Page 12 of The Spy’s Song

An empty stall stood to the left, its door hanging open. The horse kicked one hind leg against the partition with a crack that shook dust from the beams, wheeled, snapped his teeth at a sailor who ventured too close, then tossed his head until that extraordinary mane flew across his face.

A Danish sailors argued with a man who looked as though he belonged anywhere in Europe except here. He was short and wiry, with brown hair slicked neatly back from his forehead and an immaculate black coat.

The sailor thrust a wooden bucket toward him. "Oats," the man insisted in heavily accented English. "Oats are oats."

Behind them, the horse seized the edge of another bucket in his teeth, flung it sideways, and sent oats scattering across the boards.

The Englishman glanced toward the wreckage. "As you see, he has submitted his rebuttal."

Louise sneezed. The horse swung his head toward her. So did everyone else. The great animal lifted his head. His ears came forward, and a snort exploded through his nostrils.

A fair-haired Dane lounging against a beam straightened. He was younger than the others, with the easy balance of a man accustomed to a deck beneath his feet and an expression suggesting the entire world existed to entertain him. "This is the girl? The one we are risking our arses to carry across the Channel?"

The wiry Englishman lifted his hands. "Miss Bonnechoix. Do not move."

She had never seen the man in her life. Yet apparently he knew exactly who she was.

Before she could ask how, the horse reared, came down with a crash, and surged toward her. She seized the front of Montfort's coat to keep from tripping and fled down the narrow passage while seventeen hands of black horse thundered after her. The boards shook underneath her as she ran, while several Danes laughed.

If she survived, she would kill them all.

The passage ended. Louise discovered this at speed. There was nowhere else to go. The horse's shoulders filled the narrow passage from one side to the other, mane tossing around as he advanced.

Louise flattened herself against the boards and shut her eyes. So this was how she died. After holding her post all her life in England, she would be trampled to death without ever setting foot in France.

A warm breath stirred the hair at her temple. Louise braced for teeth. Instead, something soft and damp moved along the side of her head.

She opened one eye. Black was all she could see. The horse had crowded so close that she seemed swallowed by him. Strands of mane brushed her cheek while his muzzle investigated her hair.

Louise remained very still. His nose traveled down to her shoulder.

He sniffed the wool of Rodrick's coat. Then the sleeve. Then the front with increasing interest.

"What are you doing?"

The horse breathed heavily against her chest. Louise put one hand cautiously against his muzzle. It was astonishingly soft.

He pulled away from her touch and took a mouthful of her skirt.

Louise seized the tulle with both hands. "That is theater property."

Footsteps approached behind him. Louise looked past the enormous black shoulder and saw the Danes advancing. The small Englishman came with them.

He stopped several feet away and bowed. "Miss Bonnechoix, James Fletcher. Lord Saint John's valet."

Of course. The spymaster would possess a valet who introduced himself in the middle of a livestock emergency.

The fair-haired Dane swept one arm across his middle and gave Louise a bow so deep and elaborate it belonged at Versailles rather than in a ship's hold. "Nikolaj. Occasionally useful. Frequently decorative."

One of the sailors shouted something in Danish. Another clapped Nikolaj hard between the shoulders.

Nikolaj straightened, entirely pleased with himself. "My countrymen dispute the first claim."

"I dispute both," Mr. Fletcher said.

That earned another roar of laughter.

Louise looked from the immaculate little Englishman to the grinning Viking. Lord Saint John had assembled his household according to principles known only to himself and possibly Satan.