Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland Read Free Book Online Page A

lowered its head, its little pig eyes on her, one of its tusks bright with blood. Petite pressed her face into the dirt. It would kill her.
    She felt the earth shake and heard thudding, and she looked up. Diablo was facing the boar, rearing and striking. With each blow, the boar grunted and staggered back. Then Diablo twirled and kicked out, catching the beast square in the head.
    Even the birds were silent. Diablo ambled up to the boar’s body, sniffed it, then turned back to Petite. She signalled him to kneel and, almost swooning from pain, she draped herself over his back. He headed slowly down the path, toward home.
    I N THE LONG WEEKS that followed, Petite didn’t know what was worse: her mother’s fretful tongue-lashing or the painful ministrations of the town surgeon, who first braced her broken ankle to make it straight and then bled her from the foot.For over two weeks she lay on the daybed in the sitting room, her injured leg encased in splints and propped up on pillows. The days were long. Were it not for her father’s tutoring (he had decided to teach her to read Latin), she would have been unspeakably bored.
    And then, for over a month, she endured hobbling about the house on crutches, her leg strapped to boards. At long last, the splints came off. Leaning on a hickory crutch, she eased her weight onto both legs. She felt lopsided.
    “Like the village idiot,” Jean taunted.
    “Son,” Laurent said in his warning voice.
    Françoise burst into tears.
    Petite turned to face her mother. If only she could calm her as easily as she could calm a horse. The horrid brace was finally off and she was standing, at least. She took two careful steps.
    “Why couldn’t that surgeon have set it right, Laurent?” Françoise said. “We paid him good money.”
    “She will be fine, Françoise.”
    “But her left leg is short : she’ll walk with a limp.”
    “She just needs a little practice. How does it feel, little one?” Laurent asked.
    “It doesn’t hurt,” Petite lied. “May I ride Diablo now?”
    “You’re never to get on that horse again,” Françoise said.
    Laurent objected. “The White saved our daughter’s life.”
    “I begin to think you’re both bewitched,” Françoise said, stirringthe fire with tongs. “Nothing would have happened if she’d been at her needlework.”
    “Françoise, calm—”
    Françoise banged the tongs onto the stone hearth. “Don’t you be saying calm to me, Laurent. Nothing has gone right since you brought that horse home. First, you and your pains, and now our daughter with a limp. That horse brought a curse down on our house, and you know it.”
    P ETITE WAS AT her embroidery frame in the sitting room when she heard a knock at the door. She was supposed to have been reciting the ten commandments as she worked (no false gods , no misuse of God’s name , honor the Sabbath , honor my father and mother , no murder , no adultery , no theft…) , but instead she’d been dreaming of Diablo, imagining racing him at the village fair next week and winning the prize. She would give the money to her mother, and her mother would praise Diablo (as well as her).
    The knocking kept up, insistent.
    “I’ll get it, Mother,” Petite called out, looking for her crutch. It was a special day, the fifth of September, and she thought the knocking might have something to do with that. Today, the King turned thirteen. It was the day of his majority, her father had explained that morning before prayers: on this day the Queen Mother would kneel down before her son and kiss his hand. Even in their faraway village, celebrations were being planned.
    “What a racket.” Françoise came down the spiral stairs and reached the door first. It was the old ploughman, clutching the rim of his torn felt hat. “You need not pound the door,” she said. “And you’re to come to the back.”
    “Madame, I did, but nobody answered, so I came round to the front. It’s Monsieur de la Vallière, he’s