‘The Shepherdess and the Goatherd’ by JM Landels

An Unsteady Ride

From Pulp Literature Issue 50, continue to journey alongside Toinette Berger in JM Landels‘s latest instalment of The Shepherdess, ‘The Shepherdess and the Goatherd’. Read an excerpt of this story below, then be sure to pick up a copy of Issue 50, Spring 2026 to read the rest!

Here’s where we last left Toinette…

Toinette Berger is a shepherdess-turned-spy and a member of the mysterious Order of the Silver Branch. She has spent the last year as an apprentice at la Tectume, a refuge belonging to the Order hidden in a seemingly abandoned château-fort in the low Pyrénées. This period of rest comes to an end when her mistress, the Countess, is summoned to Versailles by royal command, enforced by Nicolas Gabriel de Reynie. Toinette manages to follow her mistress with the help of a young goatherd, and retrieves a message that directs Madame’s entourage to an address in Orléans. Before they take that route, Toinette and her companions, Henri and Luc, accompany the goat girl to her farmstead to bid farewell to her family.

The Shepherdess and the Goatherd

by JM Landels

In the three years since I’d entered Madame’s service, I had learned many things: to write in French and somewhat in English, to read with a child’s comprehension in a half-dozen more languages, ancient and modern, and to carry on halting conversation in half of those. I had learned the etiquette of the court of Versailles, and the very different rules of the gynocracy at la Tectume. I had learned to draw a bow and prime a matchlock, though my aim with either was not worth a sol. My equitation was somewhat better than it had been when I was a shepherdess tramping the pastures of St Geneviève. It was  adequate for travelling on a docile, if rough-gaited, rouncey like Marteau; the stallion Habibi over-matched it entirely.

He was a hot-blooded creature of Turkish or North African blood, or so I’d been told — I knew even less of breeding than of riding. Whatever he was, he was lifey, and his response to the freezing weather was to move faster. The more I tried to slow his walk, the more he jigged and tossed his head.

It was exhausting, and I envied the goat girl, Anne, astride my steady Marteau. She beamed from ear to ear as she sat with all the poise of Pluvinel himself, despite the fact her legs, protected only by thin and wrinkled wool stockings, must have chafed against my unflocked saddle, and her sabots dangled far above the stirrups. If we were going to keep this girl, we’d need to find her a new saddle, or, at the very least, punch holes in my stirrup leathers. And get her some proper boots. Were she to have to withstand Marteau’s unforgiving trot with no stirrups to lift herself from his back, that smile would be gone.

But for now, for the sake of our short-legged ass, Babette, who pulled the cart with our belongings and her master, Luc, we travelled at a walk. Or rather, Henri’s and Anne’s mounts walked. Mine jigged.

Anne’s smile did fade as we approached her family’s farmstead, but not because of any discomfort in the saddle. The road was no more than a muddy track, frozen into ruts that made Babette’s cart hop and judder so much that Luc got out and walked. We rounded a coppice of bare trees, their bark stripped to shoulder height — most likely by goats — and the steading appeared. Though its stone walls seemed sound, the farmhouse was in clear disrepair. The thatch on one corner of the roof had come loose and folded inwards, but a thin string of smoke at the opposite corner showed a working chimney. The roof of the dairy shed was equally neglected, and the muddy ground surrounding the building was stripped of any forage. I wondered how much hay, if any, the draughty shed contained.

I looked back at Anne. “This is it?”

She nodded, apprehension clear in her thin-lipped face.

“Where are the goats?”

“On the common?” It was a supposition, not a certainty.

“And who is home?”

“Papa or Jean?”

“Stay here with Luc, ma petite,” I said. “Henri and I will leave a message.”

Read the rest of this story in Pulp Literature Issue 50, Spring 2026!

The 2026 Kingfisher Poetry Prize closes on August 15th! Get your entries in ASAP for a chance at the top prize and publication in Pulp Literature! Find all the details, and enter, here.

JM Landels is torn between travelling the world to teach writing and swordfighting, and never leaving her idyllic farm in Langley, BC. Her debut series, fantasy bestseller Allaigna’s Song: Overture and the sequels, Aria and Chorale, are available from Pulp Literature Press and most booksellers. You can follow her adventures with pen and sword at jmlandels.stiffbunnies.com.