Honour and the Sword (12 page)

It didn’t deter Giles Leroux. He was the Verdâme verderer, used to go to the livestock markets with me and Durand, along with Martin Gauthier and that pisshead Pierre Gilbert from Dax. He was round next day, saying ‘I hear you’re killing dons.’

‘Says who?’ I said.

‘Says no one,’ said Leroux. ‘But Durand and I want in, Ravel, so bear it in mind.’

Marcel was right after all, it looked like we had the makings of an army. Durand was a champion longbowman, and Leroux a first-class shot, they were both good fighters who’d stood with us at the barricades. Then Durand brought along Bernard Rouet from the vineyard, who was a top crossbowman if otherwise scarcely human, and that brought us up to five. We ambushed a few pissed soldiers who were stupid enough to wander near the woods at night, and then we’d the guns to look for a few more.

I considered Gauthier, a mad old bugger but soldier through and through, but unfortunately he had one weakness I couldn’t ignore: he used to lick the arses of the Rolands till you’d think they’d be red-raw. Oh yes, Abbé, he’d told us all about young André, son of his father, retainers lining up to die on his behalf, but the kid was thirteen and nobility, two things I rather thought we’d be better without.

But there was one thing he told us about his young Sieur that caught Marcel’s interest, and no doubt you can guess what. And we knew something else he hadn’t mentioned, the name of the man rumour said distributed money for him. An unattractive personality, as you’ll know by now, but we thought he might be dim enough to look kindly on men who’d stood alongside him at the barricades.

We thought we’d put it to the test, that night in November. And yes, Abbé, from your rather singular point of view, that’s the night my life starts to become interesting.

Jacques Gilbert

We couldn’t do much to hide the bodies. The boy said it didn’t matter, the Spaniards would think it was those people from Verdâme, they’d never imagine it was miserable peasants like us.

But the Manor would be even less safe from now on, so we waited till dusk then sneaked across to see M. Gauthier. He’d crawled over every inch of the forest stalking; if there was anyone who could find a new hiding place it was him.

I’d never actually been inside his cottage before, and it was pretty horrid really, it was sort of rancid. He had a dead deer and what looked like stoats on the floor, and a couple of pheasants hanging on hooks which from the stink ought to have been eaten last week, but he said no, they had to be hung till the necks rotted and the bodies fell off, that’s how you knew it was time to cook them. We nodded politely, then tried to find somewhere to sit that wasn’t underneath them.

The boy explained, and M. Gauthier nodded wisely then sat in silence to think. I listened to Dog crunching bones and tried to close my nose against the smell.

‘There’s the old Hermitage, Sieur,’ said M. Gauthier at last. ‘Secret enough, aye, and big enough for your horses too. There’s a stream, you’d have water. It’s very deep in, mind, maybe three miles, you’ll want to think about that.’

I didn’t want to think about it at all because of having to slog there twice a day to do the horses, but right then nothing seemed to matter as long as we could fight. The boy just said ‘The deeper the better, so the Spaniards won’t find us,’ then looked at me and grinned.

We loaded up the horses with straw from the Home Farm, then tied them up behind the wash-house while the three of us crept furtively to the dairy. We didn’t really think there’d be soldiers hanging round after dark, but we couldn’t be sure, we hadn’t expected them this afternoon either. M. Gauthier made us both wear our swords.

I’d always liked the Ancre dairy, it was cool and airy with whitewashed walls. I used to stand in the doorway watching Fleurie making butter, her eyes flicking up at me sideways through her hair, her hands moist and slippery, and everything feeling fresh. It wasn’t like that now. There were filthy boot-marks and a pungent smell like the soldiers had been using it to piss in. The big churn was gone, the stool was on its side, the trestles had collapsed, and there was broken pottery crunching under our feet along with sticky grit where the salt crock had smashed. Something soft caught at my boot, a trail of muslin unravelled like a huge bandage. I remembered watching Fleurie making cheese, measuring out the muslin, then placing the strip between her little white teeth and ripping it clean off with one jerk of her head. I remembered her keeping her eyes on me all the time she was doing it, and how it made me feel. But now the muslin was blackened and disgusting, and Fleurie was dead.

‘The floor looks all right,’ said the boy.

We went to the far corner where there was a slab you could tilt to slide your hands underneath. M. Gauthier and I prised it out between us, then the one next to it, and now there was a white sheet exposed, with the gleam of dark metal and polished wood showing underneath. Behind us the boy gave a faint sigh of relief.

We laid the top three muskets in the sheet and wrapped them into a bundle. Under the next sheet were two pistols, but the boy was just lifting out the first when I heard a distant rattle of shingle and realized someone was crossing the drive.

M. Gauthier was by the window in a second. The boy didn’t seem to have heard, he was still taking out the second pistol, but I touched his arm and indicated the window, and he was on his feet at once, sliding his sword out the scabbard in the same movement. I fumbled out my own, but it felt awkward and unfamiliar, like I’d never handled it before.

M. Gauthier came back from the window.

‘Four,’ he whispered. ‘And another waiting on the grass.’ He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, pushing him gently down by the milk cans, and signalled me to crouch next to him. He was too tall to join us, so he just sort of stood and melted himself into the shadow of the corner. If the soldiers went past the door they wouldn’t see anything, and I couldn’t think of a reason in the world why they’d actually come in.

Then suddenly I could, and an odd flush sort of rippled through me as I realized how stupid we’d been. Those men we killed, someone was bound to have missed them and come looking, they might go through the whole Manor before they checked the apron. I was praying desperately ‘But not here, not the dairy, please don’t come in here.’

But they did. We could hear them as they came up the track towards the wash-house, then took the fork to the dairy. M. Gauthier bent low, left arm flung out to protect the boy. He was unarmed, but he was big, and those huge long arms looked ready to tackle anything. I told myself we had surprise on our side, there were only four, and we had André, who could surely take two out by himself. I was confident I could get one too. I was sixteen now and bloody strong, I’d been fencing six hours every day since July and thought I ought to be a match for a single Spanish foot-slogger. Then I remembered it wasn’t enough just to hit one, I’d got to stick the blade right in him, and I’d never done that in my life. My hand started to feel sticky on the pommel, and the tip of my blade was wobbling.

The darkness by the door thickened and shapes appeared in it. They came forward, closing the door behind them, and the little patch of moonlight narrowed to a crack. I heard their boots crunching on the debris, then an exclamation, and knew they’d seen the floor was up. There was a faint metallic rasping and a pale flash of light as one of them drew a sword.

I shifted position to spring up, but my boot nudged a milk can and it rocked back into the others with a great clang. The men jumped round, but M. Gauthier was already leaping forward and grabbing the one in front. The boy was right behind him, smashing at someone with the heavy pistol, then I heard the clash of steel as he engaged the one with the sword. I was on my feet and dodging round him, there were arms and elbows everywhere, something soft bashed against my shins, then I was clear and the fourth man right in front of me. I jerked up my sword, but he exclaimed and jumped back, he was in the crack of light from the door, and then I was yelling ‘Stop, everyone, André, stop!’ because it was only bloody Colin.

For a second nobody moved. Then Colin stepped back a pace and pulled the door wide open, letting moonlight flood into the dairy.

André was standing very still, the point of his blade against his opponent’s throat. Half a second later, and he’d have killed him. The man he’d hit with the pistol was on his hands and knees on the floor.

M. Gauthier looked into the face of the man he was throttling, then shoved him away with an oath.

‘Durand!’ he said in disgust. ‘Philippe Durand!’

I peered in the gloom, and saw it was. Everyone knew Philippe, the butcher from Verdâme, he was fat and jolly with a huge grin that showed his missing front tooth. He and M. Lefebvre had this big rivalry between them in the archery competitions, like the May Day contests weren’t so much between Dax and Verdâme as between Lefebvre and Durand.

André didn’t take his eyes off his own man. He said simply ‘Friends of yours, Martin?’

‘I’m not so sure about that, Sieur,’ said M. Gauthier, glowering round at them all. ‘But I know them. The one on the floor lodges with a friend of mine.’

‘And this one?’ said André, looking thoughtfully at the man on the end of his blade.

‘That one,’ said M. Gauthier, and spat on the floor. ‘That’s the so-called friend, Sieur. That’s Stefan Ravel.’

Stefan Ravel

So here it is at last, the wonderful moment in my life when I first came face to face with André de Roland. Three loud cheers, and bring out the brandy.

Not that I saw much of him at the time. He was rather smaller than me, Abbé, and you’ll appreciate I was having to carry my chin a little high. When I peered down his blade all I could see was the steel of his guard and these dark eyes regarding me coolly over the top. So, no, I wasn’t hugely taken with him. For one thing, he took his time getting his blade out of my neck, just to make sure I understood he’d beaten me. Oh yes, Abbé, of course he had, but I didn’t see why I should give him the satisfaction of admitting it, so I stared right back and gave him a nice smile.

I said ‘Take that fucking blade out of my throat or I’ll break your back.’

Something sparked in his eyes, and for a second his blade twitched against my skin. Then slowly the hilt lowered to show more of his face, and I saw him smile back.

‘I should like very much to see you try.’

I knew who he was then all right, there wasn’t a peasant in the world spoke like that. I didn’t need Durand gibbering with shock, saying this was the local Seigneur himself, I knew what I’d got here without that. I merely observed I couldn’t be expected to see who I was talking to while I was stuck with my nose pointed at the ceiling, and if he’d have the goodness to get the fuck out of it I might be able to converse in a more civilized fashion.

A toss-up, I grant you, Abbé, but it paid. The kid lowered his sword and stepped back, and I got my first proper look at him. He was a scrawny little thing, scruffy clothes, hair all over his face, and grubby as a street urchin.

I said I was delighted to make his acquaintance.

Jacques Gilbert

Stefan hated him on sight.

He was pissed off at being beaten, of course, he just kept staring at the boy, and I didn’t like his look. But M. Gauthier seemed quite comfortable, he just said ‘What was that you were saying, Ravel, about our Seigneur being too young to fight?’ then creased himself up in wheezy laughter.

The last man came shuffling in while all this was going on, no one I knew, just a shabby little man in a stupid woollen hat pulled too low over his forehead, who looked round nervously then tried to hide himself among the milk cans. André waited patiently for them all to settle, then leant arrogantly against the cheese bench, folded his arms, and said ‘Well, gentlemen, would somebody care to explain?’

Colin started blustering, like he always does when he’s scared or in the wrong. He said the men had come to the Forge that evening, he told them we wanted the weapons hidden and they’d volunteered to help.

‘Tried to ask first,’ he said. ‘Went round the cottage myself, checked the barn, not a sign of anyone. Thought it better not to wait. Thought you said it was urgent.’

He sounded all injured, so the boy said he quite understood and thanked them for their trouble.

There was a little silence, then the one who’d been on the floor gave this discreet little cough behind his hand and stepped forward.

He said ‘I have to confess we had something of an ulterior motive.’

André liked frankness. ‘What was it?’

The man looked at him very directly. He was nice-looking, blond, sort of fresh-faced, and really not much older than us, probably only about eighteen. There was something clean about him too, a sort of innocence that made him seem younger. Just looking at him made me feel old and scabby and cynical.

He said ‘I hoped you might lend us some of your weaponry. We want to raise an army to fight the Spaniards.’

I suppose we should have guessed, but it felt like a miracle all the same. Then he introduced himself as Caporal Marcel Dubois of the Verdâme Guard, and that was even better. He wasn’t a kid like us, and he wasn’t just a farm labourer who wanted to fight, he was a proper trained soldier who’d been in battles and knew what he was doing. The boy looked at him like he was the Archangel Gabriel.

Stefan Ravel

It was quite a change, Abbé, he was all over Marcel as if they were long-lost brothers. When Marcel told him I was a soldier too, he clasped my hand and actually gave me a great big smile.

I gave his hand a really tight squeeze, just to show I hadn’t forgotten the way he’d been looking at me a minute ago, but his smile never faltered and he gave me one fuck of a squeeze right back. So I thought ‘all right,’ and really put the pressure on till his eyes glazed. He didn’t make a sound, I’m glad to say, just gritted his teeth and glared, but when we let go I noticed him rubbing his hand under cover of his cloak. Someone else saw him too. The silent young man standing beside him took one look at André massaging his fingers, then turned his face towards me and for the first time our eyes met.