Philippa Gregory - The Favoured Child

‘You shall have a riding habit,’ Mama said softly to me when she kissed me goodnight. ‘I shall find an old gown of my sisters’ at Havering Hall. Or I shall make you a new one.’

‘You shall learn to ride,’ Richard promised me on the stairs as we went up to bed, our candle-flames bobbing in the draughts which came up the stairwell and through the gaps in the bare floorboards. ‘As soon as I have learned, I shall teach you, dear little Julia.’

Oh, thank you,’ I said and turned my face to him for his goodnight kiss. For once, instead of a token buss on the cheek, he kissed me tenderly on the lips.

‘Good Julia,’ he said sweetly, and I knew my refusal of lessons from my grandpapa had been seen and was being rewarded. Plentifully rewarded; for I would rather have had Richard’s love than anything else in the world.

2

Richard’s long-awaited first riding lesson was tedious for my grandfather, humiliating for Richard and two long hours of agony for me. At first I could not understand what was wrong.

When Richard went to mount the horse in the stable yard in the warm end-of-summer sunlight, I saw that his face was so white that the freckles on his nose were as startling as spots in an illness. His eyes were brilliant blue with a sheen on them like polished crystal. I thought he was excited. I thought he was bridle with excitement at the prospect of his first proper ride on a horse of his own.

Scheherazade knew better. She would not stand still when he put his foot to the stirrup, she wheeled in a nervous circle, her hooves sliding on the cobbles. She pulled at the bit while Dench was holding the reins, trying to steady her. She threw up her head and snorted. Richard, one foot up in the stirrup, one foot on the ground, hopped around trying to get up.

Grandpapa gave an unsympathetic ‘Tsk!’ under his breath and called to Dench, ‘Throw Master Richard up!’

Dench clapped two dirty hands under Richard’s hopping leg and threw him up with as little ceremony as if Richard were a sack of meal.

My grandpapa was mounted on his hunter, a beautiful dappled grey gelding which stood rock steady, like a statue of a horse in pale marble against the background of the green paddock and the rich whispering trees of the Havering-Wideacre woods.

‘Remember her mouth is soft,’ Grandpapa told Richard. ‘Think of the reins like silk ribbons. You must not pull too hard or you will break them. Use them to remind her what you want, but don’t pull. I said, “Don’t pull!”‘ he snapped as Scheherazade side-stepped nervously on the cobblestones and Richard jabbed at her mouth.

Dench put a hand out and held her above the bit without a word of prompting. I watched uncritically. I had never seen a novice rider before and I thought Richard looked as grand as a Sussex huntsman, as gallant as one of Arthur’s knights. I watched him with eyes glowing with adoration. Richard on his own could do no ill in my eyes; Richard on Scheherazade was a demigod.

‘Let’s walk out into the paddock,’ said my grandpapa. There was an edge to his voice.

Dench led Richard out behind Grandpapa, his steady hand on the reins. He was talking to Scheherazade as they went past me, and I sensed that Scheherazade was anxious and felt uneasy. Richard on her back felt insecure. His touch on the reins fidgeted her.

I waited until they were some paces ahead of me before following. I did not want Scheherazade unsettled by footsteps behind her. It was Richard’s first riding lesson and I wanted everything to be perfect for him.

But it was not. I sat on the ramshackle fence and watched my grandpapa riding his hunter around at a walk and a trot in a steady assured loop and circle, and then calling to Richard to follow him.

But Scheherazade would not go. When Dench released her she threw up her head as if Richard’s hands were heavy on the reins. When he squeezed her with his legs, she sidled, uneasy. When he touched, just touched, her flank with his whip, she backed infuriatingly, while Richard’s pallor turned to a scarlet flush with his rising temper. But she would not do as she was bid.

My grandpapa reined in his hunter and called instructions to Richard. ‘Be gentle with her! Gentle hands! Don’t touch her mouth! Squeeze with your legs, but don’t pull her back! No! Not like that! Relax your hands, Richard! Sit down deeper in the saddle! Be more certain with her! Tell her what you want! Oh, hell and damnation!’

He jumped down from his hunter then and strode towards Richard and Scheherazade, tugging his own horse behind him. He tossed his own reins to Dench, who stood stoical, his face showing nothing. Grandpapa pulled Richard down from Scheherazade like an angry landowner taking a village child out of an apple tree, and, spry as a young man, swung himself into the saddle.

‘Now, you listen here, Sally-me-girl,’ he said, his voice suddenly tender and warm again. ‘I won’t have this.’ And Scheherazade’s ears, which had been pointy and laid back, making her head all bony and ugly, suddenly swivelled around to face front again and her eyes glowed brown and stopped showing white rims.

‘Now, Richard,’ said Grandpapa, keeping his voice even. ‘Like I told you in the yard, if you pull on the reins, you mean “stop” or “back”.’ He lifted his hands a fraction and Scheherazade moved forward. He pulled his hands a shade back towards his body, and she stopped as soon as she felt the tension on the reins. He drew the reins towards him again and she placed one hoof behind the other, as pretty as a dancer, and backed for three or four steps.

‘If you squeeze her with your legs, that means “forward”,’ Grandpapa said. He dropped his hands and invisibly tensed his muscles. At once Scheherazade flowed forward in a smooth elegant gait. She was as lovely as a fountain in sunlight. She rippled over the ground in a wave of copper. I clasped my hands under my chin and watched her. I ached with love for her. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.

‘But if you tell her to stop and go at once, then you will muddle her,’ Grandpapa said, letting her walk the circle while he spoke. ‘She feels you telling her to stop, and she feels you telling her to go. That upsets her. You should always be clear with animals – with people too!’ he said with a wry grin, taking his attention from her for a fraction of a moment. ‘She’s got a lovely pace,’ he said. ‘She’s a sweet goer. But she needs gentleness. Sit down deep in the saddle so that she can feel you there. And tell her clearly what you want. She’ll do anything in the world for you if you treat her well.’

He brought Scheherazade up to a mincing halt beside Richard and swung himself down from the saddle. ‘Up you go, lad,’ he said gently. ‘She knows her business. But you have to learn yours.’

He helped Richard into the saddle, and Richard got one foot into the stirrup, but he could not find the stirrup on the far side. He dug for it with his toe, trying to get his foot into the metal loop. Scheherazade at once side-stepped and bumped my grandpapa, who swore.

‘Calm down!’ he said to horse and rider. ‘You two will have to learn to calm down together. You are like a pair of violin strings wound too tight. What the hell’s the matter with your stirrup, Richard?’

‘Nothing, sir,’ Richard said; his voice was thin. It was the first thing I had heard him say since he had mounted, and with a shock I realized his voice was strained and he sounded afraid. ‘I could not find it at first,’ he said, ‘but I have it now.’

‘Well, learn to find it without digging your toe into her,’ Grandpapa said unsympathetically. ‘Don’t bother the animal. She needs to be gentled. Not kicked about.’ He twitched the reins out of Dench’s hands and a look passed between them which I was too far away to read. Dench turned and came towards me, his face as expressive as a lump of chalk.