The Rohirrim were marvellous with horses. Everyone in Rohan said so. Everyone in Gondor said so too; we were not a horse people and we were very grateful to the Rohirrim for doing the job for us. Nobody in Gondor could breed horses as magnificent as those they bred in Rohan, and when King Eomer announced that his sister’s dowry would be two stallions and twenty brood mares from among the descendants of the mearas, everyone gasped and said that it was a truly magnificent gift, and it was.

The trouble was that Father was marvellous with horses. Not only could he ride any horse ever foaled and make it do whatever he wanted, but he knew a lot about horse-breeding too – and what he didn’t know he learned, and learned fast. The horses from Rohan thrived on the pastures running down from Emyn Arnen towards Anduin, and because our climate is drier they developed lean, muscular bodies and hard hoofs. Then when Father was sent into Harad to discuss the settling of borders, he brought back horses from the far south where the climate is drier and dustier still, and although these horses were smaller than King Eomer’s great battle-chargers, they were swift and wonderfully beautiful. And when these horses were bred with the horses out of Rohan, some of their foals combined the best traits of sire and dam, and were much sought after, so that some people came to Ithilien to buy rather than going to Rohan. Naturally the Rohirrim didn’t like this, and when Father went riding with King Eomer among the Rohirrim, some murmured.

Some even mocked, because Father’s style of riding was not what you could call flamboyant. He scarcely moved in the saddle, directing the horse almost, as it seemed, with a thought; he never used whip or spur, generally kept a light rein, and the horses he rode always seemed to be as gentle as lambs. Quite a few of the men of Rohan concluded that Father couldn’t ride a difficult horse, and one day a group of them decided to put it to the proof. It was in the late spring, when the herdsmen of Rohirrim bring the young horses in from the grasslands where they’ve been roaming half-wild, and the young warriors and would-be warriors choose the ones they want and begin to tame them. It’s part serious, part fun and games, and generally involves a lot of yelling and bucking and falling off, and if you happened to be looking at some of the older herdsmen while this was going on you’d see them shake their heads, for when they brought in the horse-herds they always did it gently, encouraging them with soft voices and not hurrying or frightening them. I’d noticed that none of these herdsmen ever said anything disparaging about Father’s ways with horses. Uncle Eomer never did either, to do him justice; he was a kind man under the boasting, and loved his horses.

Anyway, these four young warriors had corralled a particularly wild two-year-old and had worked it  into a frenzy, urging it to run and buck and then competing to see which of them could stay on longest. Father came by and stopped to watch them. Father didn’t say anything and his face was quite expressionless, but the youngsters took his silence for disapproval and after a while one came over to him and said, would my lord be so kind as to help them with this horse because it was giving them trouble and they’d heard that Father was Gondor’s best man with horses. Behind him the others smirked, as if to say that if Father was the best that Gondor could do in that line, Gondor wasn’t up to much. Father smiled mildly and walked into the corral. The young horse retreated to the furthest corner and stood there trembling and covered with foam. Father called to it very softly in horse language – or that’s what it sounded like – and after a few tense moments it came, step by step, rolling its eyes and shivering, but as if it couldn’t help itself. Father went on talking to it for about five minutes, and by the end of that time he was stroking its nose and you could no longer see the whites of its eyes. After another five minutes he had one arm across its withers; another five again and he vaulted on its back, so lightly that you’d think he’d flown there. He rode it three times round the corral at a walk, once at a trot and once at a canter, and the horse obeyed him, meek as milk. Then he brought it back, dismounted and told the stupefied youngsters that it seemed like a promising mount, but would need a lot of schooling because its paces were very rough. He dismounted, handed the halter rope to the nearest youngster and walked away, and the youngster vaulted on to the horse’s back and within twenty seconds it threw him with such a crash that he was unconscious for an hour and spent the next week in bed.

After that the Rohirrim started to say that Father must have some Elvish power. I don’t think they meant it as a compliment, but they stopped mocking at his peaceable way of riding.  

What really won a good many of them over, though, including Uncle Eomer (on this point at least) was the Demon.