Honour and the Sword (23 page)

She gave a curious dry laugh, and scrunched my handkerchief in her hand. ‘André de Roland is a great gentleman, Mademoiselle. What will he care for the wife of a saddler? What will anyone care?’

I said fiercely ‘I care, and so will André once he knows.’

‘He already does,’ she said. ‘My good M. Mercier promised to tell him, but there is nothing done. They say they cannot reach them here in the Château and so nothing is done.’ She looked at me with little red eyes and such hopelessness behind them my heart seemed to burn in pain. She whispered ‘There is no justice in this world for people like us, Mademoiselle. Sometimes I think there is nothing at all.’

25
MAY

It is done. I have only to wait for the barber, and I do hope he is quick. The blood is already coming through the bandage and there is a stinging sensation which makes me dizzy, but I think it was the only way.

The Owl took over duty from the Slug this afternoon, and I heard them talking about these two Pedros. The Owl is quite disgusted with them, for he is a good, kind man and has children of his own, but it seems others do not share his view. The Slug said Capitán Martínez is afraid of being unpopular if he punishes the men, so he is to send them to Arras for their fate to be decided there. Apparently the Snake is to be one of the escorts and says they are to go straight after the noon meal tomorrow. I knew this was information André must have at once, but could see no way of getting it to him, for Jeanette will not come until Monday and we have no other outside contact at all.

Then I remembered Pollet. We had him last year when poor Florian banged his head, and he seemed a nice man and told us such funny stories while he was dressing the wound. More importantly he is from Dax, and even if he does not know where to find André he must surely know someone who does.

I knew what I had to do, but am ashamed to admit how hard I found it. I managed to break the green vase without difficulty, but
could not
cut myself properly with it. Twice I dug the point into my arm and pulled, but somehow my hand seemed to resist and lift all by itself, so that all I had were little scratches and trembling fingers. In the end I went to the window, wrapped my handkerchief round my left wrist, knocked against the glass a couple of times, then finally closed my eyes and simply punched my whole arm through.

It was extraordinary. When I pulled my arm back through the jagged glass the blood seemed to appear quite suddenly, a bright scarlet rectangle above my wrist, then I saw the flap of white skin and really felt a little sick. Colette came running at the sound of the smash, but only screamed at the sight of my arm. She put her hand over her mouth and made strange sounds like ‘Oh, oh,
oh!
’ as if her stomach were behind them as well as her voice. My arm was shining and slippery with blood, and I was trying to say ‘Colette, the surgeon, we must ask for a surgeon,’ but still she only screamed. Florian was better, he ran and clasped his hand round the wound, but also yelled for the guard, and then the Owl came and it was all right.

He was wonderful. He took only one look, then simply ripped the sleeve from his own shirt and bound it furiously round my arm, making funny little tutting noises as if I were a little girl. I felt calmer at once, but had to pretend I did not, saying over and over again ‘The Dax barber, Pollet, the Dax surgeon.’ He said he would send for their own surgeon but I shook my head furiously and said again ‘Pollet, the Dax barber, Pollet.’ He seemed puzzled by my persistence, but perhaps he thought it modesty on my part to wish only for a surgeon I knew, for he bowed with great respect and stepped back as if he had been too familiar in touching me so closely, and said ‘Yes, Mademoiselle, the Dax surgeon, I send now.’

I am almost ashamed for abusing his kindness. He walked out of our apartments with great dignity, even though one muscular arm was completely naked from the loss of his sleeve, and I thought to myself ‘I must remember this. When everything seems black and terrible I must remember always that there are people like the Owl.’

Jacques Gilbert

He didn’t mess about, M. Pollet. He sent a message to meet him that night at the Quatre Corbeaux and when Stefan heard it was about the Pedros he insisted on coming too.

I liked going to the Corbeaux, it was like things being normal before the Spaniards came. The whole of the left wall was covered in engravings of ladies from the big towns, while the right-hand wall had all holy pictures on it, and the dirty bit of cloth M. Moreau was convinced came from the headdress of a Saracen killed in the seventh crusade. People used to call the two sides of the room ‘Sin’ and ‘Sacred’, and the bit of wall by the kitchen was just called ‘Hell Corner’, because M. Moreau’s ancient mother used to sit there, making a bowl of gruel last all night, and if you got too close she might wink and show you her legs.

M. Pollet was perched uneasily on a bench under the Saracen’s headdress, raising his mug to Mme Moreau and looking like he wished he was at the seventh crusade himself. He seemed relieved to see us and poured out his information in a great lump, like a bomb he couldn’t wait to get rid of. We were thrilled about it though, André was fidgeting with excitement. He was saying ‘We’ll get them on the way, won’t we, Stefan, we’ll get the bastards on the way.’ Stefan just said ‘Shut up and drink your cider,’ but he was smiling when he said it, and the boy smiled back.

M. Pollet said quickly ‘I don’t need to know about that, Messieurs, I’m only passing on the information as she asked.’

‘She?’ said André. ‘Have you got an informer?’

‘Better than that, Sieur,’ said M. Pollet, and actually winked. He’d probably been drinking a while before we got here. ‘This was a lady, a real one, the younger Mlle du Pré herself.’

There were a bunch of men singing ‘
Il est bel et bon
’ very badly over in Sin, I was suddenly very aware of them. Next to me the boy had gone very still.

He said ‘They’re still there?’

M. Pollet looked confused, but Stefan reached for the jug and started pouring cider.

‘Politics, kid,’ he said, like he knew anything about it. ‘These things always take time. But they’re all right where they are, aren’t they, Pollet?’

M. Pollet seemed much happier talking about Mlle Anne than he was about the soldiers, he drank more cider and told us the whole story. André listened with eyes getting bigger and rounder like he was a child again, and said ‘But that’s so brave. To cut her own arm, that’s so brave. Will she be all right?’

Stefan shifted on his seat next to me. ‘Little scratch, that’s all. She won’t have been stupid enough to do real harm.’

M. Pollet sighed. ‘I did the best I could, little tiny stitches, but there’ll be a wee bit of a scar, I’m afraid. A terrible shame, and her so pretty. And brave too, Messieurs, never a squeak out of her while I worked.’

The boy looked at me with a kind of shy pride and said ‘I told you, didn’t I, Jacques, I said she wasn’t like other girls.’ I don’t think he did actually, I think he just said she didn’t giggle, but people do that, don’t they, they make things bigger in their minds than they really were. Then I remembered the two of them sitting side by side in the sunken garden and wondered if there’d been more to it than he let on.

‘You’re right there, Sieur,’ said M. Pollet, waggling his head wisely and knocking the Saracen’s headdress askew. ‘Very unusual lady. What it’s like for them living up close with the Spaniards I can’t imagine. Why, I’d say –’

Two things happened at once. I felt Stefan’s foot lunging out under the table beside me, and M. Pollet stopped mid-sentence with an odd sort of grunt.

‘What?’ said the boy. ‘What would you say?’

M. Pollet’s eyes were fixed on Stefan. He said feebly ‘Well, I don’t really know, Sieur, I don’t know anything about it.’

‘We know we’re lucky she’s there,’ said Stefan, pouring him more cider. ‘Someone right up with the dons, having cosy chats with the officers, getting information, that’s worth gold. It’ll be a big loss to us when they’re freed.’

‘But will they be?’ said André. ‘I never thought it would take this long.’

‘Oh, they’ll be ransomed any day,’ said Stefan firmly. ‘Father’s rich, isn’t he? If the dons can’t get anything else don’t tell me they won’t take money.’

André looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know, we shouldn’t just leave them …’

M. Pollet’s face suddenly cleared. He leant forward confidentially and said ‘Now, don’t you worry about them, Sieur. Snug as kittens in a box, that’s what they are, nice rooms, every luxury, and going to be freed any day. You’ve no need to fret on their account, none at all. Now, shall I be getting us some more cider?’

I understood then, and actually I thought they were right. If André believed any girl was in trouble he’d go doing something stupid to save her, and this was his own friend, this was Mlle Anne, he’d probably try scaling the walls of the Château all on his own just to get her out. So we all agreed the hostages were really very comfortable and much better off where they were, then we thanked M. Pollet for his help and got the boy out quick.

He’d probably have still been wondering about it on the way home, but Stefan got the subject back on to the Pedros, then there wasn’t room in our heads for anything else. We knew those two even in Dax, they used to stroll over from Verdâme when they got bored with bullying the people there, they’d beaten Mme Hébert because they said she was ugly, and threw Simon’s brother Nicolas in the pond so they could see what a hunchback looked like swimming. The boy would have wanted to get them anyway, even before this terrible thing about killing the baby, he was determined to be involved. He said it ought to be our unit did the action since it was us got the information, and Stefan didn’t argue, he said yes, all right, he’d talk to Marcel.

Maybe he was just keen to take the boy’s mind off Mlle Anne, I don’t know. But that’s all it takes, isn’t it, for everything to change and go wrong. All it needs is for someone somewhere to say yes when they ought to have said no, never, fucking no.

Jean-Marie Mercier

I remember every detail of that day, as if it was now.

The action wasn’t to be until the afternoon, so we waited together by the stream. It was summer, so the bluebells were over, but there were poppies blooming and foxgloves showing pink through the trees. I remember the sound of the stream trickling, and the bees humming close to the grass.

I was checking the muskets for the action, because I was a marksman now, I honestly was. The others were all relaxing. André was dozing on his back, Colin was playing dice, and Robert was rather ostentatiously trimming his new beard and asking how we thought he should style it. Jacques was carving a model of a wild boar, and finding it difficult making the bristles fine enough. Every time he nearly had one perfect it would break off, and he would say ‘Bugger,’ and shave another slice off its back so he could start again.

We were going to use what Marcel called the ‘stones trick’, which meant André had the principal role, because he looked the youngest. He was supposed to throw stones at the soldiers, you see, then pretend to trip as he turned to run, in order to lure one or more into dismounting and chasing him into our ambush. The others were bound to wait for their colleagues, and so far we’d always been able to get all of them. The difference this time was we hoped to take the two murderers alive, so we could hang them as they deserved.

It was a very important action, so Marcel joined us himself with some extra men. There were Philippe and Pinhead from Verdâme, as well as Bettremieu and Margot from Dax, which brought our strength up to ten. They seemed quite as relaxed as we were, and settled down perfectly happily to wait by the stream. I remember Robert saying casually ‘Do you think I should keep the beard, Margot, or just have a moustache?’ and Margot saying innocently ‘Oh, are you growing a beard?’ and everyone laughing while Robert looked cross.

I remember it all. I remember sitting in the sun working those muskets, with no idea then of what I would be made to do with them. I remember the guns themselves, the smooth feel of the stocks under my hand, the wood warmed by the sun, the smell of the gun oil and the sound solid click of a good action striking home. I remember Stefan next to me, those strong dye-stained hands deftly filling the bandoliers, and that oddly chemical smell you always associate with a tanner.

But most of all I remember André. He was flopped on his back, his hands tucked behind his head, and looking up at the sky. He was wearing that old white shirt with green grass stains down the front, and the neck open where the laces had torn. His sleeves were rolled up, and I can remember how the sun caught the fine dark hairs on his forearms, and the little grazes on his fair skin. I watched him lying there, enjoying the sun and the companionship, and the thought came into my head ‘How very young he is.’ I suppose it’s quite ironic I should be thinking it then for the first time, when really it was the last time it was true.

Ten

Jacques Gilbert

It looked really safe.

Marcel placed us on the Verdâme side of the Flanders turn-off, with signallers in both directions and even one up as far as the first bend on the Flanders Road. We had Bettremieu as ‘catcher’ up in the tree to look out for the signals, and Stefan at the base as ‘anchor man’, relaying them and giving the orders.

The attack team was strong too. There was me and Marcel behind a thick tangle of brambles nearest the road, Robert and Philippe in a ditch behind us on one wing, Pinhead and Colin on the other, while Jean-Marie and Margot sat behind the signal tree with the guns in case we needed marksmen. The boy seemed quite happy with the back-up. I watched him checking over the ground, working out where he’d stage his fall, and measuring the distance to the clearing we’d picked for the killing site. Then he gave me his sword to look after, collected stones to throw, and sat down behind a clump of bracken to wait for Stefan’s signal.

We waited. My neck started to ache with looking back at Stefan and I had to keep glancing away to rest it. Then I looked again and he was signalling. He pointed left to show it was a signal relayed from the Verdâme direction, so it wasn’t urgent, Bettremieu couldn’t see it himself yet. Then his fist banged his palm, which meant soldiers coming, then two fingers up, which told us how many. I was surprised there wasn’t an escort, but wasn’t about to complain.