LITMIR.BIZ

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as the other boys were doing, the whole world a blur of green and blue and a pounding of hooves. It was the memorial to my father that the wretched ceremony by the grave in Calais had not been, this flying into the morning light, this certainty that in spite of everything it was worth going on living and breathing.

      For a few minutes fear, confusion and even grief itself were swept away in the sunlight and the rush of cool morning air against my face. I hardly needed to touch the rein because Rancie seemed responsive to my very thoughts. When the others drew up panting at the end of the gallop, her breath was coming as lightly as at the beginning. I found myself grinning with delight at one of the other riders, a red-haired lad with a pale face and no front teeth. He grinned back, saying something about her being a winner. I just remembered in time not to reply, and to pull the cap well down over my hair. We turned back to the stables in a line, some of the horses jogging and fidgeting from excitement, but Rancie walking calmly like the lady she was, between hedges thick with honeysuckle and clamorous with blackbirds.

      Amos was waiting outside the gate, looking down the lane for us. He walked alongside as we came back into the yard and caught me as I slid down from the saddle. My head only came up to his chest, and I was half smothered in the hay and fresh-sweat smell of him.

      ‘Best get her inside her box quickly, with all this pother going on.’

      The stableyard was in confusion. A large travelling carriage had arrived, dust covered and with candle-lamps still burning, as if it had driven all night. Four fine bay horses were being unharnessed from it and could hardly walk for weariness. The nearside front wheel was off and leaning against the drinking trough, its iron rim half torn away and several spokes broken.

      ‘What happened?’ I asked Amos, as we went across the yard.

      ‘Hit a tree a mile up the road. Driving too fast, he was, and …’

      He went on telling me, but I wasn’t listening because I’d noticed something on the door of the coach. An empty oval shape, framed with a wreath of gold leaves, waiting for a coat of arms to go inside it.

      ‘What’s the trouble, lad?’

      I suppose I must have stopped dead. Amos pushed me gently by the shoulder. Once the half-door of the loosebox had closed on us, he was all concern.

      ‘You look right dazzed, miss. Are you not well?’

      ‘Mr Legge, who does the carriage belong to?’

      ‘Two gentlemen from London, wanting to get to the hall. The fat one’s in a right miff because there’s nobody to get the wheel fettled. The guvnor’s sent a boy galloping for the wheelwright, but that’s not fast enough for him.’

      ‘Is he a very fat man, like a toad?’

      ‘If a toad could wear breeches and swear the air blue, yes, he is. You know him, miss?’

      ‘I think I might.’ I was sure of it, cold and trembling at the thought of being so near him again. ‘I don’t want him to see me. Where is he?’

      ‘In the guvnor’s office, last I saw. He was trying to convince the guvnor to take a wheel off one of his own carriages to put on the travelling coach. The guvnor offered him the use of his best barouche and horses instead and said he’d send the coach up to the hall later, but that wouldn’t answer. It’s the travelling coach or nothing.’

      ‘So he could be here for hours.’

      And me trapped in the loosebox in my boy’s clothes, with Betty and the rest wondering what had become of me, probably being found out and dismissed. All the time, Amos Legge was untacking and rugging up Rancie.

      ‘I’ll have a look for you, while I take this over. If he’s still going on at the guvnor, you can slip out like an eel in mud and he won’t notice.’

      He left with the saddle and bridle and I cowered back into the dark corner by the manger. He’d mentioned two gentlemen and I assumed the other one was the man who called himself Trumper. I feared him too, but not a fraction as much as the fat man.

      There was still a lot of noise and activity going on in the yard and a sound of hammering. Hurrying feet came and went on the cobbles by Rancie’s door, but nobody had any reason to look in. Amos seemed to have been gone for a long time. I’d almost decided to make a run for it, when the square of sunlight above the half-door was obscured by a figure in silhouette.

      ‘Mr Legge, thank good—’

      Then I shut my mouth because the person looking over the loosebox door wasn’t Amos Legge. He was shorter, not so broad in the shoulders, and must have approached very quietly because I hadn’t heard him until he was there.

      ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘Why are you hiding in there, boy?’

      Then he slid open the bolt on the half-door and walked a few steps inside the box.

      The voice was a high drawl. As he turned and the sunlight came on him I knew that I’d never seen him before. There was no doubt, though, that he was one of the two gentlemen just arrived from London. He walked delicately into the rustling straw, like a nervous bather testing the temperature of the sea with his toes, looking as if he’d just stepped off the pavement of Regent Street. He wore a plum-coloured coat, a waistcoat in plum and silver stripes, a white ruffled shirt and a silver-grey cravat with a ruby and diamond pin, breeches of finest buckskin and beautiful boots of chestnut leather, with soft tops ornamented with plum-coloured tassels to match the coat. He was about my age, soft and plump, with a clean-shaven, pale face as if he spent most of his days indoors, hair clubbed back under a high-crowned grey beaver hat with a big silver buckle. His eyes were pale blue and protruding, his expression vacant, but amiable enough. As he waited for an answer from me, he hitched up a coat-tail, reached into the pocket of it and brought out a round gold box with a diamond on top that flashed when the sun caught it. He opened the box, drew off a glove, ran his little finger round the contents of the box and applied it delicately to his rather full lips, pursing them in and out. Lip salve. The box went back into his coattail pocket.

      ‘What’s the trouble, boy? Lost your voice, have you?’

      Lucy the cat had jumped up to the manger as soon as he came in, but Rancie was unafraid and turned her head to see if he had a tidbit for her. He stroked her nose cautiously, but his eyes never left me.

      ‘What are you hiding from? Have you been a naughty boy? Threatened you with a beating, have they? Threatened you with a birching on the seat of your little pants?’

      His affected lisp made it ‘thweatened’. There was such a gloating in his voice that I was sure he’d discovered my secret and knew I was no boy. In my shame and confusion, I clamped my hands over the front of my breeches. He sniggered, a horse-like sound.

      ‘Pissed yourself, have you, boy? Is that what your trouble is? Oh naughty boy, naughty boy.’

      I thought he was taunting me. There was a strange greed in the pale eyes. I turned away, trying to cram myself into the dark corner, but he stepped towards me. His hand slid over my haunches, then round towards my belly. I opened my mouth to scream and closed it again, unwillingly gulping in the smell of him: bay-leaf pomade, starched linen, peppermint breath. Then a warmer, earthier smell as Rancie caught my fear, lifted her tail and splatted steaming turds on to the straw. I wriggled away from him and dodged under Rancie’s neck, putting her body between him and me. He came round behind her, still giggling.

      ‘Don’t be shy, boy. Don’t stand on ceremony.’

      He was between me and the door. I was too shamed to even think of screaming and had even taken hold of Rancie’s mane, wondering if somehow I could manage to clamber up on her back, when a larger shape appeared at the half-door.

      ‘You all right in there, boy?’

      Amos Legge, a pitchfork in hand. The word ‘boy’ that had sounded a slithery thing in the fashion plate’s voice was different and reassuring in his. I said ‘no’, trying to make it sound masculine and gruff, but the fashion plate’s high drawl cut across me, speaking

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