Honour and the Sword (10 page)

I knelt down beside him. ‘What are they?’

‘My father hid them here after the last raid.’

He slid off the lid then peeled away the cloth underneath, and I saw a great heap of jewellery glistening softly in the gloom. When he dug inside there was a tinkling sound like coins as well, and the whole pile moved and slithered under his hands. I remembered people saying Mme de Roland wasn’t actually noble, that her father had been a big financier and was worth millions. I tried to think what the box would be worth, then remembered there were two, and my brain just gave up.

The boy handed me a ring with a big stone. I’d never seen one close before, but knew it had to be a diamond. When I tilted it to the sunset it broke into thousands of splinters of coloured light, painting little rainbows over the pale stone of the wall. I made to pass it back, but he shook his head.

‘It’s for you.’

I gaped at him. ‘Why?’

‘Because you saved my life, I suppose. It’s usual.’

He was so matter of fact I found myself believing it, but it felt impossible all the same. I said ‘This was your father’s.’

‘He never wore it, that’s why it’s in here,’ he said. ‘But you ought to have some sort of ring if you’re my aide.’

I thought of M. Chapelle, who’d been aide to the old Seigneur. He was a real gentleman, with fine clothes and flowing hair, who wore big hats with white plumes. Then I thought of me, Jacques Gilbert the stable boy, and I had to laugh.

‘Why not?’ said André. ‘It’s the job you’re doing, isn’t it?’ He reached for my hand and thrust the ring on my finger. ‘There. You’re not a peasant any more, you’re my aide.’

He meant it. He wasn’t just giving me a diamond worth more money than I’d ever seen, he was making me a whole different person. I remember staring at the ring on my grubby hand like it was my whole future in this one shining stone.

He dug out more coins for me to give Father, then we just put the boxes back in the wall, rolled the stone back and walked home. He never even mentioned the ring again, he just talked about my starting to fence tomorrow like it was normal, and this time I said ‘Yes’.

I couldn’t wait till morning to tell Father, so as soon as the boy was asleep I sneaked outside and went to the cottage. Mother was already in bed, but Father was sitting at the table with the dregs of a bottle of wine.

‘Up late tonight. What’s he got you doing now, telling bedtime stories?’ He chuckled to himself and shoved the bottle towards me. ‘Here, have a drink, you’ll find it helps.’

I said ‘He’s given us more money, look.’ I put the coins down on the table. ‘He’s got lots of it, enough for years and years. Whatever happens in Dax, we’ll be all right.’

He stretched out his hand and brushed the coins towards him, then put them in his pocket. ‘You’ve seen it?’

I’d never lied to my Father. I said ‘Yes.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Where is it?’

It was very quiet. There wasn’t a sound from the other room, not even the rustle of straw. The wind had dropped, and the night birds had gone silent. It was like there was nobody in the world except the two of us.

I said ‘I don’t know.’

I could hear the candle flickering. Then Father’s chair creaked as he leant forward.

‘You don’t know?’

I said ‘It doesn’t matter anyway, does it? He’ll keep paying us.’

He breathed out hard suddenly and stood up. I felt him walk past me, and turned to see him standing at the window, looking out into the dark.

He said ‘That’s nice of him.’

He wasn’t understanding. I got up and went over, I touched his sleeve and held out my hand to show the ring.

‘Look. If I hold it near the candle you can see it sparkle’.

He lifted my hand with the tips of his fingers, then let it drop.

‘And what did you do to earn that?’

‘Nothing. It’s like you said, that’s all. I think he likes me.’

He glanced at my face. ‘And you, I suppose you like him too?’

I said ‘He’s made me his aide. Like being a gentleman.’

‘God in heaven,’ he said, jerking round suddenly. ‘Is that what you want?’

I found myself stepping backwards.

‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘Strutting round, showing me your jewellery. Lying to your father, paying me money –’

‘It’s not me,’ I said. ‘It’s not my money, it’s the boy’s.’ The edge of the dresser was biting into my back.

‘ “The boy!” ’ he said. ‘That’s the Seigneur to me.’

‘He’s André,’ I said. ‘We’re all to call him …’

‘That’s the Seigneur!’ he shouted. ‘That’s our lord and master!’

He rounded on me, eyes burning, hands coming up, I shut my eyes. But nothing happened, and when I opened them again, he slowly dropped his arms down to his sides and just looked at me with this awful defeated expression.

He said ‘And you like him.’

He turned away as if the sight of me disgusted him, then swung back suddenly, his fist shooting out in this white blur and smashing into my face, my head cracking back, the dresser cutting into my back as it ground past me, and I went smack down hard on the floor.

He looked at me lying there.

‘Yes,’ he said, and his voice was quite calm suddenly. ‘I’d say you’re a gentleman all right.’

He walked back to the table and blew out the candle. I heard his footsteps start again, the creak of the door to the other room, then the little thud as it closed.

I was alone in the dark, with an ache in my jaw and the taste of blood in my mouth.

Four

Colin Lefebvre

Forts fell one by one, we had news of it every day. La Capelle, Bohain, Vervins, Origny-Sainte-Benoite, Ribement, even Le Câtelet. Early August and the Spaniards were on the Somme, with only Corbie to hold them. Then mid-August Corbie fell and the road to Paris was wide open.

Things weren’t good in Dax. This was August, right, harvest coming in and soldiers letting us do it, but when it was done they moved in like locusts and took the lot. Left enough for the farms to keep going, but no more. People hungry everywhere, don’t know what we’d have done without the Seigneur. Couldn’t come into Dax himself, but Jacques did, came once a week to see my sister, brought us cash every time.

Couldn’t last, though, couldn’t go on that way for ever. More than five hundred Spaniards in Dax, same in Verdâme, just about doubled our population, not to mention less land to feed them, lot of our crops being outside the Wall. Mostly hops and barley, on account of us making beer for the region, but lot of the sheep out there too, and that was meat we needed. Looked like being a lean winter and no mistake. Lean times for everyone till the Spaniards left.

But they weren’t going. Usual thing with an invasion, right, they come in, do their stuff and move on. Those left behind bury their dead, rebuild their houses and get on with their lives, just the way it is. But not this time. This time they’re not just billeting men in our homes, they’re taking over the old building used to be the original Roland home, the one with Le Soleil Splendide in one wing and storehouses in the rest, they’re taking over the whole thing, extending the back, and turning it into a dirty great barracks. They’re even taking over the old steward’s house, say it’s for a new governor from Spain. ‘It’s the Wall, that’s what it is, Col,’ said my dad. ‘The Wall’s a good defence for them, they’re trying to make us part of Artois, you mark my words.’

Some talk of fighting and throwing them out ourselves, others saying no, that’s the army’s job, like we pay taxes for. Some sense in it too, our own troops were moving at last, driving them back from Compiègne. ‘Wait it out,’ everyone’s saying, ‘Wait it out, they’ll be here any day.’

But days came and went, and those of us who remember the Chevalier Antoine start thinking there’s maybe another way. October comes, and every day there’s more and more of us looking toward Ancre and the Seigneur.

Jacques Gilbert

The boy was clutching eagerly at every scrap of news, working out how long it might take our army to get to us and boot the Spaniards out. I was almost as desperate myself. Being Occupied didn’t bother me as much as it did André, but I knew if our troops didn’t come soon the boy would want to fight.

It was all he thought about. Even teaching me fencing wasn’t for fun, it was all about killing Spaniards and doing it for real. He showed me how to twist and turn and jump to stop someone stabbing me. He showed me how to use a cloak in my other hand to distract or block him, and how to get in close and grab his sword-hand. He chalked an outline of a man on the barn wall and demonstrated the different ways to hit him, all of which had horrible Latin names but all seemed to mean killing the other man stone dead. Then he got M. Gauthier to bring me a real sword from his cache, a proper battle one like his own, strong and edged from point to hilt. It was a beautiful sword, with a guard like a golden cage to protect my hand, but I knew it wasn’t for me to wear and look important as André’s aide, it was there for me to kill Spaniards.

It was the same with everything. He treated me quite differently now I was his aide, he spoke like we were almost equal, but everything was about grooming me to fight. He talked about things to do with honour, he was even teaching me to read, but all his books were about chivalry and stuff and people standing up against horrible odds. My Father thought it was very funny. I knew he was sorry about hitting me that night, he never even mentioned it again, but he still couldn’t take any of it seriously. He might have done if he’d known what it really meant.

I understood why the boy felt strongly, I knew what the Spaniards had done to him, or thought I did. I knew he had nightmares, he’d toss and moan in his sleep, arms thrashing about to fight someone who wasn’t there, breathing hard and painful, face pale and damp with sweat. It was still madness to think of resistance. I knew he could fight, I’d never forgotten the way he hacked down that mounted Spaniard, but I remembered the rest of it too, him running back into the Manor to fight a hundred soldiers by himself and me having to knock him out to stop him. He’d only turned thirteen that August, he’d got no sense, let him loose in a battle and he’d be dead in seconds, and half the village along with him.

I did my best to talk him out of it. I said we’d still be all right if our troops didn’t come, the soldiers wouldn’t need such a big garrison when they saw we were docile, there’d be enough food to go round, they’d stop bullying us and settle down. André just sniffed and said it was a matter of honour, and there was never any arguing with him about that.

What really didn’t help was M. Gauthier. He kept bringing us stuff like sword belts and baldrics, he watched us fencing and even got us to try it on horseback like soldiers in a real battle. He didn’t seem to realize he was encouraging the boy to do something that wouldn’t just kill Spaniards, it might be the end of all of us in Dax.

He brought some venison to the cottage one day, so I grabbed him on his way home and begged him to leave the boy alone. I said ‘It’s dangerous, M. Gauthier, you’re making him want to fight the Spaniards.’

He grinned at me and I had to look away to avoid seeing his teeth. ‘He doesn’t need any encouragement, lad, that’s the man he was born to be.’

The rest of us weren’t, but I suppose he only cared about André. I said ‘But he could get killed, M. Gauthier, don’t you see?’

He stopped to wait while Dog did something disgusting in a ditch. ‘Not the Chevalier André. Don’t you know what he can do? His father was the finest swordsman in Paris, and this one’s better, his father said so himself.’

I did know, actually. The boy had this way of sensing what I was going to do before I did it, in all these months of fencing I’d only ever touched him twice.

I said ‘It’s not that, it’s just what he’s like. I’ve seen him, he’ll do something stupid and get himself killed.’

M. Gauthier was silent a moment, and looked at Dog enjoying his crap. ‘Well, if it has to be, it has to be,’ he said philosophically. ‘There’s worse things than that.’

I couldn’t believe it. ‘Like what?’

He glanced at me in something like surprise. ‘Shame, lad,’ he said. ‘Shame. Haven’t you learned that yet?’

He smiled kindly at me as Dog emerged triumphant from the ditch, then tipped his hat and strolled away.

Colin Lefebvre

Things looked up that November when our army retook Corbie. Imperial troops withdrawing all over, thought we’d only got to wait and they’d all be out of France. But oh no, end of the campaign season is all it was, Spaniards racing each other home to get the best winter quarters, and our own troops not much better. Week passes, then no more Spaniards coming through, all sitting tight in La Capelle and Le Câtelet and waiting it out till spring. More to the point, they were sitting it out in Dax-Verdâme as well, and not just till next year. First time in my life the Dax Gate is shut, soldiers are knocking holes in our Wall and sticking bloody great cannon to point out of them, and it looks like they’re here to stay.

People started talking. People saying this was it, we were on our own, no one coming to help us now. Some said lie down and accept it, there were towns changed hands twice already in this war, but no one happy all the same. D’Estrada doing his best to control the troops, decent man in his way, but soldiers are soldiers, no matter what flag they fly. People being robbed, some getting raped, lot getting beaten, and where there was resistance there’d been a few killed.

The Verdâmers cracked first. Nothing much, nothing big, just a soldier killed now and then and maybe his gun stolen. Rumour said it was a caporal in the Baron’s Guard who’d escaped the surrender at the barricade. Rumour said he was being helped by the Verdâme tanner, man called Stefan Ravel. Nothing to do with us, no one in Dax involved, but the Spaniards didn’t like it, things turned ugly all round.

It started with the Pagniés’ pig. November’s killing time in Dax, and Pagnié always had cider for them as helped. So there we all were, right, butchering it up nice and neat, then in come the soldiers and carry off the lot. Old Pagnié pleads with them, says he needs to feed his people through the winter, but the cabo just takes up the pig’s testicles, throws them in Pagnié’s face, and says ‘Here you go, you can all share that.’