“Jamie,” Frederick said. “This is Hamish Calder. He is me stablemaster.”
Hamish inclined his head. “A pleasure, lass.”
Jamie looked up at Frederick, uncertain whether that title was permitted now that things had changed.
Frederick noticed the hesitation and said, “Aye. Lass.”
Something small and bright returned to her face. She looked back at Hamish and dipped her head with a gravity that belonged to no child and yet fit her all the same.
“Good day, Master Calder.”
Hamish’s mouth twitched. “Hamish will do.”
Frederick continued, “No horse in this stable eats, trains, or sets a hoof outside these doors without Hamish knowing of it first. If he tells ye something, ye will listen as though I said it myself.”
Jamie nodded at once. “Aye.”
Hamish looked faintly pleased by that. “A sensible arrangement.”
Frederick gestured farther down the aisle. “Come.”
They passed three stalls before he stopped at the fourth on the right. Inside stood a mare of modest size, still young but steady through the shoulder, her coat a rich chestnut broken by white spotting along her flank and neck. Her mane had been brushedsmooth, and one ear flicked back at their approach before turning forward again when she recognized Frederick’s voice.
Jamie stared.
“She is bonnie,” she whispered.
“Aye,” Frederick said. “She is.”
He rested a hand against the stall door. “Her name is Storm.”
Jamie repeated it under her breath as though testing the sound. “Storm.”
The mare shifted, lowering her head a little over the half-door, nostrils widening as she took in the new scent.
Frederick glanced at Jamie. “This is the horse I have set aside for ye.”
Jamie turned so quickly he might have laughed had the look on her face not stopped him. Joy arrived there unguarded and absolute, so clear that it struck him before he could prepare for it. He had seen her pleased before. Curious. Delighted by toys and ribbons and the small freedoms of these last days. This was different. This was deeper. It ran through her whole body, straightening her spine, widening her eyes, making her look suddenly less like a child in hiding and more like one standing at the edge of the life she ought always to have had.
“For me?” she asked dreamily, and there was so much in the words that Frederick answered more softly than he intended.
“Aye,” he said. “For ye.”
Jamie took a step nearer the stall, then stopped herself and looked not at him but at Hamish. That small instinct, to seek the proper authority in the proper place, pleased Frederick more than it should have.
“May I touch her?” she asked.
Hamish nodded. “Slowly. Let her see ye first.”
Frederick stepped back then, just enough to give the space over to the stablemaster. He wanted the lesson to begin correctly.
Hamish moved beside Jamie and spoke in the same tone he used with skittish young horses and overconfident boys.
“Hold yer hand flat,” he said. “Nay, flatter than that. A horse likes fingers well enough until they curl at the wrong moment.”
Jamie adjusted at once.
“There,” Hamish said. “Now let her smell ye.”