Chapter 24: The Queen's Chair

The first Saturday of the next October, four hundred and twelve people stood along the Redmond mile.

I counted them from the saddle, because I count everything now.

Corsair stood under me at the post, tall and black and fourteen months older than the day he threw four riders.

Under my left hand, two rings sat side by side.

One was an old square emerald in a gold setting.

The other was a plain worn band that had belonged to Jude's grandfather.

Jude stood at the rail in his shirtsleeves with his arms folded.

He wasn't smiling.

He was doing the thing he did before every race, which was to look at me.

Abel stood at the gate, in a new flat cap, with the head groom's key on a chain at his belt.

Beside him a little girl from the feed truck family, aged five, held up a hand-lettered sign that said, in crayon, QUEEN.

I gave her a small nod.

She nearly fell off the fence.

Six horses down the line, Nicolette sat on a bay mare with no sponsor's colors on her sleeve.

Her card said Nicolette Redmond, and nothing else.

She had mucked every stall on the north side for twelve months.

She had stood in front of a judge in June and said four pages out loud.

Her mother had listened from the dock, and not looked up once.

Nicolette glanced down the line at me.

She didn't smile either.

She lifted two fingers from her reins, a rider's salute, and I returned it.

The starter raised the flag.

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