Free The Burning Shore by Wilbur Smith

rack, he bumped her in the small of the back, demanding more.
    Outside it was dark and cold, and she urged the stallion into a canter, revelling in the icy flow of air across her face, her nose and ears turning bright pink and her eyes beginning to stream tears. At the crest of the hillock, she reined Nuage to a standstill and looked into the soft gunmetal sheen of dawn, watching the sky above the long horizon turn to the colour of ripe oranges. Behind her the false dawn caused by the harsh, intermittent glow of the artillery barrage flickered against the heavens, but steadfastly she turned her back to it and waited for the planes to come.
    She heard the distant beat of their engines, even over the sound of the guns, and then they came snarling into the yellow dawn, as fierce and swift and beautiful as falcons, so that, as always, she felt her pulse race, and she rose high in the saddle to greet them.
    The lead machine was the green one with its tiger stripes of victory, the mad Scotsman. She lifted both hands high above her head.
    Go with God, and come back safely! she shouted her blessing, and saw the flash of white teeth under the ridiculous tartan tam o shanter, and the green machine waggled its wings and then it was past, climbing away into the sinister sombre clouds that hung above the German lines.
    She watched them go, the other aircraft closing up around the green leader into their fighting formation, and she was overwhelmed with a vast sadness, a terrible sense of inadequacy.
    Why couldn’t I be a man! she cried aloud. Oh, why couldn’t I be going with you! But already they were out of sight, and she turned Nuage down the hill.
    They will all die, she thought. All the young and strong and beautiful young men, and we will be left only with the old and maimed and ugly. And the sound of the distant guns counterpointed her fears. I wish, oh, how I wish, she said aloud, and the stallion flicked his ears back to listen to her, but she did not go on, for she did not know what it was she wished for. She knew only that there was a void within her that ached to be filled, a vast wanting for she did not know what, and a terrible sorrow for all the world. She turned Nuage loose to graze in the small field behind the chateau and carried his saddle back on her shoulder.
    Her father was sitting at the kitchen table and she kissed him casually. His eyepatch gave him a rakish air despite that fact that his other eye was bloodshot; his face was a baggy and wrinkled as a bloodhound’s and he smelled of garlic and stale red wine.
    As usual, he and Anna were bickering in a companionable fashion, and as Centaine sat opposite him cupping the big round coffee bowl in her hands, she wondered suddenly if Anna and her father mated together, and immediately after she wondered why the notion had never occurred to her before.
    As a country girl, the processes of procreation were no mystery to her. Despite Anna’s original protests, she was always there to assist when mares from the surrounding district were brought to visit Nuage. She was the only one who could manage the big white stallion once he smelt the mare, and calm him sufficiently to enable him to perform his business without injuring himself or the object of his affections.
    By a process of logic, she had reached the conclusion that man and woman must work on similar principles.
    When she had questioned Anna, she had at first threatened to report Centaine to her papa and wash her mouth out with lye soap. Patiently Centaine had persisted until at last Anna had in a hoarse whisper confirmed her suspicions, and glanced across the kitchen at the comte with a look on her face that Centaine had never seen before, and at the time could not fathom, but which now made logical sense.
    Watching them argue and laugh together, it all fell into place, the occasions when after a nightmare she had gone to Anna’s room for comfort and found her bed empty, the puzzling presence of one of Anna’s