I didn't even smile. The black eyes regarded me with their customary chill from features that were more gaunt than delicate. The strong shape of the bones showed clearly through the yellowish skin, and more so, it seemed to me, than a week ago.
'What do you weigh?' I asked abruptly.
He hesitated a little. 'I will be able to ride at six stone seven when the races begin. I will be able to claim all the allowances.'
'But now? What do you weigh now?'
'A few pounds more. But I will lose them.'
Etty fumed at him but forbore to point out to him that he wouldn't get any rides if he weren't good enough. She looked down at her list to see which horse she had allotted him, opened her mouth to tell him, and then shut it again, and I literally saw the impulse take hold of her.
'Ride Traffic,' she said. 'You can get up on Traffic.'
Alessandro stood very still.
'He doesn't have to,' I said to Etty; and to Alessandro, 'You don't have to ride Traffic. Only if you choose.'
He swallowed. He raised his chin and his courage, and said, 'I choose.'
With a stubborn set to her mouth Etty beckoned to Andy, who was already mounted on Traffic, and told him of the change.
'Happy to oblige,' Andy said feelingly, and gave Alessandro a leg-up into his unrestful place. Traffic lashed out into a few preliminary bucks, found he had a less hard-bitten customer than usual on his back, and started off at a rapid sideways trot across the paddock.
Alessandro didn't fall off, which was the best that could be said. He hadn't the experience to settle the sour colt to obedience, let alone to teach him to be better, but he was managing a great deal more efficiently than I could have done.
Etty watched him with disfavour and told everyone to give him plenty of room.
'That nasty little squirt needs taking down a peg,' she said in unnecessary explanation.
'He isn't doing too badly,' I commented.
'Huh.' There was a ten ton lorry-load of scorn in her voice. 'Look at the way he's jabbing him in the mouth. You wouldn't catch Andy doing that in a thousand years.'
'Better not let him out on the Heath,' I said.
'Teach him a lesson,' Etty said doggedly.
'Might kill the goose, and then where would we be for golden eggs?'
She gave me a bitter glance. 'The stable doesn't need that sort of money.'
'The stable needs any sort of money it can get.'
But Etty shook her head in disbelief. Rowley Lodge had been in the top division of the big league ever since she had joined it, and no one would ever convince her that its very success was leading it into trouble.
I beckoned to Alessandro and he came as near as his rocking-horse permitted.
'You don't have to ride him on the Heath,' I said.
Traffic turned his quarters towards us and Alessandro called over his shoulder: 'I stay here. I choose.'
Etty told him to ride fourth in the string and everyone else to keep out of his way. She herself climbed into Indigo's saddle, and I into Cloud Cuckoo-land's, and George opened the gates. We turned right on to the walking ground, bound for the canter on Warren Hill, and nothing frantic happened on the way except that Traffic practically backed into an incautious tout when crossing Moulton Road. The tout retreated with curses, calling the horse by name. The Newmarket touts knew every horse on the Heath by sight. A remarkable feat, as there were about two thousand animals in training there, hundreds of them two-year-olds which altered shape as they developed month by month. Touts learned horses like headmasters learned new boys, and rarely made a mistake. All I hoped was that this one had been too busy getting himself to safety to take much notice of the rider.
We had to wait our turn on Warren Hill as we were the fourth stable to choose to work there that morning. Alessandro walked Traffic round in circles a little way apart-or at least tried to walk him. Traffic's idea of walking would have tired a bucking bronco.
Eventually Etty sent the string off up the hill in small clusters, with me sitting half way up the slope on Cloud Cuckoo-land, watching them as they swept past. At the top of the hill they stopped, peeled off to the left, and went back down the central walking ground to collect again at the bottom. Most mornings each horse cantered up the hill twice, the sharpish incline getting a lot of work into them in a comparatively short distance.
Alessandro started up the hill in the last bunch, one of only four.
Long before he drew level with me I could see that of the two it was the horse who had control. Galloping was hard labour up Warren Hill, but no one had given Traffic the message.
As he passed me he was showing all the classic signs of the bolter in action: head stretched horizontally forward, bit gripped between his teeth, eyes showing the whites. Alessandro, with as much hope of dominating the situation as a virgin in a troop ship, hung grimly on to the neckstrap and appeared to be praying.
The top of the rise meant nothing to Traffic. He swerved violently to the left and set off sideways towards Bury Hill, not even having the sense to make straight for the stable but swinging too far north and missing it by half a mile. On he charged, his hooves thundering relentlessly over the turf, carrying Alessandro inexorably away in the general direction of Lowestoft.
Stifling the unworthy thought that I wouldn't care all that much if he plunged straight on into the North Sea, I reflected with a bit more sense that if Traffic damaged himself, Rowley Lodge's foundations would feel the tremor. I set off at a trot after him as he disappeared into the distance, but when I reached the Bury St Edmunds Road there was no sign of him. I crossed the road and reined in there, wondering which direction to take.
A car came slowly towards me with a shocked looking driver poking his head out of the window.
'Some bloody madman nearly ploughed straight into me,' he yelled. 'Some bloody madman on the road on a mad horse.'
'How very upsetting,' I shouted back sympathetically, but he glared at me balefully and nearly ran into a tree.
I went on along the road, wondering whether it would be a dumped-off Alessandro I saw first, and if so, how long it would take to find and retrieve the wayward Traffic.
From the next rise there was no sign of either of them: the road stretched emptily ahead. Beginning to get anxious, I quickened Cloud Cuckoo-land until we were trotting fast along the soft ground edging the tarmac.
Past the end of the Limekilns, still no trace of Alessandro. The road ran straight, down and up its inclines. No Alessandro. It was a good two miles from the training ground that I finally found him.
He was standing at the cross roads, dismounted, holding Traffic's reins. The colt had evidently run himself to a standstill, as he drooped there with his head down, his sides heaving, and sweat streaming from him all over. Flecks of foam spattered his neck, and his tongue lolled exhaustedly out.
I slid down from Cloud Cuckoo-land and ran my hand down Traffic's legs. No tenderness. No apparent strain. Sighing with relief, I straightened up and looked at Alessandro. His face was stiff, his eyes expressionless.
'Are you all right?' I asked.
He lifted his chin. 'Of course.'
'He's a difficult horse,' I remarked.
Alessandro didn't answer. His self-pride might have received a body blow, but he was not going to be so soft as to accept any comfort.
'You'd better walk back with him,' I said, 'Walk until he's thoroughly cooled down. And keep him out of the way of the cars.'
Alessandro tugged the reins and Traffic sluggishly turned, not moving his legs until he absolutely had to.
'What's that?' Alessandro said, pointing to a mound in the grass at the corner of the cross roads where he had been standing. He shoved Traffic further away so that I could see; but I had no need to.