Someone helped her up. She didn't stop to see who it was. She took a loop of the calf's rope and pulled it along with her, plunging for the Malempré pens. Amid the chaos they passed the corpulent pig-the only animal sitting calmly, contemplating the open gate of its pen without even trying to rise. Callie grabbed a loose piglet with one hand just before it tottered out, tossed it back, and slammed the barrier shut. She picked herself up from another half stumble and plowed through the confusion, reaching the Malempré pen in time to see the canvas rock and sway as if the earth quaked.

She panted and lunged forward, almost going down on her knees again when she stepped off the curb. A strong hand caught at her elbow, saving her. The tarps lifted and f lailed. With a squealing bellow, Hubert burst forth, tossing a sheet of canvas and a green-coated herdsman aside with one powerful sweep of his head. The herdsman went down on his rear and Hubert broke into a thunderous trot, f linging his nose from side to side, his eyes rolling white as he emerged into the street.

Callie stood still, her mouth open, as he put his head down and hooked a bag of potatoes, pitching them on his horns right through a trestle table full of jam and preserves. The board collapsed, sending jelly f lying through the air. Farmwives screamed and scattered.

"Hubert!" Callie cried, as the bull swung his great head and threw a barrel aside. It rolled along the street, barely missing Colonel Davenport as he ran pell-mell toward them. He leaped out of its path, losing his hat, but came on, closing with Callie on the rampaging beast. From somewhere Trev's footman Charles had appeared, running at her side. Everyone else scattered away, wise in the ways of enraged bulls.

"Hold!" Callie screamed at Charles, f linging out her arm before he could run past her. "Colonel! Stop! Don't go near him!"

The men froze in midstride. Hubert bellowed, the strange squealing sound echoing over the turmoil in the street. He turned toward her, searching, his breath frosting in the air like great puffs from a steam engine. Callie's knees were failing under her. Her head spun with pain. Someone pulled the calf's lead from her hand, but she never took her eyes from the bull.

"Hubert!" she called, tasting blood in her mouth. "Come now, Hubert…" She put that little note in her voice, the sweet note that promised treats and an ear scratch, but the bull was confused and angry, uncertain of where he was. He lowered his head and pawed the street.

"Come along," she crooned. A red hen trotted past her, zigzagging toward the bull and away. Hubert made a charge at it, almost taking out its tail feathers before it squawked and f lew out of range. "Come along," Callie warbled desperately. "Walk on, Hubert. There's a good boy."

He swung his head, eyeing a kid goat that pranced too close. Callie held her breath, dreading for him to strike out with his horns. But the little animal stood with its legs spread, staring up at the snorting giant above it as if Hubert were the eighth wonder of the world. Hubert lowered his horns and pawed once, staring back balefully.

Everything had gone quiet around them. Even the loose animals seemed to pause. The kid gave one tiny, uncertain bleat. The bull snuff led. They touched noses.

As if some question had been answered between them, Hubert heaved a great sigh and gave the little fellow a lick that near bowled it over.

"Good boy," Callie said. She began to walk toward him slowly. Her knees were knocking. The kid darted away as she approached, but Hubert merely swayed his head toward her and blinked in a dreamy way. She caught the lead dangling from his nose ring.

A crowd had gathered in a wide, wary circle around them. The Malempré pen lay in ruins.

"It's Hubert," she managed to say in a small voice, remembering her part. The darkness at the edge of her vision seemed to close in on her. Her breath failed. "This isn't… a Belgian bull. It's… Hubert."

Everything seemed to slide away from her at once. The last thing she remembered, before the spinning world closed in, was Trev's muff led face above her, his arms catching her up just before she hit the ground.

She was already awake before they conveyed her into the Green Dragon. She knew it was Trev who carried her; she heard him snarl a fierce command at the others to stand back, but she couldn't seem to gather her wits to speak or even lift her head. And then he was gone somehow, and she was lying on a sofa surrounded by a great number of anxious onlookers, bewildered as to how she had got there.

"Hubert?" she mumbled, trying to sit up.

"He's penned all right now, my lady, good and tight." She recognized her drover's familiar voice. "Don't you worry."

She could trust Shelford's own drover, who had handled Hubert since he was a baby calf. She subsided for the moment, closing her eyes, allowing someone to take her hand and squeeze it reassuringly. The top of her head hurt abominably. She wanted Trev, wanted him to be holding her close while she ripped his char acter to shreds, beginning with his unforgivable fool ishness and continuing through his criminal negligence and winding up with his unpardonable stupidity, and then starting on it all over again, louder.

"Was anyone hurt?" she mumbled.

"Only a few scratches." She thought it was Mr. Price who spoke. "But for you, my lady. You took a sharp rap, eh? The doctor's on his way."

A vial of hartshorn appeared under her nose. She wasn't fond of smelling salts, but just at this moment, a deep whiff went straight to her brain and cleared some of the mist. "The animals?" she asked, blinking her eyes open.

"We're making a head count," he said. "No injuries or losses reported yet. We may be fortunate, thank the good Lord. Only there was a good deal of damage to property. But don't you try to talk, ma'am. We've sent word to Shelford."

"Oh no," she said, with a drifting vision of Lady Shelford's reaction to this news. "Where's-" She broke off, realizing that she shouldn't ask openly for Trev. She looked about her and saw him standing at the foot of the sofa, his scarf slipped down off his nose and only covering his mouth. His expression was white and set, almost frightening. She wanted to tell him that he should take care, but her brain was a little confused, and she thought it better to say nothing rather than risk a mistake.

She wondered vaguely, since Trev was standing there, who it was holding her hand. Peculiar lights seemed to go off in f lashes when she turned her head, but she discovered Major Sturgeon kneeling at her side, rubbing his palm over the back of her hand.

"Oh," she said and sat up, pulling free.

Everyone chided and clucked at her, but she closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the salts to make the world stop whirling and straighten itself again.

"I'm quite all right," she said, when the horizon had settled. "May I have some tea?"

"Bring her some tea," the major ordered, just as if a bustle had not already broken out to accomplish this task. People hurried back and forth and said things, and it was all rather confusing. She kept her hands folded tightly in her lap, except for once she dared to look aside at Trev and brush her fingers up her cheek to try to tell him that his disguise was slipping.

He didn't seem to comprehend her, or if he did, he didn't appear to care. He met her eyes with that look again, such a look, his eyes a deep black glitter, so that she didn't know if he was nearer to tears or to cold blooded murder. It seemed it could be either.

Callie herself felt inclined to murder, if only her head had not felt as if a blacksmith were using it as an anvil and pounding horseshoes into shape on top. She accepted the teacup, sitting up straight as it rattled in her hand. "Where is this Monsieur Malempré?" she demanded, as loudly as she could manage. Her voice was shaky, but strong enough to draw the attention of everyone around her.