The Stacy Gregg 3-book Horse Collection: Volume 2

CHAPTER 8

Hidden Nature

Anna found Vasily in the saddlery room. He had a sabre in his hands and he was working it against the whetstone, grinding the slender curve of the blade with his back to her.

“Lady Anna,” he said without turning round. “Please go home.”

He focused on the sabre, pushing the blade against the stone, then testing the edge on his finger.

“Please, Vasily,” Anna wiped the tears from her face, “you can’t kill him.”

Vasily rose up and walked past her out of the door and down the stable corridor. She ran after him. “He is just a baby! He has only just been born!”

Vasily kept walking. “I have no choice, Lady Anna. It is your father’s order. Do you want me to disobey him?”

“Yes, of course!”

Vasily looked at her in disbelief. “Sometimes, Lady Anna, I think you are the most naïve person I have ever met. Do you not understand what it means to defy Count Orlov?”

“My father would forgive you!” Anna insisted. “You are his best groom.”

Vasily tensed his shoulders. “Remember what happened to the soldier who gave him his scar? If he finds this foal alive by morning …”

Anna’s expression suddenly changed. “Yes, but what if he doesn’t find him?”

“What do you mean?” Vasily said.

“The foal. We could hide him! You have a farm cottage, don’t you? On the edge of the woods?”

Vasily nodded.

“We will keep him there,” Anna said decisively.

Vasily shook his head. “My farm is a pig farm. There are no stables, just sties.”

“He will not know the difference!” Anna said. “Keep him in your pigsty. It will not be forever. Soon Father will go away again to St Petersburg.”

“It is too dangerous, Anna. If Count Orlov knew I had deliberately disobeyed him …”

“He won’t know!” Anna’s face was flushed with excitement. “I swear. It will be our secret.”

“It is a ridiculous plan,” Vasily said, shaking his head. He looked down at the sabre in his hand, and then gave a deep sigh as he returned it to its sheath. “And I am a fool, because I agree to it.”

***

In the months that followed, Anna would often think of the debt she owed Vasily. It was because of his great kindness that she would resist the urge to say “I told you so,” when it came to the colt. For the ugly duckling was quickly becoming a swan. Those giraffe-like legs no longer looked disproportionate. And while the colt’s head was still too large, his broad brow spoke of intelligence. His powerful jaw tapered to a narrow muzzle that gave him an exotic quality.

“He has grown handsome,” Vasily agreed grudgingly. “But you must admit he is still very strange-looking, no? He is more like a dragon than a horse!”

Like a dragon, Vasily said, and Dragon became his name. Spoken in Russian: Drakon.

For the first year of his young life, Drakon was kept in the pigsty. Once she was back to her full strength and with her father attending the Empress at the royal court, Anna visited him every day. She loved walking the long winding forest path through the fir trees to Vasily’s house. It was a relief to be away from the palace and the watchful glares of her brother.

“I do not like that you travel the woods alone,” Vasily would fuss. “It is not safe.”

“I have two very good bodyguards!” Anna would reply.

Boris and Igor were her constant companions on these woodland journeys. The vigilant tiger stuck close to her side, padding silently on his velvet paws, while the wolfhound, still full of puppyish energy, could not resist bounding on ahead, then circling back to rejoin them, pink tongue lolling out of his snowy muzzle, mouth wide open with joy.

Sometimes during these mad dashes through the forest undergrowth, Igor would put up a snow rabbit and give chase. He was without doubt fast enough to catch his prey, but he had no desire to kill. Gentle Igor preferred to simply run alongside the rabbit and then let it go free. Anna knew that despite her father’s best efforts to breed the killing instinct into the borzoi, Igor had no bloodlust in him. It would never have occurred to him that he might try to bring down any of the animals he encountered. His play fights with Boris the tiger were simply exuberance.

When Anna had first taken the cub and the wolfhound with her to visit Drakon she had worried that the colt would be terrified of her tiger. Horses and big cats are mortal enemies by nature. And by now Boris was a sizeable beast. Yet perhaps because both Boris and Drakon had been raised motherless they had had no one to advise them in such matters. At their first meeting, after seeing Anna approach with Boris, the colt walked straight up to the tiger and lowered his muzzle, taking deep husky snorts through his wide nostrils, breathing in the foreign scent of the big cat. Boris made sniffing noises, raising his furry face so that the wide pink tip of his nose touched Drakon’s muzzle. They both started back at the contact and then, tentatively, Drakon reached his neck out again. This time when their noses made contact the horse let out a friendly snort and Boris, feeling the breeze of the horse’s breath on his face, began to purr.

Boris and Igor’s friendship had been cemented from the beginning by their protectiveness towards their mistress. Now Drakon was about to join their ranks.

***

The colt was almost two years old when an unexpected test of devotion took place.

Over the months, the colt and Anna had developed their own special game, a variation of tag. Anna would whistle for Drakon as she came through the gate, and then climb up the railings of the fence and wait for the colt to trot up to her. Drakon would come near, getting so close that she could almost touch his muzzle before swerving away. Then, with a playful flick of his head, he would put on a sudden burst of speed and gallop to the other side of the field.

Anna would whistle again but Drakon would hold his ground, refusing to come back. Finally, muscles quivering with expectation, he would shake his head defiantly, leap forward into a gallop, and swooping across the ground with eager strides, return to her once more.

This game of back and forth would continue until Drakon’s flanks were heaving. He would eventually give in and meekly come to Anna so that she could stroke him and groom him.

This day however, the game changed.

Boris and Igor had already run off to look for Vasily in the pigsties. Anna was unlatching the gate and was about to enter the field when Drakon came charging directly at her. He had his ears flat back against his head and as soon as he was near he began snorting and flinging out his front hooves violently into the air.

“Drakon, niet!” Anna scrambled backwards, climbing up the gate to get away from him. When she tried to step to the ground Drakon flung himself viciously at her, rearing up and stamping down with his front legs.

Shaking with fear, Anna clambered off the gate and ran to the pigsties to fetch Vasily.

“I don’t know what is wrong with him …” she sobbed to Vasily, fighting to control her tears. “He tried to attack me. He has gone crazy. You must come!”

Vasily followed her and they found Drakon standing at the gate perfectly quiet and docile, nickering to them softly.

“But I don’t understand!” Anna said. “He was so different just a moment ago. He would not let me approach. He was pounding the ground with his hooves.”

Vasily stepped forward to take the colt by his halter and then suddenly he leapt back.

“Look!” he said to Anna.

Trampled into the dirt at Drakon’s feet, was a viper. The greenish-grey body had been crushed and hacked by hooves so that it oozed brackish blood.

“That is your reason,” Vasily said. “Drakon knew the snake was there. He drove you back to keep you safe.”

Anna had saved Drakon’s life and now the colt had repaid her in turn. His loyalty, like that of Boris and Igor, was unquestionable. His talent, burning deep inside him, had yet to be discovered.

***

In the autumn, Drakon turned three and Anna decided he was ready to be ridden. The ice floes had yet to harden into the winter crust on the river, not that this mattered to Anna. She never wanted to risk a horse’s life on the black ice again. They would ride along the riverbank as far as the woods and then loop back. She had saddled Drakon and now she led him through the fields, as Vasily walked alongside her with Boris and Igor.

The tiger had grown to his adult size and he walked with a newfound air of authority. Igor, while also fully grown, was still a pup at heart, and he constantly leapt at Boris, trying to get his friend to play fight with him as they had done in the old days.

As they walked towards the river Boris patiently endured Igor’s leaps on his back, and taunting nips at his jowls. That was until finally he lost his temper and delivered a swat with the open flat of his mighty paw that sent the borzoi sprawling.

“Niet, Boris!” Anna told him off. The tiger gave her a sullen growl and his shoulders slumped, like a child who had been told off unfairly when their sibling was at fault.

“You should have left them both at home, Lady Anna,” Vasily complained. “They will get underfoot.”

Anna laughed. “You are so grumpy today!”

Vasily frowned. “I should be at the stables. I have work to do.”

“I will bring Drakon back to the stables and help you with the work after this,” Anna insisted.

With Count Orlov still absent in St Petersburg and Yuri the head groom with him to care for the Count’s personal steed, Anna and Vasily had decided to risk moving the colt to live at the stables. They had slipped him into a spare stall one night, and when morning came none of the other grooms seemed to care where this new addition had sprung from – so long as they were not the ones who had to clean out his loose box. Drakon seemed quite happy in his new surroundings. Having grown up alone in a pigsty, he relished having other horses for company and would spend all day with his head craned over the stable door, nickering and calling out companionably.

“You must stay.” Anna smiled winningly. “If Drakon bolts and I cannot stop him you may have to come and fetch us back from Siberia.”

She was making jokes, but her hands were trembling. All week she had been preparing Drakon for his first time ridden under saddle. She had broken him in herself, starting by simply leaning across the stallion’s back to get him accustomed to the feeling of a rider’s weight. Slowly as the week progressed she had tested him further, putting more weight on him and then throwing one leg all the way across his back; then finally straddling him so that she was sitting upright. Once he accepted her, Anna began to work with the saddle. The first time she girthed it on to Drakon, he had startled and given a buck, but soon he realised the device would not hurt him. By the end of the week, Anna had been able to saddle and sit on him and chat away to Vasily as if it were perfectly natural to be on Drakon’s back.

Vasily had led her within the enclosed yard by the stables, but out by the river they were in the open countryside. There was no telling how the colt would react.

“Take him as far as the woods,” Vasily said, “but keep him to a trot, all right?”

Anna pulled a face. “I thought we wanted to see how fast he could go?”

“Next time maybe,” Vasily said. “This is all new to him. If he gets overexcited and bolts, you will not be able to hold him.”

“All right, we will trot,” Anna promised.

Down by the river, where the wildflowers had been blooming just a few months ago, the threat of the coming snow had turned the ground stark and bare. Soon the fields would be buried beneath white drifts, but today they were perfect for riding.

“Good boy, Drakon,” Anna murmured as Vasily untied his rope. Now her hands on the reins were the only thing holding the stallion back.

“Take him slowly, remember …” Vasily began to advise, but his words were brought to an abrupt stop by a shriek from Anna.

“Sorry!” she called back over her shoulder as Drakon surged forward. “This is his idea!”

The big grey stallion might have been broken in to saddle but no one had explained to him who was in charge. He flung his weight against Anna’s hands as he bowled into a trot. She had to resist the urge to grab at the reins and pull him back. If they got into a tug-of-war then Drakon would easily win. Besides, she wanted him to run, didn’t she?

She could feel the power in the horse beneath her as his strides began to flow, getting faster and more dynamic as he swept across the riverbank. Anna gave a check on the reins but felt no response. Her promise to Vasily had been meaningless. Any minute now the horse would break out of a trot into a canter and then into a gallop. All she could do was hold on.

Drakon’s legs were pumping frantically like pistons, striking out a furious tchok-tchok against the earth. Boris and Igor bounded on alongside him excitedly. Anna kept waiting for Drakon to canter, but miraculously, her stallion did not seem to want to. He kept gaining speed until he appeared to be floating above the ground, his ridiculously long legs flung out in front of him, but he did not break from a trot.

At the curve of the river, Anna rose up in her stirrups and leant down low over his neck, her heart pounding as she urged him to even greater speed. She was no longer trying to rise and sit with the trot: Drakon’s strides had become so massive and bouncy that no rider could possibly keep up with their rhythm. And still Drakon kept the pace, striding onwards relentlessly towards the forest.

He was still full of running when they reached the trees, and she sensed at that moment that he could have gone on like this forever. A part of Anna wanted that too, to keep going into the woods, just her, Drakon, Boris and Igor. They would disappear together into the trees and never return to Khrenovsky.

If it had not been for the winter chill in the shadows of the firs that made her shiver, then perhaps Anna would have considered it. The icy air brought her back to reality and she pulled hard on the reins. At last Drakon listened to her, slowing his stride. From a trot to a walk, he came back to her and Anna gave him a firm pat on his sleek, dapple-grey neck. Then, telling him he was a good boy, she turned him round and let the reins hang loose to cool him down on the homeward journey. The stallion gave triumphant snorts, his nostrils flared wide, breath coming like a dragon’s with a hiss and rumble of air.

“Wasn’t he amazing?” she called out to Vasily as the groom ran along the riverbank to meet them.

Vasily shook his head in disbelief. “He trots faster than most horses can gallop! I have never seen such speed.”

“I know!” Anna laughed. “I told you we would trot, didn’t I?”

As she loosed Drakon in his stall that night and gave him his feed, Anna was practically dancing with delight. The other horses in the stables put their heads over the doors and nickered their greetings to Drakon.

“Do you hear them calling you?” Anna whispered to her horse. “Shall we tell your friends in the other stalls about how you ran today? Tell them how fast you are?”

Drakon gave his mane a shake as if he were embarrassed by her praise. Anna flung her arms round his neck, holding him tight.

“Wait until my father sees you run like that,” she murmured. “He will be so glad that I saved you. He will change his mind about you. He will change his mind about both of us …”

On the road back up to the palace that evening, Anna was in such a good mood that even the sight of Ivan, waiting impatiently for her on the palace steps, could not upset her.

Most days she did her best to avoid her brother. In such a large palace it was not hard to put distance between them, especially when she spent so much time at the stables or out in the grounds with Boris and Igor. Right now though avoidance was impossible. She gave her brother a weak smile as he towered over her – Ivan had grown considerably since his father’s absence. “Hello, Brother.”

“Hello, little sister,” Ivan’s grin was dark and nasty. “I have been growing very cold standing here waiting for you.”

Anna tried not to glare at him. “Why were you waiting?”

“Do not be alarmed!” Ivan said. “I only wanted to give you a compliment. I wanted to tell you how nicely you ride.”

Anna felt her heart stutter. “You saw me?”

“I was hunting pheasant down by the river,” Ivan replied, as if she hadn’t spoken. “And I looked up and there you were, mounted on a grey horse that I had never seen before. Is he new to the stables?”

Anna could not resist the pride swelling in her heart. “Ivan, that horse is the son of Smetanka! He is the finest horse in all of Russia!”

Ivan’s mouth twisted in delight, and his grin became menacing. “Little sister, tsk tsk, what secrets you keep! So you have the son of Smetanka at the stables. And I’m guessing you have kept him alive against our father’s orders? Oh, little sister, he’s going to be furious when I tell him. He still hasn’t forgiven you for killing his prize Arab, you know. Once he finds out that you kept Smetanka’s ugly, useless offspring alive he will see to it that your horse is as dead as its sire!”

“You’re a beast!” Anna spat the words at him. “You are the most heartless and cruel person I have ever met!”

“And you are far too sensitive,” Ivan replied coolly. “But then you always were. I expect you will sob like a baby when father slits its throat …”

Anna flung herself at her brother, fists pounding at Ivan’s chest until he shoved her away from him.

“Such a tantrum!” Ivan laughed at his sister. “I think I need to teach you a lesson …”

He grabbed her by the arm.

“Niet!” Anna cried. “Stop it! You’re hurting me!”

She felt the blood rush to her face as her arm twisted up hard behind her back. She was struggling against Ivan, yelling at him to stop, in vain. And then, she saw the blur of orange-and-black fur streaking across the palace steps.

A tiger’s roar at close range is the most terrifying thing you will ever hear. Even Anna could not help but tremble at the sound. She saw her tiger leap to protect her from the boy who had once so viciously ripped out his whiskers. The young man who was now tormenting his mistress.

Ivan did not see Boris until the tiger was upon him. Dashed to the ground beneath the enormous weight of the big cat he released Anna instantly, and let out a blood-chilling scream. Anna, face down on the ground, turned over to see Boris straddling Ivan, crushing the boy beneath him. And then, with a growl of fury, the tiger lifted his mighty paw and struck the blow that changed their fates forever.

CHAPTER 9

The Madness of Ivan

Anna poked her head round the corner of Ivan’s bedroom door.

“Can I come in?” she asked cautiously.

Ivan was sitting up in bed. He did not reply, but she entered his room anyway, tentatively walking to his bedside and sitting down in the nearby chair.

“I wanted to see how you were feeling, Brother,” she said quietly.

“You mean you want to see what he did to me?” Ivan snarled. He turned his face round so that the right cheek was exposed. Anna could see a deep crimson incision that ran from temple to chin.

“Go on! Take a good look!”

Anna winced and turned away. “Ivan, I’m so sorry.”

“Hah!” Ivan sneered. “You’re not sorry yet. But you will be.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean I am ordering the serfs to have your tiger shot,” Ivan said.

“Oh, please, Ivan, don’t!” Anna felt her pulse racing. “He only attacked because he thought you were threatening me. He is very protective of me.”

“Is he?” Ivan sneered. “Well, you will need to find a new protector. The tiger must be destroyed!”

“For goodness’ sake, he only scratched you, Ivan! He could have killed you but he didn’t!”

Ivan’s face grew purple with rage.

For although the tiger had claws powerful enough to kill, the cut he had made was only skin deep. Boris had held back; he had only scratched Ivan to warn him away from hurting his mistress. All the same, it had been enough to cause Ivan to scream like a baby. When the housekeepers who had gathered at the commotion began to beat the tiger with brooms, Boris gave another roar of fury, as if to say, “Leave me alone! He started it!” Then he leapt off the young man and bounded away, heading out through the gardens, past animals screeching wildly in their gilded cages as he ran by.

On the palace steps, the housekeepers shouted at each other as they scrambled to help the young Lord Orlov.

“Give him room to breathe!” Katia pushed them all away. Ivan was still screaming, his hands clutching at his face. Anna saw Katia’s look of horror, and then she heard the head housemaid exclaim under her breath. Two words, spoken in French, which Anna had heard many times before.