“Claire, ye know what it cost me to do this for you – to spare Randall’s life. Promise me that if the time should come, you’ll go back to Frank.” His eyes searched my face, deep blue as the sky in the window behind him. “I tried to send ye back twice before. And I thank God ye wouldna go. But if it comes to a third time – then promise me you will go back to him – back to Frank. For that is why I spare Jack Randall for a year – for your sake. Promise me, Claire?”
“Allez! Allez! Montez!” the coachman shouted from above, encouraging the team up a slope. We were nearly there.
“All right,” I said at last. “I promise.”
The stables at Argentan were clean and airy, redolent of summer and the smell of horses. In an open box stall, Jamie circled a Percheron mare, enamored as a horsefly.
“Ooh, what a bonnie wee lass ye are! Come here, sweetheart, let me see that beautiful fat rump. Mm, aye, that’s grand!”
“I wish my husband would talk that way to me,” remarked the Duchesse de Neve, provoking giggles from the other ladies of the party, who stood in the straw of the central aisle, watching.
“Perhaps he would, Madame, if your own back view provided such stimulation. But then, perhaps your husband does not share my lord Broch Tuarach’s appreciation for a finely shaped rump.” The Comte St. Germain allowed his eyes to drift over me with a hint of contemptuous amusement. I tried to imagine those black eyes gleaming through the slits of a mask, and succeeded only too well. Unfortunately, the lace of his wrist frills fell well past his knuckles; I couldn’t see the fork of his thumb.
Catching the byplay, Jamie leaned comfortably on the mare’s broad back, only his head, shoulders and forearms showing above the bulk of the Percheron.
“My lord Broch Tuarach appreciates beauty wherever it may be encountered, Monsieur le Comte; in animal or woman. Unlike some I might name, though, I am capable of telling the difference between the two.” He grinned maliciously at St. Germain, then patted the mare’s neck in farewell as the party broke out laughing.
Jamie took my arm to lead me toward the next stable, followed more slowly by the rest of the party.
“Ah,” he said, inhaling the mixture of horse, harness, manure, and hay as though it were incense. “I do miss the smell of a stable. And the country makes me sick for Scotland.”
“Doesn’t look a lot like Scotland,” I said, squinting in the bright sun as we emerged from the dimness of the stable.
“No, but it’s country,” he said, “it’s clean, and it’s green, and there’s nay smoke in the air, or sewage underfoot – unless ye count horse dung, which I don’t.”
The sun of early summer shone on the roofs of Argentan, nestled among gently rolling green hills. The Royal stud was just outside the town, much more solidly constructed than the houses of the King’s subjects nearby. The barns and stables were of quarried stone, stone-floored, slate-roofed, and maintained in a condition of cleanliness that surpassed that of L’Hôpital des Anges by a fair degree.
A loud whooping came from behind the corner of the stable, and Jamie stopped short, just in time to avoid Fergus, who shot out in front of us as though fired from a slingshot, hotly pursued by two stable-lads, both a good deal bigger. A dirty green streak of fresh manure down the side of the first boy’s face gave some clue as to the cause of the altercation.
With considerable presence of mind, Fergus doubled on his tracks, shot past his pursuers, and whizzed into the middle of the party, whence he took refuge behind the bulwark of Jamie’s kilted hips. Seeing their prey thus safely gone to earth, his pursuers glanced fearfully at the oncoming phalanx of courtiers and gowns, exchanged a look of decision, and, as one, turned and loped off.
Seeing them go, Fergus stuck his head out from behind my skirt and yelled something in gutter French that earned him a sharp cuff on the ear from Jamie.
“Off wi’ ye,” he said brusquely. “And for God’s sake, dinna be throwin’ horse apples at people bigger than you are. Now, go and keep out of trouble.” He followed up this advice with a healthy smack on the seat of the breeches that sent Fergus staggering off in the opposite direction to that taken by his erstwhile assailants.
I had been of two minds as to the wisdom of taking Fergus with us on this expedition, but most of the ladies were bringing pageboys with them, to run errands and carry the baskets of food and other paraphernalia deemed essential to a day’s outing. And Jamie had wanted to show the lad a bit of country, feeling that he’d earned a holiday. All well and good, except that Fergus, who had never been outside Paris in his life, had got the exhilaration of air, light, and beautiful huge animals right up his nose, and, demented with excitement, had been in constant trouble since our arrival.
“God knows what he’ll do next,” I said darkly, looking after Fergus’s retreating form. “Set one of the hayricks on fire, I expect.”
Jamie was unperturbed at the suggestion.
“He’ll be all right. All lads get into manure fights.”
“They do?” I turned around, scrutinizing St. Germain, immaculate in white linen, white serge, and white silk, bending courteously to listen to the Duchesse, as she minced slowly across the straw-strewn yard.
“Maybe you did,” I said. “Not him. Not the Bishop, either, I don’t think.” I was wondering whether this excursion had been a good idea, at least on my part. Jamie was in his element with the giant Percherons, and the Duke was clearly impressed with him, which was all to the good. On the other hand, my back ached miserably from the carriage ride, and my feet felt hot and swollen, pressing painfully against the tight leather of my shoes.
Jamie looked down at me and smiled, pressing my hand where it lay on his arm.
“None so long now, Sassenach. The guide wants to show us the breeding sheds, and then you and the other ladies can go and sit down wi’ the food, while the men stand about makin’ crude jests about the size of each other’s cock.”
“Is that the general effect of watching horses bred?” I asked, fascinated.
“Well, on men it is; I dinna ken what it does to ladies. Keep an ear out, and ye can tell me later.”
There was in fact an air of suppressed excitement among the members of the party as we all pressed into the rather cramped quarters of a breeding shed. Stone, like the other buildings, this one was equipped not with partitioned stalls down both sides, but with a small fenced pen, with holding stalls at either side, and a sort of chute or runway along the back, with several gates that could be opened or closed to control a horse’s movement.
The building itself was light and airy, owing to huge, unglazed windows that opened at either end, giving a view of a grassy paddock outside. I could see several of the enormous Percheron mares grazing near the edge of this; one or two seemed restless, breaking into a rocking gallop for a few paces, then dropping back to a trot or a walk, shaking heads and manes with a high, whinnying noise. Once, when this happened, there was a loud, nasal scream from one of the holding stalls at the end of the shed, and the paneling shook with the thud of a mighty kick from its inhabitant.
“He’s ready,” a voice murmured appreciatively behind me. “I wonder which is the lucky mademoiselle?”
“The one nearest the gate,” the Duchesse suggested, always ready to wager. “Five livres on that one.”
“Ah, no! You’re wrong, Madame, she’s too calm. It will be the little one, under the apple tree, rolling her eyes like a coquette. See how she tosses her head? That one’s my choice.”
The mares had all stopped at the sound of the stallion’s cry, lifting inquiring noses and flicking their ears nervously. The restless ones tossed their heads and whickered; one stretched her neck and let out a long, high call.