Chapter 1

"Read?" Lord Grantham asked, astounded. "But... we have scriveners and readers for that! Why would she want to learn how to read? I never have, and I am no worse off!"

But as Robert Crawley, current Earl Grantham, couldn't deny anything to his youngest daughter, he granted the child her strange wish.

A few years later, twelve-years-old Lady Sybil Crawley was buried nose deep in a very expensive illuminated manuscript her tutor had managed to borrow from the monks of the nearby Downton Abbey when her attention was distracted by a very loud whinnying sound outside. She took a look through the muntin window: the new stable boy, a foreigner with a strange accent, was having some difficulties with her father's new horse. Apparently the colt didn't totally agree with the idea of anyone mounting it.

She went back to her desk and sat down again. The whinnying went on some more time: that colt really was a handful!

Suddenly, a human cry was heard, closely followed by the sound of a gallop and a heavily accented voice calling after it. Curious, she rushed again to the window: the horse was nowhere to be seen but the young man was lying on the ground, holding his knee with both hands. He called again, for help this time.

Poor man, Sybil thought, but fortunately some servant from the house or gardener or gatekeeper would surely come to his help. She went back to her reading:

'For it is not by being richer or more powerful that a man becomes better; one is a matter of fortune, the other of virtue. Nor should she deem herself other than venal who weds a rich man rather than a poor, and desires more things in her husband than himself. Assuredly, whomsoever this concupiscence leads into marriage deserves payment rather than affection; for it is evident that she goes after his wealth and not the man, and is willing to prostitute herself, if she can, to a richer.' (1)

Sybil was surprised that Héloïse d'Argenteuil's writings managed to pass through the filter of her tutor's censorship, or that it even made it to the Abbey: probably the librarian there had a keen interest in some of the most unusual and unconventional branches of philosophy...

She was disturbed again in her reading by the stable boy's calls. Didn't anyone come to his help?

Alright, I know what I have to do, then.

And tearing herself from Héloïse's theories, she stood up and left the room, calling for either her tutor or a maid.

No answer. Where was everybody?

Sighing, she knew she'd have to go to the injured man herself, even though it generally wasn't the done thing. But sometimes necessity knew no law, and this was force majeure, after all.

She went down the stone stairs and then exited the big manor through the service entrance. Hiking her skirts a few inches up, she ran to the man who had crawled to a nearby tree and was now trying to stand by bearing against its trunk for support. When he saw a flash of reddish orange rush to him he stopped short, recognising the youngest lady of the manor in the slightly chubby and spotty kid wearing a refined velvet dress running to him: he had already caught a few glimpses of her a few times before, even though the main focus of the whole household was her older sister.

But what was the young missy doing here?

"Do you need help?" she asked him as she stopped running to catch her breath.

Well, what do you think, genius? was Tom Branson's first idea of an aggressively sarcastic retort. Honestly, would he be lying on the ground and calling out for help if he didn't indeed need help?

And lucky him! all the help God was sending him was a hopeless child, a completely useless little girl, an idle young madam who probably couldn't do anything with the ten fingers the Maker gave her, except embroidering!

But since Tom wasn't particularly eager to be whipped or beaten or sacked, he held his tongue in check in front of this miniature good-for-nothing parasite of society and forced out his most respectful and submissive voice:

"As a matter of fact, Milady, I do. Can I ask you to please go get some help inside the manor? I'm afraid I sprained my knee. Unless I broke my leg, I couldn't tell."

But Sybil had read a bit about medicine, and thought she knew enough to recognise a sprain from a fracture. What puzzled her was that a stable boy couldn't, although he was certainly used to groom and nurse horses... She told the young man so.

"Well, Milady," he hissed through gritted teeth, "it's not the same at all when you are the one suffering!"

"All right," she said, "let me have a look..."

What?!

And just like that, with her ink-stained fingers, the girl began palpating his leg from calf to thigh.

Wow, wow, wow, wait a minute, Tom thought, suddenly alarmed: if anyone were to witness that, he'd be in for a good whipping or a beating. Or perhaps even the rope. Maybe preceded by emasculation. Anyway, he'd be in for some rough time!

He took her wrists to keep her hands away from his leg.

"Milady," he told her, "I really think you should go and get some help from your servants. Please..."

But of course she didn't understand his insistence on her not examining him herself.

"I assure you I know a bit about medicine, more than they probably do. I can help you, I know what to do."

But who does she think she is? he wondered. Honestly! Probably thinks that being born from His Lordship the Earl Grantham makes her special. Better than us all...

Really! She was just a kid, what could she know? What he needed was a real, old and seasoned bonesetter. An experienced healer. But she remained totally unaware of his reservations and, quite the contrary, was all too happy and enthusiastic to try her hand on a real patient.

I'm neither her damn test subject nor her doll, for God's sake! I'm not a puppet or a toy, you spoiled kid!

She pressed her hand on his chest to make him recline on the grass.

"Just lie back, relax and let me do," she instructed.

Well, normally I'd rather hear that coming from a real woman than from a kid, Tom inwardly reflected, sighing.

Sybil hiked his tunic a few inches up and swiftly untied his woollen hose to roll it down so that she could have a better look at his knee.

This time he couldn't refrain from exclaiming:

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

"Checking your leg," she answered matter-of-factly, not even raising her eyes from his knee to look at his face. "Good news for you: I don't think it's broken. Merely sprained."

"What would you know about that, anyway?" he asked. "...Milady," he then hastily added, suddenly remembering who he was addressing.

"I'll have you know I've read a couple of treatises about medicine: Liber simplicis medicinae by Hildegard of Bingen, Avicenna's Canon of Medicine, Galen's..."

Ensued a list of names and titles Tom had never heard about. His mind went elsewhere, wandering inside himself.

"I envy you, Milady," he suddenly sighed, interrupting the flow of her words. "I wish I could read..."

"Read?" she repeated, puzzled. Yes, she wondered, why on earth would a stable boy need to read? It wasn't useful to anything for just taking care of horses...

"Yes Milady, read. And write, too."

Write, now? Sybil was going from one surprise to another with this new servant.

"And what for would you want to read or write?" she asked. "What more would you do if you could read?"

"Educate myself," he said. "On everything I could find reading stuff about..."

"Quite a noble ambition," Sybil commented, herself understanding this stance very well.

"And then I could write things too..."

"Really?" she exclaimed, utterly surprised. "And what things, precisely?"

"Things about what I think," he answered.

"Think?" she echoed again.

"Are you going to repeat everything I say, Milady?"

"Sorry," she answered sheepishly. "I simply didn't think..."

"...that servants too could think? Do you think we're unable of it, or that we're not allowed too?"

"No! No," she hastily told him, "I assure you I didn't mean... I just never..."

"...thought about it?" he provided.

"Are you going to finish all my sentences?" she asked, mimicking his earlier tone.

"Alright, alright Milady. Let's say 'deuce', shall we?"

She smiled.

"And what else would you do if you could read? I mean, what would it change for you? When you're in the stables or with the horses? Why else would you want to learn to read?"

"Precisely, I might not want to be a stable boy all my life..."

"Of course," she replied. "In a few years, you could be the coachman!" Sybil said, emphasising the position as very enviable for a mere stable boy.

"If I could read, I would learn a lot of things."

"I'm sure you would!" she assured. "But what would you do with your new knowledge?"

"I would better myself. And also..."

He paused, as if he didn't dare voice his wildest dream.

"Also...?" she encouraged him.

"Also... try to do my bit towards changing the world?" he completed with a sheepish dreamy smile.

"Changing the world?" she repeated once more after him. "Why do you want it to change? It's just fine the way it is!"

He snorted, very inelegantly so. Then, seeing that she had been serious, he told her:

"For people like you lot, it certainly is..." He paused. "But for the rest of us all..."

She remained pensive for several seconds during which he feared he had gone too far. What a fool! He'd let himself talk too much. Honestly, telling these things to the Earl's daughter! Dreading what punishment he's receive once she would have repeated his words to her maid, one of her sisters or directly to her parents, he regretted the feeling of trust that had led him to open-heartly confide in her although she was a total stranger to him – and his lord and master's daughter. In other words, one of them.

Yet she surprised him when instead of the rebuke he was expecting from her she suddenly blurted out:

"I could teach you, if you want!"

Uh? He wasn't sure he heard her right.

"What?" he couldn't help but say. "...Milady?" he then remembered to add.

"I could teach you. To read. And write."

He took a few seconds to let it sink in. Just for a short moment, it seemed so tempting... But soon, reality got the better of his dreams:

"I wish you could, Milady, but it would take long: I don't have much free time, and I'm not a child anymore. It would take far too long. Years and years."

"So what?" she asked. "You're giving up before even trying?"

"It's not that, Milady," he answered. "But in, what... two... three years at most... you'll be married and you'll go away. I won't have time to learn in just a few hours a week, and you'll only have wasted your time on me."

"Don't sell yourself short," she told him. "You can't know unless you try! And I'm not married yet. My parents must marry off my sister Mary first, she's the eldest. And then it will be Edith's turn. That's how things must be done, and marrying the youngest first when there are still unwed older sister just isn't the done thing..."

"Well, many things can happen in the space of two years..." he said.

"Of course, but Mary doesn't really want our cousin Patrick and... and... well, I don't really know what it's all about, but apparently she's not that marriageable right now, after this byzantine emissary's death, and Father will have to let water flow under the bridge to let time blur things a bit before he finds her another husband worthy of our rank."

"Worthy of... your rank..." Tom repeated after her. "Rank. Of course," he mumbled.

"And next will come my other sister Lady Edith's turn... So as you can see," she said rather joyfully, "I'm afraid you'll have to endure my teaching for the few years to come! If ever you say yes, that is..."

But it was said in the tone of someone who clearly wasn't used enough to hearing the word 'no'. Typical spoiled brat, Tom thought despite himself.

Yet something, he didn't know what, pushed him to simply and immediately answer:

"Yes."

To Be Continued...

1. The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse, first letter from Héloïse d'Argenteuil to Pierre Abélard, circa AD 1120