Philippa Gregory - Meridon

‘Start a book, for God’s sake,’ I hissed in an undertone. ‘And find someone to put money on me for you.’

‘No bets now,’ Robert said authoritatively. ‘We’ll start a proper book down at the field. Come on! Who’ll bring the horse?’

I watched as a stable lad ran to tack the horse up. It was a man’s saddle, and a whole tanner’s shop of leather to keep the poor beast from throwing his head up or pulling too hard, a martingale to keep him from bolting. Everything but a safety strap to bind the rider into the saddle. I slipped across the yard unnoticed.

‘My master don’t want that stuff on him,’ I said pleasantly to the lad. ‘He told me to tell you, just the saddle and the bridle with a simple bit. Not the rest of that stuff.’

The lad thought to argue, but I was gone before he could query the order. I followed the crowd down to the field. We picked up a good couple of dozen on the way. I saw Robert had got hold of a small weasel-faced man who was passing among the noisier famers and placing bets with them. The odds were getting better all the time. I took great care to walk in Robert’s shadow in mincing steps and keep my eyes on the backs of his heels.

In the field they formed into an expectant circle. The horse was led down the path from the inn, he jinked at the leaves rustling on the ground at his feet. The little lad at his head led him at arm’s length, wary of a sudden nip. The horse’s ears were laid back hard and his face was bony and ugly. His eyes were white all around.

‘Damn,’ Robert said softly. The horse was worse than he remembered.

I looked at him as he came towards me under the blue wintry sky and I smiled as if I was warmed through at the very sight of him. I knew him. I felt as if I had known him all my life. As if he had been my horse before I was born, as if he had been my mother’s horse, and her mother’s too. As if he and I had ridden on Wide ever since the world had been made.

‘Sea,’ I said softly, and stepped into the middle of the circle to wait for him.

I had forgotten my bonnet and he shied and wheeled as the ribbons were whipped by the wind. There was a chorus of ‘Look out! Mind his back legs!’ as he backed suddenly and three drunk young bloods swayed backwards out of harm’s way. But then I pulled my bonnet and my cap off too and felt the cold wind in my hair and on my face.

I stepped forward. Robert at my side took the reins from the stable lad and waited to help me up. There was a continual mutter of men placing bets behind me and some part of my mind knew that I was going to make Robert a small fortune this day, but the most important thing was that I was going to win Sea for my very own horse.

I went to his head; he sidled anxiously. Robert was holding the reins too tight, and he could sense the tension among all the people. Robert turned, waiting to throw me into the saddle; but I took a moment to stand absolutely still.

Sea dropped his head, Robert loosened his hard grip on the reins. Sea dropped his head towards me and put his long beautiful face towards me and snuffed powerfully at the front of my dress, at my face, and at my curly hair. Behind us there was a sudden rush of talk as the odds shortened and some people tried to recall bets which had not been recorded. I hardly heard them. I put a gentle hand up to his neck and touched him on that soft piece of warm skin behind the right ear and rubbed him as gentle as a mare her foal. He blew out, as if he had lost his fear and his anger and his remembered pain at that one touch and then I lifted my eyes to Robert and smiled at him and said, ‘I’ll go up now.’

He was too much of a showman to gawp at me, but his eyes were disbelieving as he nodded and clasped his hands together for my boot and threw me up, astride, into the saddle.

‘Stand aside,’ I said swiftly. It was as I had feared. At the touch of weight in the saddle the horse could remember nothing but the pain of breaking and the cruelty of training and the hard sharp joy of ripping back at the men who tormented him. He reared at once above Robert and only Robert’s quick cowardly dive to the ground and swift roll kept him out of range of those murderous hooves.

‘Catch him!’ screamed one man at the stable lad.

But Robert was on his feet. ‘Wait!’ he ordered. ‘There’s a bet on.’

I had clung like a louse when that white neck soared up. When he thudded down I had waited for him to rear again but it had not happened. I stayed as still as a novice rider. My weight was so light, compared to the fat farmers who had tried to train him, he might even think he had thrown me, and all I would have to do was to sit still for three minutes. I saw the man with the watch out of the corner of my eye and I hoped to God he was sober enough to see the moving hand crossing off the minutes.

The horse was frozen. I reached a hand down to his neck and I touched his warm satiny skin. At my touch the fretwork of muscles in his neck trembled as if a human touch was a gadfly.

‘Sea,’ I said softly. ‘Darling boy. Be still now. I am going to take you home.’

His ears went forward his head went up so that he was as trim and as proud as a statue of a horse. I touched him lightly with my heels and he moved forward in a fluid smooth stride. I checked him with a little weight on the reins and he stopped. I looked forward over his alert, forward-pointing ears and saw Robert Gower’s face blank with amazement, jaw dropped. I gave him a little smile of triumph and he recollected himself and looked correctly judicious and unsurprised.

‘Two and a half,’ the drunk with the watch said.

They stared at me as if they would have preferred to see me on the ground at their feet with my neck broken. I glanced around and saw the hungry faces of an audience, avid for a show. Any show.

‘Three,’ the drunk said solemnly. ‘Three minutes, definite. By my watch. Timed it myself.’

‘Fixed!’ bawled Mr Smythies. ‘The horse was trained to let the girl ride him. Damn me, I bet she isn’t even a girl but that dratted son of yours, Robert Gower! Fixed to make a fool of me and rob me of half a fortune!’

At his voice Sea went mad. He shot up on his hind legs so fast that I felt myself falling off the back and had to grab to the saddle to stay on his back and then he took two ludicrous strong strides still on his back legs, his hooves raking at the air. The men before us scattered, shouting in fright, and the noise made him worse. He plunged down, shoulder first to the ground, to throw me off, and I soared hopelessly over his head and smashed into the frosty ground with a blow which knocked the breath out of me, and my senses out of me.

When I came to, it was all over bar Mr Smythies’ complaints. I sat quietly, with my head between my knees dripping blood on to my new grey gown while Robert ticked off his winnings in the book. Once a man patted my bowed head and dropped a sixpence beside me, one man bent down and whispered an obscenity. I pocketed the sixpence – I was not that faint – and waited for the shiny topboots to shuffle past me and away. I lifted my head and saw Robert looking at me.

The little weasel man was counting up the take in a big book. Robert’s pockets were bulging. The little lad had hold of the horse again but was standing nervously waiting for someone to take him off him.

‘He’s mine,’ I said. My voice was croaky, I hawked up some blood from the back of my throat and spat it out, wiping my face on my shawl. As I got to my feet I found that I was badly bruised. I hobbled towards him, putting my hand out for the reins.

The stable lad handed him over with open relief. ‘You’ve got a shiner,’ he said.

I nodded. A haziness around everything warned me that one eye was closing fast. I patted it gently with the corner of my pinny which had been so clean and white this morning.