# Chapter 3: The Bone, the Moon, and the Taming of Diablo
Hello everyone, it’s me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review Chapter 3 of "Mistress Of The Sun free digital audiobook." In this chapter, Petite’s fierce love for a doomed horse pushes her into a night-world of old superstition, secret rituals, and a courage far beyond her years. So settle in, and let’s follow her down the narrow footpath to the river.
The next morning, after her needlework—embroidering a sampler of the three virtues: chastity, humility, piety—after her barn and kitchen chores, and after standing in her ritual way before Diablo’s stall, Petite headed down the narrow footpath to the river. The fog had cleared, but the day was overcast and unseasonably mild, threatening rain. The water’s surface was silvery gray. A fisherman dozed in his plank boat on the far side of the bridge, his long line tangled in cattails.
Petite went upstream to a spot around the bend where trees overhung the river, the place where her brother often set his nets. At the gnarled oak, she tucked her skirt up under her apron sash and made her way through the damp bushes. Close to the water’s edge, she slipped off her sabots and stockings. The cold guck oozed up between her toes.
It was slippery. She had been warned to stay away from the river, told stories of the Lady in White, the ghost of the brokenhearted woman from Vaujours who had drowned herself in sorrow. The Lady’s woeful spirit lured girls into ponds and rivers, into a watery grave. A girl had died that very winter on the feast day of Saint Catherine, patron saint of spinsters. Petite’s neighbor Charlotte had even seen the Lady in White near a cow pond and heard her sing out—a sound like an owl, she said. Charlotte had run, feeling ghostly fingers at her heels—“like tiger-beetle bites,” she said.
But Petite had a book, and she had a purpose. According to the book, the first thing she had to do was kill a frog or toad. She was not squeamish about killing—she had trapped chipmunks and mice for the animals in her care, had hunted deer, rabbit, otter, and even cat with her father and brother—but this was different. This wasn’t to eat.
She crouched in the weeds, praying. As if in answer, she spotted two toads: one close by on a clump of moss, another sunning itself on a rock. If she reached for the one close by—it leapt into the water. Patience, she reminded herself. She waited motionless and then slowly reached for the sleepy toad on the rock.
She had it! It struggled, but she held tight. She stifled a scream, repulsed by its slippery skin, its sluggish squirming movements, surprisingly strong. With a foot pinning one of the toad’s legs firmly, she grabbed for a rock and brought it down. The toad squirmed violently to get free. She closed her eyes and struck, making solid contact. The toad twitched, then stilled. Shaking, she opened her eyes. Its skull had opened and oozed. One leg kicked out, and she jumped back. She retched into the reeds, tears streaming.
It took a few moments for the toad to stop moving. Petite waited to be sure. She picked it up by one leg, but dropped it when it kicked. She poked it with a stick. It was dead, surely. Again, she reached for it, using the hem of her smock this time so that she wouldn’t have to feel its skin. She headed back to the house. The toad’s body had to be left on a bush overnight—a whitethorn bush, the book said. There was one by the henhouse.
The scullery girl was at the henhouse door when Petite entered through the back gate. Petite wrapped her apron around the toad’s body to hide it. “Blanche has been looking for you everywhere,” the girl said, hens pecking at her feet. “My brother asked me to take in his nets,” Petite lied, tucking the toad deep into the branches of the whitethorn bush as soon as the maid wasn’t looking. In the morning, at dawn, she would bury the toad under an anthill. Then it would be a matter of waiting until the noontide moon was round and full.
The days—the nights—passed slowly. Often, in the dark, Petite slipped out of her bed to gaze at the moon from her attic window, as if watching would hurry it along. New moon, crescent moon, quarter moon, gibbous moon: the time drew near. Finally, one night at sunset, Petite saw the full moon rise over the far hills. Later she said her prayers and lay in bed waiting for the scullery girl to fall asleep, for the house to still.
After what seemed an eternity of silence, she opened her bed curtains. She tiptoed to the window and opened the shutters. The moon was penny full, illuminating the landscape in a ghostly light. She reached for her sabots and felt cloak, and stole down the stairs. The silhouetted trees stood like sentinels around the barnyard. Petite breathed in the night air, stilling her heart against the night phantoms. Three fence posts past the gate and two giant strides to the right brought her to the anthill. She dug down with her fingers until she found the toad, bones now. She was relieved: the ants had done their work.
Shaking off a few clinging insects, she lifted the little skeleton and brushed off the dirt. She felt breath on her neck, heard a branch snap behind her. Trembling, she stopped herself from looking over her shoulder, remembering what the book had said about not taking her eyes off the skeleton, not even once. It wasn’t easy getting down to the river in this way, her eyes fixed on the little bones. She stumbled two times, once falling to her knees. The plaintive hoot of an owl chilled her—the call of the Lady in White!—but even so she did not avert her eyes.
At the river’s edge, holding onto alder branches with one hand, she slipped the skeleton into the water. It floated downstream and disappeared. She crouched, praying, watching for it to float back toward her, against the current, but she could see nothing. The surface of the black water shimmered in the moonlight. O God, Creator, all life is in Thy hands, she prayed in despair. She knew Diablo’s fate: his throat would be cut, or a pistol held to his head. She had seen it done before, watched her father’s slow, determined moves, his clenched jaw, his reverent moment of silence after, his hand on the animal as he waited for it to still, for the bright pulsing blood to slow.
Did animals have souls? Would Diablo go to Heaven? The purpose of living was to prepare to die, her father had taught her, to escape Hellfire and to have a joyful death. Petite didn’t want Diablo to die. She was wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of one hand when she saw a white speck at the water’s edge, something stuck between rocks. “I thank You,” she whispered, for it was a bit of bone—the crotch bone, just as the book had said.
Back at the house, the danger only grew sharper. “I heard at the market that the Queen Mother is sick as a dog in Amboise,” the scullery girl said as she stoked the oven fire. “So maybe Father will have to stay longer,” Petite said, eyeing the oven door. She had tucked the bone in behind the cast-iron stew pot to bake, but now she had to get it out without the two maids noticing. “You talk as if you don’t want your family to come back,” Blanche said, pinching Petite’s cheek. “Don’t think I don’t see you sneaking around.”
“It’s that White,” the scullery girl said, taking a sip of Petite’s warm beer before putting it down on the table in front of her. “That horse makes me quake for fear,” Blanche said. “He’s possessed.” “The ploughman says Master’s going to cut the beast’s throat when he gets back.” The scullery girl wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “He said the girl’s been putting holy trinkets all around its stall.” “What are you up to?” Blanche grabbed Petite by the arm. “Nothing,” Petite said. I will wait them out, she thought.
Not long after, as Blanche and the scullery girl chatted at the door with a man selling tooth powders, ribbons, and other household notions, Petite got her chance to retrieve the bone from the hot oven. How was she to know whether it had baked through? She sniffed it. It had no odor, but she decided to bake it again the next day, just to be sure.
The next morning proved to be more difficult. After the bread dough was put in the oven to bake, the maid and scullery girl busied themselves preparing chickens to be smoked for the winter. The big canning pot was steaming in the stone fireplace for scalding the birds. One basin was filling with feathers, another with innards, and a big vat by the door held the feet. The musky smell of feather dander filled the room.
Petite stayed out of the fray, picking over a barrel of crab apples in one corner and tossing the rotten ones into the pig pail, watching for her chance. She’d hidden the bone behind the jar of dried rosemary on the shelf beside the cookstove. She had to get it into the oven somehow. Finally Blanche ducked out the back door to answer nature’s call, leaving only the scullery girl in the kitchen. Petite picked up the runt they had kept from the hound dog’s litter and pressed him to her face, growling with him playfully. “Oh! He nipped me,” she exclaimed, dropping the puppy in the basin of feathers. “What are you doing?” The scullery girl waved the flying feathers away with bloody hands. “What a mess.” As the girl lunged to catch the pup, Petite retrieved the bone from behind the jar. “Oh, how I love to see bread baking,” she said, opening the great oven door and pushing the bone in behind the pans. “Neccesso, nec erro,” she whispered in Latin for good measure: I do not slacken, I do not lose my way.
Later, as Blanche and the scullery girl were hanging chickens in the smoker, Petite snuck back into the kitchen to retrieve the bone. She was alarmed to see three bread loaves lined up on the sill to cool. She opened the door to the oven. It was warm still… and empty. Where was the bone? Petite pulled out a rack and felt along the greasy edges of the pan floor. “Get out of there,” Blanche’s voice boomed behind her. Petite stood, her hands covered in soot. “What in God’s name were you doing?” Blanche frowned down at Petite with her one good eye. “Blanche,” the scullery girl yelled from the poultry yard. Petite stared down at the floorboards. There it was: the bit of bone, caught between the cracks. She slipped her foot over it. “Blanche! The goat’s going after the hound!” “Mon Dieu, if it’s not one thing, it’s another,” the kitchen maid said, slamming the back door behind her.
Hiding in the dark pantry, Petite crushed the baked bone into powder using the marble mortar and stone her mother used to grind herbs. She mixed in a bit of oil and spooned the mix into a pin case, which she’d emptied three nights earlier. Then she tiptoed up to her attic room and put the case into the toe of one of her sabots. Tomorrow, she thought, pushing the wooden shoes under her bed.
Petite woke at cock’s crow and slipped down the narrow stairs, taking care not to wake Blanche, asleep on a pallet in the kitchen. She stood shivering on the back step for some time, listening for spirits. Her breath caught at the sound of flapping wings, and she saw a great bird rise from the woods. Her heart was pounding. She put the pin case between her teeth and, forming a cross with her fingers, made her way across the farmyard to the barn. She creaked open the door and stepped inside.
The barn was dark as pitch. She couldn’t see Diablo, but she could hear his tail swishing against the boards. The acrid smell of urine stung her eyes. Moon glow filled the tiny window, and the stallion’s head appeared, shining in the light. Petite felt her way along the woodpile to the corner stall. She paused at the gate latch, her eyes adjusting to the dark. Perhaps she should climb over the rails. That way she would be out of reach of his hindquarters—but closer to his teeth. No, there was no easy way, no way that was safe. She said a prayer as she opened the latch and slipped into the stall, ankle deep in manure. The horse pinned back his ears, watching her with a wary eye.
Petite pried the pin case open. “Ho, boy,” she said faintly, rubbing the oil on her fingers. “Don’t be afraid.” She held out her trembling hand. “I can save you,” she whispered, taking one cautious step forward. And then another. Finally, she was at his shoulder. He was taller than she had imagined. “Ho, boy.” She knew this horse. “Ho, my beautiful brave boy.” Slowly, so as not to startle him, she touched an oily finger to his nostril. “Ho, my pretty one,” she said. She reached her finger into his mouth and felt his tongue. “Beloved,” she whispered, rubbing her oily hand over his chin, his chest. He bent his head around to her. She pressed her face into his neck, inhaled his scent, joy coursing through her. The magic had worked. Diablo was hers now. She had tamed him—now he would bend to her will. O God, I thank Thee. Although she knew it was not God she should thank, but the Devil.
Petite was on Diablo’s back when the old ploughman appeared. “Wha—!” he cried out, dropping his bucket of water. “Que diable,” he said, crossing himself. Petite sat up and stretched. The horse nickered softly, bending his nose around to sniff her foot. She stroked his ears, then grabbed his mane and slid down his side, feeling for her sabots in the muck. “Now we can clean out his stall,” she told the ploughman, reaching up to stroke Diablo’s nose. “He’ll like being outside today,” she said, combing out a snarl in his forelock with her fingers. The kitchen bell rang. “Mademoiselle, how…?” the old man sputtered, speechless. “I told you he could be gentled.” “Blanche will be none too happy about the state of your cloak.” He frowned at the stains on the hem. “I have to go for my porridge now,” Petite said, but addressing the horse. “Come—I’ll put you outside.” She opened the stall door and the White followed her out of the barn into the morning sunlight, his nose at her shoulder. The ploughman jumped back as they passed. “I’ll put him in the front paddock,” she said, “where Hongre usually goes.” “Mademoiselle, you dropped something.” The ploughman held up a pin case. “Thank you,” Petite said, running back for it, her cheeks bright.
Later, after porridge and small beer, after lectures and scoldings, after chores, chores, and more chores, Petite washed and groomed her horse, combing his mane and tail and dressing the scabs on his haunches with liniment. Only reluctantly did she return to the manor for a meal, slipping out yet again before candle-lighting to bid him a good night, blowing into his nose and inhaling his warm, fragrant breath. That night, she fell into a deep sleep, the pin case tucked under her pillow.
The sound of growling woke her—it was not as a dog growled, but deeper, and almost with pleasure. She sat up. Something was in her room. “Mademoiselle?” she called out to the scullery girl, but there was no answer. The growl had come from the foot of her bed. Petite called out again, but still there was no sound from the maid’s bed under the eaves. She’d snuck out, likely, and now Petite was alone. Something swooshed by her head. Trembling, she groped for the wooden cross above her bed. She cowered under the covers, staring into the dark, clutching the cross to her.
In the morning, Petite woke, weakened by the faint memory of a dream of a winged creature with talons of iron. A demon had got into her head. Before gathering eggs, Petite buried the pin case in the dirt of her stone hovel and covered it with rocks. Saint Michel, protect me from evil spirits, I beg you. Amen. And then she went to her horse.
Laurent de la Vallière approached home on the back of old Hongre. Behind him, in the open carriage, sat his wife, his son, and the boy’s tutor. It had been an eventful three weeks. The Queen Mother had arrived at Amboise in a burning fever and had had to be bled four times. The pain she suffered had been terrible to see. At one point she looked like one possessed, and her attendants had thought to bring in a priest to rid her of a demon. The Devil had been spotted in the shape of a goat in the village market the night before she arrived. Thanks be to Mary, Laurent had thought to bring a rabbit paw. He’d had the cobbles in front of the château threshold taken up and had buried the charm there. He thrilled at the thought that he may have saved the Queen Mother’s life.
His wife’s thoughts were not so kindly. Laurent had endured one of Françoise’s tongue-lashings the night before. It had been unfortunate, true, that she had not been presented to Her Majesty—but how could it have been otherwise? The Queen Mother was suffering fits and fevers! As for their son, Jean, it was understandable that the King and his brother would be kept apart, not permitted to mix with the local gentry. Laurent himself had laid eyes on His Majesty only a few times. It was attested that the King, although yet a boy, had cured hundreds of people of the Evil, the disfiguring neck growths melting away at his touch. What a thing that would be to see!
And then Françoise had started in about money. True, he had spent quite a sum on the royal welcome—hiring musicians and having banners and caparisons made up—but it was a privilege to serve, an honor. This his wife would never understand: it was not in her blood. “If any money’s to be spent, it’s to get back my pearls,” she’d told him, demanding that he petition the Queen Mother for favor. He had saved the Queen Mother’s life and deserved some sort of recognition—but simply serving was reward aplenty, was it not?
Laurent had been awed to see the Queen Mother’s famously fine hands clasped in prayer as she lay stretched out on a bed, propped against her pillows, her face pale with illness and yet still commanding. The kingdom’s fate, and perhaps his family’s, seemed to rest in those hands.
## Reader’s Impressions & Star Rating
This chapter is haunting, beautiful, and deeply unsettling all at once. Petite’s love for Diablo is so fierce that it drives her to kill, to hide, to lie, and to perform a ritual that feels both childish and terrifyingly mature. The toad scene is visceral—I could feel her revulsion and her tears. The moonlit journey with the skeleton is pure gothic tension, and the moment she finds the crotch bone feels like a dark miracle. Then the taming of Diablo is triumphant, but the shadow of the Devil’s thanks lingers. The nightmare with the winged creature and the buried pin case suggests the magic has a cost. The return of Laurent and Françoise adds historical texture and family conflict, setting up larger dangers. I was captivated, disturbed, and completely swept along.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.8 / 5 Stars
## Next Chapter Prediction
With Laurent, Françoise, and Jean returning home, Petite’s secret world is about to collide with family duty. Françoise will likely demand money, favor, and her lost pearls, while Laurent will bask in his belief that he saved the Queen Mother. Blanche or the ploughman may speak of Petite’s strange behavior, and the hidden pin case could be discovered. Diablo’s fate remains uncertain—if Petite can show he is gentled, her father may spare him, but the ploughman’s talk of cutting the beast’s throat still hangs in the air. I also suspect the royal court, the Queen Mother’s illness, and young King’s miraculous touch will pull the de la Vallière family toward Amboise. Petite may be drawn out of her country life and into a world of court intrigue, where her dangerous courage and strange gifts will either save her or doom her.
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