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

in the barn, he’s“—the old man hid his eyes in the crook of his arm—“dead.”
    Françoise stood motionless. “That’s not so,” she said with anger.
    “I found him there just now—dead as a stone.”
    Petite overturned the embroidery frame in her bolt for the barn. She hobbled across the farmyard on her crutch. May it not be true, may it not be true…Please, God, may it not be true.
    The barn door was agape. Petite stopped for a moment to catch her breath. The wind rustled in the trees. Three hens strutted close by, clucking, one eye to the sky. She thought she heard that low growl again and twirled, her heart racing. The shadow of a hawk skimmed the muddy yard.
    She stepped through the barn door.
    Her father was curled on the floor in his barn clothes, her brother kneeling beside him. Jean looked up, his eyes stricken.
    “He won’t talk,” he said, his voice strangled. He sat back against a wall. “I think he’s dead.”
    Petite steeled herself and looked at her father’s face. His eyes were half open, staring at Jean as if in surprise. His mouth was open too, but in a grimace of pain. She saw something dark on his lips. Blood.
    “And that horse of yours is gone,” Jean said.
    The gate to Diablo’s stall hung open. Petite looked back down at her father. Was he dead? She opened her mouth, but all that emerged was a choking sound.
    P ETITE HID IN the dovecote, crouching in the dark. The doves’ cooing paused, then started up again, a humming pulse. Her father was dead and Diablo had disappeared, and she knew she was somehow to blame. She wanted to cry, but could not. Her heart had turned to stone.
    “Come on out now, Mademoiselle,” she heard a man say. It was the old ploughman, standing in the sunlight. He brushed away a cobweb and stepped inside.
    “They’ve laid your father out in the house. He looks at peace,” he said. He took a deep, shaky breath. “Your brother’s gone to town for Curé Barouche. I thought you’d want to be there when he comes, to say the prayers and all.”
    Petite opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She felt as if she were retching air, as if she might choke.
    “Are you all right, child?” the ploughman asked, stepping in, looking down at her with puzzlement.
    Petite made fluttering finger motions in front of her lips. What was wrong with her? She opened and closed her mouth like a dying fish.
    “Can’t you talk?” he asked, laying his hand gently on her shoulder.
    Petite covered her face with her hands. Even her cries were silent.

Chapter Five
    S HORTLY AFTER THE FUNERAL , Françoise sent her son off to school in Paris. As the orphan of a cavalry officer who had been wounded at the Battle of Rocroi, he qualified for a scholarship to the Collège de Navarre. “Your father’s death got you in, but the rest will be up to you,” she instructed her son, closing his worn leather valise. “The highest nobility send their sons to the Collège de Navarre. Do what you can to befriend them.”
    She carried his valise out to the courtyard herself. He was being sent off on old Hongre. She had made a futile search for the White, hoping to trade the cursed beast for a roadworthy pony; now Hongre would have to do. It was a long trip, but the boy was light to carry. He and the tutor, ignobly mounted on the donkey, would take it in easy stages. At the end of the journey, the old horse would be sold for meat; she could not afford his keep.
    Jean grabbed on to the Hungarian’s thick mane and climbed up into the saddle. “Aren’t you even going to say farewell?” He made a monkey face at his sister.
    Petite put her hand on Hongre’s nose and stepped back.
    “What’s wrong with her? Why doesn’t she talk?” Jean asked.
    “It’s just an ague,” Françoise said, taking her daughter’s cold hand. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll manage.”
    She waved until she could see her son no more, then turned back to the house with Petite. She was not, in fact, the least