Philippa Gregory - Meridon

‘Pretend falls,’ Jack said, his eyes warm on me. ‘And they wouldn’t hurt. And then she could get up on the big horse, and do a bit of bareback work.’

Robert looked at me speculatively.

‘Bareback work in the breeches,’ he said. ‘The riding and clowning in a riding habit. That’d look better dressed as a girl. Two acts and only half a costume change.’ He nodded. ‘Would you like to do that, Meridon?’ he asked. ‘I’d pay you.’

‘How much?’ I said instantly.

‘Ha’penny a show, penny a night,’ he said.

‘Penny a show,’ I said at once.

‘Penny a day whether we have a show or not,’ he offered, and I stuck my grimy hand across the table and we closed the deal.

My training started the next day. I had seen Jack vaulting on and off the big skewbald horse, and I had ridden her often enough. But I had never tried to stand up on her. Robert set her cantering around the field and Jack and I rode astride together, me sitting before him. Then he got to his feet and tried to help me up. The pace, which seemed as smooth and as easy as a rocking chair when I had been seated on her back, was suddenly as jolting as a cart over cobbles. With a helpless wail I went off first one side, and then the other. And one time, earning myself a handful of curses and a cuff on the ear from Jack, I knocked him off the back of the horse as I went.

Robert called the practice to a halt when I had managed to get up and stand for a few seconds. ‘Do it again tomorrow,’ he said, as mean with praise as ever. ‘Not bad.’

Jack and I went down to the river together and stripped off down to our sweat-stained shirts, and waded into the water to cool our bruises and our tempers. I floated on my back in the sweet water and looked up at the blue sky. It was September and still as hot as high summer. My pale limbs in the water were as white as a drowned man. I kicked a fountain of spray upwards and then looked at my feet with the ingrained dirt around the toenails with no sense of shame. I turned on my front and dipped my face into the water and then dived right under until I could feel the cold water seeping through my curls to my scalp. That made me shudder and I surfaced again, kicking and blowing out, and shaking the wet hair out of my eyes. Jack was out already, lying on the grassy bank in his breeches, watching me.

I came out of the water and it flowed in streams down my neck. The shirt was slick and cold against me and Jack’s eyes followed the little rivulets of water down over my slight breasts where the nipples stood out against the wet thin fabric, down to the crotch of my legs where the shadow of copper hair showed dark under the cloth.

‘D’you not mind working as hard as a lad when you’re growing into a woman?’ he asked idly.

‘No,’ I said shortly. ‘I’d rather be treated as a lad by your father and you.’

Jack smiled his hot smile. ‘By my father, yes possibly. But by me? Wouldn’t you like me to see you as a young woman?’

I walked steadily on the sharp stones at the river edge on my hardened feet and picked up my jerkin and pulled it on. I was still bare-arsed but Jack’s knowing smile had never caused me any discomfort and I was untroubled by his sudden interest in me.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ve seen how you are with women.’

His hand waved them away down river. ‘Those!’ he said dismissively. ‘Those are just sluts from the villages. I would not treat you in the way I treat them. You’d be a prize worth taking, Meridon. You in your funny breeches and my cut-down shirts. I’d like to make you glad to be born a woman. I’d like you to grow your hair to please me.’

I turned and looked at him in frank surprise.

‘Why?’ I said.

He shrugged, half moody, half wilful. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You never look twice at me. You never have looked twice at me. All this morning you have been in my arms and you have clung to me to save yourself from falling. All this morning you have had your body pressed tight against mine and I was feeling you, aye – and wanting you! And then you strip your clothes off in front of me and get into the water as if I was nothing more than one of the horses!’

I stood up and pulled on my breeches. ‘D’you remember what your da said to Dandy our first evening?’ I asked. ‘I do. He warned her off you. He told her and he told me that he had a good marriage in mind for you and that if she ever became your lover he’d leave her on the road. She’s not looked at you since that evening, and neither have I.’

‘She!’ he said in the same voice as he had spoken of the village girls. ‘She’d come fast enough to my whistle. I know that. But don’t tell me that you don’t think of me to please my da, because I don’t believe it.’

‘No’, I said truthfully, careless of vanity. ‘No, it’s not the reason. I don’t think of you because I have no interest in you. It’s true: I don’t think of you any more than I do the horses.’ I considered him for a moment, and then some spark of devilry prompted me to say, absolutely straight-faced, ‘Actually, I think I like Snow better.’

He stared at me incredulous for a moment, then with one graceful easy movement he jumped to his feet and walked away from me. ‘Gypsy brat,’ he said under his breath as he went away. I dropped back down on the bank and watched the sunshine on the ripples of the river and waited until he was well out of earshot before I laughed aloud.

He did not bear me a grudge for that insult, for the next day he held me as firmly and as fairly as he had done the day before. It was my fault that I fell more and more often, and my fault when he lost his balance and fell backwards off the horse, and fell hard too, and hit his head.

‘Clumsy wench!’ Robert had scolded me, and clouted me lightly on my ear which made my own head ring. ‘Why don’t you lean back and let Jack guide you like you were doing yesterday? He’s had the practice. He’s got the balance. Let him take you. Don’t keep trying to pull away and stand on your own!’

Jack was holding his head in his hands but he looked up at that and he smiled at me ruefully. ‘Is that what’s going wrong?’ he asked frankly. ‘You won’t lean back against me?’

I nodded. His black eyes smiled into my green ones.

‘Oh forget it!’ he said gently. ‘Forget I ever said it. I can’t go on falling off a horse all morning. Let’s just do the act, shall we?’

Robert looked from one to the other of us. ‘Have you two had a fight?’ he demanded.

We were both silent.

He took three steps away from us and then turned and came back. His face was stony. ‘Now look here, you two,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you this once, and it’s the only time. Whatever goes on outside the ring, or even behind the screen, once you are in the ring and up on the horse you are working. I don’t care if you take an axe to each other when your act is over. You can’t work for me unless you take this seriously. And you are not serious unless you forget everything – everything – but your act.’

We nodded. Robert could be very impressive when he chose. ‘Now have another try,’ he said, and cracked the whip and called to Bluebell to canter.

Jack vaulted up and went astride her and put his hand out to catch me and pull me up before him. He held the leather strap and got to his feet, his bare toes splayed out on Bluebell’s sweaty white and brown back. Then I felt his hard hand clutching in my armpit and I got up to my feet, gracelessly bow-legged, and then, while Robert shouted encouragement and abuse, I cautiously straightened my knees and leaned back towards Jack and let his body guide mine and his arm steady me. We did one whole circle without falling and then Jack let me jump down with a triumphant yell and somersaulted off himself.