Each day, as Loulou and Sebastian grow stronger and the weather becomes settled and the king tides recede and the waters fall back, I know we are getting closer to the moment when we will have to let them go back to the herd.

“We cannot keep them too long,” Mimi tells me. “To be stable-reared like this at this stage of his development will only turn Sebastian into a farm horse. To live on the Camargue he needs to learn resourcefulness. He needs to discover the wildness in himself.”

And for the past three days I’ve nodded in agreement, and then I’ve said, “Just one more day, Aunty Mimi?” and she’s smiled and said, “Very well, Rose, one more day.”

And today? One more day I begged her. One more day, Aunt Mimi. Just for me.

July 30, 1853

The sun was out, the skies were clear and I saw the look on Aunty Mimi’s face this morning when she handed me my brioche.

“It’s time, Rose, we need to let them go.”

Pierre had seen the herd grazing not far beyond our paddy fields just the day before. Loulou and Sebastian were well and getting more than a little restless in confinement. There were no more excuses I could make.

We rode out together, all four of us. Pierre was mounted on Babette, whose wound has thankfully healed. Chantal rode her mare, Eloise, Mimi was on Fabrice and I was on a young mare named Coco. That’s right! I was on my own horse. And why not? I had proven in the storm that I could ride astride. So now, here I was, on horseback like the others. This time I rode with a switch in each hand to use instead of legs and because of this I couldn’t lead Loulou. That task was handed to Pierre who ponied her along by her headcollar. Loulou stuck obediently behind him, and Sebastian ran at her feet, and we went almost as far as the place where the bulls are grazed in our outlying fields until we reached the point where the herd could be seen in the distance.

Loulou gave a whinny, a clarion cry across the fields. And then a moment later her exhortations were returned by another horse – one of the stallions beckoning her back to them. Calling to her to come home.

Pierre slipped off Loulou’s headcollar and she didn’t hesitate. She galloped off from a standstill, her whinnies echoing through the Camargue marshes. Behind her, also galloping, Sebastian with his long legs, no longer ungainly, matched his mother’s pace and her fluid strides.

“He will be quite the horse one day,” Mimi said as she watched him run. “In perhaps three years from now, Pierre, we must bring him in with the muster and then he can become a good riding horse for Rose.”