The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles Read Free Page B

rocked Phillipe forward, right into Auguste’s lifting knee. The knee drove into his groin. Phillipe cried out, doubling. Bertram struck him from behind, on the neck. The ground tilted—
    A moment after Phillipe sprawled, Bertram kneeled on his belly. Auguste started to kick him.
    Phillipe writhed, fought, struck out with both fists. But most of the time he missed. Auguste’s boot pounded his legs, his ribs, his shoulders. Again. Again—
    In the middle of the beating, one of Phillipe’s punches did land squarely. Bertram’s nose squirted blood onto Phillipe’s coat. The older boy spat out filthy words, grabbed his victim’s ears and began to hammer his head on the ground.
    Phillipe’s head filled with the strange sound of the heavy breathing of his two tormentors, the distorted ring of the goat bells from up beyond the pines. They beat him for three or four minutes. But he didn’t yell again.
    From inside the hovel, a querulous man’s voice asked a question, then repeated it. The man sounded angry.
    Auguste scooped up Phillipe’s money. Bertram lurched to his feet, picked up the jug, brought the neck to his bloodied mouth and drank. Groaning, Phillipe staggered up, barely able to walk a straight line.
    Auguste kicked him in the buttocks one last time, driving him down the track toward the road. The fat boy shouted after him:
    “Don’t come back here till your whoring mother can speak to her neighbors in a civil way, understand?”
    Phillipe stumbled on, the sharp north wind stinging his cheeks. His whole body throbbed. He considered it an accomplishment just to stay on his feet.
v
    Exhausted and ashamed of his inability to hold his own against Auguste and his cousin, Phillipe stumbled back to the inn along the lonely, wind-raked road. His sense of humiliation made him steal past the tavern perched on the hillside—he was grateful no one was looking out to see him—and seek the sanctuary of the empty stable behind the main building.
    Hand over bruised hand, he pulled himself up the ladder to the loft and burrowed into the old straw, letting the blessed dark blot out the pain—
    “Phillipe? Phillipe, is that you?”
    The voice pulled him from the depths of unconsciousness. He rolled over, blinking, and saw a white oval—a face. Beyond, he glimpsed misted stars through cracks in the timbers of the loft. Down on the stable floor, a lantern gleamed.
    “Sweet Mother of the Lord, Phillipe! Madame Marie’s been out of her mind all day, worrying about your unexplained absence!”
    “Charlotte—” He could barely pronounce her name. His various aches, though not unbearable, remained more than a little bothersome. And waking up—remembering—was not a pleasant experience.
    Charlotte climbed off the ladder and knelt beside him in the straw. He licked the inside of his mouth; it failed to help the dryness. Charlotte swayed a little, braced on her knees and palms. He thought he smelled wine on her. Probably filched from the inn’s cellar—
    And it seemed to him no accident that Charlotte’s position revealed her bare breasts all white where her soiled blouse fell away. For a moment, he thought she was ready to giggle. Her eyes seemed to glow with a jolly, vulpine pleasure. But her touch of his cheek was solicitous.
    “Oh, my dear, what happened to you?”
    “I had an accident,” he said in a raspy voice. “Fell, that’s all.”
    “Down ten mountainsides, from the look of you! I don’t believe it for a minute.” The girl stroked his cheek again; he was uncomfortably aware of the lingering nature of her caress. Nor could he overlook the feel of her fingertips. She must have been in the kitchen. She hadn’t wiped off all the lard.
    “Who beat you, Phillipe? Brigands? Since when have poor boys become their game?”
    “Not brigands—” Each word cost him energy. But he managed to sit up, groaning between clenched teeth. “Listen, Charlotte, never mind. I came back and wanted to sleep so I crawled in