Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady by L. A. Meyer Page B

of my voice, "wouldn't it be easier if I were to throw my leg to the other side of the horse?" Both my legs are now on one side of the horse and I'm feelin' right precarious.
    "I'm sorry, Miss. It just isn't done," says he. "And please call me Henry, if you would. Now put your right limb about the pommel there." That feels a bit better, now that the pommel thing in the front of the saddle is sort of holding my thigh above the knee. Henry adjusts the stirrup for my right leg till it feels right. "Now take the reins—no, don't hold on to the saddle, and if it pleases you, Miss, sit back a bit so that your backbone is directly over hers. Please forgive my frank language, but it's the only way to say it." I believe he is flustered over calling my backbone a backbone. "Now let us go outside."
    We go out into the sun and Henry takes the horse by what he calls the bridle and he walks me and the horse around a bit and I get used to the smooth roll of the horse's muscles beneath mine and that's all right, a bit nice, really. Henry shows me how to pull on the reins to make it go right and then left and then stop.
    Henry ain't content to let it go at that and just let me enjoy the warmth of the morning, oh no, he says, since I'm doing so well, we must now go to trotting. He has me take the horse to a small fenced-in spot and he puts a long thin line on the horse's bridle and stands back and says, "Now, Miss Faber, firmly pull your heels up into her side and say, 'Hup!'"
    I do it and the horse starts this jiggy way of going that
about jars the teeth out of my head and I grab for the pommel of the saddle.
    "No, no, Miss. You must never do that. It makes you look like ... an inexperienced rider."
    Makes me look like a scrub,
you mean, I thinks, vowing
never
again to touch the saddle.
    "Get into the rhythm of her motion. Let your ... back arch a little, back and forth."
    I try to do it and, little by little, by getting my back and my bottom into it, I start to get it.
    "Very good posting, Miss. Very good. I think you are a natural rider."
    I glow under his praise and try even harder.
    Henry holds the line so that the horse goes about in a circle around him, sort of a small version of the circle inside the barn, and round and round we go. "Now lean forward and chuck her again with your heels!" and I do it and she slips into this easy, loping thing that's a lot easier on my tail and I get into the rhythm of that, too, and it feels so right and easy that my heart starts poundin' in me chest from the joy of it all.
    Henry has me go from the canter to the trot to walk and back again and again till it's as easy as walking a spar and swinging down to the ship's deck on a futtock shroud.

    When we are done, Henry has me dismount and walk Gretchen around the field to cool her off.
    "If you put her up wet, she's likely to take the colic and die, and we wouldn't want that."
    No, we wouldn't,
I thinks to myself, running my hand
through Gretchen's mane with growing affection,
we wouldn't want that at all.
    I take her bridle in my hand and walk her about for fifteen minutes or so, till I can reach down onto her chest between her front legs and find it is no longer steamy with sweat. I take her back to her stall and feed her an apple from the barrel that's kept in the stable for just such a purpose. Her lips take it ever so delicately from my hand.
    I have taken my first equestrian lesson and Henry says I have done well. Very well, even. I know that I have tried hard, for I hate being the baby and the odd one out and I cannot wait to join that wild circle of riders pounding about that barn.

    Dinner, and then Art, which I am going to like, and then Penmanship, which is all right, too, 'cept now my hand is all cramped up and is as sore from the writing as my bottom is sore from the riding. Now on to Music.
    All day I've been thinking about how I'm gonna get my letters to Jaimy—and his letters to me, since sure as hell that Mistress ain't gonna