Do you know, growing up, I got everything I wanted. Oh, yes, dear ones, it’s true – everything, or very nearly, and this long before I ever became a royal prince, when I was just a farmer’s boy.

You see, I held a rather fortunate position in my family: I was the youngest – yes, Laraspur blossom, just like you are now – and after five daughters, I was the only son, like Ionquin here. Born too late to inherit the estate, mind you; after fifteen years of girls, girls, and more girls, they’d given up any hope of me, and so the farm was promised to my eldest sister and her husband. Perhaps it was partly in recompense for this that my parents were rather inclined to spoil me a little, and two out of every three things I asked for, they would give me, were it in their power.

Of course, there were several things I wanted that my parents either could not or would not give, so there were times when I had to go a different route: To learn not to want what I simply could not have.

But that sort of thing doesn’t make for the most interesting stories, does it? “I wished for this, but did without” or “I asked for this, and my mother said ‘all right’ ” are dull narratives indeed. No, the tales most satisfying to hear, and to live, are born of taking a third road – of determining that what you want is worth going out and getting for yourself.

An example? Let’s see, what comes to mind? Well, for instance, there was once an apple. An apple full as big as my twelve-year-old hand. Shining red, bowing the slim end of its branch with the ripe, ready weight of it. The most perfect apple I’d ever seen in my family’s modest orchard – surely the most perfect apple in all of Emmett Down, particularly so early in the harvest season. And oh, I wanted that apple very much. But it was higher than my ladder could reach, and far out on a remote branch that would never bear a boy my size.

So I climbed the ladder ‘til I ran out of rungs. Then I climbed the tree ‘til I ran out of sturdy branches. Then I scaled the trunk alone until I rested above the limb where hung my apple. And with my legs wrapped around the trunk, I used my heaviness to my advantage, leaning back onto the branch until it snapped. Then quick, grabbing hold of it before it could fall, I drew the end with the fruit right to me.

The apple was mine, and its juicy goodness tasted all the sweeter for the toil required to get it. Quite the high point of my day, in more respects than one – though, now I think of it, the moment didn’t last long. For it was as I munched my prize atop the tree that I caught sight of the farmer whose fields neighbored ours – we’ll call him Mister Lowam – relentlessly whipping his horse.

I know, little ones. I’m sure that’s the very face I wore at the time.

Apples forgotten, I was out of the tree and running. Calling for him to stay his hand. Asking, once I stood too nearby the man and his harvest plow to be easily ignored, what he meant by this handling of his animal.

Up close, the horse looked even more poorly treated than I’d thought from afar. His mane was matted. His black coat, lackluster. His ribs and hip bones, all too clearly seen. His head, drooping pitifully low.

“Perhaps,” I suggested angrily, “keeping the horse better fed and cared for would be more effective than whipping at improving his quality of labor.”

“Oh, yes?” said Mister Lowam, his hard eyes raking over me with ill-disguised contempt. “The Wyle boy, isn’t it? One can easily see all the good that overfeeding and a soft hand have done you. Oughtn’t you to be learning how to manage your own affairs, rather than trying to tell your elders how to manage theirs?”

As the whipping will have indicated already, he was not a particularly nice man.

“One thing I have been taught already, sir,” I returned, “is that negligent treatment of tools or helpers is a sorry sort of management, which can yield only inferior results. Blades must be sharpened, or they will not cut. Workers must be paid, or they will not serve. Animals must be strong and healthy, or they cannot pull your machines, and this horse will not long have the strength you need if you insist on beating and starving it to death!”

“I will thank you to mind your own business, boy,” said he.

Shouted I, “And I will thank you to demonstrate some humanity!”

Quite right, Laraspur; I oughtn’t to have raised my voice that way. Regrettably, my head has a tendency to run several degrees too hot when I feel people are being treated unfairly, and so I lost my temper. Mister Lowam having likewise misplaced his own, he cuffed my ear, saying that I’d best not be seen on his property again.

I will tell you truly, I wanted something then that I could not have, and that was the liberty to strike him back. And I knew that if I remained there another moment longer, I would strike back, right or no. So I stormed away, face aflame and clenched hands quivering with a rage I’d never felt before. As day wore on into night, I would not eat and could not sleep and dared not talk to anyone for fear I’d burst into tears that would not stop. All I could think of was that poor, maltreated horse, and it made me sick from gut to heart.

Thank you, honey. I’m sure this hug would have made all the difference, that night.

At last, when I could stand inaction no more, I crept out of the house and into our barn, where I gathered a sack of oats and early apples. From there I made my way to the stable of Mister Lowam, eased open the door, and more felt than saw my way in the gloom to where the wretched horse was bound.

He tried to shy when he sensed me, though there was scant room for that in his too-narrow stall. But, “Hush,” I told him. “It’s all right. See what I’ve brought you?”

I took a handful of oats in my palm, and slowly held it out to him. At first he eyed me guardedly. Then he tried a cautious nibble, then another. And soon the oats were gone, and we two companionably crunched on the apples together.

“There, now,” I said, stroking his nose. “You see? There are good people in the world, as well as cruel ones. I’d like to think I’m growing into one of the good ones, notwithstanding the poor manners I displayed this afternoon. I hadn’t meant to be insolent, but you’ll agree that if I was, it was very nearly justified, don’t you? Yes, I thought you would. I am Edgwyn Wyle, your neighbor. And what is your name, if I may ask?”

In the more familiar darkness, I stared into his eyes until I fancied I felt a name. “Carlyle, is it? A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir. Do you know, I’m not much in the habit of conversing with horses, but you seemed the sort of fellow who could use a friendly word.”

Then I sighed, for what it seemed Carlyle could really use was an escape from the worst master in the Down, maybe in all of Anuranda! I had half-a-mind to take him away, right then. But it was bad enough I was trespassing; it really would not do to add theft to my list of that day’s transgressions. No, I could not take the horse.

Or couldn’t I?...

I returned home late that night, eager for morning. And when it came, I went straightaway to my father, and asked for the money to buy Carlyle from Lowam.

“Buy a horse?” my father said. “But we have no need for another horse. We cannot afford to keep another horse.”

“We need not keep him long,” I coaxed. “The Summer’s End Faire is not far off; we can sell him again there. I will take care of him in the meantime – such good care of him that we’ll make an enormous profit at the Faire! Please, Papa, I’ll do anything, just let me get the horse away from that awful man!”

In the end, my father agreed, and supplied a fair price for his neighbor’s horse. But when I went to make my purchase, Mister Lowam demanded an amount far higher.

“I shall have need of that much, at least!” he said of the sum. “For it is the beginning of the harvest season, and I must have funds enough to hire another horse to bring in my crops, since you would divest me of the one I have now.”

Funds to hire another horse? Another horse for him to abuse as he had Carlyle? I would not hear of it! But could I ask a farmer to abandon his fields at harvest time? Nonsense. Nor could I volunteer the use of one of my family’s horses or the time of my father or brothers-in-law, for they would be kept busy enough tending our own land.

There remained, therefore, only one thing left for me to offer.

“I will do it,” I declared. “Take the proffered amount for the horse, and I will pull your plow until harvest’s end.”

“You!” the man laughed. “You’re oversized, boy, but nothing like a workhorse. It’ll be planting time before you’ve reaped a row!”

“If I work too slowly,” I told him, “you have only to ask for your old horse back.”

“You can be sure that I will,” he said. “And I’ll keep the money, too!”

So our bargain was struck. That very day, I hitched my own body to the harvest plow. And oh, my darlings, it was brutal work. I was stoutly built, yes, and hardy enough, I’d always thought, but this labor was like nothing else I’d ever aimed to do. Many a time, I thought my strength was spent, that my bones would break, that my muscles would give out on me. Then I thought again of the whip lashing at Carlyle’s bony flanks, and the fierce flood of fury lent me the power for one more step. Just one step more. If I could only make myself take just one, then maybe I’d find the strength to take another...

From morning ‘til evening, I struggled with the plow. At sunrise and sunset, I cared for Carlyle – fed and groomed and walked him, and saw that his stall was kept clean. I suppose I must have eaten and slept, too, though these pursuits took such an unusually small amount of my time that I don’t remember it well.

How I managed to grow up round and rested when it seems every story I’ve ever lived conspires to rob me of food and sleep, I’ll never know.

The absence of soreness and fatigue became as a fantasy. Some twilights, I nearly lost consciousness where I stood, holding Carlyle’s brush or water bucket. Then he would nudge me with his nose, and nicker that he was sorry for my troubles, that I must go and rest, never mind about him now, he would be all right. But, “No, no,” I would tell him, staunchly rubbing my bleary eyes. “You’re part of the bargain. I must take excellent care of you for the Faire. Besides, I didn’t rescue you from Lowam just so you could be neglected on the next farm over!”

Then came the morning when I awoke before the sun and knew that I could not do it anymore. There was not enough anger in me to fuel another day, another hour, another step with that plow at my back. It was all I could do to drag myself out of bed and over to the barn where my foster horse awaited me.

“I am sorry, Carlyle,” I said, while I curried his coat with slow, labored strokes. “I will give it everything I have today, as I’ve always done… but it will not be enough, I think. And you...” I swallowed painfully. “You will have to go back to Mister Lowam tomorrow, if he does not try to take you sooner. So enjoy your breakfast apples, won’t you? They may be the last you have in a long while.”

Too soon, I turned to leave the barn – to face the dreaded plow and fall crushingly short. But a tugging at my sleeve held me fast. “Oh, come, Carlyle, that won’t do.” I tried to sound firm. “I must be getting along now. Let’s have my sleeve back, shall we?”

But the look in the horse’s eyes was as clear an answer as if he had spoken aloud: Take me with you.

“What?” I laughed in despair. “No point in putting off the inevitable, you mean?”

Another clear message: Let me help you.

And I will admit, I felt like something of a simpleton, then. Even a stingily fed, miserable horse was going to be a good deal stronger than a twelve-year-old boy, and Carlyle had been blooming under my guardianship for weeks. Of course he could pull the harvest plow – he could have all along, if only I had used my head for a moment instead of rushing into foolish (if well meant) promises, blinded by a rage that was perhaps not as useful as I’d made myself believe.

“Very well, then,” I said, laughing at myself, now. “You can be the brains and the muscle in this partnership. Come on, old fellow – we’ve got a crop to bring in.”

And so we did, the two of us – the one driven (for once) not by oppression, and the other (this time) not by anger, but both by love. We completed our task in excellent time, and at the end of it, Mister Lowam stood amazed.

“No horse ever pulled a plow so well for me,” he said. “How’d you make him do it, boy?”

“I didn’t,” I said, one arm thrown proudly across the horse’s neck. “He wanted to. Because I am his friend.”

“Hmm,” Lowam rumbled. “A little extra food and leniency, you say? Maybe I’ll look into that.”

“I certainly hope you find it beneficial, sir,” I said, a laugh of exultation threatening to bubble from my throat.

What then? Well, after that, there is not much to tell. A handful of days later, I journeyed with my father to the Summer’s End Faire, same as every other year, the only difference being that, this time, I had a horse to sell. Carlyle showed marvelously, black coat gleaming, figure robust, eyes bright, and head held high. All this, combined with his amenable nature – and, if I may say so, my charming promotion – prompted an offer of a price nearly half again what I paid for him. Oh, certainly, dear heart, I made certain Carlyle was going to a good home. The gentle eyes of the farmhand who bought him assured me my friend would be as well placed as I could have wished.

My father praised me for a job well done, saying, “If your career in law falls through, maybe there’s a future for you in the horse market, eh?”

I smiled, but did not agree. Though I had no way of knowing then that I would one day be a prince, and was absolutely positive I would never become a lawyer, I expected Carlyle was the first and last horse I would ever work so hard to retail – though by no means the last I ever wanted to befriend.

And for one who had the knack of getting everything he wanted, another horse friend down the road was all but a guarantee.