The Stolen Queen (6 page)

‘I didn't mean to insult you, Othon,' I whispered. ‘I am grateful that you allow me to ride you, truly.'

For an answer, Othon straddled his legs and let out a fountain of hot piss, which splashed on my boots. Tomas laughed again.

‘I think Othon is ready to take me again,' I remarked. ‘Please help to mount me.'

Tomas kept me in the ring another week for hours each day, circling, turning quickly from a canter, taking a small hurdle at first, and then taller ones until I was jumping fences higher than my small self.

‘A pretty sight you look, Isabelle,' huffed Agnes.

‘I think the Lady Isabelle is ready to walk out, madame,' Tomas said with encouragement.

Agnes fussed and admonished, making me promise over and over to be careful, and to protect my face from the sun and mind my gown. Tomas heard her out, reassuring her that if I grew
tired he would take me before him and lead my horse; all the time I could feel Othon tensing beneath me in anticipation. I had to hold him tight as we trotted down the road. Tomas led us through the meadows and over the bridge, his own horse grabbing saucily mouthfuls of high-summer mallow grass, until we turned through the trees and came out into a tight, steep-sided valley. Only the towers of Lusignan were visible now.

‘Get down, my lady.'

‘Why, Tomas? I want to ride.'

He grinned, showing brown stumps of teeth. Tomas was very old, at least fifty years. Bandy and bent like the reed in a thrush trap, his skin tanned to leather armour, yet he was the strongest man at Lusignan. Only he was allowed the exercise of Lord Hugh's great warhorses.

‘I thought you might be wanting this.' He had a sack on his back.

‘I'm not hungry, Tomas. I want to ride!'

‘Quarrelsome little thing, aren't you? Get down now.' He scooped me up in his arm, the smell of him musky and deep like cumin, somehow familiar. I was on the ground in seconds. The sack did not contain provisions, but a saddle.

‘Oh, Tomas!'

‘Didn't think you'd have much use for that silly thing.' He swiftly unstrapped the high-pommelled lady's side-saddle that Lord Hugh had had made for me, its wood prettily painted yellow, and replaced it with a real saddle. ‘Reckon you can ride astride?'

‘But Tomas, it's wicked.'

Queen Eleanor of England, the mother of King John, had ridden astride when she raised her sons and their men in rebellion against their own father, and tried to gallop away like a man before old King Henry captured her and locked her up for years and years. Hearing my mother and the maids whisper about it, it seemed that sitting astride was a worse sin than encouraging men to steal their own father's lands.

‘There's no one but the trees to see you, my lady. I won't be telling.'

‘But Tomas, you might get into trouble. I don't want you to be punished.'

‘Never mind about that. You may need it, one day, my lady. You may need to ride fast and hard, like a man so's you can give little lord Hal a run for his money, eh?' Tomas gave a wheezy laugh, delighted with his own impertinence. I threw him a conspiratorial grin.

I bunched up my gown behind me and Tomas jumped me over the saddle. ‘Promise you won't get into trouble, Tomas?'

‘I promise. There's an army's worth of saddles in the stable house and I have the key. Are you ready, then?'

I nodded. I couldn't speak I was so excited.

‘Wait, now.' Tomas had a little clay crock in his hand. He scooped a handful of paste from it and knelt to rub it into Othon's forelegs. ‘Hold out your hands.' The paste was black and smelled of iron and fat. ‘This will make you go faster. Let him go.'

I had no spurs, but I barely needed to touch my heels to Othon's side before we were off. I gave myself up to the air.
It did not seem as though Othon's hooves even touched the ground. All I felt was the rush of the wind on my face and my heart opening inside me to suck it in. For a few moments I froze, clinging like a beetle to his back. I would be thrown again, and his hooves would crush my skull like a nut. I had not thought such speed possible. It terrified me, and I tried weakly to pull him back, knowing that my strength was no more to him than a fly's. He wouldn't stop, and I couldn't stop him. Slowly, I felt myself meld with the thud of Othon's huge heart between my legs and we became one creature, weightless and sure as an arrow, just as I had dreamed, so that I felt nothing but his blood in mine and mine in his, not riding but swooping through the wind like a kite until the valley closed and I had to come back to myself, reminding him with the lightest tug on the bit to pull up short before he plunged us both over the hill's edge. Indeed, I nearly flew over his head like a windfall, but I had ridden through my fear. I was gasping and laughing, senseless, yet never had I felt more vividly alive. As I bent over Othon's dampened neck, my own face was wet with tears.

‘Thank you,' I murmured. ‘Thank you, thank you.'

Tomas cantered up behind us, I had forgotten all about him. ‘I knew you could do it!'

I grinned at him, proud and fierce, my hair tumbling into my eyes and my face burning with pleasure. ‘I did, too.'

We galloped, over and over again, until Tomas saw that the sun was low and made us turn back. He let out a leading rein for Othon and settled me against his chest, my legs demurely to one
side, and I fell asleep against him, my nose full of leather and horse sweat and the strange blood-like tinge of the balm, rocking slowly through the green lanes back to Lusignan.

All that summer and into the autumn until the weather turned and the rain came, I rode out on Othon each day. I was diligent with my prayers and my sewing, my music and deportment so that Agnes could have no cause to forbid me the release I waited for each afternoon. Tomas found a plate coat that had been made for Hal when he was about my age and persuaded Agnes to let me wear it over my gown, saying it should protect my back if I fell. He also gave me a pair of Hal's leather britches, which I slipped on under my gown, and which we didn't mention to Agnes at all. Lord Hugh seemed delighted with my new accomplishment and presented me with a falcon, a delicate merlin with deep blue feathers, a set of silver jesses and a gauntlet traced in silver thread. I was allowed to accompany him, dressed in one of my best silks and nodding along placidly on my side-saddle, when he hunted with his guests. I liked best, though, to go out with Tomas, and better still to leave him to doze and whittle in the shade while I explored the
allées
of the forest alone with Othon. I longed to bathe and comb him myself, but of course Agnes could not allow that, so I begged scraps of parchment from the clerks and twisted them into paper flowers to decorate his stall and made a picture of myself with a finger dipped in soot so that he should not be lonely for me in the night. I gave no thought to Hal, or my marriage, or what was happening in the world beyond the castle. I no longer listened in doorways or heeded the whisperings of the
guards. All I wanted was to be alone in the woods with Othon. But then the leaves turned from green to yellow to brown, and when the forest was bare and we had kept the Christmas feast at the castle, a message came that my father was coming, and with him the English king.

CHAPTER FOUR

I
WAS BOTH GLAD AND SAD AT THE NEWS OF MY FATHER'S
return. Glad because I should see my papa again, and sad because Hal had remained with him, learning the duties of Angouleme, which would one day be his in right of his marriage to me, and their coming would bring the marriage close. I was curious, though, to see John, brother of the great Lionheart, the last of Queen Eleanor's unhappy sons. My father came first, with a long train of men-at-arms to prepare against the king's arrival, and I leaped joyfully into his travel-stained cloak and snuggled my face against his beard. I had grown used to Lord Hugh but now I was struck again by how cold and elegant he looked next to my father, who was rounder and more red-faced than ever. I hopped about Father, asking him where he had been and if he had experienced any adventures, and teasing him for presents.

‘I hear you've become a fine rider,' he smiled. ‘So I thought you might want this.' He gave me a thin parcel wrapped in vellum. Inside was a whip, an ivory whip tooled in silver with a scarlet tassel on the grip.

‘Thank you, oh thank you, Papa!' I hoped he couldn't hear the disappointment in my voice. It was a beautiful gift, but it was a lady's tool, far too small and delicate for Othon. I suddenly felt very sad. Why did things change? Why did people go away and when they came back everything was different? Now that I looked, I could see my papa was older, the lines on his face deepened into little runnels, with streaks of grey in his beard. I was ashamed of my ingratitude and determined to behave beautifully, to make him proud of my accomplishments. His hand felt the same, though, so big and rough around my palm. In that moment I never wanted to let it go.

Hal had grown upwards, not outwards, and I had to think that he looked fine, broader through his shoulders, but still with that same sullen air. We greeted one another coolly, playing at grown-ups, but he barely spoke to me again as we sat over a simple supper of bread, cheese and dried fruit. The kitchens were already swarming with King John's purveyors, who had commandeered every deer and game bird for miles around.

‘They're making entremets of marchpane,' I couldn't help whispering excitedly to Hal. ‘We can save some for my horse, Othon. He loves sugar.'

‘What do I care about your horse?' he hissed back rudely. So he was just as stupid as ever.

Agnes wanted to put me to bed after we had eaten, but I begged to be allowed to sit a little, first mixing the men's wine so that my papa smiled at my grave new manners, and then leaning against him on the settle. The hall at Lusignan had a new fireplace, a huge stone chamber that could take a whole
tree, and the heat from the flames made me doze. I slipped in and out of dreams until I was roused by one of my father's mastiffs licking my hand, but something made me keep my eyes closed and let my head drop more heavily against his shoulder.

‘Do you think he will really do it?' my father was asking.

‘Of course. Look at her. He's known for it, after all,' replied Lord Hugh.

My father's rough hand stroked my cheek, I muttered something and twitched my face away as though he had disturbed my sleep. ‘Look at her, though. She's such a little maid.'

‘You thought her old enough for my boy.'

‘Indeed.'

‘And afterwards?'

‘We'll wait a while. And then, Duke Arthur knows what we wish.'

Why were they talking about me like this? And why Duke Arthur? Behind my eyelids the firelight glowed red. I was wide awake now, but I kept my breathing soft and regular. For a while there was no sound except the horn beakers on the trestle as the men drank their wine.

‘I regret La Marche. Sincerely I do,' Father began.

‘No matter. There will be other lands.'

What was my father talking about? La Marche was his county, our county. It had been ever since he had sworn loyalty to King John. La Marche was the reason I was betrothed, was it not? The county that had been contested between Lusignans and Taillefers for generations? When Hal married me, the Lusignan
lands, Angouleme and La Marche, would be joined together, creating one apanage for our children.

‘I think,' Lord Hugh was speaking now, ‘that she has been happy here. I hope she will be obedient.'

‘She is my daughter.'

And then the steward came to speak to Lord Hugh and my father picked me up in his arms and carried me to Agnes. He had not done such a thing since I was a tiny child. It had always been my mother who kissed me goodnight.

*

‘Oh, Lady Isabelle! Look! What are we to do?' Anges was distraught.

I had stopped my secret snipping when Othon came, indeed forgotten all about what I had done to my betrothal gown, and now here it was in tatters on my chamber floor.

‘There must have been mice,' said one of the maids.

‘I hated it anyway,' I said stubbornly. I was bad tempered because Agnes had made me have a bath, even though it was bright outside and the ground solid and I could have been riding.

‘Shame on you to speak like that of your mother's gift. And what are you to wear? You were to have new clothes at your birthday, all your other gowns are too short,' Agnes scolded.

‘You can't blame me for growing.'

Agnes put her hands on her hips. ‘Lady Isabelle. Today of all days, I will not have you being insolent. I will not have it, do you hear?'

‘What's so special about today?'

‘Never you mind. Now go and have your hair combed, you look like a beggar.'

I was sitting on a stool, muttering as the maid wrenched my stinging scalp this way and that, when Lord Hugh appeared. The maids were shocked to see him in my chamber. They leaped up, curtseying and blushing and apologizing all at once, whisking a napkin over the chamber pot and patting their half-pinned hair.

‘For you, Lady Isabelle. Excuse me,
mesdames
.' And he handed me a canvas parcel. Inside was a plain white dress, light silk, with no embroidery or ornament, and a pale fur mantle with a deep hood lined in green satin. They were pretty, but I did not think them very fine. ‘Dress her.'

The maids shuffled me behind the bed curtains and tugged on the gown.

‘Undo her hair,' Lord Hugh demanded. The maids did as they were told, looking puzzled. What was a man doing telling them how to dress me? ‘And this is for you, also, Lady Isabelle. You may go into the garden to play with Agnes when you are prepared.' He bowed to the girls, which made them blush all the more, and withdrew.

I looked at what he had handed me. It was a ball. A cloth ball of red and blue patches with silly brass bells on it, like a jongleur's cap. Why had he given me such a stupid toy? I had a horse and a falcon, what did I want with balls? I was mortified to think that Hal might see me with it when I had been plotting to astound him with my riding.