"Why are you telling me these things Mother?" "It is because you are getting old enough to understand, you need to know and I will not be able to tell you these things later because you will be too busy looking after the house for me. So what else would you like to know?"

"Can you tell me about riding underneath horses?" Lorena was not sure she should have asked that question but was pleasantly surprised when her Mother agreed.

"Yes my dear, it is one of the things that you need to know, that I would not entrust to any other person. It started many years ago when an important land owner refused to go to his wife. He had found another girl and was secretly making love to her. The wife found out and accused him of adultery. The man did not care what the wife said and ignored her.

She, far from embarrassed by the man's infidelity, asked all her friends what she should do, and they all told her to take a lover. The wife did not want to have another man as she felt that it would make her as bad as her husband, so she chose a horse from the stables. She had arranged a few bales of straw to lie on and then led the horse in to the area and made love to him. It was while she was coupled to the horse that her husband came in and seeing her was furious.

He had some strong rope with him and he bound the woman to the horse while they were still joined and then led them through the streets to show everybody what a bad wife she was. Well all the women who saw this already knew that it was the husband that had been unfaithful so they all joined together and the next day they rode, tied under their horse, up to the husbands work place.

Once there, they all cried out how bad the man was for being unfaithful to his wife and making her seek an alternative lover. They shamed the man so much that he ran away leaving the wife everything. She was so happy to be rid of him, after he had tied her under the horse, that from then on every year at carnival she would ride through the streets of the town while coupled to her favourite horse.

Many of the other women in the town followed suit, especially if their husbands were found to be unfaithful. Now it is done by many women whether their husbands are faithful or not and whether they are married or not. I did it before I was married and so did my Mother. Your Father's Mother also rode and so has your aunt Elizabet Gloria Marria. In fact your aunt still does even now. She never married and so she enjoys a horse more often than most. She went to Mardi Gras in Rio on two occasions as a belly rider."

"Will you teach me to belly ride? I would like to learn. Then Neltitaca and I could ride together." Lorena looked at her Mother hopefully.

"I will tell you how to start training, but you will have to be shown the main part of the skill by someone else. My leg makes it far to difficult for me to get down to the stables and walk a horse for hours. First though you will have to have a horse because you will never complete the learning on a mare like you have now.

"You must tell Rodrigues to mate your mare to Korrtona, the big black stallion and with any luck you will have a fine male foal to train next spring. I would be surprised if you did not have a male foal as Korrtona has only ever sired males in his fourteen years with us. The new animal will be ready for you to ride come your sixteenth Birthday."

Lorena received much more instruction and many subjects were covered in the next few hours. They talked long into the night only separating for bed when everyone else was asleep already. The next day Lorena was up later than usual, but this did not prevent her from going on her usual morning ride.

It being late January and the time for carnival Neltitaca was not there to go with her so she shortened the ride so as not to be late for her lessons. When she returned to the stables with her horse she found Rodrigues grooming one of the other mares. She went up to him and quietly told him what her mother had said the day before about mating her horse with Korrtona.

"I know all about that young lady." He said. "I got my instructions first thing this morning. You will find the stall next to Korrtona empty. You put you horse in there and I will see to her directly. She will have too have special feed to make her foal extra strong so I will take special care of her from now on. It's a bit late in the year to mate her but if she takes, then the foal will be dropped in the late spring. November or early December I would say. I will let you know when I am going to join them so you can help me."

Lorena was so pleased that she was to help in the process. She took her mare to the required stall and then after watering her and giving her a quick rub down she went off to her classes.

-=*=-

About a week later when she went to collect her horse for the morning ride, the horse was not there. Lorena looked around but could not find her. Soon Rodrigues appeared and told her to get some work clothes on as today was the day.

Lorena ran indoors and changed, then ran out to the corral. Her horse was tied between two short fences so that she could not move sideways. Korrtona was in the next paddock taking a great interest in the mare, who had raised her tail and was trying to get free in order to go to the big stallion. Lorena walked over to her mare and comforted her.

A moment later Rodrigues walked over to her. "You know what to do don't you? You have seen it often enough. Are you sure you will be all right because I will not be able to help you? I will be too busy at the other end. Just keep her calm and stay to one side." Lorena said she would be fine and the man went over to open the gate to Korrtona's paddock.

The stallion whinnied loudly and cantered into the corral. He ran round the area by the fence, making lots of noise and swiftly changing direction as though he was taking part in a wild dance. The mare whinnied back and held her tail high waving it about like a flag. The stallion needed no additional invitation. He ran up to her and then as though inspecting her he walked round the place where she was tied. When he reached her back he sniffed closely at her hind quarters.

He looked away briefly making a strange face, mouth open and lips curled back. Then he returned his nose to her rump and sniffed again. The strange face was repeated and then instead of taking a third sniff, he butted his head against her. This was it. Lorena wished that she was more to the side of her horse so she could see better but she had the responsibility of keeping the mare calm. The mare seemed to be quite eager as the stallion mounted her.

Ten minutes and it was done. Korrtona slipped off the mare and snorting trotted round the fence that held the other horse. They greeted each other with loud snorts and whinnies, while Rodrigues and Lorena untied the mare. Then the two horses were herded into the paddock together.

"They will probably mate again before the day is out but if it goes wrong at least the first was right," said Rodrigues. "I will see you in the morning young lady." And he marched off to the stables. Lorena stayed to watch the horses as they trotted round the paddock together playing chase and biting games. Those two horses were obviously in love.

The following spring the foal was dropped. It seemed to Lorena that the whole town had come to watch, but she had a front stage seat. The foal was strong and was able to stand within ten minutes of birth. Rodrigues walked over and stood on the other side of the fence from Lorena and her Mother.

"He is a fine strong lad and should serve you well and for many years. What do you want to call him?" Lorena looked closely at the new comer. He was mainly black but had white patches down his spine and on his forehead.

"I want to call him `Via Lactia' (Milky Way in Spanish) because of the stars all down his back. I like him, can I come in and stroke him?"

"Wait until tomorrow and bring a small titbit, something soft and sweet for him. Cook will know what. Do that once or twice a week and he will grow to love you as much as he loves his mother's milk."

The people gradually left until only Lorena, her Mother and Titsilini were present and still interested in the newest member of the community. They all three watched the foal as he staggered and wobbled. It was not long before he was steady enough to have his first feed and as he did his Mother licked him bonding to her new son. Three months later training started.

Lorena's Mother called her up to her room again one afternoon in the summer, "The first thing we have to do is to train your foal to walk in such a way that his hooves will never touch you while you are riding him and to make sure that you do not get chaffed from his legs. This will take as long as it takes him to reach full growth when he is nearly three or four. Then we will teach you to ride him and keep control and finally how to join with him as a belly rider. I will help you train the foal to walk, after that your aunt will have the reins so to speak." Again they talked for many hours and Lorena asked many questions all of which were answered in a direct manor.

The training started with a small bolster of about fifteen centimetres diameter being suspended between the foal's forelegs. Lorena had to make the bolster from old drapes stuffed with any old material that she could lay her hands on. It was designed to make the animal walk with its forelegs slightly apart so that in later life when he had a rider suspended under him he would not bash the rider's head with his legs and hooves.

At first the pony was most up set with the new addition to his harness but after an hour or two of trying to dislodge the hindrance, with some ineffective aid from his mother, he decided to get on with his life as best he could and by the next day he was scampering about as before. The bolster was sufficiently soft so as not to injure the animal but firm enough to be a problem if he forgot to avoid it during his capers.

To begin with, Via, as the new member of the stables came to be known, only had to carry the bolster for about four or five hours each day. As the foal grew so the diameter of the bolster was increased to match so that by the time he was fully grown there would be ample room for Lorena's head to fit between the horse's legs. As the bolster was increased in size so to it was made heavier until by the time the now young horse was a year old he was carrying about thirty five kilograms and the length of time that he carried it had increased to twenty four hours per day with a day off once a week.

While the horse had been practising walking with a bundle slung under his belly, Lorena had been making a riding sling. With her mothers help, and several old and in some cases tatty, well used examples to go on, she had combined newly tanned hides and freshly made quilts into a workable system of straps, supports and strengthening pieces.

These would all have to be combined to make the desired end result once Via had reach his full grown height. The harness not only had to be comfortable for the horse but also for Lorena if she was to spend the three days of Mardi Gras in its confines. Lorena was getting very excited as time went by. The training could not progress fast enough for her. She eagerly awaited the day when she would climb into the harness for the first time. However, Via continued to grow and the training continued and all looked very promising.

Shortly after Lorena's fifteenth Birthday, disaster struck. Lorena was out with Neltitaca, on one of their regular rides. Lorena was astride her new horse Via, now a strong two year old and Neltitaca was on the big black stallion Korrtona. They had been quite far and eaten a picnic for lunch as Lorena had not had lessons to go to and Nel had had a day off, it being a national holiday. Nel had been saying how she would love to belly ride with Korrtona, he being such a big horse in all dimensions.

Lorena had felt a little envious of her friend who had so many years experience riding like that, where as she still had not lost her virginity, let alone had a horse. The conversation had gone along the lines of all the joy and learning that Lorena still had to sample, where as Nel had done it all and was now finding it hard to find anything new to try.

Many things had been said and they were both content with their day and their friendship. As they returned home in the afternoon and came into view of the hacienda they saw a large cloud of black smoke rising from the main building. They looked at each other and then spurred their horse to a gallop. Both animals were reasonably fresh, neither of them having been exerted to strenuous exercise at all that day. It took then nearly an hour to reach the home that they both loved so much, as they had still some kilometres to go.

When they arrived they were met by Rodrigues and Titsilini. They were lead through to the house, leaving their horse in a field away from the smoke. Titsilini was in tears, unable to say anything, so it was up to Rodrigues to break the news to them.

"I don't know how the fire actually started." He said as they walked along. "But it was first reported in the kitchen. The alarm was rung and everybody evacuated as quickly as they could. Unfortunately your Mother got trapped upstairs, her bad leg and so on. Your Father went back in to get her but he never came out again. That was two hours ago. I am afraid that I don't hold much hope for either of them, though it is still possible maybe." He finished, trying to put a lighter aspect to the news.

Lorena knew instantly that both her Mother and Father were dead and now she was the head of the house, what was left of it. As she walked along she thought about all the things that she should do, but where to start. Eventually she turned to Rodrigues for answers. "What has been done so far?" she asked.

"Well I have set all the men on pumping water and those of the women who are strong enough to carry buckets. The others I set to moving all the animals to safe places well away from here and when they returned I set them to rescuing anything in any building that could be reached without endangering life. But the weather has been kind to us as the wind has blown all the smoke and sparks away from the other buildings. So it is only the main house that has burned. Very lucky that it did not go right round the complex."

As they arrived in the yard Lorena could see the extent of the fire. The whole building was gutted except a small part of the ground floor furthest away from the kitchens. There was no hope for anybody who had not been able to exit the fire at the beginning. Most of the fire was out now with just a few patches still smouldering with small flames, where the fire had been hottest, but smoke still billowed up from most of the wreckage. The men were still pouring in the water as fast as they could and so it would not be long before even the smoke was gone and the house was left as a pile of charred, wet timbers. Rodrigues looked stunned.

"Oh holy Mary, it was not nearly as bad as this when I last had time to look at the situation. Its all gone." His expression said it all. Stunned disbelief at such devastation. He almost broke down and cried only just managing to retain his composure. Lorena however seemed to be quite detached from what she saw. She felt like it was a dream and therefore it was not real. She would do her best to help those in the dream with her but was sure that in the morning when she awoke it would all be back to normal. She studied the situation for a few moments and then started to give orders. There were a number of people from the village who had probably come initially to watch the spectacle but had ended up being roped in to work.

"Rodrigues, set the ladies to finding what we have in the store house and see if it is enough to cover the staff. We will need blankets and food for every one and probably food for many of the village folk if this carries on into the hours of darkness. If there is anything that we are short of for tonight then send some of the men from the village to see if they can drum up enough to cover the short fall. Whatever we borrow, I will want written down in a list, of who lent it and a description of the items, so that they can be returned to their rightful owners. A couple of the ladies should go to round up the horse from all the locations that they are at present so that they to can be fed and watered.

"Nel's and my horses should be seen to first as they have been ridden hard and need to be rubbed down before they catch a cold of something worse. Then when the women are finished with the store room, I want everything we have to be distributed to those that will be here for the night and places allocated for each person to sleep. When the smoke has died down I want all the able bodied men to start sifting through the wreckage to see what can be salvaged."

The string of orders came hard and fast. Both Nell and Rodrigues were amazed at the way Lorena took on the task of being in charge. The orders were passed on and the work of recovering from the trauma began in earnest. Everybody seemed to set to as they received new tasks to do and most of the folk worked well into the hours of darkness.