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chin, his chest.
    He bent his head around to her. She pressed her face into his neck, inhaled his scent, joy coursing through her. The magic had worked. Diablo was hers now. She had tamed him—now he would bend to her will.
    O God, I thank Thee. Although she knew it was not God she should thank, but the Devil.
    P ETITE WAS ON D IABLO’S BACK when the old ploughman appeared.
    “Wha—!” he cried out, dropping his bucket of water. “ Que diable, ” he said, crossing himself.
    Petite sat up and stretched. The horse nickered softly, bending his nose around to sniff her foot. She stroked his ears, then grabbed his mane and slid down his side, feeling for her sabots in the muck.
    “Now we can clean out his stall,” she told the ploughman, reaching up to stroke Diablo’s nose. “He’ll like being outside today,” she said, combing out a snarl in his forelock with her fingers.
    The kitchen bell rang. “Mademoiselle, how…?” the old man sputtered, speechless.
    “I told you he could be gentled.”
    “Blanche will be none too happy about the state of your cloak.” He frowned at the stains on the hem.
    “I have to go for my porridge now,” Petite said, but addressing the horse. “Come—I’ll put you outside.” She opened the stall door and the White followed her out of the barn into the morning sunlight, his nose at her shoulder.
    The ploughman jumped back as they passed.
    “I’ll put him in the front paddock,” she said, “where Hongre usually goes.”
    “Mademoiselle, you dropped something.” The ploughman held up a pin case.
    “Thank you,” Petite said, running back for it, her cheeks bright.
    L ATER, AFTER PORRIDGE and small beer, after lectures and scoldings, after chores, chores and more chores, Petite washed and groomed her horse, combing his mane and tail and dressing the scabs on his haunches with liniment. Only reluctantly did she return to the manor for a meal, slipping out yet again before candle-lighting to bid him a good night, blowing into his nose and inhaling his warm, fragrant breath.
    That night, she fell into a deep sleep, the pin case tucked under her pillow.
    The sound of growling woke her—it was not as a dog growled, but deeper, and almost with pleasure. She sat up. Something was in her room.
    “Mademoiselle?” she called out to the scullery girl, but there was no answer.
    The growl had come from the foot of her bed. Petite called out again, but still there was no sound from the maid’s bed under the eaves. She’d snuck out, likely, and now Petite was alone. Something swooshed by her head. Trembling, she groped for the wooden cross above her bed. She cowered under the covers, staring into the dark, clutching the cross to her.
    In the morning, Petite woke, weakened by the faint memory of a dream of a winged creature with talons of iron. A demon had got into her head.
    Before gathering eggs, Petite buried the pin case in the dirt of her stone hovel and covered it with rocks. Saint Michel, protect me from evil spirits, I beg you. Amen. And then she went to her horse.

Chapter Four
    L AURENT DE LA V ALLIÈRE approached home on the back of old Hongre. Behind him, in the open carriage, sat his wife, his son and the boy’s tutor.
    It had been an eventful three weeks. The Queen Mother had arrived at Amboise in a burning fever and had had to be bled four times. The pain she suffered had been terrible to see. At one point she looked like one possessed, and her attendants had thought to bring in a priest to rid her of a demon. The Devil had been spotted in the shape of a goat in the village market the night before she arrived. Thanks be to Mary, Laurent had thought to bring a rabbit paw. He’d had the cobbles in front of the château threshold taken up and had buried the charm there. He thrilled at the thought that he may have saved the Queen Mother’s life.
    His wife’s thoughts were not so kindly. Laurent had endured oneof Françoise’s tongue-lashings the night before. It had