The Chevalier (Châteaux and Shadows) by Philippa Lodge

nasal, unrefined man’s voice discussed how to pass on the narrow stretch of road. She peered out the right-side window and saw an enormous ox, placidly ruminating. Sitting back in her seat, she sighed at the delay. Finally, the peasant agreed to back up to a slightly wider section, and the carriage inched forward again.
    Then, just as the ox’s head appeared in her window, there was a huge lurch as one wheel went off the edge of the road, skewing the rear of the coach sideways. The carriage tilted, slamming Catherine against the left door. She saw two footmen fall past the window into the ditch, then scramble away, slipping and sliding in muck. The coachman cried out, “Hang on, petite !” as Marie shrieked.
    Luckily, the coach came to a rest with no further tilting, still at an angle and definitely stuck but at least upright. Catherine climbed as best she could to the right side of the seat and clutched a strap and the window frame, not knowing if her weight would help or harm the balance.
    Men shouted, and the coach rocked and slipped. Catherine couldn’t cross herself, but she closed her eyes and prayed. When she opened them, Monsieur Emmanuel was looking in the window right next to her. He called over his shoulder, “Come hold the door. I’ll lift her out.”
    He barked, “You’re not injured?”
    “ Non .” She could do no more than breathe the word. Her hands sweated and her arms shook.
    The coach rocked again, and a guard appeared. The two men hauled the door open, fighting to pull it up. Monsieur Emmanuel leaned in and held her arm tightly. “Just…here…hook your foot over the jamb and climb out as normally as you can.”
    She slipped down the seat when she released the strap with one hand, but Monsieur Emmanuel held her and guided her until he could wrap one powerful arm around her waist. He hauled her onto the small step next to him. She scrabbled for a handhold. Two footmen reached up and helped her stumble to the ground.
    “Is everyone off?” Monsieur Emmanuel called out, as he and his groom clung to the side.
    “Oui, Monsieur.”
    “If it slips, we’ll jump, Jacques.” He called to the peasant farmer who was stopped on the road, scratching his head. “You! Could you help haul us back onto the road?”
    “Oui, I suppose. I don’t know.” The man looked intelligent enough, but was probably hanging back, waiting to be whipped for overturning a sieur’s carriage.
    “Quickly. Charlot, bring the horses over here and lash them on, but not so tightly that if it goes over they’ll be pulled, too.”
    A few minutes elapsed while the men hitched the horses and the peasant’s ox to the front corner and began to pull. The right wheels were on the muddy road, but the left were wedged deep in the muck to one side. After every heave that rocked it up, the coach slipped a little further away. Monsieur Emmanuel called for more men to climb on the right side with him and balance it. Finally, the coach eased up from its precarious perch, and Monsieur Emmanuel laughed in triumph.
    With a loud crack, the coach tilted and jerked and the back half collapsed onto the roadway, sending the men sliding and leaping to safety in the mud.
    Monsieur Emmanuel cursed foully, causing Catherine and Marie to cross themselves. Catherine called out, “Really, Monsieur! Such language!”
    He glared, but muttered an apology and crossed himself, too. “It will be in my next confession, don’t worry, Mademoiselle. But my father’s carriage! I should have brought my own instead of leaving it in Paris.”
    As the coachman and the peasant untied their beasts from the coach, the others gathered around it. Catherine picked her way through the ruts and puddles to take a look.
    “It’s the axle, Mademoiselle.” Marie whispered.
    “ Evidemment .”
    The coach’s back end was wedged deep in the mud, the rear wheels at impossible angles. Catherine looked up and down the road. No buildings in sight.
    She went to the peasant, who