The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles (8 page)

“I hope to have the honor to meet you in Paris one day,” Phillipe said.

“If not Paris, then somewhere, I have a feeling. A battlefield? Well, who can say? But comrades in arms always keep encountering one another. That’s a truth old soldiers know with certainty.”

With a last, piercing look—the renewed swearing of secrecy—he stepped forward and seized Phillipe in an embrace. It was affectionate, yet correct. It left the older boy with tears in his eyes.

“God grant His favor to you all,” Gil said, waving as he departed. Outside, he mounted Sirocco and hammered away north through the snowdrifts toward Chavaniac.

“He embraced you like an equal!” Girard exclaimed.

“I told you my son’s breeding was recognizable to any man with wits,” Marie countered.

“But—comrades in arms? That’s a peculiar term for a friendship between boys.”

Phillipe closed his fingers around the ribbed hilt-grip of the shining sword. “It’s because I helped him find the sorrel in that snowstorm. It’s just his way of speaking. Everything in military terms.”

“Um,” was Girard’s reply. Phillipe turned away from the blue eyes that had grown just a shade curious—and skeptical.

“Shut the door, it’s freezing in here!” he said loudly.

To his astonishment, Girard did.

The year 1771 brought more of the buffetings of fortune—and this time, the winds were bitter ones.

As touches of green began to peep between the basalt slabs of the hillsides of Auvergne, a courier on horseback galloped to the inn. Refreshing himself with food and wine, he informed Marie Charboneau haughtily that he had been hired to ride all the way from Paris to this godforsaken province to deliver
this
—

He proffered a rolled pouch, ribboned and sealed with maroon wax. Into the wax, a sigil had been impressed.

Marie retired to the kitchen to open the pouch. Though he hadn’t been told, Phillipe suspected the sigil belonged to his father. He guessed it from the way she touched the wax with faintly trembling fingers, then from the courier’s remark about the pouch having been forwarded across the Channel.

Phillipe was busy hustling up more wine for the irritable messenger when Marie screamed his name, piercingly.

He found her white-faced beside the kitchen hearth. She pressed a letter into his hand. Written in French, he noted. But not in Amberly’s masculine hand.

“It’s from your father’s wife,” Marie whispered. “He’s fallen ill. They fear for his life.”

Phillipe read the brief letter, whose cold tone suggested that it had been penned by James Amberly’s wife on demand of her husband. Phillipe’s dark eyes grew somber by the time he’d finished.

“She says the old wound from Minden has poisoned his system.”

“And he wants to see you. In case he di—”

But Marie could not speak the word. She rubbed fiercely at one eye, fighting tears.

All at once Phillipe noticed something else. A packet of notes lying on the trestle table. Franc notes. More than he’d ever seen in his life.

Suddenly Marie Charboneau was all composure, decision:

“That money is ample for our passage to Paris, then by ship to England. We’ll leave immediately. Surely Girard will keep the inn for us—”

She rushed to her son, wrapped her arms around him, pulled him close.

“Oh, Phillipe, didn’t I promise? I’ve lived for this moment!”

Then he felt the terrible tremors of the sobbing she could no longer control.

“But I don’t want him to die.
I don’t want him to die!”

T
HE COASTING VESSEL, A
lugger out of Calais, slid into the harbor of Dover in bright April sunshine.

Phillipe gripped the rail, staring in awe at the white chalk cliffs rising behind the piers and the clutter of small Channel vessels anchored nearby. Gulls wheeled overhead, crying stridently. The air carried the salt tang of open water.

Phillipe had seen so many new sights and wonders in the past fortnight, he could hardly remember them all. Especially now. He felt a tinge of dread because he was entering his father’s country both as a stranger and as a traditional enemy: a Frenchman.

Beyond that, Marie had not weathered the journey well. During the one night they had spent in the splendid, teeming city of Paris, she had been confined to her bed at a shabby inn on a side street. Phillipe had wanted to roam the great metropolis, see as much as possible before the coach departed for the seacoast. Instead, he’d sat the whole night on a stool beside the bed where Marie lay wracked with cramps and a fever.

Perhaps the cause was the strain of the trip. Or—the thought struck him for the first time that night in Paris—perhaps the hard years in Auvergne had drained away her health and vitality.

He saw further evidence that this might be true when the lugger put out from Calais. Complaining of dizziness, Marie went below. She vomited twice during the night crossing, much to the displeasure of the French crew, who provided a mop for Phillipe to clean up the mess personally.

He gave his most careful attention to the cheap second-hand trunk they’d bought in Chavaniac before departure. He mopped it thoroughly, even though the work—and the smell—was sickening.

Marie lay in a cramped bunk, even more pale than when she’d received news of Amberly’s illness. She alternately implored God to stop the churning of the waves—the Channel was rough that night—and expressed her shame and humiliation to her son.

He finished cleaning up the ancient trunk and stared at it a moment. The trunk contained what little they owned that was of any value. Save for the inn, of course. That had been left in the care of Girard.

Marie’s few articles of good clothing were packed in the trunk. Her precious casket of letters. And Phillipe’s sword.

Why he’d brought the weapon he could not fully explain. But somehow, he wanted it with him in the land of the enemy—

Now he leaned on the lugger rail, squinting up past the gulls to a strange, tall tower on the chalk cliff. His confidence of the preceding months was all but gone.

He saw figures bustling on the quays. Englishmen. Would his limited knowledge of their language serve him well enough? He and his mother still had a long way to travel to reach his father’s bedside. No instructions had been provided in the letter written by Lady Jane Amberly. Perhaps that was deliberate. He looked again at the cliff tower, strangely forbidding, as the sails were hauled in and the lugger’s master screamed obscene instructions to his crew scampering around the deck.

The mate, a man with a gold hoop in one ear, noted Phillipe’s rapt expression and clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He said in French:

“Busy place, eh? You’ll get accustomed to it. The captain would probably have my balls for saying this, but I don’t find the English a bad sort. After all, there’s a lot of old French blood running in the veins of these squires and farmers.”

The mate then proceeded to point out some of the structures high on the cliff, including the Norman keep and the strange, tall tower. Of the latter he said:

“There were two Roman lighthouses up there long ago, not just the one. Their fires guided the galleys of the legions into the harbor. And Caesar’s troops fathered plenty of bastards before they pulled out. So whatever your business in England, my lad, don’t let the locals put you down. Their ancestors came from all over Europe and God knows where else. Besides, we’re at peace with them. For the present.”

As he started aft, he added, “I’ll be glad to help you and your mother find the coach. Shame the sailing wracked her so. She’s a handsome woman. I’d court her myself if I didn’t have two wives already.”

Phillipe laughed, feeling a little less apprehensive. He went below.

He found his mother sitting in the gloom beside the shabby trunk. Her white hands were knotted in her lap. He closed his own hand on top of hers. How cold her flesh felt!

“The mate said he’ll assist us in finding the overland coach, Mama.”

Marie said nothing, staring at nothing. Phillipe was alarmed again. Distantly, he heard the lugger’s anchor splash into the water.

The mate led them up from the quay into town. He carried the trunk on his muscular shoulder as though it contained nothing at all. In the yard of a large, busy inn, he tried to decipher the English of a notice board that listed the departure times of various “flying waggons” bound for towns with unfamiliar names.

“Flying waggon is intended to be a compliment to the speed of the public coaches.” The mate grinned. “But I understand that’s nothing but the typical lie of any advertisement. Bah, I can’t read that ungodly script! I’ll ask inside. What’s the name of the village you want?”

“Tonbridge,” Phillipe said. “It’s supposed to lie on a river west of here.”

The man with the gold ear hoop disappeared, returning shortly to report that they wanted the coastal coach, via Folkestone, departing in midafternoon.

The mate kept them company while they waited, stating that he’d only squander money on unworthy, immoral pastimes if he went off by himself. He was a jolly, generous man, and even bought them lunch—dark bread and some ale—at a public house called The Cinque Ports.

Then he saw them aboard the imposing coach, whose driver kept yelling, “Diligence for Folkestone, m’lords. Express diligence, departing at once!”

The mate had helped them change some of their francs for British money. Now he picked the correct fare out of Phillipe’s hand and paid the agent. He waved farewell as the diligence rolled out of the yard.

Five of the other six persons packed inside the coach chatted in English as the vehicle lurched westward. Phillipe and Marie sat hunched in one corner, saying nothing and trying to avoid stares of curiosity. Among the passengers was a cleric, who read his Testament in silence. But a fat, wigged gentleman in claret velvet talked enough for two men.

Apparently he had some connection with the weaving industry. He complained about the refusal of the “damned colonials” to import British goods—in protest against some of those taxes of which Girard had spoken, if Phillipe understood correctly.

“But damme, we’ve the King’s Friends in power now!” the fat gentleman sputtered. “North shall bring those rebellious dogs to heel. Eh, what do you say?”

The merchant’s mousy wife said she agreed. Oh yes, definitely. The fat man became all smiles and smugness. Dust boiled into the coach windows as it lurched along the rough but supposedly modern highway leading southwest along the coast.

They arrived in Folkestone late at night, and Phillipe engaged a room. His English proved sufficient to the task, even though his pronunciation did elicit a momentary look of surprise.

The landlord treated his French guests with reasonable courtesy, however, and at dawn he helped Phillipe hoist the trunk into the luggage boot of another coach. Shortly after sunup, Marie and her son were bouncing northwestward, through a land most pleasant to gaze upon. Gentle downs, green with spring, unrolled vistas of tiny villages set among hop fields and orchards whose pink and white blossoms sent a sweet smell into the coach. Marie even remarked on the welcome warmth of the sun.

Phillipe got up nerve to ask an elderly lady what the district was called. She replied with a smile, “Kent, sir. The land of cherries and apples and the prettiest girls in the Empire!”

Near the edge of a great forest called The Weald, the coach broke an axle. They lost four hours while the coach guard, leaving his blunderbuss with the driver for protection of the passengers, trudged to the nearest town. He returned with a replacement part and two young wheelwrights, who performed the repairs. Finally, on the night of Phillipe and Marie’s third day in England, the coach rolled across a river bridge into the village of Tonbridge, a small, quiet place in the valley of the Medway.

They found lodging upstairs at Wolfe’s Triumph, an inn evidently renamed to honor the heroic general who had smashed the French at Quebec. In Auvergne, the general’s name was jeered and cursed.

The inn’s owner was a short, middle-aged man with protruding upper teeth. Phillipe went downstairs to find him late in the evening. Marie was already in bed. Not asleep, but unmoving. As if the trip had proved too great a strain.

A fragrant beech fire roared in the inn’s inglenook. The spring night outside had grown chilly. A crowd of Tonbridge men packed the tables, drinking and gossiping about local happenings. Most of the men were fair, ruddy-faced, in sharp contrast to Phillipe’s dark hair and eyes. But he was growing accustomed to drawing stares.

As Phillipe approached, the innkeeper turned from an ale cask. He handed two mugs to a plump serving girl, who switched her behind and smiled at Phillipe as she walked off.

“Well, young visitor,” said the proprietor, “may I serve you something?”

“No, thank you. I am not thirsty.” Phillipe was careful to speak each English word clearly. But the answer was a lie He felt too insecure about the future to squander one precious coin.

“Too bad,” said the older man. “I meant the first one to be a compliment of the house.”

“Why—in that case, I’ll accept. With thanks.”

“That woman who arrived with you—is she your mother?”

Phillipe nodded.

“Is she quite well?”

“She’s tired, that’s all. We’ve come a long way.”

“Across the Channel. You’re French, aren’t you?” The man drew a frothing mug from the cask, replacing the bung with a quick, deft movement, so that very little spilled. “Good English ale,” he said, handing Phillipe the mug. “I don’t hold with serving gin to younger folk. It’s the ruination of thousands of little ’uns up in London.”

Phillipe sipped, trying to hide his initial dislike of the amber brew. “Mmm. Very good. To answer your question—” He dashed foam off his lip with his sleeve. “I am French. But I have a relative who lives near here. My mother and I need to find his house so we may go see him.”

“Well, sir, Mr. Fox knows most if not all of those in the neighborhood. What’s the name of this relative?”