THAT WAS THE DAY WHEN I BEGAN TO GROW UP. IT was not until both my parents had left me that I truly understood that I should not be going back to Angouleme for a long, long time. I tried to make a painting in my mind, like the coloured stories on church walls, to fix my city there forever. Before I slept in my new room at Lusignan, after I had said my prayers, I would screw my eyes up tight and figure it behind them, the sounds of the men heaving loads from the barges at the river port, the bells of the abbey and the convent, which never chimed the canonical hours at quite the same time, the ancient carving in one of the towers where a man’s leg stuck out strangely as though there was a figure imprisoned in the stone. I knew that the leg had belonged to Clovis, the first king of all France, who had been wounded in one of the many battles my city had withstood. In memory, I listened for the waterwheels of the mills and the strange singing that came on Fridays from the little building where the Jewish merchants, with their odd tall hats, had made their church. I painted our river, the Charente, in all its seasons, from the low, heavy floods of winter to the onde allegre of the springtime rapids. It felt very grand to me that I could bring peace through my betrothal, even if it meant marrying the dreadful Hal, but if I was to be a Lusignan lady I would keep Angouleme inside me, guarding it like a dragon’s hoard.
From the moment my mother left Lusignan, I became as docile a bride-in-waiting as Agnes could wish. I no longer scampered about the gardens, muddying my slippers and tearing my gowns. Agnes was no longer obliged to struggle after me as I played at crusading, or tend my scratches when I fell out of an apple tree. I asked her to twist up my fair braids into two prim knots behind my ears and, though I was not yet married, I instructed the maids to sew me short linen coifs to cover my hair. After hearing Mass each morning with the household we would take a quiet walk along the castle’s perimeter then sit quietly over our sewing in the boudoir that had been my mother’s while Lord Hugh’s chaplain read aloud to us. I saw the maids nodding but sometimes the plain shirts we stitched for the poor had little flowers of blood on them where they pricked their fingers to keep awake. I remained alert and upright, only raising my eyes now and then to the clerk when I thought his droning might be something particularly holy. In fact, I could barely make out a word of the Latin and sewing bored me so much I should happily have given all my own fine clothes to the poor if it spared me having to make for them but I could see how pleased Agnes was with the good example I was setting, and I dearly wanted to please her, for she was all I had left of Angouleme.
At least, I dearly wanted to please her during those hours. I sensed rather than knew it, but it seemed to me that men could divide themselves as neatly as a cook quartering an apple. Lusignan swarmed with secrets, with whispered conversations between Lord Hugh’s squires, messengers arriving late in the night, a parchment concealed in the chaplain’s sleeve, a keening bare-chested man, his back ragged with lashes, whom I saw through my window being dragged through the inner courtyard between two guards as Lord Hugh walked grim faced before him. A little later, as I watched, he returned, rinsing his hands in a ewer and stripping off his bloodied shirt so that the sun gleamed on the pelt of dark hair that covered his back.
In my new, quiet, modest role as Lusignan bride, I learned that a sober countenance and a quiet step were excellent disguises for gleaning knowledge and, I learned, by watching and listening and minding my needle, that the Angevin lands were gravely contested, that the English counties of Anjou and Maine had been declared for the French king and that Arthur of Brittany was planning to claim his uncle’s throne. I learned that Lord Hugh was feared, and that he was considered ruthless and greedy for power but, subtle as the serpent he wore at his throat, neither John nor Philip knew which way he would turn his fealty. Yet to me, Lord Hugh remained as cool and courteous as the day I had drawn blood from his son’s hand. When we dined or listened to the musicians in the solar he seemed always entirely self-possessed, as though the creeping armies of the two kings, whose men seeped towards one another over the lands of France like rivulets of flood water, were of as little concern to him as the gossiping of the castle washerwomen. So if men could be one thing, and seem another, then why could not I?
Lord Hugh was fond of me, I knew it. He liked what he called my ‘pretty ways’: how I would rub my cheek against his sleeve and curl up like a kitten in his lap. He admired the grace of my posture and the elegance of my gowns and told me that his son would be a lucky man to have such a beautiful girl as a wife. When he was occupied I was invisible, but in the rare hours he spent at Lusignan he liked me beside him and I studied to please him, learning the Occitan songs he liked from his lutenist or asking him grave questions about the history of his lands, listening to the answers with my head cocked to one side, bright-eyed as a fledgeling. One hot evening in July, I told his steward that I thought Lord Hugh should like to dine outdoors and had trestles brought into the walled garden so that we could eat chilled almond soup and sweet orange-fleshed melons in the shade. I forced the maids to brave the mosquitoes in the river meadows to pick trefoil and bryony – they grumbled about the mosquitoes that bit – and scatter the yellow and purple blossoms over the white tablecloth. I mixed Lord Hugh’s wine myself and attended him as dutifully as I should have my own father.
‘Very charming, Isabelle. We might be fairies at a hunting party, eh?’
‘I should like to go hunting, Lord Hugh. I should learn to ride, should I not?’
‘Quite right, I’ll enquire. We’ll find you a nice quiet palfrey, we don’t want to scare Agnes.’
I wriggled into his lap and twined my fingers around the serpent brooch. ‘I don’t want a nice quiet palfrey, Lord Hugh, I want a real horse.’
He drew back his head and looked at me, blinking as though he suddenly saw me for the first time. ‘Yes,’ he answered slowly. ‘I expect that you do.’
‘So may I?’
‘What about your chaperone?’ he whispered in my ear so that I felt his lips warm and dry against my skin. ‘I can’t see fat old Agnes heaving herself onto my destrier!’
‘She doesn’t have to come,’ I teased back. ‘And if you wish it, my lord, what can she object to?’
‘Then you shall have a real horse, Lady Isabelle. And you shall learn to ride.’
He fluttered his fingers in an elaborate courtesy and I giggled, prettily, because that was what he expected. And in a few days he gave me Othon.
Often, in the evenings after supper, Lord Hugh’s Aquitaine musician would recite romances for the company; plaintive stories of sighing knights who pined for beautiful ladies. I had never paid them much mind, preferring those tales of magic and adventure that my papa had sometimes told me. When I first saw Othon, he seemed to come from one of those stories. He was a bay gelding much too big for me with huge black eyes, Lusignan eyes, and the prettiest white blaze on his nose. From the way he lowered his head as I stepped up to the mounting block and the delicacy with which he snuffled a palmful of hay from my hand I could see that he was a very intelligent horse but from the flare of his nostrils and the strength of his hindquarters I saw, too, that he was wild when he chose it. ‘I shall call him Othon,’ I declared.
‘What kind of a name is that?’ asked Agnes. She had consented to my learning to ride but she was not pleased.
‘A very good old name, Agnes,’ I said haughtily. I didn’t say that it was a pagan name, or that I remembered it from my papa’s stories of the Norsemen who sailed down from their icy kingdoms to conquer France hundreds of years ago. The Taillefers, my family, had defeated the Norsemen. The stories of the Norsemen spoke of a magical horse, the best among gods and men. A steed that ran between the earth and the sky with mysterious signs carved into his bridle.
‘Is he a suitable horse for a lady?’ Agnes asked the groom who held Othon’s bit. I caught his eye.
‘Very suitable, madame,’ he replied courteously, his face grave.
‘And your name?’
‘Tomas, madame.’
‘Very well, Tomas. You may begin Lady Isabelle’s lesson.’
From the moment Tomas handed me into the saddle, I knew that I didn’t need to learn. I had pretended to have a horse of my own for years, riding broomsticks and branches, to Agnes’s despair, for was I not a Courtenay and a Taillefer? It was in my bones. I knew it as soon as I squeezed my knees against Othon’s flank and felt him settle beneath my weight. I knew how to hold the rein just so as not to hurt his delicate mouth. I knew how to listen through my sinews to the rhythm of his blood. I leaned forward to whisper in his ear, ‘Just a little time. We must be quiet, Othon. And then we shall fly, you wait and see.’
So for several afternoons, Tomas walked us around the yard under Agnes’s measuring eye, calling out instructions and pretending to correct my posture and my handling of the bit. I could see how impressed he was with the way I rode, and that made me want to be even better. As we dutifully turned circles and figures of eight, I let my mind loose as I had not done since my mother left, dreaming of tournaments where I would disguise myself as a knight and charge down the list, unseating the famous champions of France, and then, tearing off my helmet, I would reveal that I was Isabelle, the finest horseman in France. King Philip would be astonished, the musicians would make poems about us, and I would wear the queen’s favour in my braids. I would lead our men in battle and bring peace to our lands, and Hal Lusignan would beg for the favour of being my squire.
My splendid dreams ended with a bump. Othon had thrown me, and I lay in the schooling ring, with sawdust all over my face. I jumped up before I had my wind back, desperate to show Agnes that I wasn’t hurt, but she was already bustling towards me.
‘Isabelle! Oh Isabelle! You are too bold!’ She petted me while she scolded, and though my eyes burned with tears, they were of rage, not pain nor fear. How dare Othon behave so rudely? I rubbed my face and saw old Tomas laughing at me, which made me angrier than ever.
‘They can feel it, my lady, if you are too proud. He was just showing you who’s master.’
‘He is my horse!’
‘Indeed. But if you take your whip to him he won’t respect you. Old creatures, horses. Look at him now.’
I stepped up to Othon and rubbed his soft nose. He was pulling naughtily at some fronds of weed that overhung the ring, showing me that he didn’t care. Tomas was right: it was I who had been rude.
‘I didn’t mean to insult you, Othon,’ I whispered. ‘I am grateful that you allow me to ride you, truly.’
For an answer, Othon straddled his legs and let out a fountain of hot piss, which splashed on my boots. Tomas laughed again.
‘I think Othon is ready to take me again,’ I remarked. ‘Please help to mount me.’
Tomas kept me in the ring another week for hours each day, circling, turning quickly from a canter, taking a small hurdle at first, and then taller ones until I was jumping fences higher than my small self.
‘A pretty sight you look, Isabelle,’ huffed Agnes.
‘I think the Lady Isabelle is ready to walk out, madame,’ Tomas said with encouragement.
Agnes fussed and admonished, making me promise over and over to be careful, and to protect my face from the sun and mind my gown. Tomas heard her out, reassuring her that if I grew tired he would take me before him and lead my horse; all the time I could feel Othon tensing beneath me in anticipation. I had to hold him tight as we trotted down the road. Tomas led us through the meadows and over the bridge, his own horse grabbing saucily mouthfuls of high-summer mallow grass, until we turned through the trees and came out into a tight, steep-sided valley. Only the towers of Lusignan were visible now.
‘Get down, my lady.’
‘Why, Tomas? I want to ride.’
He grinned, showing brown stumps of teeth. Tomas was very old, at least fifty years. Bandy and bent like the reed in a thrush trap, his skin tanned to leather armour, yet he was the strongest man at Lusignan. Only he was allowed the exercise of Lord Hugh’s great warhorses.
‘I thought you might be wanting this.’ He had a sack on his back.
‘I’m not hungry, Tomas. I want to ride!’
‘Quarrelsome little thing, aren’t you? Get down now.’ He scooped me up in his arm, the smell of him musky and deep like cumin, somehow familiar. I was on the ground in seconds. The sack did not contain provisions, but a saddle.
‘Oh, Tomas!’
‘Didn’t think you’d have much use for that silly thing.’ He swiftly unstrapped the high-pommelled lady’s side-saddle that Lord Hugh had had made for me, its wood prettily painted yellow, and replaced it with a real saddle. ‘Reckon you can ride astride?’
‘But Tomas, it’s wicked.’
Queen Eleanor of England, the mother of King John, had ridden astride when she raised her sons and their men in rebellion against their own father, and tried to gallop away like a man before old King Henry captured her and locked her up for years and years. Hearing my mother and the maids whisper about it, it seemed that sitting astride was a worse sin than encouraging men to steal their own father’s lands.
‘There’s no one but the trees to see you, my lady. I won’t be telling.’
‘But Tomas, you might get into trouble. I don’t want you to be punished.’
‘Never mind about that. You may need it, one day, my lady. You may need to ride fast and hard, like a man so’s you can give little lord Hal a run for his money, eh?’ Tomas gave a wheezy laugh, delighted with his own impertinence. I threw him a conspiratorial grin.
I bunched up my gown behind me and Tomas jumped me over the saddle. ‘Promise you won’t get into trouble, Tomas?’
‘I promise. There’s an army’s worth of saddles in the stable house and I have the key. Are you ready, then?’
I nodded. I couldn’t speak I was so excited.
‘Wait, now.’ Tomas had a little clay crock in his hand. He scooped a handful of paste from it and knelt to rub it into Othon’s forelegs. ‘Hold out your hands.’ The paste was black and smelled of iron and fat. ‘This will make you go faster. Let him go.’
I had no spurs, but I barely needed to touch my heels to Othon’s side before we were off. I gave myself up to the air. It did not seem as though Othon’s hooves even touched the ground. All I felt was the rush of the wind on my face and my heart opening inside me to suck it in. For a few moments I froze, clinging like a beetle to his back. I would be thrown again, and his hooves would crush my skull like a nut. I had not thought such speed possible. It terrified me, and I tried weakly to pull him back, knowing that my strength was no more to him than a fly’s. He wouldn’t stop, and I couldn’t stop him. Slowly, I felt myself meld with the thud of Othon’s huge heart between my legs and we became one creature, weightless and sure as an arrow, just as I had dreamed, so that I felt nothing but his blood in mine and mine in his, not riding but swooping through the wind like a kite until the valley closed and I had to come back to myself, reminding him with the lightest tug on the bit to pull up short before he plunged us both over the hill’s edge. Indeed, I nearly flew over his head like a windfall, but I had ridden through my fear. I was gasping and laughing, senseless, yet never had I felt more vividly alive. As I bent over Othon’s dampened neck, my own face was wet with tears.
‘Thank you,’ I murmured. ‘Thank you, thank you.’
Tomas cantered up behind us, I had forgotten all about him. ‘I knew you could do it!’
I grinned at him, proud and fierce, my hair tumbling into my eyes and my face burning with pleasure. ‘I did, too.’
We galloped, over and over again, until Tomas saw that the sun was low and made us turn back. He let out a leading rein for Othon and settled me against his chest, my legs demurely to one side, and I fell asleep against him, my nose full of leather and horse sweat and the strange blood-like tinge of the balm, rocking slowly through the green lanes back to Lusignan.
All that summer and into the autumn until the weather turned and the rain came, I rode out on Othon each day. I was diligent with my prayers and my sewing, my music and deportment so that Agnes could have no cause to forbid me the release I waited for each afternoon. Tomas found a plate coat that had been made for Hal when he was about my age and persuaded Agnes to let me wear it over my gown, saying it should protect my back if I fell. He also gave me a pair of Hal’s leather britches, which I slipped on under my gown, and which we didn’t mention to Agnes at all. Lord Hugh seemed delighted with my new accomplishment and presented me with a falcon, a delicate merlin with deep blue feathers, a set of silver jesses and a gauntlet traced in silver thread. I was allowed to accompany him, dressed in one of my best silks and nodding along placidly on my side-saddle, when he hunted with his guests. I liked best, though, to go out with Tomas, and better still to leave him to doze and whittle in the shade while I explored the allées of the forest alone with Othon. I longed to bathe and comb him myself, but of course Agnes could not allow that, so I begged scraps of parchment from the clerks and twisted them into paper flowers to decorate his stall and made a picture of myself with a finger dipped in soot so that he should not be lonely for me in the night. I gave no thought to Hal, or my marriage, or what was happening in the world beyond the castle. I no longer listened in doorways or heeded the whisperings of the guards. All I wanted was to be alone in the woods with Othon. But then the leaves turned from green to yellow to brown, and when the forest was bare and we had kept the Christmas feast at the castle, a message came that my father was coming, and with him the English king.