The Fire Stallion

She took out her stethoscope and began to listen to Piper’s heartbeat. I stayed silent, letting her concentrate.

“How long has she been like this?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I found her at around seven thirty, so at least since then.”

The vet filled a syringe and injected Piper in the neck.

“What’s that?” Mum asked.

“Muscle relaxant,” she said. “You were right. It’s colic. Hopefully, if the relaxant works, then the contractions should subside.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” I asked. The vet didn’t look at me and she didn’t answer my question.

“I need you to keep her walking,” she said. “Check in with me by dawn and tell me how she’s doing.”

Dad went back to bed after that and so did my sister, Sarah-Kate, so it was just me and Mum after that. She made us toasted sandwiches and cups of tea and I walked Piper. I wouldn’t let anyone else do it. I stayed up all night walking her in circles, and the kicking subsided. Mum just about had me convinced that we were over the worst of it, and we should go to bed too, when it all started up again. Worse, this time. She was thrashing on the ground, kicking and kicking.

This time the vet got to us in under an hour. As she examined Piper she looked much more serious than she had last night.

“I think we need to go to surgery,” she said.

“What does that mean? What’ll you do to her?” I asked.

“We’ll put her under an anaesthetic and get her up on the operating table, and then make a cut along her underside on the belly from chest to tail so we can take the blockage out of her gut.”

I tried not to think about Piper with her guts inside out.

“How much will it cost?” Mum asked. I knew what she was thinking – Piper wasn’t insured.

“Including box rest afterwards? You won’t get any change from $10,000. And it’s major surgery. You need to factor in at least three months for the wound to heal on box rest.”

“Will she compete again?” Mum asked.

“Depends,” the vet sighed. “Some horses heal perfectly and they’re back out there doing what they love. Others never come fully right. I can’t give you guarantees. I’m sorry, surgery is still a risk.”

“Is there another option?” Mum asked.

“At this stage?” the vet said. “If you want to keep her alive, there’s no other option.”

Mum looked at my face and she didn’t hesitate. “Get Piper in the float, Hilly. We’re taking her to surgery.”

It’s funny how quickly priorities change. Twenty-four hours ago, the most important thing in my world had been competing at the Open. Now, all that mattered was keeping Piper alive.

I remember sitting in the darkness as we drove that night, crying, and I felt Mum reach out to clutch my hand.

“I promise, Hilly, everything is going to be OK,” she said. And when I didn’t stop crying, that was when she said, “Maybe, instead of eventing this season, you should come with me to Iceland?”

Now, sitting in a Japanese restauarant on the other side of the world, that all seemed like a lifetime ago.

Dinner had been booked by Katherine’s personal assistant, Lizzie, for twelve people. By the time that we turned up, most of the others had already arrived. I knew Jimmy, the assistant director – he was English but he’d worked in New Zealand a lot with Katherine. And Chris, the lighting guy, and Lizzie – they were old friends of Mum’s from film school.

So there were ten of us already seated and waiting by the time Katherine arrived. Katherine wasn’t one of those superstar directors who looked all Hollywood – she was just wearing a T-shirt and jeans. It was the woman beside her who was dressed as though she was famous. She had a really dramatic look about her with this flame-red Rapunzel hair. She wore this brilliant, floor-length purple patterned dress which looked incredible against her pale skin. Her eyes, a startling emerald green, seemed magnified behind her gigantic spectacles rimmed with red glitter frames.

“Everybody, I want to introduce you to Doctor Gudrun Gudmansdottir, professor of Norse mythology and Icelandic saga at Harvard University,” Katherine had said. “I’m thrilled to have someone of her stature on board to ensure the integrity of this movie and help us to bring the real Princess Brunhilda to life.”

Gudrun raised her hands in this spectral way, as if she were about to perform a séance or something, and then she reached out and picked up a champagne glass off the table and raised it to the light. “I have cast the runes and they tell me that the Norse gods will smile upon this production,” she said theatrically. “Now join me in paying thanks to mighty Odin by raising your glasses and drinking deep in his honour!”

I could hear Mum mutter under her breath beside me as she reluctantly raised her glass. I caught her rolling her eyes at Jimmy as if to say, “Who is this nutter?”

“To mighty Odin!” Gudrun’s toast was so loud the whole restaurant suddenly stopped talking. Draining her glass in one go, she put it back down, and then, rather than taking the empty seat beside Katherine, she walked the length of the table and made a beeline for me.

“I’ll sit here. Bring me a chair …” She waved a hand airily at the waiter. Then she positioned herself in between me and Mum and locked me into the tractor beam of her powerful green eyes. She put her hand out to shake mine. I’d been expecting her skin to feel cold it was so white, but it was almost like touching fire.

“I’m Gudrun,” she said.

“Hilly,” I replied. “Hilly Harrison.”

“Of course you are,” Gudrun said, as if she knew this already. “You’ve travelled a long way, Hilly. Are you prepared for Iceland?”

“Oh, no!” I thought she had the wrong idea. “I mean, yes, I’m coming, but I’m not working as part of the crew or anything. I’m here with Mum.”

Gudrun narrowed her eyes at me. “Do not underestimate yourself, Hilly. You have a role of your own to play. And a very important one it will be too.”

She leaned close to me and whispered conspiratorially: “I threw the runes this morning and the gods told me everything. The future holds great adventure for us, Hilly. Ready yourself …”

“Excuse me—”

It was the waiter.

“What would you like to order, madam?”

Gudrun didn’t open her menu, she just smiled up at him. “Do you have any puffin?”

The waiter looked horrified. “No, madam!”

Gudrun sighed with genuine disappointment. She turned to me. “It’s so difficult to find puffin on the menu outside of Iceland. They’re delicious roasted. The Icelanders catch them in butterfly nets.”

Instead, Gudrun ordered the Atlantic salmon. I had the teriyaki chicken. As we ate, she asked me all about my life in Wellington and seemed genuinely excited when I told her that I rode.

“It must have been hard to leave your horse at home, to be away for so long?” Gudrun said.

I said nothing. I didn’t want to talk about Piper.

“You’ll find the Icelandic horses very different to the ones back home,” Gudrun continued. “They’re bred to be highly spirited and hot under saddle and they have five gaits.”

I didn’t understand. “Five gaits?”

“Most horses have just four gaits – they can walk, trot, canter and gallop,” Gudrun replied. “An Icelandic horse has no gallop – instead they pace, and they have a fifth gait, the tölt, which is super fast – it’s like a trot except it’s so smooth you do not need to rise out of the saddle. When you ride a tölting horse, it feels like you’re flying. You can sit on their backs quite comfortably like this for great distances.”