In Pursuit of the Green Lion by Judith Merkle Riley Read Free Book Online Page B

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