She had complained about Darvey’s lack of knowledge to a stable hand when she’d first arrived in Sàraichte—once. That lad, who had long since laid himself down in a mouldering grave, had put her some deep knowledge, as he would have said, and told her to keep her b****y mouth shut and her eyes and ears open. And she, a poor shivering, sniveling child of eleven summers, had had the wit to listen.
That had been almost a score of years ago and she had never once regretted forming that habit.
As it happened, in time she had managed to gain Darvey’s trust. If he used her taste in ponies to secure his own place, so much the better. She was free to train what she liked whilst someone else was paying for it. There was a certain beauty in that, which likely said something about her that she didn’
