Chinon's exterior gates have been closed and all tourists and tours have ended. The Tour du Chien is lit tonight. Its large doors stand open to the green grass of the Chateau Milieu -- the green space and gardens that occupy the center of Chinon's structure. The Tour du Chien is, as its name would suggest, a kennel. But it has also served as a small stables, large enough to fit three horses.
     Yet horses have not been seen here for some time now; not since Plantagenet purchased the Chateau de Chenonceau. Chenonceau has far more open territory and a larger stable facility. It is home now to the Andalusians he owns.
     But tonight, three horses stand in Chinon's Chateau Milieu. A dappled grey stud, his neck thickly arched and his body both heavy and tall, noses the earth, choosing stems of the prince's grass now and then. He is tethered not because he must be controlled but because of the presence of a mare and her newborn foal. The mare is white, her neck naturally arched. Though her nose is likewise buried in grass, she is only half paying attention to her banquet. Her ears, her eyes frequently look at the man who is handling her foal.
     Like your father before you, and his father before him, I am the first to touch you. The first smell you recognize. You knew me before you knew the flavor of your mother's milk.
     William smooths his hand over the dappled foal's neck, along the ridge of its mane and along its back. The foal can barely stand but he is mesmerized. No foal would stand still for such handling so soon, not by many others. Its ears prick forward, then relax. He listens to the hands as they move across his back, hindquarters and then back to his neck.
     Were it not for the grey horses near him, William might be invisible -- felt but unseen. Black leather covers his legs. Supple, it gives where give is needed. A black shirt is left untucked over it. Short-sleeved for the summer air, it clings to shoulders, arms and chest and falls slack at his waist. The air around him is still, his energy calm and assertive. The dappled foal responds, relaxing as it noses against his waist.

     He has been wandering the halls, roaming the rooms and seeking something which he has not quite identified. He worked a bit more; put finishing touches on the painting, the knowing eyes, the mercy and the danger ever-present in that smile, in the hinted promise of that touch. Small wonder that he has been disturbed in thought and countenance, without quite being able to settle on why or what.
     Hansl has wandered down to the vineyards, and wandered through them. Disturbing nothing but himself, in truth; he is dressed lightly, in slacks and a lightweight white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He has plunged his hands into the soil in a corner and felt the living earth.
     It feels as I remember it. And not as I remember it. It is me that is no longer alive...
     There is a desolation to fields at night, by moonlight. He bled a little, tears and sacrifice made to a pagan god of another land and another time. And Hansl listened, and withdrew his hands, wiping them on the green leaves as he rose to make his way back towards the main of Chinon.
     He returns, in the direction where you are. He stands apart, watching, listening, breathing in half-familiar scents and half-familiar sights. Everything is turned on its ear. And though he hesitates, ultimately the decision is made (it was made, truthfully told, before he ever saw you with the horses, or they with you) and he approaches, coming to a halt some thirty yards away.
     The smudged hands are in his pockets, now, and he nods to you, across the still air. He speaks in French with an effort, where instinct prompts a rustic German. "Birthing is over?"

     He heard your approach, the drizzling of dirt and dust from your hands back to the earth, and the sliding of your hands in your trousers. His hand cupping the muzzle and chin of the dappled foal, William smiles a touch without looking at you. "Oc," he murmurs in his older French, that Langue d'Oc of his birth. "A new boy." He holds his hand, palm up, to the foal, not moving it even as the foal begins to chew. He is not worried about being gummed to death.
     "I hand raise each one," he quietly continues. "That beast there," nodding to the stud who, though he is eating, is nonetheless attentive, his ears pricking back and forth between the two speakers, "...used to follow me around on my American ranch, like a dog." He grins then, looking at you finally. "This one will too. Each one is a direct descendant of my crusader, Baruch, may he rest in peace." There is nostalgia there, wistfulness for the loss of an old comrade.
     With a final pat upon the foal's face and neck, William quietly directs him to the mare. The mare lifts her head from the grass and comes to him, nudging her master's side before turning to her newborn. "So is my Alejandra." He pats her neck and steps away from dam and foal.
     "Normally, they are all at Chenonceau. I will keep the family here for a few more nights, and then have them returned." As his languid stride carries him to the sizable stud, he withdraws a knife from his pocket, unfolding it, and he reaches into a pail. In his hand, a pear picked from his own orchards.
     "You can come closer if you like. They will not spook. They both conditioned to the... idiosyncrasies of our kind. Is that not so, Curtmantle?"
     The stallion grunts as he takes the slice of pear that William offers him. Like the castle that surrounds him, the horses seem as much a part of him as his own hair and skin. "You have been touring the vineyards? How do the vines look?"

     He looks at the foal, still maintaining his distance. Safer that way - for the foal's health, or so he surmises, and of course for his own equilibrium. The hands remain in his pockets as Hansl looks from one equine face to another, and not so much to your own.
     I remember...
     "They are beautiful," Hansl says truthfully, dismissing memories without examining them. There is a door between himself and the past, one he does not care to open. Why revisit that which was and which cannot be changed? "My father used to raise warmbloods - and a few others, mixed in. The results were unpredictable at times, but we didn't really need them to do anything but tear up the earth."
     He edges closer - by degrees, and only when you grant your permission. They are able to deal with him? His eyes light up at that, as at a frail hope, hidden again by the shutters of pale lashes. "The vines look well, I think," Hansl murmurs. "I - my father did not grow grapes, you understand. I do not have much experience with them. But they look healthy. I did not look at them too closely." Other things drew him there, after all.
     He looks to the stallion, to the mare, to the new life between them, and there is some faint regret there - strangled in its birth. He is forbidding himself regret. "This is a painting I do not think I could paint. It would come out maudlin."

     There is a quiet chuckle of understanding. "I do not paint horses for similar reasons. I have only painted one in all the time I have painted. Losing that horse was like losing my right arm," he explains, turning to give you -- at last -- the whole of his attention. His indigo eyes are merely dark in the lack of light. Pieces of the night sky are reflected in their color, like threads in a shirt.
     The foal is shy. It clings to his mother's legs, shadowing her as she moves, her nose lowering to the grass again. The stallion is anything but shy. Ears forward, it lifts its head in curiosity as you approach, its nostrils widening and blowing against the air.
     "I have a few warmbloods," William nods, his arm around his stallion's neck and withers, as around the shoulders of an old friend. "Thoroughbreds in Scotland. The Andalusians, however, are near and dear to me."
     He considers you a moment as his hand withdraws from Curtmantle's neck. "Chinon has grown so much, there is not enough room to ride, no room to keep them all here. You are welcome to come with us the next time we go to the lodge," only Ian and William could refer to a Loire chateau as a lodge, "... to go riding. How long has it been? Since you left the farm?"
     He steps away from them. A whistle and a motion of his hand signals the groomsmen forward, and the stallion, the mare and the foal are led back to the stalls.

     His attention is on the horses, still, not looking at you; his hands stay in his pockets as he draws nearer. "I remember the first horse I ever rode," Hansl admits to you quietly. "It was ... an experience which has marked itself on me."
     Burned its way into my body and brain, with the whickering of the other horses, the crashing of the hooves on the earth, dry and hardened and baked with summer's heat. I remember being whipped by branches and never noticing. I only remember being bent over the neck of him, that stallion, who was returned to earth the summer I left the farm forever. It has been years... but I grieve it, I grieve that stallion's death, with my own death. My first little death was then.
     A hand lifts, from the pocket, dirt still encrusted under his fingernails as he approaches Curtmantle slowly. Giving the horse time to get used to the idea; leaving the decision in his hands. "Thank you. I have missed riding." How long? The question warms his eyes, and he has to look down as he does the math. Not answering is and has never been an option, it doesn't cross his mind.
     "...Seventy-five years, as of this August," Hansl answers you finally. "A little while." He knows how long it has been. To the day, to the minute if you pressed him. He is trying not to think of that - of trains leading away. "It was a different world back then," he adds to himself. "Though I suppose it ever is, ja?" He drops his hand, watching the horses go, slowly moving to slide it back into his pocket. "I suppose when I say that, it is more that I say that I was different, then."

     "Seventy-five years," William repeats. "Non non non, we will have to remedy this." He does not grin as he says it, though there is nothing in his expression or energy to say he is upset. It is merely something to be rectified. "We will go tomorrow night. It isn't far. About an hour away. Half an hour if I drive," he tacks on with a grin.
     "I could not go seventy years. I could not go ten," he notes quietly, bending to take another pear from the pail. This time, it is offered to you. "To me... not riding would be like ... not walking, not existing." He would say not breathing, but breathing isn't as important as it used to be.
     "I think a little vacation from our work, from all your studies, is warranted" he suggests. "It will be my birthday this sunday. It is a good time to take a break for a week or two. It will be a good time for a ride in the woods."
     His hand comes out, the large Plantagenet paw leaving a gentle pat upon your shoulder. He draws you with him, to follow him. What a train you would have made, you and the horses following Plantagenet.
     "You will not have to count down to the month, the day or the hour. I will make sure to set our schedule so that you have allowance enough to ride weekly, mais oui." It will be healing for you, something gentle. William looks at you, not in studying consideration but in compassion and in understanding.

     It takes him a moment, to comprehend. Remedy? Which? He looks at you - maybe for the first time since he saw you with the horses, then away again, sheepish, embarrassed. "It isn't needed," Hansl murmurs, begins to argue - but he doesn't persist. His arguments would not be convincing enough. And he knows this.
     You speak of vacations, and you receive an odd look; he isn't entirely sure what that notion is. Vacation? Vas is das? "I - as you wish, mein herr," he answers you awkwardly. "I will do my best. I hope you will forgive me if I am rusty. It has been a considerable time."
     Already there is the fear of embarrassing himself, of humiliating himself in front of you. He will do his best. He will always do his best - but the fear of failure, of not being good enough, has been dinned into him. It is there, still, close to the bone. But who knows? Things change.
     His gaze moves to you, and away; his thoughts to a hole in the ground, and of a sacrifice made. Who knows? Who listens to old sacrifices in new times?

Posted by rowan at July 03, 2007 05:20 PM