by James Tipton
“They spent the whole day together. Getting along famously.”
The count smiled. “I think she’s very good for Philippe.”
I thought, even my little sister has a beau.
Edouard appeared from nowhere and announced that the table was ready.
“You have not seen the portrait gallery of the kings,” the count said.
Monsieur William raised his eyebrows.
“Another time. Come,” said the count. “You will eat like the kings of old—like Henri II and Diane when they visited the château de Beauregard. And a grand Sunday-after-Epiphany dinner never hurt me.” He patted his belly. He was as lean as ever. “Then I will skip supper, a boring meal.”
The count kept to his word: we ate gray mullet from the Loire in butter, shallots, and vinegar; haunch of venison with chestnuts; braised green cabbage; a creamy Epoisses cheese, and little apple tarts with a fragile roof of burned sugar. The count had replenished his cellars: red wine from Chinon and white, of course from Vouvray, all served by two swift, silent servants whom I had never seen before.
The silver shone, but I put my finger on the chipped rim of my porcelain coffee cup.
Monsieur William asked us, I suppose to be polite and talk about French literature, what was our favorite play by Molière? I said, The Misanthrope, because it reminded me of my stepfather. The count laughed, though Monsieur William didn’t get the joke. The count said he liked The Bourgeois Gentleman, for it was written right close by at Chambord, while the great Lully composed music for it to be performed for Louis XIV. “If it’s culture and history you’re after, Monsieur William,” the count said, “the Loire Valley is the place for you. And much more...quiet than Paris.” And throughout the conversation and the courses, Monsieur William and I would catch each other’s eye for an instant, and one—or both—of us would smile, and the count and his swift servants would fade to the periphery of my awareness.
The drapes were closed again to keep in the warmth; a huge fire blazed; the hunter pursued the elusive hart; shadows strode across the carved oak of the walls, and I could almost believe that time was an illusion, but I got up and peeked out the curtains and saw that, during our long midday dinner, the short winter day had sunk into evening, hurried on by the clouds and a coming storm. I observed that, although it was only six miles, I had rather not do it in the dark or snow.
The Frenchman grasped the foreigner’s shoulder as he shook his hand and said he was glad Monsieur William was riding Le Bleu; even if there were a blizzard, that horse could find his way. I was glad to see Monsieur William so accepted. The count had always been like an uncle to me, and now, with Monsieur Vergez’s and Maman’s marriage, I felt closer to him than to anyone else of my parents’ generation.
Dark Ravine
The air smelled of snow coming. I thought of racing the horses home but wanted to delay the parting to come. We rode in silence, and I thought how comfortable I felt in Monsieur William’s presence, even wordless, as if we had known each other all our lives.
“That was the best meal I have had in a very long time,” he finally said. “And the count is a charming fellow. He doesn’t seem too full of his superiority of class, as most of his kind would be in Britain, and perhaps here too, though I haven’t met enough aristocrats to judge. I hope, as is the Duke of Orléans, he is working with, not against, the changes in society.”
“You heard him. His concern is his château, not politics.”
“He didn’t expel from his service or have arrested the people who stole from him. Most extraordinary. Is that the main road there? I can hardly tell; the fog is so dense—it’s like ghosts gliding through the trees.”
“Maybe you can write a poem about it—the places you write about don’t have to be just the glorious Alps—”
“What was that?”
I heard only leaves chafing each other in the limitless woods on either side of us.
“The wind sometimes sounds like a waterfall through these trees. I think it’s the wind picking up the fallen leaves—your gliding ghosts.”
Then I noticed that the horses too were aware of some disturbance, ears perked forward, listening, alert. “Let’s go,” I said.
We commenced to canter, and the sound of agitated leaves continued under the trees. We could hardly see two horse-lengths in front of us in the fog. I didn’t want to urge La Rouge blindly forward. Then I thought I glimpsed the bulky outline of a horse and rider passing on my right, between the trees, through veils of mist. Another shadow moved off of Monsieur William’s side of the road. He looked over at me. I nodded. The horses’ ears were still forward; Le Bleu snorted and tossed his head from side to side. The fog was bitter cold and cut through my coat and riding habit. “Faster,” I said quietly.
We galloped into the fog and had not gone far before we had to rein in violently before two figures of horses and riders standing in front of us, not fifteen feet away: statues in cocked hats and capes, each pointing a pistol.
“Was it a passable dinner at the château de Beauregard?” said a voice on the right. “We saw you riding fast up the entryway at noon and figured you must be late for some feast. We had stale bread, didn’t we, Antoine? Whatever happened to the days when Henri IV declared that every family should enjoy a chicken stew once a week?”
“I know what happened to them,” a more uncouth voice said from the other figure. They looked indistinguishable in the fog. “Henri was stabbed to death.” He sounded amused.
“What do you want?” said Monsieur William. “We have nothing.”
“She does,” said the rough one.
“Now, Antoine,” said the other, “there are other things. And besides, this one is mine.” He trotted his horse up beside me.
La Rouge twitched her ears nervously, and I laid a calming hand on her neck. I hoped Monsieur William practiced his reserve rather than his frankness and could react when I wanted him to.
“Your friend,” he said to me, “from his accent, is obviously a foreign spy, Austrian, in league with the harlot queen. You are counter-revolutionaries, visiting the local aristocrat. We are patriots, here—”
“You are no patriot, Monsieur,” said Monsieur William; “do not sully the word. You know nothing of it; you dress up your crimes in the cloak of righteous ness. I tell you, we have nothing, and you will get nothing.”
“What do you say to his pretty speech, Mademoiselle? Or should I say Madame, riding as you are in the evening with a foreign gentleman?”
“I say he is correct. He is no more a foreign spy than you are a patriot; we are friends with Count Thibaut, who will—”
“The count will not report us to the National Guard, if we do not harm his château. Our understanding is quite clear. What a fine chain—” He had reached his hand to my neck, where the gold chain that held the watch Etienne gave me was just visible. This was the closeness I had been waiting for. In an instant my riding crop sliced his cheek.
“Go!” I shouted to Monsieur William, and in that infinitesimal pause, as in the moment of a dance, I saw my victim’s cheek run red; I heard his shocked cry of pain. I urged La Rouge like a plunging wave past him and into the woods, and I heard Le Bleu’s hooves bite the earth on the other side of the road. I immediately heard a pursuer behind me and another to my right. His band must have surrounded us. I could not think of Monsieur William now, only of what I had to do. The forest whipped by, the fog sliced by low branches. I ducked down, parallel with La Rouge’s mane, and heard a second cry from behind me. Then from my right I heard two shots. La Rouge knew she had to get away from these other horses.
I reined her from the more open chestnut trees into the pines.
Boughs swished close over my bent head. My face was so close to Rouge’s body, I could smell the earthy scent of her sweat beneath me, mixed with the smell of the pines rushing at me through the dim, fog-filled forest, the sound of hoofbeats behind me now muffled on the carpet of needles. I headed south, away from Blois,
thinking my pursuers would naturally assume I would head toward town. I now only heard one pair of hooves following me. I rushed down a steep ravine, similar to the one at the bottom of which I had shot the boar, but wholly alien to me. As before, I almost stood in the saddle to compensate for the sharp descent, but this time, I allowed no decrease in La Rouge’s speed. A branch snatched my hat off halfway down. Pebbles and earth slid with us. At the bottom a small stream ran through snow-covered rocks. It seemed colder down here; I heard no hooves now, above me.
I rode down the middle of the stream, splashing in the growing dark past roots as big as roof beams girding the banks above me. The walls of the ravine grew steep on either side. I stopped finally by a little sandy bank.
It was almost night here below. La Rouge stood quiet in the clear water, and I could hear my own heart thumping and the pulse beating in my throat, and I listened. My right hand lay on Rouge’s neck. I felt as if my ears were being pulled upward, I was listening so carefully.
I could hear the wind in the pines, far away. I heard distinct sounds of the stream: a small waterfall over roots, sliding over pebbles into a pool, rushing over rocks around a bend. I heard a bird suddenly cry as it soared through the deepening darkness. I believed I could hear anything in the forest for those moments. A branch clicked, and I started. La Rouge pricked up her ears. I heard no sounds of pursuit, no matter how hard I strained.
“You are a queen among horses,” I said, and patted her. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Now I looked around at the black, wet walls of rock, at the pines silhouetted on the ridge above me, at ice at the edge of the shallow stream, and realized I had no idea where I was. I didn’t know how far I had gone south, or if I had kept to that direction, or in what direction I had now followed this ravine. After all our hunts, I thought, it seems I would know this part of the woods, but as the count said to Monsieur William, the forest of Boulogne is vast and full of wild places that I did not know. I worried about Monsieur William and whether he had escaped. I trusted Le Bleu, though, and I trusted the Englishman’s riding and quick mind. The count had been glad Monsieur William was mounted on Le Bleu. How much of our danger had he anticipated?
Now that we had halted, I was growing frighteningly cold. What if this dark passage took me to where the brigands camped by a stream? Which direction should I now take? Thirsty, I dismounted, felt my legs a bit not my own, and knelt, took my glove off, reached my hand in the icy stream, and drank. I stayed, knees on a flat snow-covered stone, and prayed silently to my personal saint, Lucette. I drank again. The water was sweet as well as teeth-achingly cold. I hadn’t realized how dry my mouth had become.
I stared up and could hardly tell the difference between the dark rock and a narrow strip of storm-clouded sky. Then, as La Rouge lowered her head again to drink the twisting water, for a moment a glowing sliver of a new moon appeared, alabaster against dusk blue; and Venus sparkled just at the edge of the gorge. When the moon is new, I thought, it sets almost as it shines; Venus is the evening star, drawing to the horizon by nightfall. Therefore I knew now which direction was west, and consequently that this stream flowed, roughly, north-south: I needed to go north to Blois, back in the direction whence I had come. Then clouds passed again over the top of the canyon, devouring the moon. But I had felt its grace, and I mounted La Rouge again and patted her. “We ’re going home,” I said, and the sound of her iron-shod hooves clattering in the stream blended with the sound of water over rock that echoed up the steep walls as we started into the cold night.
My wool riding habit, sodden with river water and the sweat that comes from fear and exertion, clung to me under my cloak. I felt the coldness of the night on my bare head. Rain began slapping against the rocks and swiftly froze, causing La Rouge to stumble once on the slick rocks of the stream. Then the sudden hush, as the first flakes floated innocently down. I looked and saw them spinning randomly through the still air. I usually liked this moment of the first rush of snow; I liked its silence and its peace. But now it served only to make me feel more alone in the vast maze of the forest. In spite of my high collar, the snow slipped down my neck, and the cold seemed to grow up from the ground, under my damp skirt. I swept the snow from my head with my glove, but of course my hair was wet again in an instant, and I tucked my head down like a sleeping bird and still felt the cold burn my cheeks. I tried to hasten La Rouge along the stream, but it was dark now, and boulders loomed, cascades tumbled, and I didn’t want her to trip again. She was doing her best. She didn’t like this either. She knew a rubdown, oats and alfalfa, and a warm barn awaited her.
I heard her hooves snap the ice in shallow pools. I couldn’t feel my legs now. I let La Rouge lead the way. I had perfect confidence in her; this ravine must end, Rouge would find our meadow, and thence the familiar road to a warm barn. It is waiting for you, Rouge, I said to her in my thoughts; Le Bleu is probably already there; Monsieur William has a faster horse than those men, riding whatever broken dobbin they could steal. Monsieur William spoke boldly to them, didn’t he? He leaped into the forest just when I wanted him to and just in the right direction, opposite to me. How did he know to do that?
He must have known my thought. Then he must also know what I am thinking. That I am coming, slowly, through a dark ravine; that I am as cold as cold can be, that my face feels frozen under a hat of ice. No, I don’t want him to know those thoughts. He must know that I am on my way to the meadow. He must be thinking that that is the best place to meet me, away from the road. The old hunting lodge, that is far enough. Blois is too far in the dark. Monsieur William, you are safe; you are safe; you and Le Bleu are searching for your friends. Don’t go any farther. Stay in the meadow.
I felt like a statue now, my hand made of stone clutching the reins.
I closed my eyes and heard the stream sounds, distantly. In my own darkness the world retreated; I suddenly no longer felt the cold. I felt sleepy. I vaguely didn’t want to fall out of the saddle. It would be confusing for La Rouge. She would stay here in the dark and cold and perhaps freeze to death herself, loyally, her sweet, small horse brain telling her to stay by me. I’ve heard that freezing to death is not uncomfortable. One feels wracked by cold, but now that is past, I thought. One feels numb, then one feels sleepy; it’s all rather comfortable after the cold is past.
I opened my eyes on the dark world of a fallen chestnut, its roots lined with snow, and on its other side a steep slope. With a huge effort I think I moved the reins a few inches to the right; I may have made the old clicking sound with my tongue against my teeth. I may have only thought to do that. But a horse such as La Rouge, sensitive to the slightest nuance, knew my will. And she was glad to get out of the water and push herself up the snowy hill.
At the top I recognized nothing but night in a forest with a sweeping wind that brought the snow into my eyes. I remembered racing through pines with my father, but which grove was this? My world went on uninterrupted by thought or sensation for I know not how long. Something made me force my eyes open. The snow had ceased, and there was only a thick mist. Perhaps it was my eyes. It seemed hard to focus.
I heard a horse call out through the mist, and La Rouge answer. A dim shape emerged from the nothingness and spoke. The words rang senselessly in my ears. The figure coaxed the reins from my hand and led La Rouge.
Sweet Will
Monsieur William laid me down by a fire to remove my soaking cloak and gloves, soggy boots and stockings. I felt him rub my arms and my legs, then curse, low. I felt him peel away the jacket, then the vest, and felt his hands rub the stone statue of my chest under the thin linen shift.
At first I could only feel that the hands were warm, distantly warm; that they were the source of a warmth I no longer possessed.
Then I felt them as part of each part of me that they touched. They passed that life on from themselves into me. The numbness grew into an uncomfortable tingling. Then I trembled uncontrollably. I heard my teeth click against each other. I o
pened my eyes to see my bare shoulder, not my own, shake violently, and the strong hand descend to chafe my arms as rapidly as they shook. He rubbed my legs now, up and down, fiercely, stopped to throw another log on the fire, and began again, feet to legs to chest to arms and shoulders.
I shivered and trembled again, then at last fell silent in my body and felt, for the first time, the warmth from the fire, the glowing from his hands. Sweat glistened in the firelight on his face. He said something in his language I could not grasp, and stood up, and the room and fear closed around me. Even though the fire was near, I felt it on my skin only, not penetrating within. I knew I would die before he returned. My chest felt as if a heavy weight lay on it.
Then he was back, lifting up my head, holding a glass to my lips and pouring burning liquid down my throat. I coughed, and he held a wooden cup of water to my mouth. “Drink, Mademoiselle Vallon,” he said. “Drink and live. You got a bit cold, but you will be all right.” And he placed a cushion under my head, laid me gently back down. I felt the fire’s warmth beat into me, and I thought I heard him humming, or perhaps singing, low, one of his odd English songs, then I slept.
When I awoke, I saw the fire, low in a large rock hearth, and immediately realized I knew this room—it was the main hall of the count’s lodge. He had heard my thought again. I saw all my clothes hanging on the firescreen, felt my nakedness beneath the blankets and a mixture of extreme embarrassment and gratitude. I raised my head and saw Monsieur William, in a high-backed chair, his legs up on a small table, regarding me quizzically. “They also serve who only stand and wait,” he said, “or, in this case, sit and wait. How are you, Mademoiselle Vallon?”
“I hardly know.”
“Move your toes. Can you feel your toes?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still cold?”
“Not at this moment, I believe. Thank you, Monsieur William.”