The Luck Of The Wheels Read Online Free PDF

you take the reins, there's not much fun to it. With this team, there's not much challenge anyway. Sigurd and Sigmund pick their own pace and path. So relax and enjoy the ride.'
    Goat cocked his head and looked down at Vandien, his eyes shining. 'Why do you let her say how everything will be? No woman would treat me so. But if the horses are so smart' - here he rounded on Ki – ‘Why can't I drive the wagon now?'
    Ki looked away from the strain on Vandien's face and spoke directly to Goat. 'Because it's not what the team might do that I worry about. It's the fool that comes dashing out under their noses, or the horseman who thinks he must gallop, and takes the center of the road.'
    'But my father said ...'
    'And besides,' said Vandien, clambering up onto the seat, 'Ki said no. And I say no. Now move it over so we can get out of here.'
    Goat stared up at him, his eyes more yellow than Vandien had yet seen them. 'For this treatment of me, my father paid good coin,' Goat commented bitterly, but he edged over on the seat. Ki settled herself and took up the reins. It rankled Vandien that Goat had usurped his seat beside Ki, but he refused to give it a word. He settled beside Goat.
    'Let's go,' he suggested softly.
    'Get up!' she called to the team, shaking the reins lightly. The greys were ready. They set their shoulders to their collars and the tall yellow wheels of the wagon began to turn. Their heavy, feathered hooves were near silent in the sandy streets. The town of Keddi drifted past them like trees on a riverbank.
    'Is this as fast as they go?' Goat demanded petulantly.
    'Mmm,' Ki nodded. 'But they go all day, and we get there just the same.'
    'Don't you ever whip them to a gallop?'
    'Never,' Ki lied, forestalling the conversation. Vandien was scarcely listening. His attention was focused on a street phenomenon. As Ki's wagon rolled leisurely down the street, all eyes were drawn to it. And as quickly pulled away. All marked Goat's passage, but no one called a genial farewell, or even a "Good riddance!'" They ignored him as diligently as they would a scabrous beggar. Not hatred, Vandien decided, nor loathing, nor anything easy to understand. More as if each one felt personally shamed by the boy. Yet that made no sense. Could they have done something to the lad that they all regretted? Some act of intolerance carried too far? Vandien had once passed through a town where a witless girl had been crippled by the idle cruelty of some older boys. She had sat enthroned by the fountain, clad in the softest of raiment, messily eating the delicacies sent anonymously out to her. The focus of the town's shame and penitence, but still untouchable. This thing with Goat was kin to that somehow. Vandien was sure of it.
    'But they could gallop if they had to?' Goat pressed.
    'I suppose so,' Ki replied, her tone already weary. Two more weeks of this, Vandien thought, and sighed.
    The black mongrel came from nowhere. One moment the street was quiet, folk trading in the booths and tents of this market strip, all eyes carefully bowed away from Ki's wagon. The next instant, the little dog darted out of the crowd, yapping wildly at the team. Sigurd flicked his ears back and forth, but calm Sigmund continued to plod along. Why be worried by a beast not much bigger than a hoof, he seemed to say.
    Then the dog darted under the very hooves of the team, to nip at Sigurd's heels. The big animal snorted and danced sideways in his harness. 'Easy!' Ki called. 'Go home, dog!'
    The dog paid no mind to Ki, nor to a woman who hastened out from a sweetmeat booth to call, 'Here, Bits! Stop that at once! What's got into you? It's just a horse! Leave off that!'
    Around and beneath the horses the feist leaped and snapped, yapping noisily and nipping at the feathers of the huge hooves. Sigurd danced sideways, shouldering his brother, who caught his agitation. The great grey heads tossed, manes flying, fighting their bits. Pedestrians cowered back and mothers