Beyond the basic humiliation of it, there wasn’t anything about saddle riding that related to the disciplines that Comnar seemed to have Morqan emphasize in the training of imperial fillies. Some of the lords and knights seemed to enjoy saddle riding greatly, and some of their fillies did as well, as far as Ranin could tell. But Morqan had not spoken of it in Ranin’s hearing, let alone included it in the brief, pointed lessons he had been giving him over the course of the first week of Ranin’s residence in the stables. In fact, the only reference he had heard to the discipline—if it could even be called that—of saddle riding had been when Gad said to Hednar, “Lord Jost does get a lot of use out of that saddle, doesn’t he?” and Hednar had only snorted derisively in reply. That must be it, Ranin thought. He must want to see me trying to come to grips with something he knows I wasn’t expecting to have to do. Or perhaps he just wanted to humiliate both Edera and Ranin. Saddle riding was one of the few elements of filly training in which the trainer—or the filly’s owner—might look just as degraded as the filly.
