Honour and the Sword (27 page)

As I ran with the others, soldiers rode furiously past me and our Chevalier was trapped. Behind him were the soldiers, to left and in front was the Wall, to his right only the farm. I stood on the corner to watch the end. The pursuing soldiers dropped their pace and spread out, anxious to prevent their quarry doubling back and past them, which did not seem impossible for so fine a horseman.

Then I saw André was not slowing to achieve the right turn, but urging his horse to greater speed until its hooves flashed along the cobbles and scarcely appeared to touch the ground. As I realized what he was attempting I let out a cry, and so did others near me, but he would have been too far away to hear.

The great horse leapt, with the boy on its back. The silence was absolute, and I recall observing the event with extraordinary clarity, as if everything had slowed for this one instant of time. The horse was in the air, it was above the Wall, André rose from its back but kept his arms round its neck, and before the horse disappeared on the other side I saw him drop safely down on to its back.

He had jumped the Wall.

Jean-Marie Mercier

I know now it was his own horse. I knew he was tied on to it and couldn’t fall. I saw the new fortifications hadn’t extended this far and that he took off where the camber of the road was at its highest, so the jump was perhaps only five foot in height. None of that matters. He jumped the Wall.

I’ve never heard a silence like it. We all knew there was the moat on the other side, and I was terribly afraid the horse might break its leg coming down, so it was a huge relief to hear its hooves galloping safely into the distance. I remember Martin Gauthier behind me saying over and over again ‘Oh, bravo, Sieur, oh, bravo.’

Then the laughter started. The soldiers chasing André had all balked at the Wall and were looking baffled and angry. One even threw his helmet on the ground in frustration. Perhaps that’s what started the laughter, but once we began it was difficult to stop. I felt a curious emptiness inside because André was gone, but I know I laughed myself, and the relief of it was wonderful.

Père Gérard Benoît

Don Miguel’s own face was expressionless, but he said only ‘Well,
mon père
, it would appear your Chevalier has solved the dilemma for both of us.’

At that moment I became aware of the laughter dying away, and a sudden tightening about Don Miguel’s mouth impelled me to follow his gaze to the Dax-Verdâme Road, where I perceived the new arrivals were greater in number and significance than I had first supposed. Gradually the crowd fell silent, as the first outriders stood aside and a group of finely dressed Spanish cavalry picked their way delicately among us.

In front of this troop rode a tall and most imposing figure, astride a magnificent warhorse with scarlet and gold hangings. Despite the fineness of the weather, a great cloak faced with dark fur was carefully arranged about his shoulders, and a scarlet sash was stretched across the expanse of his chest. He wore no helmet, only a hat of luxurious black velvet, which boasted a small red tassel depending above one ear. The face thus framed seemed larger than the average, but this was probably an illusion caused by the slenderness of the moustache and the tiny imperial which graced the tip of his ample chin. The brows, however, were full and black, which in turn made his eyes appear smaller than perhaps they were.

The figure drew to a halt opposite Don Miguel, who at once bared his head and dropped his knee.

‘Ah, d’Estrada,’ said the newcomer, with an air of apparent amiability. ‘I appear to have come at a time of Carnival. Would you care to explain what the devil it is we are all celebrating?’

The Colonel Don Francisco Mendéz had finally arrived.

Jean-Marie Mercier

We should have gone sooner, but it was quite impossible now. The new cavalry were blocking the way back to the Square and we hardly liked to draw attention by trying to slip past.

As d’Estrada explained what had happened, the Colonel dismounted and gazed round at us all with the most chilling expression. I became very conscious we were the only strangers in the village, but a very pretty girl took hold of Marcel’s arm and wrapped it firmly round her waist, while I felt a touch on my own hand, and looked down to see a little old woman regarding me with bright, determined eyes.

‘By your leave, Monsieur,’ she whispered confidentially, drawing her arm safely through mine. ‘Your name is now Hébert, and you are my grandson.’

I was astonished and warmed by the gesture, but perhaps I should have expected it. This was Dax, you see. They were André’s people.

Père Gérard Benoît

This Don Francisco proved himself from the first a man of very different quality from our Don Miguel. His anger at what had occurred became immediately evident, the more so for being expressed in neither a raised voice nor an excessive gesture, but only through the medium of his eyes, the coldness of which was observed by many there.

He affected a lack of interest in the whole affair, announcing the escape of a child was of little moment, and perhaps the simplest way of cleansing his province of all remnant of the old regime. The manner of its achievement was unfortunate, but rendered a perfect opportunity to make an immediate example of all who had been involved in this escapade. With this last remark, he reached out a leisurely hand to his aide, and into it the man placed a pistol.

‘Now,’ said he. ‘You tell me our men were hindered in their duty by villagers obstructing their line of fire. Who?’

There was a small silence, and then a hubbub of voices as many soldiers began to speak at once. Fortunately they had little information to offer, for these were troops newly arrived from Artois, and as yet unfamiliar with our local people. However, the presence of Martin Gauthier’s dog, a devoted if insanitary animal which was snapping in a friendly manner among the soldiers’ heels, drew attention to the ungainly figure of the gamekeeper himself, whose appearance was sufficiently distinctive for even these newcomers to remember him.

‘This?’ said Don Francisco, regarding Martin with distaste.

Two soldiers protested they were certain of it. Don Francisco nodded in a manner that seemed almost bored, aimed his pistol casually at Martin, and shot him in the face.

Jean-Marie Mercier

His face simply smashed open in front of me, spattering fragments on the clothes and faces of people beside him, his body flying back at the impact and crashing heavily down on to the stones. The little dog gave an agonized yelp, ran to the body and began to howl.

The grip on my arm tightened painfully. My old woman was speaking again. She said in a hard voice ‘We don’t cry, Monsieur. It is the Spaniards who will cry later when André hears.’

Only André was gone. I remembered the sound of the horse’s hooves fading into the distance, and knew we were completely alone.

The Colonel reached for a second pistol, then raised his voice over the howling of the dog.

‘Now,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Who will tell me the identity of the men who fired on my soldiers?’

Père Gérard Benoît

The people swore as one they had neither seen nor could guess from whence the shots had come. I had my own suspicions, for among the crowd I saw two foreign faces, in one of whom I recognized the Verdâme caporal, Marcel Dubois, but his arm was about Mathieu Pagnié’s daughter Suzanne, while his companion was supporting Béatrice Hébert, and I had hopes they might escape detection by the Spaniards.

The last voices faltered and died, and no name had been offered. The Colonel’s response to this can only be described as monstrous. He fired his pistol randomly into the people gathered together, hitting the youngest Laroque boy full in the belly and driving him to the stones in agony. He then put the question again, and many now said they believed the shot to have come from my own church tower. The soldiers searched at once, and returned bearing two muskets, which they cast noisily down at our feet.

The Colonel turned his face towards me.

Don Miguel immediately explained I had had nothing to do with the assault, and that he had been in conversation with me himself up until the moment of the first shot. The Colonel nodded, but did not appear greatly interested, being still at the business of procuring yet another pistol from his escort.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Then perhaps these people will tell me the name of the assassins who fired from his church.’

He began to raise the pistol, and a slight movement in the crowd showed me Dubois and his companion releasing their ladies in readiness to step forward. Their intended sacrifice was, however, forestalled by Jean-Baptiste Moreau, host of our little village tavern, Les Quatre Corbeaux, who barred their way and stood before the Colonel to plead.

‘We do not know, Señor,’ he said. ‘No one could see faces at a window so high. If we knew, we would tell you, I swear it.’

I suspected this for an untruth, for not only had he deliberately interposed his own body between the Colonel and the strangers, I also knew him for a most loyal member of my congregation, whose eldest son Simon was rumoured among the rebels himself. It is possible the Colonel shared my doubts, for he merely responded ‘Then tell me what you
do
know, Monsieur,’ and aimed his pistol casually at the innkeeper’s own stomach.

‘I will, Señor,’ said Jean-Baptiste immediately. ‘I know the boy who just fled was André de Roland, who was previously our Seigneur. I know he has remained in the area since the Spanish liberated us from his rule, and has lived rough in the woods all that time. I believe he has formed a band of ruffians who threaten the peace of this district, and that his departure can mean only our good, for we wish nothing more than to live at peace with our new masters. In this, Señor, I believe I speak for us all.’

There was much murmuring of assent and nodding of heads within the crowd, although not one but knew the Seigneur had lodged this year past with the Gilbert family rather than in the woods. Their loyalty warmed my heart.

The Colonel appeared to find this response appropriately subservient, and of this our good Capitán hastened to take advantage, professing himself deeply impressed at the salutary effect his superior’s demonstration had so speedily achieved.

He said ‘Perhaps enough is done to teach the people of Dax they have now a new master to obey.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Don Francisco, with a sudden smile of extraordinary sweetness. ‘We shall see.’

Jacques Gilbert

I couldn’t stay there. Mother kept weeping, Blanche was fretting for her home, Little Pierre was grumbling and wanting to know how long it was for, and Father kept saying ‘Ask Jacques,’ like it was all my fault. In the end I just climbed out through the hay bales and left them.

I went back to M. Gauthier’s. It wasn’t just to warn him, I wanted to see him, he was the only person in the world who was going to understand. But the cottage was still dark and empty, he wasn’t back from wherever he’d been, and I remember standing outside and stamping with frustration.

There was only one other place for me to go, and that was back to our own barn. There were no soldiers there, I’d known there wouldn’t be, I’d said all along the boy wouldn’t talk. Everything looked familiar inside. There was the chalk scribbling on the wall where André had drawn the fencing target with all the hitting positions marked. He’d written them out in full before I could even read them, low inside,
prime
with nails down, first position out of the scabbard.
Seconde
,
tierce
, I knew the shapes of those words before I even knew the bloody alphabet,
quarte
,
quinte
, there was a kind of magic in them like the runes of a spell.

I climbed to the upper level. My blanket lay as I’d left it that morning, I hadn’t bothered collecting my own things when we left, and no one had thought to ask if I had. The boy’s red blanket was still there, in the mess he usually left it. By now it sort of kept his shape, and I could almost imagine he was asleep underneath it and in a minute he’d stick his head out and ask where I’d been. There were all his other shabby little bits and pieces too. His books, his burnt wooden horse, his picture, and now his ball, his cloak, and of course his sword. I’d have to give that to Père Gérard to send back to the Comtesse, but I didn’t think she’d want the rest. It wasn’t much to show for his life, not really.

I sat on his blanket and watched as the light from the grain hole faded and a thick black line of darkness spread over the whole barn. I sat there a long time.

I wondered idly why Marcel hadn’t sent to tell me anything, it was night, he must have known ages ago. Then I realized no one knew I was here. I’d been ordered to evacuate, any messenger would have gone to the Home Farm instead. It didn’t matter, they’d have told my family, all I needed to do was go and ask.

Somehow I just stayed where I was. Here in the barn, with all his things round me, I could feel he was still with me a little bit longer. A part of me felt he really was.

Something stirred in the silence, a sharp scrape against stone, a hoof on the cobbles of our front yard. My heart went sort of
bonk
. I’d been warned, of course, but I hadn’t bloody listened, I’d been so wrapped up in being miserable I’d never thought about being caught myself.

I was on my feet in a second, scooping up my blanket into a bundle and shoving the boy’s things into it, listening out for more horses and someone banging on the cottage door, but everything seemed suddenly very quiet. Then a horse snorted and whinnied right outside the barn, and it was a horse I knew.

I didn’t bother with the ladder, I dropped straight down to the lower level and peered through the crack in the door. There was Tempête on the cobbles, just Tempête, and a small figure still huddled shapelessly on his back. I flung open the door.

Tempête tossed his head at sight of me, and the boy stirred, trying to lift his head. I reached up to him, but his wrists were still tied round the horse’s neck, and I couldn’t lift him down. He managed to turn his face to look at me, but it seemed to take him a moment to work out who I was.