weaver testing the quality of an expensive bolt of cloth. “He is sizable but not heavy,” he said. “Even at rest he stands like he is on parade. His face could not be surpassed by any sculptor’s chisel, and his dappled color is favored by the king.”

  Ana Sofia’s fan fluttered like a moth’s wings before her face. “Your price is generous,” she replied, “but the stallion belongs to my son, and the decision must be his.”

  Joaquin did not answer while he put on my bridle. I flung my head high as I always did when I first felt the touch of the serreta. But once the headstall rested snugly and the fringed mosquero had been smoothed over my brow, I quickly settled.

  “Calvino is a lion among horses,” Joaquin finally said to de Haro. “But I am a better horseman now than when I trained him, as certain habits of his remind me. And three thousand reales will pay off the many debts that have accumulated since my father’s death. If you believe you can master him, he is yours.”

  “Are you certain, Chimo?” asked Ana Sofia.

  Joaquin nodded.

  “Then I have but one further condition for you, Señor de Haro,” she declared.

  “Yes, señora?” asked the horse master, arching one eyebrow.

  “Take my son as your student and apprentice,” said Ana Sofia. “Teach him to ride as a gentleman rides and educate him. When he is grown, find a place for him in the court so that his future is secure.”

  De Haro looked at Joaquin with the same critical eye he had turned on me. “I have never accepted a pupil who was not born of the noble class,” he said. “But I have seen him ride, and he is like a chunk of rough sapphire that could dazzle when properly cut. If he wishes to remain with his horse, I will accept him.”

  “No,” said Ana Sofia, shaking her head so that her gold earrings clattered. “Not Joaquin—I want you to take Rico.”

  The journey to Córdoba took four days. A dirt track, hardly visible in places, formed the only road through the plains that shimmered with a rainbow of spring flowers. As we traveled north, the path ascended into rocky foothills with groves of hardy cork and olive trees. My spirits were high, for I thrived on adventure, and I was delighted with these new sights and smells and tastes.

  De Haro had bought twenty mares in Seville, and they traveled in a chain behind his huge mahogany carriage, each mare’s tail knotted to the soft leather collar circling the neck of the horse behind her. Eighteen of the mares were gray, like me. All strung together, they were like a strand of pearls.

  I had determined early in the course of our journey that I would not be ridden by the child. He was accustomed to riding gentle Rasula and was easily unseated. So I carried the horse master himself, and Rico rode de Haro’s bay stallion, Campeón.

  The horse master was a puzzle to me. His body was still in the saddle, and his grip on the reins was featherlight. At first I thought I might rid myself of him quickly and travel as I pleased, perhaps in closer quarters to the mares.

  But no matter how I spun and feinted, his balance was unchanged. It seemed that his hand could transform from silk to steel and back again in the span of a few moments, depending on whether my actions pleased him.

  When I finally yielded to the bit, I was newly aware of the muscles in my arched neck and tucked hindquarters. It was as if the horse master’s seat and hands had collected the power in my body so that no movement was wasted. The feeling was so new to me that I walked quietly, mouthing the bit, and set aside my interest in the mares for the time being.

  Anyway, as long as I traveled with Campeón, I did not lack for conversation. The stallion had been born in the royal stables, and he told me about his life there from the moment of his foaling.

  …So now, after four years of the most disciplined schooling, I have progressed to the alta escuela, the highest level of doma clásica riding, he said. My specialty is the piaffe between the pillars, like so….

  He demonstrated a mincing gait in which he set his hooves down in the precise spot from which he had lifted them.

  You have spent four years learning to…prance in place? I asked doubtfully.

  I suppose the subtle art of the alta escuela would be lost on a cow horse from the provinces, he replied, curling his upper lip.

  In reply, I slowed my trot to mimic the step that Campeón had demonstrated. The horse master laughed in surprise. Campeón only snorted and retreated into a silent sulk. Even so, his black-tipped ears swiveled in all directions to take in gossip from every corner of creation.

  Presently, the mares were chattering about the taste of different wild flowers, and de Haro was explaining the art of doma clásica riding to Rico. The boy was listening politely, but his eyes were glazed. He had spoken little since the journey began.

  At first, he had protested when Ana Sofia asked de Haro to take him to Córdoba. But Ana Sofia had a will of iron beneath her honey-sweet voice and silken manners.

  “Your brother is suited for the life of a vaquero, but you are cut from different cloth,” she told Rico. “Had your father lived, he would have sent you to study at one of the academies in Paris or Milan. Since we have not the silver to spare, apprenticing yourself to Señor de Haro is surely the Lord’s way of providing. And how proud I will be to say that I have one son who manages a great hacienda and another who trains horses in the king’s court.”

  So Rico had gone with de Haro and said noth
ing more about his own wishes. I wondered if he even knew them. He was always so quick to do as he was told.

  At the end of the day, our party rested at an inn called the Three Crowns—a grander name than it deserved. Its stable was filled with musty straw, the ceiling so low that cobwebs tickled my ears. De Haro checked our mangers himself to see that we had gotten the ration of corn he had paid for.

  Later, Campeón told me that the huge sum of silver de Haro had brought to the horse fair had been stolen from his room at a lodging house in the night. Only by the authority of the Crown had he been able to secure a loan in Seville to make his purchases.

  As we traveled, I noticed that our party was greeted with more glares and pleas for charity than smiles and raised sombreros.

  There are people who think it wrong for the king to fill his stables with pretty horses when many of his subjects have no bread for their tables, said Campeón.

  He was not shy with his opinion that the horse master had paid too much for me. The profit from the king’s salt mines, which funded the stables, was not enough to allow for such lavishing of silver, he informed me.

  Campeón had opinions on many other subjects as well, and I had no choice but to hear them all. At last we reached Córdoba, a city of pale stone against the lush green of the surrounding forest. We crossed a massive stone bridge over a river and passed through an arched gateway into the city.

  The streets were paved with the same ivory-colored rock that formed many of the buildings. It felt cool and slippery underfoot after the hot sand of the country roads.

  I leaped into the air as a loud gong sounded above my head. It came from a nearby building with a high tower inlaid with a dizzying pattern of diamonds, checkers, and arches. The noise repeated once, twice, three times. De Haro shortened the reins and closed his legs around my sides to steady me.

  No need to shy—it is only the bells of Saint Vincent, said Campeón, lifting his hooves high so they would clop musically on the cobblestones.

  Beyond the noisy building, we entered a market filled with brightly colored tents and carpets. Vendors called out in singsong voices to sell their pottery, cloth, fruit, and spices. Many of the people were dressed like de Haro, in richly colored silk and velvet. Others wore homespun tunics of sheep’s wool. Some of the women wore veils that covered their faces.

  Rico was so distracted by the sights that he nearly steered Campeón into a stall brimming with wine jugs. I wished I could have stayed in that market for hours, taking in the sights and tasting some of the fruits piled temptingly on the woven rugs.

  But de Haro pressed me forward, and we continued our march through the city until we reached a stone wall with a wrought-iron gate. De Haro rang a brass bell set in an alcove.

  The gate swung open, and I entered a rectangular courtyard lined with shade trees. A fountain in the center bubbled into a round trough of polished marble, topped by a bronze statue of a rearing colt.

  A dozen young men in black coats and white breeches appeared from an arched doorway at the far end of the yard. They unhitched the tired carriage horses and led the thirsty mares to water.

  De Haro dismounted and handed over my reins. The saddle was whisked from my back, and my bridle was replaced with a neck collar of buttery soft leather. A silk sheet bearing the king’s lion crest was draped across my back.

  When the mares had drunk their fill, I pulled my handler forward so that I could slake my own thirst. The water was as fresh and cold as if it had come from a mountain stream.

  Campeón splashed his muzzle noisily into the water and remarked that we would finally have a decent meal after the cow fodder we had been served on our journey.

  The royal horses eat only the plumpest oats and sweetest corn, toasted with barley syrup and linseed oil to make our coats shine, he prattled. I do hope my boy, Gabino, will file my hooves tonight—they are chipped to ruin from the stony paths.

  All around me, the courtyard walls were so high that only a square of blue sky was visible above. I craned my neck to look back through the gate, which had shut behind us.

  A small brown bird landed on the bronzed colt statue and began singing sweetly. I was suddenly reminded of Ana Sofia’s pet nightingale in its golden cage.

  A shudder ran through me so that I danced away from my handler and let out a high, ringing whinny to no one at all. In truth, I was more afraid of the walls around me than I had ever been of Joaquin’s spurs or the cattle’s horns.

  Was my beautiful new home a palace or a prison?

  The royal stables held all the comforts that Campeón had promised—and all the confinement I had feared. The interior was cool and surprisingly bright, with glass skylights that checkered the floor with sunshine. The stables housed more than two hundred horses, with new expansions built every year. Each stone aisle had a double row of straight stalls divided by wooden half walls topped with polished golden bars.

  Silken tails swished contentedly on shining haunches. Low whinnies of conversation passed back and forth down the aisle. I was secured in my stall by a short chain to a ring on the wall, within reach of a manger that was always filled with tender timothy hay and twice a day with sweetened grain.

  De Haro ran the stables precisely by the cathedral clock tower that struck its chime across the entire city. After breakfast at pre-cisely six each morning, all the horses were groomed until our coats shone like copper, jet, and pearl. Each horse was matched with a rider, and it was always Rico who looked after me, taking his orders from the older boys.

  When it was time for lessons, we horses were fitted with small close-cut saddles that allowed us to sense our rider’s every movement. To my relief, our bits were simple jointed snaffles that were far milder than the vaqueros’ long-shanked curb bits and serretas.

  The stables had a covered arena, which de Haro had built so his students could train in any weather. Apparently, the royal horses were incapable of working outdoors in the heat or rain.

  Each horse and rider trained for three hours each day. Much of that time I spent in the pillars, a pair of matched marble posts. How inoffensive they looked until I spent hours tethered between them, learning to prance until I hated the sight of them!

  The goal of this exercise was to produce collection and impulsion, which de Haro regarded as the two greatest virtues in life. After morning schooling, he commanded Rico to stay and watch the more advanced students practice the quadrille, in which four matched pairs of horses performed a complex pattern in unison.

  Campeón assured me that when my work in the pillars was satisfactory, I would join them. But to what end? None of the other horses seemed to question why they were being asked to perform these endless drills. They were so obedient that they barely even strained against their lead ropes if a mare was led by.

  Fortunate creatures, the royal broodmares spent most of their days running free in pastureland just outside the city. They were brought in only for those stallions who had mastered the highest levels of de Haro’s silly training.

  How I missed the freedom to wander the Moreno orchards as I pleased or gallop free with the cattle and mares on the Andalusian plains! I often became so bored in my stall that I struck my hoof against the stone wall or raked my teeth against the metal bars.

  This, at least, had the effect of drowning out the ridiculous conversation of my stablemates.

  Campeón, I have been wondering all week and I simply must ask: What does your stableboy do to impart such a wonderful shine to your hooves? I can nearly see my reflection in them.

  You are kind to notice, Estrellar. I believe it is a mixture of linseed oil and duck fat.

  One day during training, I reached the limits of my patience. Instead of moving forward with quiet impulsion, I threw my body into reverse and snapped the leather lines that tethered me to the pillars.

  But there was nowhere I could run, really, except in endless circles around the arena.

  “No horse in this stable has more spirit than Calvino,” d
e Haro said to Rico as the boy led me, sweating and steaming, back to my stall. “I believe he could master any of the airs above the ground. But his spirit is his downfall. If he fails to see the point of an exercise, he explodes like a child having a tantrum. I hesitate to breed from him for fear he will produce foals as unruly as himself.”

  “He is much like my brother, Joaquin,” said Rico with a faint smile. “Perhaps that is why they worked so well together.”

  “Willfulness may well be a virtue on a cattle ranch, but if Calvino does not soon settle his mind to his work, I may be forced to sell him. I hear there is a shortage of strong young horses for the cavalry, and the king’s crusade against the English Protestants shows no signs of ending soon.”

  Rico looked troubled as he removed my tack and polished it with a muslin cloth. After I had cooled from my unscheduled gallop, he led me out to the courtyard to drink.

  There, standing before the fountain, was the most beautiful mare I had ever seen. Her coat was pale, shimmering gold. Her mane and tail were a cream-colored cascade that nearly brushed the ground.

  “Buenos dias,” said a young girl who was holding her reins. “I am Isabella de Haro.”

  “The horse master’s daughter?” asked Rico, staring at the girl. She wore a tightly laced dress of emerald green, slit up one side for riding. Her hair was the exact golden shade of her horse, curled elaborately on her head.

  “Yes. I have just returned from the villa of my cousin the Duchess of Navarre, where I have spent the summer,” she said. The golden mare stepped forward to sniff me in greeting. The damp fur of her muzzle was softer than velvet.

  “Your horse is beautiful,” said Rico, backing me away after too brief a moment.

  “Thank you,” said Isabella, her face warming into a smile that made her look like the child she was, under all her finery. “Her name is Mariposa. She was bred here by my father. Are you one of his students?”