“Yes, m'lord. I done the shoes already. Won't hold you up long. I know you're . . . very busy, like.”
He heard the click-click of footsteps cross the floor to the old kitchen chair reserved for customers, or at least for the owners of customers.
Jason had laid the tools and the horseshoes and the nails ready to hand on the bench beside the anvil. He wiped his hands on his apron, picked up a file, and set to work. He didn't like cold shoeing, but he'd shod horses ever since he was ten. He could do it by feel. He picked up a rasp and set to work.
And he had to admit it. It was the most obedient horse he'd ever encountered. Pity he'd never actually seen it. It'd be a pretty good horse, a horse like that. . .
His dad had said: don't try to sneak a look at it.
He heard the glug of the teapot and then the gling-glong sound of a spoon being stirred and then the clink as the spoon was laid down.
Never any sound, his dad had said. Except when he walks and talks, you'll never hear him make a sound. No smacking of lips, stuff like that.
No breathing.
Oh, and another thing. When you takes the old shoes off, don't chuck 'em in the comer for to go for melt with the other scrap. Keep 'em separate. Melt 'em separate. Keep a pot special for it, and make the new shoes out of that metal. Whatever else you do, never put that iron on another living thing.
In fact, Jason had saved one set of the old shoes for pitching contests at the various village fairs, and never lost when he used them. He won so often that it made him nervous, and now they spent most of their time hanging on a nail behind the door.
Sometimes the wind rattled the window frame, or made the coals crackle. A series of thumps and a squawk a little way off suggested that the chicken house at the end of the garden had parted company with the ground.
The customer's owner poured himself another cup of tea.
Jason finished one hoof and let it go. Then he held out his hand. The horse shifted its weight and raised the last hoof.
This was a horse in a million. Perhaps more.
Eventually, he had finished. Funny, that. It never seemed to take very long. Jason had no use for a clock, but he had a suspicion that a job which took the best part of an hour was at the same time over in a matter of minutes.
“There,” he said. “Tis done.”
THANK YOU. I MUST SAY THESE ARE VERY GOOD BISCUITS. HOW DO THEY GET THE BITS OF CHOCOLATE IN?
“Dunno, m'lord,” said Jason, staring fixedly at the inside of his blindfold.
I MEAN, THE CHOCOLATE OUGHT TO MELT OUT WHEN THEY'RE BAKED. HOW DO THEY DO IT, DO YOU THINK?
“Tis probably a craft secret,” said Jason. “I never asks that kind o'question.”
GOOD MAN. VERY WISE. I MUST-
He had to ask, if only so's he'd always know that he had asked.
“M'lord?”
YES, MR. OGG?
“I 'as got one question . . .”
YES, MR. OGG?
Jason ran his tongue over his lips.
“If I were to . . . take the blindfold off, what'd I see?”
There. It was done now.
There was a clicking sound on the flagstones, and a change in the air movement which suggested to Jason that the speaker was now standing in front of him.