TERRA HEXA
(Wela, 2004 (Swedish only)) - a novel by A.R.Yngve - Sample Chapters of the unpublished English version
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Chapter 4
Rydel immediately went to find Gala, as Henna had asked of him. And so later that day, he came to the stables of the Northtown Riding Academy, where a contest was taking place...
Rydel caught sight of an older apprentice girl, who Gala used to hang out with. She was carrying a large saddle on one shoulder, and was dressed in the same kind of red jacket as Rydel and all the other riders around the stables.
"Isn't Gala here?" he asked her, and he sounded a bit desperate after having searched all over the school grounds.
"Sure she is," the girl replied, and she pointed toward the large racetrack, fifty meters down the main street. "She's racing against the master instructor. Can't you hear the audience shouting?"
Rydel ran off to the racetrack that was used for advanced training and final exams with the pony-horses. The winners of such races were considered fit to become professional express riders. As he came closer, he recognized Gala's racing class standing at the track fence. The students were shouting her name. How could that be? thought Rydel - she was surely too young to be competing in the final selections.
When he came up to the track's picket fence, Rydel saw that a horse race was in full swing. Four medium-to-large-sized ponies were galloping around the 200-meter track. As the riders thundered past the cheering audience where Rydel stood looking, he could just about see Gala whizz past him on the track - she was leaning down over the mane of the spotted pony stallion she was riding. On the back of her red jacket was pinned a sign with her number. Gala's pony lay second place, just behind the master instructor's older, larger horse, and Gala was closing in on him.
The horses crossed the finishing-line, and a man held up a sign reading: FINAL LAP. The audience shouted louder, but they could not get louder than the rumble of hooves against the ground. Rydel stared in astonishment at the leaders of the pack. Gala was a better rider than he was; he envied her deeply. She was going to pass the final selections and become a professional express rider before he did, even though she was younger.
The master instructor rode along the inside of the final curve, lashed his horse with a stick and tried to keep Gala from getting past him - but she weighed less and her spotted pony was not as tired as the instructor's horse. She ducked her head down lower and leaned to the side, forcing her pony to angle toward the inside of the curve... and they nudged just past the master instructor.
The instructor, a man in his late thirties, grimaced and lashed his horse harder - the poor animal frothed and sweated but could not keep up with Gala. She charged across the finishing-line and the audience rushed out on the track to congratulate her. Rydel ran after them, while he checked if any policemen were nearby.
"Gala! It's me, Rydel!" he shouted. She was surrounded by her classmates, who lifted her up on their arms and cheered for the winner. Gala saw Rydel and waved a hello as she was carried away. Now it would be nearly impossible for him to talk to her in secret. He walked off to the nearby stables, where the pony he called his own was standing in her box.
"Hello, Sasha," Rydel said and rubbed her head. "Missed me, have you?"
Sasha was a brown, somewhat old mare with a calm temperament. She leaned her head affectionately against Rydel's arm, and made an impatient move with her front hooves, because he hadn't taken her for a ride during the entire day.
"Sorry for locking you up here," he excused himself, "but I was busy finding Gala." A snort came from Sasha's nostrils. "Jealous, huh? You shouldn't be... I don't like her one bit."
Rydel spent half an hour taking care of the horse, as was his duty, though he enjoyed it too. He finished the daily grooming of Sasha as fast as he could, and saddled her. Then he mounted and took the reins, and let Sasha canter along the dirt road, following the trail of Gala and her admirers.
***
Until the first hour of dusk, when the eternal sun began to sink and turn pink, Rydel slowly tracked Gala through the riding academy, waiting for her to get alone. Finally he arrived at her dormitory.
This was a larger building at the edge of the campus, where a few dozen female apprentices lived and slept. Rydel and the other boys lived in the other dormitory, on the opposite side of the campus. He was clearly visible in the dusk light, so he could not sneak inside the dormitory without being discovered - and boys were not allowed in there, in any case.
He thought about sending over a message to Gala, but he knew her friends were curious and would try to open any letter before it got through. He thought hard as he stood by his horse in the shadow of some trees, but couldn't come up with a plan. The belltower clock, just outside the academy, struck nine times. He would have to think of something, and fast...
Then he spotted a boy he knew, who was carrying a laundry sack, heading toward the back door of the girls' dormitory. He was struggling hard with the heavy sack of fresh clothes.
"You need help?" Rydel asked the boy, whose face was all flushed.
"Hi, Rydel... yeah, could you deliver this sack to the girls' matron? I'm kind of busy..."
Rydel tied Sasha's reins to a tree and accepted the heavy sack. "Sure, I'll get it there for you."
As the other boy ran off, he called back at Rydel, "Just don't try to get past the matron - she'd kill you!"
Rydel grunted and slung the sack over his shoulder - then he got an idea. From the cover of the trees, he opened the sack and searched for some clothes that were his size. He soon found a long, purple holiday dress and a thick overcoat which belonged to the tallest, oldest girl in Gala's class. He hesitated for just a moment, and took off his red jacket. He then put the purple dress and coat on, on top of his own clothes - then he put on his head a wide felt-hat he found in the sack. If the near-sighted old matron didn't look too closely, he just might pass...
He carried the sack across to the dorm's back door - clumsily, because he wasn't used to wearing skirts that reached down to his feet. He knocked on the door with the sign DELIVER GOODS AND LAUNDRY HERE. An old, very large woman in a red coat opened the door and said in a harsh voice: "Yes?"
Rydel swallowed and dared not speak - his voice was too husky to imitate a girl's voice. So he just bent his head down, and held out the sack for the matron to see. The large woman squinted at him, for she was quite nearsighted.
"Oh, it's you, Hilda," the matron said surly. "Why are you all dressed up? You're not going out past bedtime, are you?"
"Hilda" shook his head and said nothing. "Get in, then," said the matron and stepped aside to let him past.
Rydel hurried past the matron's searing but unfocused eyes, and into the main corridor. He couldn't believe his luck; most of the candles were out, so no one could get a good look at his face. Rydel hurried around a corner, found the door with Gala's name on it, and knocked. She opened the door, and luckily she was alone. Gala had just returned to her tiny chamber after a whole day's celebration, and was quite tired - she sat on the edge of her bed, still wearing her red jacket, and was pulling off her riding-boots.
"Put my stuff in the basket," she said when she saw the sack. She scratched her blond, curly long hair and shook it, without looking closely at "Hilda's" face. Rydel glanced as much as he dared at her face, without showing his own. He had never been this close to her before. Even though Gala was two years younger than her sister, her pretty, fair-skinned face somehow seemed more mature than Henna's. How strange, thought Rydel, that he hadn't really noticed her appearance before...
Then he remembered his mission, and shut the door behind him.
"I have an important message from Henna," he said in his normal voice.
"Who are you?"
Gala heard how dark the voice sounded, and grew afraid. She stood up. Rydel showed her his face, and she recognized Rydel's short red hair and open blue eyes. "What are you doing here, Rydel?" she whispered angrily. "Boys are not allowed in -"
"Sssh! Henna has met your Uncle Ingo. He's back, here in Northtown. And he wants to meet you one last time before he leaves on an expedition into the wilderness. You can't go and meet him openly, the police are looking for him."
When Gala heard Ingo's name being mentioned, she gaped and fell silent.
"But he has a plan," Rydel continued in a muted voice. "You can meet him the next day or the day after that, in the late hours. There's a fishing boat anchored at the end of the salmon farm at Central Lake, you can get there in just an hour if you ride. The boat's name is 'Sea Princess.' Tell everybody you're out training or something, and come alone. Henna will try to be there too."
Suddenly, a fist pounded on Gala's door; a girl's voice asked why her laundry was late.
"Damn!" said Rydel. "If they find me, there'll be hell to pay!"
Gala stepped toward the small window, pulled the black sleeping-curtain aside, and opened the window wide. "Quick, jump outside! I won't tell on you."
Rydel quickly heaved himself out the window, landed into a bush one meter below, and rolled to his feet. It was hard to run in the heavy dress, but he did not stop until he reached a shadowy corner and could get out of his disguise. He heard shouts coming from the dormitory, and the matron's furious yelling. Rydel took a route around the dorm, and returned back to where he had left Sasha. Without losing a second of his advance, he untied Sasha, jumped up in the saddle and got her into a quick trot. He made it to the stables without being stopped, left his horse in her box, and sneaked away to the boys' dormitory.
Rydel had barely begun to think about getting to the meeting place near Central Lake and seeing Henna, before he fell asleep on his unmade bed. He had forgotten to put on his sleeping-blindfold or to pull down the black sleeping-curtains.
The dusk sun shone straight in through his window as he lay snoring, and he woke up too early the next day.
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