The colt was born during a star-filled night at the beginning of spring. Labor had been difficult for its mother, but the crooning and soft singing from the young girl attending the birth had a calming affect on all four participants. The prince would not have normally helped during a birth, even one of horses, but he had been wandering the flowing grasses of the prairie with troubling thoughts. Having heard the mare's cries of pain, it was a simple matter to find her, and the girl soothing the skittish mare had welcomed his help. His part had been to pull the slippery bundle out of the mare - gruesome, but rewarding.
The girl had brought a single lantern, but when the colt was rubbed clean with grass and patted dry by the girl's own cloak, Theodred had to admire the beautiful star on its forehead. "He'll be a handsome one," he murmured, not wishing to startle either horse.
"He certainly will," the girl replied, rubbing the colt's ears as she helped it to find its mother's milk. "And he'll be fast. His sire is one of Shadowfax's own offspring."
"Truly?" he asked, delighted. Already he was feeling a measure of bonding towards the colt, and knowing that he himself was one of the privileged few that could own it, he felt immeasurably and inexplicitly pleased. The girl smiled politely, but her attention was obviously elsewhere. She began to sing a Rohirric lullaby, and with a pang, Theodred recognized it as one he had heard his aunt sing to his cousins when they were young. No one had sung to him. "What is to be his fate?" he asked, breaking the calm with a rather abrasive tone.
"I will return them to my father's house," she said, stroking the mare's withers now that the colt had latched. "I am responsible for his horses from birth until sale or breeding. He will start his training next summer, and he'll be mine until one of the king's family takes him away." She did not seem entirely pleased at the prospect, and he inquired after her hesitation. She paused only for a moment before answering, her eyes still on the horses. "I bond quickly to my charges. I am wrapped in pain whenever one is sold, though I know it is necessary. Royalty has right to our best steeds, and they are not required to pay. For every one that goes to the king, we lose the cost of any other three we might sell."
This was new information to the prince. He had not questioned where his own current stallion came from, as his father having given him as a present for a long ago birthday. He felt injustice rising in him, witnessing the genuine affection this woman had for the mare and the colt, and he knew firsthand how powerful an attachment to a horse could be. The thought that she had not recognized him as the king's son, and treated him as she would her equal, did not even enter his mind.
He leaned forward to scratch the colt's long neck, already decided that he would pay for the colt when the time came. "I think I love you already," he whispered to himself. Though not meant to hear, the girl's head whipped towards him, her brows narrowed in suspicion.
"Who are you?" she asked. For the first time that night, her voice was not sweet and loving, but rather demanding. He paused, considering whether to answer.
"I am a Rider," he finally said. Not exactly a lie. "And I am most interested in purchasing a horse from your father in the future. Will you tell me his name and where he sells from?"
"My father is Gerdhelm, and he dwells two miles from where we are now, near the village Isenburg."
"And what is your name, that I might inquire after your health, and be assured that the horse I choose has been raised in your care?"
"I am Léofe."