In Pursuit of the Green Lion (5 page)

But his reverie was interrupted by the sound of shrill little voices, and the snorting, rumbling sound of a stallion that has been disturbed. Peasant brats in the stallion pens? No, by God, the widow’s brats.

“Bring the oat pan and stick it through the gate, Alison, and when he comes near the wall and puts his head down, I’ll get on. Then you open the gate. All right?” It was the bigger one speaking. How old was she? All children looked the same age: small. Hadn’t her mother said she was nearly six? She had clambered up to the top of the stone wall of the black stud’s pen like a monkey, sticking her toes in the cracks, and now he could see her curly red head emerging at the top of the wall as she got ready to drop on the stallion’s back. The little figure stood out against the morning sky, cloakless and barefooted, as she crouched like a cat getting ready to pounce. Damn her, Urgan was roused up; he might fling himself against the wall and take an injury. The little one, bundled up in a cloak with a pointed hood, stood in the mud before the gate.

“Now, Alison, open the latch and run back!” the thin little voice called. The stallion snorted, threw his head up, and rolled his eyes wildly as the tiny creature dropped on his back. He was preparing to smash her against the wall when the gate clicked open, and instead he smashed his heavy chest into it, banging it open so that it crushed Alison into the mud.

“Cecily, no-o-o-o-o!” he heard the belated cry from the distant upstairs window. For some reason the high, thin cry spooked the stallion, who changed his strategy of dealing death to one of flight.

“Head him off!” Sir Hubert shouted to the groom, and clapped spurs to the wretched gelding. The boldness of the brat was extraordinary: she hadn’t a hope of clinging to the huge barrel with her short legs. It was all balance and hands—she’d tangled them deep in the stallion’s mane and was holding on for dear life. But it couldn’t last long. At every stride, she was thrown in the air; the slightest mishap and she’d be under the slashing hooves. She looked straight ahead, her eyes glassy with determination and terror. The black was headed for the wide, stony-bottomed brook that meandered across the meadow and gave Brokesford its name. At this speed, and with the slippery snow patches still on the ground, the horse would fall and break his neck, and very likely kill the little rider into the bargain. Sir Hubert came in at a full gallop from the stallion’s left side, and for a moment pulled even with the frantic stud. The stallion’s frothy flanks were heaving; his eyes rolled crazily. Great conformation, rotten temperament, was the old knight’s thought, at the very moment when he snatched the brat off by the back of her gown and threw her across the withers of his roan. And as his prize stud ran insanely on toward the brook, the ungrateful little bundle lying in front of him squeaked,

“Put me
down!
I was doing
fine!”

“Fine indeed, you little monster, you’ve killed my stud. And if you weren’t worth eight hundred pounds to me, I’d wring your neck right here!”

It was prophecy. The stallion careened crazily into the water, slipped and fell, and didn’t rise again. He was thrashing and squealing in the water, raising his head up frantically, his eyes terrified. Cries could be heard as people ran from the house, and when the groom pulled up, Sir Hubert was already dismounted. He was deep in the muddy brook, all mucked up with mud and blood, trying to hold the immense horse’s slippery, wet thrashing head.

“Leg’s broken,” he shouted to the groom. “Hand me your knife; I have to cut his throat.” It was something he’d done often enough on the battlefield—in fact, it was the only time anyone had ever seen him weep. But to put down a destrier at home, the best he’d ever put good money on, why, that filled him with an explosion of rage and grief. He was crazy with the loss and the stupidity of it, so crazy there was no telling just what he’d do. The groom hesitated a moment at the order. The stud was the best-looking thing Sir Hubert had ever brought onto the place. Even though he knew better, the groom said, “Are you sure, sir?”

“Goddamn it, I know a broken leg when I see one. Hand me that knife.” This morning, the best-looking horse in twenty miles. This afternoon, dog meat. Sir Hubert felt something running down his face, and that sign of weakness made him angrier than ever. The groom waded out into the water, trying to avoid slipping on the rocks beside nearly a ton of thrashing, bloody horse-flesh, and slashing hooves that could crush a man’s rib cage at a single blow. Whatever madness had possessed the old knight, that he could not wait for the great horse to exhaust himself before he dispatched him? Still, it was not his job to question. But as the groom finally managed to extend the knife, handle first, to his master, the horse threw his head and knocked it spinning irretrievably into the water.

With an oath, the old man tried to grab the slippery neck with one hand while he reached for his own knife with the other: the very move he’d tried to avoid by getting the groom’s knife ready to hand. He lost both, for when the creature felt the grip on his head slacken, he gave a heave that half lifted his whole body out of the water, and somehow threw Sir Hubert off balance so that he slid partly beneath the destrier in the icy water, where the animal’s vast, writhing bulk threatened to pin him and drown him.

“Sir, sir!” cried the groom, and grabbed at the old knight’s shoulders, trying to pull him loose and out of danger. “Help me, help me! My lord is pinned down!” Two more grooms, who had run to the scene, splashed into the brook to retrieve their master. Dark figures could be seen in the distance, hurrying to the brook. Cecily stood silently by the bank, not moving, gazing with awestruck fascination at the catastrophe she had set in motion. Then Gregory’s voice barked over the commotion:

“Get him out on the bank! Wrap him in my cloak!”

“Wrap
who?
You’re not wrapping me in anything yet, you whelp!” shouted the old man through his chattering teeth.

“For God’s sake, dry off, Father, before you get sick. I’ll put the stud down.”

“You’ll put him down? YOU? I won’t give you the PLEASURE! Bookworm! I do my own dirty work. That’s a knight’s horse, and a knight will put him down!”

By this time Margaret, hastily dressed, head bare and her hair wild behind her, had run to see to her children. She reached the brook dragging a mud-caked, sobbing little girl behind her. When she had seen Alison’s face, crimson and swollen with rage, and heard her howl: “I didn’t get
my
turn! Cecily cheated!” she had known immediately that the child was entirely whole. Now she briefly inspected her oldest child before she assessed the chaotic scene at the edge of the brook. Well, all too well, was Margaret’s thought, as her narrowed eyes looked shrewdly at the pensive, barefooted little figure taking in the scene with wide eyes. The little girl was stiff with delight at the complex train of events she had set in motion. Gregory and his father were fighting on the bank, the grooms stood immobilized, and at the center of the brook, in two and a half feet of muddy, churning water, the bleeding, heaving flanks of the pride of Brokesford Manor were laid sidewise on the sharp stones of the brook. Margaret took in at a glance the rolling, hysterical eyes of the terrified stallion, and waded unhesitatingly into the freezing water.

“Get away, Margaret, you’ll be killed!” Gregory shouted, now distracted from the battle with his father.

“He’s hurt,” called Margaret, without stopping.

“Of course he’s hurt, you idiot woman. Your brat has broken his leg and cost him his life,” cried Sir Hubert.

“Maybe not broken …” Margaret’s voice was carried away by the wind. She had got to his head, and made a low, chirruping sound as she grabbed the creature’s long muzzle.

“What the hell do YOU know about horses? I’ve seen you ride—like a peasant on top of his grain sacks, poking along on his nag to market. Get away and let me do my job.” The Sieur de Vilers had got another knife, and was wading back into the water. The destrier’s eyes had quit rolling, as she stroked his head and spoke quietly to him. But the massive black flanks were still quivering in terror. Margaret gingerly worked her way around the huge chest, and her hand slipped under the water, carefully feeling the length of the deadly forelegs. “Now, now,” she crooned as her hand felt for the injury. Her lips were turning blue with cold. “Here it is. Both bones,” she said softly to herself. “And caught—here.”

She bent over, and an arm went nearly to the shoulder into the water. The horse hadn’t moved. Neither had anyone else, for fear he would take fright, lash out, and split her head open. Even the Sieur de Vilers stood, frozen still, the knife in his hand, as the water rushed around his legs. She was doing something under the water, he couldn’t quite see what, and then heaving with both hands, gritting her teeth with the effort. Suddenly she turned her face toward him. Her hair was blowing crazily about her shoulders, and the way her hazel eyes caught the light, they glistened yellow for a moment. Like a falcon’s, thought Sir Hubert, and he tried to remember just where it was long ago, in a distant place, on another face, that he had seen that look before.

“Help me get him to his feet,” she said to the old lord. And with that quiet, precise movement that all great horsemen have, he sheathed the knife and stepped to her side. Together they threw their weight against the stallion and lifted his head. With a kind of groaning squeal he heaved up and righted himself, as they drew back. Sir Hubert threw his belt over the stallion’s neck and led him, badly limping with each step, to the bank.

“Get back, the lot of you.” The Sieur de Vilers’s voice was hoarse and quiet. “Go home, make up the fire, and get those brats out of here. I’m taking him to the stable myself.” He gritted his teeth against the cold. The woman, he saw, was blue around the mouth, but wouldn’t leave the stallion’s head. Her long, wet kirtle clung about her knees, and its long sleeves dripped. Another time, and he’d have ordered her beaten for appearing half naked like that, without a surcoat and a decent head-covering, the laces of her heavy wool gown showing indecently up her back. But this time he looked at her, shaking with cold, and said, “You go home too. You’re frozen.”

“No,” she said quietly, “he’s still frightened.”

Together they walked him back and shut him in his big stall. Sir Hubert himself found his halter and tied his head, then called for the grooms to check his wounds and clean off the mud. He stood back and looked at the bad leg. The destrier was holding it so only a tip of the huge hoof touched the ground.

“He’s ruined,” said the old lord, shaking his head. “No foot, no horse. And I’ve no guarantee he’ll breed well.”

“I can stay, and look to the leg.”

“You’ll stay nowhere. You’re frozen through. Let John look to him.” Gregory’s cloak was still over the old knight’s shoulders. It was only damp at the hem. He took it off and put it over her shivering figure. “City bred. No sticking power,” he said.

The fire in the hall was piled high with new wood and smoking heavily when they entered at last. Two grooms stripped the old lord naked, right there before the fire, and dressed him in a heavy wool gown and fur lined
robe de chambre
of an unusual richness for this austere place. Warmed and seated, he looked curiously at Margaret. Suddenly she remembered her hair wasn’t properly covered, and she was dressed only in her long, dark kirtle, and in spite of the cold she blushed crimson.

“You haven’t a maid,” he said, looking at her clutching Gregory’s old cloak over her soaking dress. She looked at the floor. “And you’re not in bed. Gilbert has a weak hand, evidently.” He called his steward and spoke to him. The man went upstairs and returned with another
robe de chambre
, a woman’s. It was heavy crimson, stiff with gold and silver embroidery, and lined with sable. Sir Hubert pointed to her wordlessly, and the steward lifted off the cloak and put it on her. The old lord could see her fingering the embroidery.

“French,” he said. “Spoils of war. It’s yours. Haven’t made you a wedding present yet. Cold in here.”

“Merci, beau-père,”she
said. He stared at the fire awhile.

“And now, madame, there is the question of your daughters.” She looked at his huge hands.

“Don’t hit them; you’ll kill them,” she said.

“I assure you, madame, I have no intention of causing them permanent damage. It would mar their marriageability and delay their exit from my house.” She looked silently at the floor.

“I suppose you’ve never struck them. It’s a problem that weak-minded women have. My late wife, for example, who was as weak-minded as they come. ‘Don’t hit the baby,’ she’d wail, ‘what if he died?’ ‘But what, madame, if he lives, and you raise a little monster?’ Then every time the baby takes ill, they moan that it’s because you hit him. That, woman, is how brats are made. Women, children, dogs, and fruit trees all need regular beatings.” He looked fiercely at her.

“My girls are good girls.” She looked fiercely back, and he could see the flicker of gold in her eyes again.

“The signs are plain, madame. Your children lack discipline.” It was so quiet in the room, he could hear her breathing.

“Children are not unknown to pay with their lives for their failure to heed their elders,” he added, and he saw the flicker weaken.

“Not too many.”

“Five for the big one, three for the little one.”

“She didn’t do anything—she’s only a baby.” By this time the girls had been brought in and stood before the old lord. They were listening to everything.

“I distinctly saw her holding the oat pan, madame.”

“Not so many, then. She doesn’t understand what she did.”

“Three and one. And there I stick.” Everyone in the hall was listening. They’d never heard of such a thing before. A villein’s child who’d done such a thing would be beaten to death by the grooms in the courtyard. Even a son of the house might expect a great deal more. And here was this woman, with eyes unlowered, facing down the old lord’s justice. It was something to be talked about for many years after at the firesides of the little houses in the village.