# Chapter 4: The White Stallion's Curse – A Daughter's Silence and a Family's Undoing
Hello everyone, it's me again! How are you all doing today? I'm so glad you've returned to continue this journey with me. Today, I will walk with you through Chapter 4 of "Mistress Of The Sun free digital audiobook" — and let me tell you, dear listeners, this chapter will grip your heart, break it just a little, and leave you desperate for what comes next. So settle in, take a deep breath, and let's dive into this unforgettable chapter together.
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## A Father's Pride, A Daughter's Secret
The chapter opens with Laurent de la Vallière riding home on old Hongre, his leather pouch pressed against his chest. Inside it, wrapped carefully with his rosary, rests a single gold louis — a coin that once slipped from the hand of the Queen Mother herself. Can you imagine? The young King had scooped it up from the floor and placed it into his father's palm. For Laurent, this coin is not mere money; it is a relic, a testament to a moment when royalty brushed against his ordinary life.
But his wife Françoise sees things differently. She weeps bitterly that her husband spent a hundred livres and returned with only one lousy coin. "We could have repaired our leaking roof," she cries, "or replaced the broken window, or mended the chimney!" What she doesn't say aloud — but what Laurent thinks with a heavy heart — is that they could have bought back her pearls. Françoise is young, still pretty, and utterly miserable since losing their baby. Her humors, as they say, are deeply out of balance.
As they approach the family manor, young Jean calls out, and Françoise suddenly stands in the carriage, pointing toward the courtyard. "Laurent, do something!" she screams, bursting into tears.
And there, before them, is a sight that stops Laurent's heart.
## The Impossible Rider on the Impossible Horse
His daughter — his little Petite — is riding the White.
She sits astride without a saddle, her skirts bunched around her thighs, looking like a tiny pixie atop a massive, magnificent beast. The horse is groomed and combed, his mane plaited with mismatched ribbons, Françoise's old comforter draped across his haunches like a royal caparison. He steps lightly, gracefully, as if he were born to carry royalty.
The stallion that was once a demon is now gentle, his head bent submissively, one ear pricked back. Petite calls him Diablo, grinning with pride. But Laurent sees only danger. "Get off!" he bellows, panic flooding through him. "Fie!" he cries out, and then a sudden, piercing pain seizes his chest. He topples from his horse, his foot caught in the stirrup.
"Father?" Petite calls out, confusion turning to terror. "Father!"
## A Heart Stops, A Horse Kneels
Laurent lies on the ground, pale and clutching his chest. Françoise runs to him, her hoops lifted, her powdered face streaked with tears. "Laurent, you are not to die," she commands, as if her words alone could hold death at bay.
And then something extraordinary happens. Petite touches Diablo's nose and says simply, "Back." The great White takes five deliberate steps backward and stands — not with wildness, but with obedience. Laurent crosses himself, staring at the stallion with something between awe and fear.
In the dark days that follow, Laurent slowly recovers. He lies abed, an image of the Virgin propped beside him, along with a stoppered bottle Françoise has prepared — a charm containing his water, a fingernail, a lock of his hair, two nails and two rosebush thorns. It is meant to vanquish the evil spirit that tried to kill him. But Petite secretly fears she is that evil spirit, and twice she uncorks the bottle while her father sleeps.
When Laurent asks how she tamed the White, Petite shrugs and grins. "I prayed, and it just happened," she says. It is a partial truth — mostly a lie. But Laurent, charmed by his daughter, accepts it. "Promise me this," he says. "Don't ride him, not until I'm well enough to coach you."
## The Making of a Horseman's Daughter
Three days later, Laurent descends the winding stairs like a man risen from the dead, nightcap in hand, unshaven and looking like a ruffian. The household cheers. And Petite is delighted, for soon she can ride Diablo again.
In the confines of the paddock, Petite trains the stallion as her father watches. She takes him through walk, trot, and canter. He moves smoothly, without overreaching or striking one foot against another. "A horse for a prince," Laurent murmurs. But Petite knows the truth: this is *her* horse. The stallion will allow no one but her near him.
Each afternoon, weather and health permitting, she schools Diablo. She teaches him to tread in large rings, to stop, to retire and advance. To her father's amazement, he learns to perform a capriole — bounding aloft on all four legs — which Petite loves best of all. By mid-April, when the grass is green and full of sun, Diablo is put into the back pasture. Following her father's instructions, Petite accustoms him to rough ground, first at a foot pace, then at a trot, and finally at a swift trot mingled with gallop.
"But he is not to go hoodwinked," Laurent explains one day, a hot brick on his chest. "Depriving a colt of sight takes away his delight and stirs up an excess of fear." So Petite learns to teach Diablo to take his feet up roundly and set them down surely, never to stumble.
Meanwhile, Françoise has other ideas. She brings Petite an unfinished sampler and insists it's time her daughter started acting like a girl. *Chastity, humility, piety* — the words mock Petite as she dreams of galloping through fields.
## The Ride That Changed Everything
One spring day, Petite climbs the narrow path to the back field where Diablo grazes. The woods are alive with lily of the valley, periwinkle, and blue orchids she calls "wishes." She notes rabbit tracks and deer hoof-marks, listens to birdsong mingled with the tap of a woodpecker.
As she emerges, Diablo whinnies. She climbs the fence and makes a motion with her hand. Slowly, ponderously, the great stallion kneels before her. She presses her face into his neck, strokes his velvety nose, then slips onto his back and commands him to stand. Her bare legs hug his sides.
It hasn't taken her long to learn that she has no need of bit or bridle — he responds fully to the slightest pressure from her legs. She thinks *canter*, and he canters. She thinks *gallop*, and he races like a courser. Today, they will leave the pasture and go into the woods.
They surge over the fence, the wind bringing tears to her eyes. They are flying! At the crest of the hill, Diablo slows, then stops. Petite falls forward onto his neck, weak with the thrill of it.
But then a rustle startles the horse. It's the runt puppy, scrambling up the trail. Petite groans — she'll have to lead it home. She turns Diablo back, singing "Ave Maria," letting her feet swing with his steps.
Then she notices something: a mud sink, a boar wallow she hasn't seen before. The boar must be of good size — it's rubbed mud onto tree trunks fairly high up. She notes the location, knowing her father will want to know. He and his companions hunt boar on Michaelmas.
Suddenly, a boar charges out of the bushes. It catches the puppy with a cheek tooth and tosses it into the air, splattering blood onto the leaves. Diablo plants his feet, and Petite tumbles over his head.
She tries to rise, but her left leg collapses. The boar lowers its head, its little pig eyes on her, one tusk bright with blood. Petite presses her face into the dirt. *It will kill her.*
Then she feels the earth shake. She looks up. Diablo is facing the boar, rearing and striking. With each blow, the boar grunts and staggers back. Then Diablo twirls and kicks out, catching the beast square in the head.
The birds are silent. Diablo ambles up to the boar's body, sniffs it, then turns back to Petite. She signals him to kneel, and almost swooning from pain, she drapes herself over his back. He carries her slowly home.
## The Curse Takes Hold
In the long weeks that follow, Petite endures the town surgeon's painful ministrations — her broken ankle braced, her foot bled. For over two weeks, she lies on the daybed, her leg splinted and propped on pillows. Her father teaches her Latin to pass the time. Then come the crutches, the hobbling, the strap of boards. At long last, the splints come off.
She eases her weight onto both legs. She feels lopsided. "Like the village idiot," Jean taunts. Françoise bursts into tears. The brace is off, but her left leg is short — she will walk with a limp forever.
"You're never to get on that horse again," Françoise declares. But Laurent objects: "The White saved our daughter's life." Françoise is unmoved. "I begin to think you're both bewitched," she says, banging tongs against the hearth. "Nothing has gone right since you brought that horse home. First your pains, now our daughter with a limp. That horse brought a curse down on our house, and you know it."
## The Fifth of September
On the fifth of September, the King turns thirteen — the day of his majority. Even in their faraway village, celebrations are planned. Petite sits at her embroidery frame, supposed to be reciting the Ten Commandments, but instead dreaming of racing Diablo at the village fair and winning the prize.
Then comes an insistent knock at the door. It's the old ploughman, clutching his torn hat, hiding his eyes in the crook of his arm.
"Monsieur de la Vallière is in the barn," he says. "He's dead."
Françoise stands motionless. "That's not so," she says with anger. But Petite overturns her embroidery frame and bolts for the barn on her crutch. "May it not be true," she prays. "Please, God, may it not be true."
The barn door is agape. Her father is curled on the floor in his barn clothes, Jean kneeling beside him. "He won't talk," Jean says, his voice strangled. "I think he's dead."
Petite steels herself and looks at her father's face. His eyes are half open, staring as if in surprise. His mouth is open in a grimace of pain. She sees something dark on his lips. *Blood.*
"And that horse of yours is gone," Jean says. The gate to Diablo's stall hangs open.
## The Silence That Speaks Volumes
Petite hides in the dovecote, crouching in the dark. Her father is dead. Diablo has disappeared. And she knows — she *knows* — she is somehow to blame. She wants to cry, but cannot. Her heart has turned to stone.
The old ploughman finds her. "They've laid your father out in the house. He looks at peace," he says gently. "Your brother's gone for Curé Barouche. I thought you'd want to be there."
Petite opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. She makes fluttering finger motions in front of her lips. What is wrong with her? She opens and closes her mouth like a dying fish.
"Can't you talk?" the ploughman asks, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. Petite covers her face with her hands. Even her cries are silent.
## The Reckoning
Shortly after the funeral, Françoise sends Jean off to school in Paris. As the orphan of a cavalry officer wounded at Rocroi, he qualifies for a scholarship to the Collège de Navarre. "Your father's death got you in, but the rest will be up to you," she instructs him. "The highest nobility send their sons there. Do what you can to befriend them."
Jean rides away on old Hongre, making a monkey face at his silent sister. "What's wrong with her? Why doesn't she talk?" he asks. "It's just an ague," Françoise lies, taking her daughter's cold hand. "Don't worry about us. We'll manage."
But she is not confident at all. Her daughter's silence unnerves her. The curé suggests the girl might be under a curse and offers an exorcism — but exorcisms are costly, well beyond her means.
And then comes the final blow. Françoise learns the truth: she brought sixty thousand Tournais livres into her marriage — a small fortune. But now there is a debt of thirty-four thousand. The reckoning is simple. Her husband robbed her.
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## Reader's Impressions & Star Rating
Oh, my dear listeners, what a chapter this was! My heart is still aching. The way this story weaves together the majesty of Petite's bond with Diablo and the tragedy of her father's death is simply masterful. I was swept up in the joy of her riding lessons, the thrill of her gallop through the woods, the terror of the boar attack — and then shattered by the quiet horror of finding her father dead and losing her voice to grief.
The psychological depth here is extraordinary. Petite's guilt — believing she is the "evil spirit" that cursed her family — is heartbreaking, especially because we as readers know she is simply a girl who loves a horse with all her soul. And Françoise's bitterness, while painful to witness, is understandable: she has lost her baby, her husband, her fortune, and now watches her daughter slip into silence. The horse Diablo is both savior and scapegoat, and his mysterious disappearance leaves a haunting question: where has he gone, and will he return?
**Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4.9 / 5 Stars)**
This chapter earns nearly perfect marks for its emotional resonance, vivid imagery, and the seamless blending of triumph and tragedy. The only reason it's not a full 5.0 is that I desperately wanted more time with Laurent before his death — but perhaps that is the point. Life is fragile, and this chapter reminds us of that truth with devastating clarity.
## Next Chapter Prediction
Based on the cliffhangers and character motivations, I predict that Chapter 5 will follow Petite deeper into her silence and her grief. The mystery of Diablo's disappearance looms large — did he run away, was he stolen, or did he somehow sense his master's death and flee? I suspect Petite will eventually find her voice again, but not before enduring further trials. Perhaps the exorcism the curé mentioned will come into play, or perhaps Françoise's financial desperation will force Petite into a new role — one that sets her on the path toward the royal court. After all, this is the story of the "Mistress of the Sun," and the sun is Louis XIV himself. The seeds of Petite's destiny are being planted in the soil of her sorrow.
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