Meridon - Philippa Gregory

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      ‘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.

      ‘I thought it was fixed till I saw you come off like that,’ he said.

      I tried to smile, but it was too painful. ‘It wasn’t fixed,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen the horse before.’

      ‘What’ll you do with him now?’ he demanded. ‘How will you keep him?’

      ‘You’ll feed him with the others, won’t you Mr Gower?’ I said, turning to Robert. There were still a few stragglers leaving the field. They waited for his reply. But I think he’d have treated me fairly even without witnesses.

      ‘I said you could have him if you could stay on him,’ he said. ‘I’ll feed him and shoe him, for you. Aye and I’ll buy you tack for him as well. That do you, Meridon?’

      I smiled at that and felt the bloodstained skin crack around my eye.

      ‘Yes,’ I said. Then I put one hand on Sea’s neck for support, and started to hobble from the field.

       Chapter 9

      Robert sent me back to the inn where we had left the whisky cart and I led Sea into a loose box and curled up in the corner myself on a bale of straw, too tired and too battered and bruised to care where I was; and much too shy and dirty to order myself a hot drink and my dinner in the parlour as Robert had instructed. Hours later, when the stable was getting dark and the cold winter twilight was closing the horse fair, he came clattering into the yard with two big horses and three little ponies tied reins to tail behind him.

      I stumbled to my feet as groggy and weary as if I had been riding all day and peered over the stable door. Sea blew gently down my neck.

      ‘Good God,’ Robert said. ‘You look like a little witch, Merry. Stick your head under the pump for the Lord’s sake. I can’t take you home like that.’

      I put my hand up to my head and found my cap was lost and my curls all matted with dried blood. The eye which I had bruised was almost closed, and smeared all around my mouth and nose was dried blood.

      ‘Are you badly hurt?’ Robert asked as I came carefully out of the stable.

      ‘No,’ I said. ‘It probably looks worse than it is.’

      He shouted for a stable lad and tossed the reins of the two big horses towards him.

      ‘Come here,’ he said gruffly, and worked the pump for me as I dipped my head underneath it.

      The icy water hit me like a blow and rushed into my ear and made me gasp with shock. But I felt better as soon as my face was clean. I rinsed most of the blood out of my hair as well.

      Robert sent another lad running for a kitchen towel and I rubbed my hair dry. I was shivering with the cold and I had horrid trickles of icy water running down my neck inside my gown, but at least I had woken up and felt fit enough to face the drive home.

      ‘Or do you want me to ride?’ I asked, eyeing the string of horses we had to get home somehow.

      ‘Nay,’ Robert said contentedly. ‘You’ve done a day and a half’s work today, Merry, and I’m better pleased with you than I ever have been with any living soul, and that’s the truth. You won me £300 in bets, Merry, and it’s a gamble I’d never have dared take if you hadn’t urged me to it. I’m obliged to you. You can have your horse with my blessing, and I’ll give you ten guineas for your bottom drawer as well. You’re a fine lass. I wish I had a dozen of you.’

      I beamed back at him, then I shivered a little because with the falling darkness a cold breeze had sprung up.

      ‘Let’s get you home,’ Robert said kindly; and he sent the lad back inside to borrow a couple of blankets and wrapped me up on the seat of the whisky as if I were a favoured child instead of the hired help.

      He decided against bringing all the horses home in the dark on his own. He tied only the big horses on the back of the carriage with Sea tied behind as well, and ordered stabling for the ponies overnight. Then he swung himself up beside me, clicked to Bluebell and we set off for home in the fading light.

      He hummed quietly under his breath as we left the outskirts of the town and then he said abruptly to me:

      ‘Did you do that with your da, Merry? Take a wager on your riding and then gull people out of their money?’

      ‘Sometimes,’ I said cautiously. I was not sure if he would approve. ‘But, often it was too well known that I trained horses for my da and so people wouldn’t bet heavily like they did today.’ I shrugged. ‘I looked different, too,’ I said. ‘Today I looked like a housemaid. With Da I always looked like a gypsy.’

      Robert nodded. ‘I’ve never made so much money in one day in my life,’ he said. ‘I’d give half of it away if I could do it again.’

      I shook my head regretfully. ‘I couldn’t do it with any other horse,’ I said. ‘It would be a grand trick to earn money. But Sea was special. I knew he was my horse the moment I saw him. I knew he would not hurt me.’

      Robert glanced at my battered face. ‘You hardly came off scot-free,’ he observed.

      I made a little grimace. ‘That was because he heard that horrid man’s voice,’ I said. ‘It scared him all over again. But he was all right with me.’

      Robert nodded and said nothing as the horse trotted between the shafts and the light from the lamps on either side of the cart dipped and flickered. It was growing darker all the time, I heard an owl hoot warningly. The moon was coming up, thin and very pale, like a rind of goat cheese.

      ‘What about an act where we challenge all comers to ride him?’ Robert said slowly, thinking aloud. ‘Outside the field, before the show starts. We could call him the killer stallion and challenge people to stay on his back. Charge them say tuppence a try, with a purse if they stay on for more than a minute.’

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