Remembrance

Now, today, because of his bee-stung foot he was going to have to hobble up the hill and traipse through nettle-laden berry vines that would sting his sensitive skin.

Usually Callie would have cared about him but she was angry that he had been stung yesterday while running with some village louts and leaving her behind. When Will teased Talis, saying he could later bake the berries into pies, Callie laughed extraordinarily loudly, making Talis look at her with narrowed eyes that said he’d pay her back later.

There is nothing as inept as a male doing something he doesn’t want to do, Meg thought as s

he watched Talis picking a berry an hour. Also, he had no qualms about complaining incessantly about everything he could think to complain about. Mostly he complained that Callie wasn’t doing her “duty” in telling him a story to pass the time while he was laboring under such duress.

After putting up with Talis for about two hours, just when Meg was about to give him what he wanted, which was to be sent home, out of the trees came a dark streak. It was a horse, a great, fierce beast of a thing running straight toward the brambles and Meg, Talis, and Callie. When it reached them, it reared on its hind legs, towering over the three of them like some giant bear out of a legend.

For the first time in her life, Meg swooned, the blood leaving her head, her knees buckling under her as she started to go down. Even as she started for the ground her one thought was for the children: They would be terrified by this giant animal rearing over their heads. She must stay alert so she could protect them—at the risk of her own life if need be.

As she was falling, trying her best to bring herself out of her faint, she saw that the children were staring up at the underbelly of the horse with wide eyes. She had to save them!

Minutes later, when Meg opened her eyes, she was on the ground but the children and the horse were nowhere to be seen. Instead, lying in a heap at the foot of a tree, was a boy.

Shaking her head to clear it, Meg pulled herself up and went to the child, but when she looked down at him she hesitated. He was richly dressed, clothed such as she’d never before seen anyone dressed. There were jewels on his cloak; the little knife at his belt was a work of silver wire and emeralds. By his head was a velvet cap that had rubies as big as walnuts about the brim.

“Sir,” Meg said hesitantly, reaching out her hand to touch the child, but not daring. Was he a great nobleman’s son? He had to be.

A groan came from the child as he moved to sit up and Meg held out her hand to give him support.

Abruptly, he opened his eyes and glared at her, his thin nostrils flaring as he looked her up and down. “Do not touch me, old woman,” he said in an accent that only education and illustrious ancestors could bestow.

Immediately, Meg drew back, watching as he struggled to his feet. He was a thin boy and Meg guessed he was a bit older than Talis, even though he would have been a shadow next to Talis’s blooming health.

She watched as the boy, almost staggering, held on to the tree and raised himself. There was a great lump forming on the side of his head.

“What have you done with my horse?” he asked, looking at her as though she had the animal hidden in her skirts.

“I…,” Meg began, then, suddenly, her senses came back to her. Where was that animal and, more important, where were the children?

Fear ran through Meg as she envisioned her dear, innocent children being trampled by that monster, that Satan’s demon she had seen rearing over them. What did her dear little children know about unruly horses with steel-shod hooves that could split a man’s skull? Her children had been raised on a farm with gentle beasts of the field. The only horse they had seen had probably pulled a cart for Moses when he crossed the Red Sea.

After a quick bob at the boy holding on to the tree for support, Meg grabbed her skirts and started running up the steep hill that overlooked the berry patch. Had it been a normal day, she would have had to struggle to climb that hill but when the safety of her children was involved, she had wings on her feet.

Still, at the top of the hill, she paused, her heart pounding so hard her chest was about to burst, so it took a moment for her eyes to clear. Even when she could see, she didn’t believe what was before her.

At the bottom of the hill, on a flat piece of land that was common grazing, was that hideous horse the boy had been riding, its nostrils flared, its hooves half on the ground, half off. On top of the animal’s back was Talis, sitting in the saddle as straight as a knight’s lance, looking for all the world as though he had been born in that saddle. He was controlling the big horse easily, pulling on the reins, not near to losing his seat when the animal’s front hooves came off the ground.

Meg couldn’t move; she was frozen in place. Somewhere along the way she had forgotten that Talis was not a farmer’s son. Here was a young gentleman. In spite of his rough clothes, Talis was as elegant as the rich boy who owned the horse.

“Me!” Meg heard Callie shout as she pulled at Talis’s leg. “Let me.”

It took Meg a few moments to realize what Callie was saying, that she wanted to ride the horse too. Meg’s heart, just now beginning to calm down, leaped once again to her throat as she started to run down the hill. Talis will take care of her, she told herself, not allowing herself to ask who would take care of Talis. He will not allow anything to happen to her, Meg reassured herself.

Once again shock made Meg stand still as she saw Talis dismount, then pick Callie up so she could climb onto the saddle of that angry beast. Alone. He had put tiny Callie on that huge, angry horse alone. Meg couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and definitely couldn’t make a protest.

It would be hard to describe what she felt as she saw that wee girl, her hair having come loose from its braid so it looked as though there was more hair than girl, sitting alone atop an animal the size of a small building. Meg was sure that in the next second she’d see the child crushed and bleeding beneath the great hooves.

But what she saw was Callie pulling on the reins, her laughter ringing out across the fields when the horse’s front hooves came off the ground.

“Hold him!” Talis shouted at her. “Keep him under control.”

How, Meg wondered, could a tiny girl control such an animal? And more so, how did Talis know about controlling such an animal?

Meg sat down on the ground hard. She was seeing something that she did not want to remember. These children were not hers. Had they been hers and Will’s, they would have been afraid of an animal such as this. They would be doing what Meg had done with the boy who owned the horse: bobbed a curtsy and called him sir. Never, never would farm children have felt they had a right to take turns riding the richly draped horse of some bejeweled lord.

“Do you want a turn?” Talis shouted at Meg when he saw her sitting on the ground halfway down the hill. “It’s much fun.”