The Secret Eleanor

by Cecelia Holland

  The guide led them over a ridge, where yellow rocks burst up through the ground, rough as old bones. At the foot of the next slope was a little river, and they rode along a way until they found a place to ford it. In a village of three little huts, after haggling and pleading and giving up several gold coins, they each got a handful of unleavened honey cakes, so coarse they cracked and snapped when she chewed them.

  The cakes cheered her stomach like the finest feast. The thin cider she drank with it was as heady as wine. Carefully she kept back three of the cakes, although she was still hungry, and saved them in her cloak.

  De Rançun set the young knights out to hunt, but Petronilla knew, without dogs or hawks, they would likely catch nothing. Whenever they stopped, she looked around for fruit, for berries, although in this young time of the year everything she found was green and small and hard as rocks. All around her the earth was bursting alive and she was starving. She sucked on a strand of grass, surprised at the wild flavor.

  That night no one else had saved any of their food, and she ended up sharing her three honey cakes with the others, so nobody got more than a bite. They slept on the ground, in the crisp cool of a clear night, the stars blazing above them. The bit of the cake had not dulled her hunger much and she could not sleep. Instead she lay thinking how she was outcast in her own country. She felt cut off, isolated, insubstantial as a ghost; she thought, I am free now, but for what? To do what?

  At dawn they rode on; the guide took them down the river to a ford, where some people lived. There they found more bread, this time in thick, sweet loaves, and crossed over the river.

  There also their guide left them, with some vague gestures south and east. He watched de Rançun count the gold into his hand and said, “The River Creuse is there, at the end of that path. Go south a little, and you can cross at the old bridge at Port-de-Piles.” Then he was walking back the way they had come, swinging his long stick; he waded down into the ford and splashed across toward the far side, never looking back.

  The next day, they came out of the forest down to the bank of the River Creuse, just a little west of the arched stone bridge that crossed it. The sky had been full of ominous gray clouds all day, but now it seemed to be clearing. On the far side of the bridge they could see only a few dark rooftops of the village stretched along the road behind the trees.

  One of the young men behind her said, “Well, at least there will be something to eat tonight.” Petronilla let go her reins a little, so that the Barb could graze. As usual she had saved some of her bread, but the boys had not; if it turned out there was no food ahead, she thought meanly, it would have served her better to have eaten it all at once.

  She ached all over from the long riding, and she felt cramped and crooked with hunger, but the close quarters of the bridge up there made her wary. By now, everybody would know she had eluded Theobald, and everybody knew where she was going. How hard would it be to conclude she must cross this river here?

  De Rançun sat his big black horse next to her. He said, low, not looking at her, “My lady, you think what I am thinking.”

  She smiled at him. “Yes. Send someone in, look around, come tell me what you find.”

  “I’ll go myself.”

  “No,” she said quickly, holding her hand out to him. “Everybody knows you—send one of them. Two of them. Have them take their surcoats off.” She nodded at the young knights behind her.

  At that they all three pushed forward, eager, their voices in a bad chorus. She turned toward the town again, looking for people in the streets. The place seemed oddly deserted, at this distance, but it was Holy Week, after all; people could be at their prayers. De Rançun sent off all three of the young men, stripped to their mail, who trotted off along the road to the bridge, with orders also to buy bread if they saw any.

  “At least it isn’t raining,” she said. “Help me.” He dismounted his horse, and she swung her leg forward, over the saddle pommel, and slid down the side of the horse into his arms. She kept her eyes down; she did not want to see him trying not to look at her. He set her gently on her feet and turned at once to adjust the Barb’s girth, while the horse began to crop at the grass along the road.

  “We are almost there,” de Rançun said. His voice was stiff. He straightened, running the reins back and forth through his fingers. “Once we’re on the far side of the Creuse, we can reach Poitiers in a few days.” He stared away toward the bridge.

  She let out her breath in a sigh; abruptly she did not want to be back in Poitiers so soon, even if it meant a full belly. In Poitiers she would have to make another choice. As much as she tried, she could not think how to come face-to-face with Eleanor again. She tried not to think about that, to watch the horses grazing, enjoy not being in the saddle.

  “Joffre,” she said, “you are so quiet.”

  He cleared his throat. His gaze was aimed steadily away. It seemed to her that the nearer they came to Poitiers, the more he turned away from her. As if reaching Poitiers were the worst thing that could happen.

  He said, finally, “We can find something to eat down there.” Putting aimless words into the hollow air between them.

  “I hope so.” She turned, looking down at the bridge, and said, “No. Look.”

  The three young knights had ridden at a walk down to the bridge and across, but now suddenly they were galloping back. Something was wrong. She wheeled around to the Barb, who snorted, and jerked his head up, his ears pricked. De Rançun said something under his breath and turned and boosted her up into the saddle before she even said a word, and she gathered the reins into her hands.

  The three young knights clattered along the road toward her; back on the bridge, another band of men was coming after them. A faint shout rose, like a hunting cry. Petronilla’s heart jumped into her throat, and the Barb caught her mood and began to twitch and dance. The three knights reached her at a gallop.

  The first of them was calling out before his horse stopped. “Geoffrey d’Anjou’s men. Waiting, just over the bridge. They knew us as soon as they saw us, they knew it was us.”

  “Come on,” de Rançun said.

  “Where?” Petronilla looked back up the road to the north, the way they had come, and then to the west, where the trees grew thick along the riverbank. On her left hand, eastward, the river curled away past a broad stretch of farmed land, cleared and half-plowed, bunched with trees, more trees in the distance. She turned the Barb that way and set him at a canter, and they followed after her.

  Behind them, by the bridge, a shout rang out, unintelligible. A horn blew. Every hair on Petronilla’s head stood on end; this was how the hind felt, she thought, when the hunt was up. With the knights tightly gathered around her, she galloped straight across the grassy meadowland.

  Even as she clutched the Barb’s reins, she twisted to look back and saw the pursuit coming after her, thirty men at least. She and her escort had ridden all day, and for days before; those chasing them were fresh and eager, and they were gaining with every stride.

  Leading them was a hatless man whose tawny hair stood out ragged as a mane: Geoffrey d’Anjou himself. When he knew how she had fooled him, he would not treat her well. She dared not fall into his power.

  But he was catching up to her. Ahead, the river curved slightly, pinching off the long sweep of the meadow against a low rise, a stand of trees. By then, she thought, if he were a hawk, and she were a rabbit, she would be fast in his claws.

  Her own men were falling back a little; the three boys of her guard ranged themselves in a rank that screened him slightly from her. De Rançun galloped along at her stirrup, his black horse’s neck already scummy with sweat. She turned toward him, clutching the reins with both hands, and shouted, “What should we do?”

  He waved his arm at her—at her horse. “Let him run! We’ll fight—give you some head start—run!” He looked back at the charge coming after them and faced her once more, for only an instant. “Run, Petra!” Sitting back in the s
addle, he reined his horse in and around.

  For an instant, afraid, she began to take the Barb back also, to stay with him. The horse fought her, bounding against her hold, tossing his head at the reins, pulling her up out of the saddle. She felt the power in him, and she opened her hands and let the reins fly.

  The horse bolted. Even after the hard riding, he was eager and ready to run and he leaned into each stride, his head thrust out. His mane lashed her. She clung to the pommel of the saddle with both hands; standing in the stirrups, she felt the giant flex and stretch of his body between her legs and gave a startled yell, half exaltation and half terror. The wind blasted her in the face hard enough to raise tears, and the ground flew by in a green blur. At every stride she knew she was about to fly off through the air and hit something hard. He would stumble, he would throw her; she had no way to stop him. Yet the power of him made her shout again, giddy. The trees ahead hurtled toward her. Something large stretched across the edge of them, a wall of broken trunks and stumps and branches raked up out of the field here. She glanced quickly over her shoulder.

  The others had dropped far behind her. De Rançun had rallied his three men and turned and lined up in Anjou’s way, and even outnumbered they were still holding her pursuers almost to a standstill. They would not catch her now, unless she fell.

  She swung forward again, gripping the saddle pommel. The trees loomed over her, and at the border of the woods stretched the wall of cleared brush and trees. Panic seized her; there was no way through, no gap, and the great horse was not slowing down. She let go with her right hand, trying to catch the reins where they hung on his neck. They thundered down on the wall of brush and under her the surging body steadied itself, shortened up, and then sprang out into the air.

  She screamed, jarred out of the saddle. The horse flew over the barrier as if it were a stick on the ground and he knew exactly what lay beyond it. She sailed along well out of the saddle, traveling through the empty air above him. They came down together, Petronilla slamming down hard into the saddle again, and the Barb dropping knee-deep into a tangle of briars and saplings just behind the brush wall.

  While the Barb lunged and clawed his way free, she got hold of the reins. But when he galloped away down a narrow path under the trees, she let him have his head again.

  The trees pressed in on either side, their branches low overhead, and to avoid them she pressed herself as flat as she could, leaning around the high saddle pommel and laying her head alongside his neck. The overhang raked her back, clawed at her cloak, lashing her shoulders. She saw his hooves pounding the ground beneath her; he leaped over another tree, swerved hard to the right, then hard again to the left, following the old path.

  After a while he slowed his pace to a jog, then a walk. In the woods the darkness was coming early and she could see nothing but a confusion of shadowy trunks and leaves. She heard no sounds either of anyone coming after her. She wondered what had become of de Rançun, who had given himself up for her, and some swift, tender ache opened in the center of her chest. He was better than either her or Eleanor; he had no thought for himself. The horse carried her on, following a thread of a trail; twice he stopped, snorting, where the way divided, and each time she let him decide which turn to take and he went swiftly on.

  At last in the ruddy light of sundown she rode out onto another meadow, slanting off to her right. They had come far away from the river, which had to run in the lower land down to the south somewhere. She let the reins loose and the horse began to graze. Looking all around, listening to everything, she saw nothing but the trees and the grass and the river, and heard nothing except the wind and some birds.

  She had the piece of bread she had saved, and she fished the bits from her purse and chewed them up. Even when they were gone, she was hungry, and really tired now, and lost, and alone.

  She wasn’t afraid, which surprised her. She would find the river, and after she crossed over, Poitiers was only a day or so away. She would not starve in a day. And being alone would help her think things out, perhaps.

  First she had to find the river. She let the horse graze, but she nudged him along toward the south, down the meadowland.

  Thirty-four

  When she woke up, in the next dawn, the horse was gone.

  She sat straight up, alarmed. Without him she was much more lost than before. She looked around her at the copse of saplings where she had slept; she had come here in the dark, seeing nothing save that it was quiet and open and she could not go another step. She stood up, looking around her for the Barb.

  In among the spindly trees it was still dark, but just beyond, the first sun lit up a stretch of green meadow, and she walked out onto the grass into its sudden warmth. She had taken off her shoes, and the dew soaked quickly into her hose. The new sunlight glittered on every blade of grass, twinkling and shimmering, as if the stars had fallen overnight and were struggling to get back up into the sky.

  Only a few yards away the Barb was munching grass. In his long rippled mane one last red rosette clung just behind his forelock. She had pulled off the saddle when they stopped and slipped the bit out of his mouth, but left the bridle hanging around his neck and tied the reins to a branch. He had torn the branch off its tree and was dragging it after him as he moved. She watched him as she went up toward him, and saw his ear twitch toward her, and she went up to his head and patted him.

  He raised his head from the damp grass and snorted at her. He had huge dark prominent eyes, full of knowing. The skin of his nostrils was velvet soft. He rubbed his head against her, and she untied the reins from the branch and led him back into the copse of saplings. Her belly hurt with hunger.

  She had wrapped herself in her cloak and the saddle blankets and slept curled up against the saddle, and now, awkwardly, she began to put it all back on the horse. She got the blanket on easily enough, but the bulky saddle, dangling stirrups and girths, was heavier than she expected, and when she first tried to heave it up onto his back, the hangings hit him and he leaped sideways and eluded her, and the whole thing fell into the dirt.

  She remembered seeing the groom swing the stirrup up over the saddle seat to get it out of the way. The horse was standing still, his ears up, but unmoving, watching her. She went up to him and patted him, murmuring sweetness to him, and pulled the blanket straight again, smoothing the hide under it with her hand. Carefully she looped all the stirrups and girths across the seat of the saddle, and on aching arms lifted it up high and lowered it gently onto his back. He snorted, but he stood still. She struggled getting the girths tight enough; the saddle seemed very loose.

  She went off across the stretch of grass, leading the horse, looking for something to stand on so that she could get up onto his back. It felt good to be walking. She felt thin and bright with hunger, but her spirits rose, in the sunlight, with the horse walking docilely beside her. For once in her life, she was doing things for herself, by herself. To her surprise she liked being alone, with no one else to care about, or measure up to, for a while, at least. Little white and yellow flowers spangled the grass, and she picked some and threaded them into the Barb’s mane. He ate steadily, tearing at the new green shoots.

  When she thought about being alone forever, the sunlit meadow seemed like a cave closing down on her. She would not think about that, not now. First she had to reach Poitiers, and Eleanor. She had to come face-to-face with Eleanor, she thought, and settle this.

  For the first time, she realized she could overcome Eleanor. That was where all this led her: that she would triumph, that she would come into her own kind of kingdom. She would never be the mousy little sister again.

  Birds flushed ahead of her as she came near the edge of the trees, chattering angrily from the high branches. They found food here, where she could not. She led the horse on down a path as worn as a street, no wider than her foot, beneath the dense overhanging branches of the trees. Such a path had to lead somewhere, and she followed it on down a narrow bank and around
the edge of a swampy place, the whole ringing with birdsong, and through some dead stalks of reeds and came upon the river.

  The water rushed along brown as dirt, flooding up over the edges of its banks; a tree branch floated briskly by, one arm flung up into the air. She could not cross here. She began to work her way up the bank, which was overgrown with brambles and stands of reeds and pockets of sagging black flooded marsh. The horse followed her, grazing as he went.

  Around midday, she came to a place where an outcrop of yellow rock bent the river sharply around. On the outside of this curve, on the far side of the river from her, masses of driftwood had collected, thickets of entwined branches wedged against a half-buried stump. Above that the stony river bottom looked only a few feet deep. On this opposite side, the bank had fallen in, and there was a steep slide down into the current, but the space between the two sides, where the river ran, was hardly more than the horse’s length. She could see, on the moist earth of the slide, some prints of deer; obviously deer crossed here.

  She had seen no better place anywhere else. Standing up on the bank with the horse drawn alongside, she eased herself over into the saddle; he stood well for that, to her relief. She patted his neck and told him he was wonderful, and then reined him around and set him down along the steep sandy ramp to the water.