Дик Фрэнсис: Bolt

I kicked Cascade hard into the final jumps and drove him unmercifully along the run-in, and if he hated it, at least he wasn’t telling me. He stretched out his neck and his dark head towards the winning post and under relentless pressure persevered to the end.

We won by a matter of inches and Cascade slowed to a walk in a few uneven strides, absolutely exhausted. I felt faintly ashamed of myself and took little joy in the victory, and on the long path back to the unsaddling enclosure felt not a cathartic release from tension but an increasing fear that my mount would drop dead from an over-strained heart.

He walked with trembling legs into the winner’s place to applause he certainly deserved, and the princess came to greet him with slightly anxious eyes. The result of the photo-finish had already been announced, confirming Cascade’s win, and it appeared that the princess wasn’t worried about whether she had won, but how.

‘Weren’t you hard on him?’ she asked doubtfully, as I slid to the ground. ‘Too hard, perhaps, Kit?’

I patted Cascade’s steaming neck, feeling the sweat under my fingers. A lot of horses would have crumbled under so much pressure, but he hadn’t.

‘He’s brave,’ I said. ‘He gives all he’s got.’

She watched me unbuckle the girths and slide my saddle off onto my arm. Her horse stood without moving, drooping with fatigue, while Dusty, the travelling head-lad, covered the brown dripping body with a sweat-sheet to keep him warm.

‘You have nothing to prove, Kit,’ the princess said clearly. ‘Not to me. Not to anyone.’

I paused in looping the girths round the saddle and looked at her in surprise. She almost never said anything of so personal a nature, nor with her meaning so plain. I suppose I looked as disconcerted as I felt.

I more slowly finished looping the girths.

‘I’d better go and weigh in,’ I said, hesitating.

She nodded.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

She nodded again and patted my arm, a small familiar gesture which always managed to convey both understanding and dismissal. I turned away to go into the weighing room and saw one of the Stewards hurrying purposefully towards Cascade, peering at him intently. Stewards always tended to look like that when inspecting hard-driven horses for ill-treatment, but in this particular Steward’s case there was far more to his present zeal than a simple love of animals.

I paused in mid-stride in dismay, and the princess turned her head to follow my gaze, looking back at once to my face. I met her blue eyes and saw there her flash of comprehension.

‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Weigh in.’

I went on gratefully, and left her to face the man who wanted, possibly more than anything else on earth, to see me lose my jockey’s licence.

Or, better still, my life.

Maynard Allardeck, acting as a Steward for the Newbury meeting (a fact I had temporarily forgotten) had both bad and good reasons to detest me, Kit Fielding.

The bad reasons were inherited and irrational and therefore the hardest to deal with. They stemmed from a feud between families that had endured for more than three centuries and had sown a violent mutual history thick with malevolent deeds. In the past, Fieldings had murdered Allardecks, and Allardecks, Fieldings. I had myself, along with my twin sister Holly, been taught from birth by our grandfather that all Allardecks were dishonest, cowardly, spiteful and treacherous, and so we would probably have gone on believing all our lives had Holly not, in a Capulet — Montague gesture, fallen in love with and married an Allardeck.

Bobby Allardeck, her husband, was demonstrably not dishonest, cowardly, spiteful and treacherous, but on the contrary a pleasant well-meaning fellow training horses in Newmarket. Bobby and I, through his marriage, had finally in our own generation, in our own selves, laid the ancient feud to rest, but Bobby’s father, Maynard Allardeck, was still locked in the past.

Maynard had never forgiven Bobby for what he saw as treason, and far from trying for reconciliation had intensified his indoctrinated belief that all Fieldings, Holly and I above all included, were thieving, conniving, perfidious and cruel. My serene sister Holly was demonstrably none of these things, but Maynard saw all Fieldings through distorted pathways.

Holly had told me that when Bobby informed his father (all of them standing in Bobby and Holly’s kitchen) that Holly was pregnant, and that like it or not his grandchild would bear both Allardeck and Fielding blood and genes, she’d thought for an instant that Maynard was actually going to strangle her. Instead, with his hands literally stretching towards her throat, he’d whirled suddenly away and vomited into the sink. She’d been very shaken, telling me, and Bobby had sworn never to let his father into the house again.

Maynard Allardeck was a member of the Jockey Club, racing’s ruling body, where he was busy climbing with his monumental public charm into every power position he could reach. Maynard Allardeck, acting as Steward already at several big meetings, was aiming for the triumvirate, the three Stewards of the Jockey Club, from among whom the Senior Steward was triannually elected.

For a Fielding who was a jockey, the prospect of an Allardeck in a position of almost total power over him should have been devastating: and that was where Maynard’s good and comprehensible reasons for detesting me began, because I had a hold over him of such strength that he couldn’t destroy my career, life or reputation without doing the same to his own. He and I and a few others knew of it, just enough to ensure that in all matters of racing he had to be seen to treat me fairly.

If, however, he could prove I had truly ill-treated Cascade, he would get me a fine and a suspension with alacrity and joy. In the heat of the race, in the upsurge of my own uncontrollable feelings, I hadn’t given a thought to him watching on the stands.

I went into the weighing room and sat on the scales, and then returned to just inside the door to see what was going on outside. From the shadows, I watched Maynard talking to the princess who was wearing her blandest and most pleasant expression, both of them circling the quivering Cascade, who was steaming all over in the freezing air as Maynard had commanded Dusty to remove the net-like sweat-sheet.

Maynard as always looked uncreased, opulent and trustworthy, an outer image which served him very well both in business deals, where he had made fortunes at others’ expense, and in social circles, where he gave largely to charity and patted himself on the back for good works. Only the comparative few who had seen the mean, rough, ruthless reality inside remained cynically unimpressed.

He had removed his hat in deference to the princess and held it clasped to his chest, his greying fair hair brushed tidily into uncontroversial shape. He was almost squirming with the desire to ingratiate himself with the princess while at the same time denigrating her jockey, and I wasn’t certain that he couldn’t cajole her into agreeing that yes, perhaps, on this one occasion, Kit Fielding had been too hard on her horse.

Well... they would find no weals on Cascade because I’d barely touched him with the whip. The other horse had been so close that when I’d raised my arm I found I couldn’t bring my whip down without hitting him instead of Cascade. Maynard no doubt had seen my raised arm, but it was legs, feet, wrists and fury that had done the job. There might be whip marks in Cascade’s soul, if he had one, but they wouldn’t show on his hide.

Maynard deliberated for a lengthy time with pursed lips, shakes of the head and busy eyes, but in the end he bowed stiffly to the sweetly-smiling princess, replaced his hat carefully and stalked disappointedly away.