In the Name of the King Read online

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘No. But if we leave now they will shoot us.’

  ‘No, they won’t,’ he says. ‘Not if you shoot them first.’

  Bernadette Fournier

  It was true he had taught me to fire the musket, but I had done it lying down, not on my feet and with a stand. I said ‘Perhaps if I had the pistol,’ but André explained the pistol was the only gun that could be fired one-handed, and Grimauld must take it to provide a second shot as they ran for the horses.

  ‘It’ll only take seconds,’ he said. ‘The horses are saddled and waiting, we’ll be back before you know it.’

  ‘It’s easy enough, my poppet,’ said Grimauld, checking the gun’s action with smooth, professional movements. ‘Those are matchlocks they’ve got, I seen one fire. You’ll see the glow of the slow-match, just point at that and pull the trigger.’

  I said ‘What if there is more than one?’

  ‘There won’t be,’ said André. ‘D’Arsy’s wounded in the arm, there are only two who can shoot, and they must have one to watch the front. It’s just that one shot we need to stop.’

  Grimauld passed me the musket and folded down the gun-rest to hold the end of the barrel. ‘You’ve to keep it rock-steady, see. Wobble by an inch here, that’s four feet off by the time the ball hits, you got that?’

  I looked down the barrel and held it firm. ‘Then I will miss, and perhaps may hit you.’

  ‘Right as rabbits, girlie,’ he said, and grinned.

  We could delay no longer. Burning thatch was already falling in upstairs, for smoke now issued through the cracks in the beams above our heads. André settled his pack, adjusted the grip on his sword, said ‘Over in a minute, Bernadette,’ and pulled open the back door. He was gone in an instant, Grimauld after him, then the doorway was clear. I steadied the musket, and looked about the yard.

  The flames of the burning thatch cast a yellow flicker over the dark space, but there was no one there. André and Grimauld were running hard for the stable by the gate, but at them I must not look, I must keep my eyes and the barrel on the bushes opposite and at the little privy behind which a man might hide. The trees stirred in the evening wind but I ignored them, for I had only the one shot and must save it until I was sure. And I was not sure, I saw nothing, and then my mind said, They will not try to shoot a running man, they will wait until they are mounting the horses, so they will be by the …

  I saw it then, a glint of glowing red in the bushes closest to the gate, and the branches twitching with something that was not the wind. My finger squeezed the trigger, the calm of my mind exploded in a bang and crack of flame, the gun bucked in my hands and smashed into my shoulder, and ahead of me came another bang and flash that said I had fired too late.

  A horse neighed shrilly, hooves raced across the yard. I ignored the pain in my shoulder and the sulphur burning in my lungs, I dropped the musket and stepped out through the doorway, and a horse appeared almost on top of me, its rider leaning down with outstretched hand. I reached up and caught at his coat as his arm gripped my waist and lifted me clean from the ground. My shoulder tore with pain as I slid over the horse’s flank, then I was safe on its back, André was tucking me in close to him, and we were turning back for the gate.

  I saw it ahead of us, and beyond it Grimauld struggling to control the big warhorse, which was turning violently round and round with much stamping and snorting. ‘Come on,’ he yelled, waving his pistol wildly in the air. ‘Come on!’

  Another beast was already driving towards us over the grass, a man riding round from the front. André kept us steady for the gate but I saw it closing against us, pushed by another man in the bushes. Our horse checked and reared, and I dug my hands frantically into its poor mane, but André’s arm tightened me into him, while his other came up and with it the sword.

  I snatched the reins as the horse shied, then André leaned down behind me, sword slashing the air in a blaze of firelight, and I caught only a glimpse of d’Arsy’s face before it disappeared beneath us with a cry. We bumped the gate, I reached down and pushed, and the horse stumbled through. The last of our attackers charged to meet us, but Grimauld’s pistol cracked and the horse screamed and fell, spilling its rider to the grass. Even then the man was so desperate in his hatred he snatched at my foot as we passed, but I kicked out with my heel and he fell back cursing. I did not need to see the fair hair to know it was Bouchard.

  Our hooves passed from the softness of grass to the rumble of the track as we pounded past the forge and towards the village gate. People were hurrying towards us, drawn by the shots and the sight of the flames, and they were men I knew, the wheelwright and the furrier, but we had to ride on past and not involve them, we galloped by as if they were nothing to us nor we to them. As our horses passed beneath the shadow of the gate and into the forest, I heard faintly behind us the distant bell for Vespers.

  Jacques de Roland

  We saw smoke rising out of the trees ahead of us, a thick purple cloud in the night sky, big and soft and silent. I’d seen it before, something like that, I’d seen it standing on the back meadow at Ancre with a twelve-year-old boy by my side. That’s when I knew.

  We followed the smoke through the gate, into the village, up the track, and there it was, a whole house burning. Villagers were watching in silence, a few carrying buckets from the well, others forking down burning thatch, but it was pointless and they must have known it. The walls were alight and half the roof fallen in, it was over and done. An elderly man was on his hands and knees sobbing on the grass, while two women tried to comfort him.

  I dismounted slowly. The people nearest shrank away as if we were dangerous, and I realized suddenly what they were seeing. We were finely dressed gentlemen with swords on our hips, people who could get them flogged or hanged if we didn’t like what they said. For a second I felt like one of them, looking at myself and being scared.

  ‘What happened here?’ said Charlot.

  The curé stepped forward, a little man with a face like a frightened baby’s. ‘Bandits, Monsieur, we are much troubled with them here. We have sent to inform the authorities, we reported it at once.’

  ‘And did you see them, these bandits?’ asked Charlot.

  The curé’s eyes flickered with alarm. ‘Not closely, Monsieur, only glimpses, or we would not be alive now. But they have stolen the horses from the inn, they have murdered the people, who else could they be?’

  I knew who they were all right, I knew who they bloody were. ‘Have they killed everyone?’

  The curé flinched. ‘Everyone, Monseigneur. Even the son of our blacksmith, who did nothing but help in the stables.’

  The crowd murmured in sympathy, and a couple glanced over at the man crying.

  I felt helpless and sorry but had to keep asking. ‘Someone might still have got out, you might just not have seen them.’

  One of the younger man stepped to the curé’s side like he thought I was going to hit him. ‘This is a walled village. We have gates. How could we possibly not have seen them?’

  Their faces blurred in front of me. I wanted to yell at them, shake them, but it wasn’t their fault, it was ours. This time it was us who’d been the Spaniards, coming to an innocent village bringing swords and fire and death.

  I said wretchedly ‘I’m sorry.’

  The curé’s face softened. ‘You’ve been here before, Monsieur? You knew these people?’

  Charlot’s hand scrunched tight round my arm. I tried to think of the Comtesse saying ‘You must not be involved,’ but all I could see was André. My head was filled with pictures of him, a little boy yelling and stamping with temper, a bigger one laughing as he fenced me, an older one sprawling on my bed while he talked about marrying Anne. Other memories clamoured in on top, a ring on my finger, a kiss on my cheek, a sword in my hand, I saw them in flashes like lightning, all the things he’d ever given me, the home I’d never had, the meaning I’d never looked for, a name and a person to be.

&n
bsp; I said ‘No, I didn’t know them,’ and turned away.

  Bernadette Fournier

  He became quieter as we rode deeper into the forest. The excitement of action was fading from him, and he had nothing left to do but lead us into the dark trees, and nothing left to hope for beyond a place that was not here.

  We had nowhere to go. We had not even much in the way of money, for what was left of the Chevalier’s had been concealed in the roof which was now ashes behind us. We could not appeal for charity, for we were now all fugitives. Even I had fired at one of the gentlemen and Grimauld assured me I must have hit him, for his shot had gone wild and done nothing but scare the horses. I had no other relatives who might take us in, no friends outside Paris, and those André had in Picardie were the very people who would be most closely watched. There was nowhere but the endless trees with no hope of sanctuary on the other side.

  It was Grimauld who stopped us in the end, insisting his arse was sore and we must make camp and rest. Indeed he was not a great horseman and had never much cared for the great steed he rode now. This was Tonnerre, Monsieur, a magnificent stallion André insisted was Jacques’ own. Grimauld ought to have been happy with the loan of such an animal, but in truth he feared him and when André was not by would often call him ‘the Fucking Thing’.

  So we chose a small clearing among the oak trees and did what we could to make it home. Grimauld had a tinder box to make a fire, André found a stream for fresh water, and I had brought a cooking pot and herbs, so we had all we needed for supper, as the horses were still festooned with rabbits from the day’s trapping. No, Monsieur, not one of us questioned the propriety of such a meal on a Friday, it was the idea of eating at all that concerned us now.

  That André himself was worried I knew, for I saw him counting carefully the remaining coins in his purse and putting it away without a word. He did his best to stay cheerful and poured us out a mug of wine to share, but at last there was only the crackling of the fire and the silence of our own thoughts.

  André poked a twig into the flames and watched it burn. ‘Still waiting for payday, Grimauld?’

  Grimauld sucked his last rabbit bone. ‘It had better be a bleeding good one.’

  André stared down at the fire. ‘It certainly needs to be.’

  I said ‘We can trap more animals, there may be fish in the streams, we can survive here many days.’

  He shook his head. ‘The horses need oats, rough fodder, they can’t live long on grass.’

  ‘Why don’t you write your grandmother?’ said Grimauld. ‘Bit of cash’ll see us through.’

  Still he did not look up. ‘I’d have to tell her where to send it.’

  ‘So?’ said Grimauld. He reached again for the mug, but it was empty and he set it back down. ‘You trust her, don’t you? And de Chouy?’

  ‘I don’t know everyone in his household. There may even be someone planted in mine. How do you think they found us this time?’

  I was afraid he was right, Monsieur. Saint-Jean Aux Bois is a beautiful village, but it was not somewhere those gentlemen would have chosen to visit for themselves. I retrieved from my handkerchief the one thing I had kept by me all these months, and handed it to André.

  I said ‘This will help, won’t it, Chevalier? If we are careful we can surely make it last a month.’ It was my gold écu, Monsieur, worth six whole livres.

  He said ‘But it’s yours.’

  It was his, but I did not need to say so. ‘Jacques gave it to me in case I needed it, and I think we need it now.’

  He could not deny it. He squeezed my hand then kissed it, and was silent a long while. Then he said ‘I’m sorry. Your aunt, your house, what those men … It’s my fault, all of it.’

  Grimauld’s eyes slid round to meet mine. He said ‘Never mind that, laddie, let’s get these guns reloaded. We don’t want them bandits taking us by surprise, do we?’

  The Chevalier rose at once to help him, while I did what I could to make our patch of ground more comfortable. We had little baggage and no blankets, but I arranged bracken into soft heaps and dragged a fallen branch across two trees to make a break from the wind. In truth there was none, but it was something to do. To sit still was to think of my aunt, burned in her bed without so much as the burial of a Christian, or to think of our future, which was bleaker than any I had ever faced.

  Grimauld sat by the fire to take first watch. I wrapped myself in my cloak and lay down on the bracken, but André only leaned against a tree trunk with his head bowed and his arms rested loosely on his knees.

  I tried to sleep. The forest seemed quiet at first, but really there were tiny sounds all about me. The twigs in our fire crackled with sap, the owls and nightjars called in the trees, and the undergrowth seemed alive with the scuttering of small creatures. There was the furtive clink of Grimauld refilling the mug from the wine bottle and the noisy slurp as he drank, the stirring of dead leaves with his boots, and the rustling of bracken beneath my body as I breathed. I looked over at André. He alone was silent and still, but his eyes were wide open and staring hopelessly into the dark.

  I rose from the bracken and went to him. Grimauld glanced up from the fire, then looked down again and stirred it idly with a stick.

  André looked up only when I knelt down beside him. ‘What is it, Bernadette? Are you thinking about your aunt?’

  I said ‘I am cold, Chevalier.’

  The darkness went out of his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Here.’ He raised his arm that I might huddle in next to him, and arranged his cloak to wrap it about both our shoulders. ‘Is that better?’

  I rested my head on his chest and curled my hands into his coat. ‘Much.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, and tightened his arm about me. ‘Good.’

  A nightjar called above us, but we did not move. The forest seemed gradually to recede about us as his head slowly drooped against mine, until at last I was aware of nothing but the warmth of his body, the softness of his breathing, and the steady beating of his heart.

  Jacques de Roland

  We hung around till the fire was out, but the roof had collapsed and crushed everything, the only corpse we saw was dragged out in black pieces. I was stumbling back to the horses when I saw a villager chuck away a pile of burnt rubble, and among it was a rapier, broken in two.

  Gaspard touched my arm. ‘Do you want it, my Jacques?’

  I thought of M. Gauthier bringing it out of the Manor all those years ago, clean and whole and bright. I said ‘No.’

  The numbness stayed with me all through the ride back. Raoul was saying the villagers might be lying to protect themselves, but I couldn’t listen, I couldn’t feel anything at all. There was just one thing burning away at the edges of the blankness, and it wasn’t grief, it was anger.

  None of this need have happened. That blacksmith’s son could still be working the forge, Bernadette could still be alive and André right beside me, everything like it ought to be if it hadn’t been for the boy’s honour. It wasn’t his fault he’d come here, he’d had no choice, but I began to think he hadn’t had one since he was born.

  Honour. If it wasn’t for that we’d never have helped that hunchback. We’d never have gone in the courtyard of Le Pomme d’Or, we’d never have met Bouchard at all. They wouldn’t have killed Bernadette if we hadn’t turned up, it was our own bloody honour that had done that. It was honour made the boy fight Bouchard, honour took him to the Luxembourg gardens to try and save the whole of France. Honour had done it all.

  It was my fault too. André was trained to the idea of honour, it maybe wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t taught him to start caring about people as well. Stefan had warned him, he’d always said he couldn’t do both and survive, and now I knew he was right. So was the Comte. Everything he’d told me was right, everything I’d believed in was wrong, honour was stupid and I was even stupider because I’d wanted to believe it.

  It was early morning by the time we got back to Senlis. Eve
rything was the same, the courtyard, the brown chickens, I almost expected to see the fat child with the hoop. Everything was just like it had been, but ugly and different because there wasn’t anything to pray for any more, there wasn’t any meaning and never had been. My world was a black smoking ruin and André was dead.

  Twelve

  Anne du Pré

  Extract from her diary, dated 16 April 1641

  Bouchard is back. He said André deserved to be broken on the wheel for wounding d’Arsy and murdering Lavigne, and I bore it all gladly because he was saying André was alive.

  That, of course, did not please him. ‘You may smile, Mademoiselle,’ he said, though I was careful to do no such thing. ‘I smile myself when I think of him being brought back to Paris in chains.’

  Florian looked up. ‘You’ve reported him, Monseigneur?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Bouchard, looking at him uneasily. ‘Gentlemen can’t be involved in such things. We told the authorities there’d been bandits, and they’re sending a regiment to search the forest. It’ll be a nice little bonus for them when they catch a fugitive from the King’s justice while they’re at it. More wine, Mademoiselle? You appear to be a little dry.’

  He is cruel, really cruel, and I wish I understood why. When at last I escaped to my chamber I picked up my lavender bowl and smashed it against the wall.

  ‘That’s right, Mademoiselle,’ said Jeanette, picking up the pieces. ‘Better in here than down there. You’re doing very well these days, they trust you more all the time.’

  ‘And what good is it?’ I said, only wishing I had something else smashable to throw. ‘The Rolands don’t trust me, they can’t have taken notice of my letter or Jacques would have been there when Bouchard arrived.’

  ‘This time, perhaps,’ said Jeanette. ‘Next time they’ll pay more attention.’

  ‘I can’t bear a next time,’ I said, which was feeble and wrong of me but I couldn’t help it. ‘Tonight I sat and heard André slandered and did not spit in their faces. How is that possibly helping him?’