In the Name of the King Read online

  ‘Thank you,’ he said at last. ‘It’s good to hear these things from … Thank you.’

  He smiled at me out of that haggard face, then abruptly got up to go. There was a screeching of stools as everyone stood out of respect, but he just patted his brother’s arm, said ‘I like your friends, Bébé,’ then turned and walked away. He never even said goodbye to Aubéry and his table, and I was glad. If there was something going on there I didn’t want him to be part of it.

  He invited us to join him on a patrol next morning, and of course we went. We had to get permission from de Lancy at the Orléans, but he just said ‘Believe me, if I could ride with the Marquis de Praslin I would do it and write a letter home. Go with my blessing.’

  The rain had stopped, there was a kind of thin sunshine, and it felt good to be riding free of the column. I remember Gaspard was wearing this crackly green cape he’d got to keep off the rain, and Raoul was being all sniffy about it, he said ‘My dear, it makes you look like a tent.’ Gaspard replied serenely ‘And which of us will look better this evening, do you think?’ Crespin was singing and gazing happily round the countryside, while Philibert stared fiercely at every hedge in case there might be Spaniards hiding behind it. Beside me Charlot was silent and watchful, but everything was quiet. It was Friday the 21st of June.

  We were almost back to camp when it happened. There was distant banging I suddenly realized was gunfire, then someone shouted ‘My God, the Pont de Douzy!’ The Marquis hesitated maybe half a second, then dug in his heels, yelled ‘Come on!’ and set off at full tilt for the bridge.

  I dug in my heels to bring Guinevere to the gallop. The ground was squelchy and mud spraying everywhere, but I heard the muffled thunder of horses gathering pace behind me, and reached down for my sword. Others were drawing too, the hard shing of steel rising high above the rumble of hooves, and ahead of me Praslin pointed his sword and charged.

  We hit the track to the river then swept round the bend to the bank. The repairs were finished, and only a small infantry advance guard left, but three hundred cavalry were galloping straight at them from across the bridge. They didn’t look like Spaniards, but then I recognized the yellow banner and black eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, which came to the same bloody thing.

  Our pike were frantically forming a line, our musketeers already firing, but the volley was ragged and only a couple of horsemen fell. The first were already on our bank and hacking into our musketeers as they struggled to reload. I rode harder and heard myself shouting, and men all round me were doing the same. I felt my mouth tighten in a stupid grin.

  The enemy heard us and turned. Those on the bridge stopped indecisively, but the others swerved to face us and we crashed right into them. One minute I was galloping at full speed, the next second Guinevere was rearing and bumping into the horse in front, and I’m half over her neck with the jolt. There’s a bang and the smoke of a pistol, a horse is screaming, Philibert’s sliding off his mount and I’m struggling to stay seated myself. Charlot’s great bulk passes in front of me, scything down with his sword, then there’s another rider facing me, yellow and black of the enemy, my arm’s slashing forward, and there it is, the familiar jarring of the collar bone against the blade, and he’s down and screaming. Guinevere’s bolting into the gap, we’re into the next rank, a pistol facing me, smash it aside with the forte, back and slash for the gap between collar and helmet, he’s falling away and I’m through the line.

  And it’s clear. There’s space all round me, just knots of skirmishing and horses turning to hurtle back across the bridge. Praslin’s still ahead, sword bloody and face stern as he cuts right and left about him, Charlot’s thrusting one man clear out of the saddle, horses are bolting riderless and I glimpse bloodied bodies between the waving shafts of pike. Philibert’s staggering through after me, dusty and furious but there’s no one left to fight, the riders behind me are wheeling round and round in frustration.

  We can’t even chase the bastards, that’s like invading the Sedan, we just rein up in silence as the rumble of hooves dies away over the bridge. Then there’s nothing but the infantry slowly regrouping and helping each other up, the bodies on the track and a man in his shirt sleeves lying face down in the river. I remember the gentle rippling of the water.

  There was a little metallic clank below me, and I saw Philibert furtively removing the helmet of a fallen cavalryman. I bent down to whisper ‘But you didn’t kill him,’ but he said ‘Ah, but how is Agnès to know that, Monsieur?’ and went back to securing his prize. There was something familiar about the helmet, that shaping to a point, the gap like an inverted ‘V’ at the back, and suddenly I was back in a world where I saw hundreds of them, some plain like this, others with the red tuft or plume of an officer. Spain.

  It shouldn’t have made any difference, all our enemies were on the same side, but the memories came crowding in like they’d done the first day we stood by the ruins of a village in Picardie and knew what we were up against. Spain and d’Estrada and all the old horrors, then a man in a courtyard saying ‘¡Madre de Dios!’ and it all coming back.

  Now it really had. The politics were blown away by the gunfire and I saw where I was standing, on the edge of a hostile country on the brink of war. I tried to imagine André beside me, saying ‘This is our chance, Jacques, we’re going to drive the bastards back,’ but the boy was dead and the picture wouldn’t come. Instead I saw the alehouse of last night and heard the mutterings and complaints, I saw fields full of mud and men looking up at us with weary, beaten faces, and all I could hear was my uncle’s voice saying ‘You’re assuming we’ll win.’

  Fourteen

  Carlos Corvacho

  Naturally we were there, Señor, where else would we be? Our year was up, and you wouldn’t catch my Capitán missing the start of something he’d organized his own self. We were in the Sedan even before the Baron de Lamboy arrived with his Imperial troops, and were only waiting for our own.

  Now that’s just it, Señor, things were a little tricky at Aire at that time, and someone decided they couldn’t be spared. Not that it mattered, there were Spanish troops in with the Baron’s Germans and Westphalians, but my Capitán still took it hard. He said ‘It’s a matter of honour, Carlos. We promised the Duc de Bouillon troops and money, and here I am sitting at his board like a guest who can’t pay for his lodging.’

  Now the money was another thing, we needed cash to take the campaign to Paris, but the Duc said ‘The Maréchal de Châtillon is our treasurer this time, d’Estrada. Our agents report he has a war chest twice the fifty thousand you offered and all we need do is take it.’

  He was the best of them to my mind, the Duc de Bouillon. The Comte de Soissons now, we couldn’t do without him, he was the figurehead to open Paris, but really, Señor, the man couldn’t keep his mind steady for two minutes together. My Capitán’s offered the chance to ride beside him, but when it comes to it he decides to go with the Duc’s own cavalry instead.

  Why, for the battle, Señor, what else? That little skirmish by the bridge, that was just a wee probe to see what we had facing us. I won’t say it wasn’t a blow finding Praslin supporting the King after all, and the Comte de Soissons most unhappy about it, but in the scale of things it was no more than what you’d call a gnat. We had the men and the will, we’d a year’s waiting behind us, we were ready for that battle right now.

  Stefan Ravel

  A couple of days later it was official. A Sedanaise force billeted itself in Torcy, and for once Châtillon took decisive action to boot them out of it. We heard the warning shots back in our little mudbath at Douzy, and knew the time for pissing about was over. Border skirmishes are one thing, but once the cannon speak, it’s war.

  We were ordered on to Remilly with morale down in our boots. A number of men just disappeared on that march, Abbé, deserted and slipped away, or so I thought at the time. One was appointé in our own company, a man as loyal as even the slavering Fauvel could desire, but when we go
t to Remilly he simply wasn’t there.

  He also left me a man down on the roster. I went for Bonnier, but found him at his wife’s bedside being comforted by Grimauld. We’d a lot sick just then, cold and relentless wet tend to have that effect, but Bonnier’s wife was expecting and he’d worked himself into hysterics over it. She’d got that intriguing so-called wife of André’s nursing her, but he still said ‘Oh, come on, Ravel, I can’t leave her now.’

  ‘Ah, I’ll do it, sergeant,’ said Grimauld, nobly clambering up on his scrawny legs. ‘I don’t mind standing a trick for a friend.’

  Well, it was all one to me, so I let him make his heroic gesture and packed him off to patrol the perimeter. I didn’t see anything wrong with him. Even when I passed André bringing in a jug of wine from Francine it never occurred to me it might not be the first. Yes, Abbé, that’s right, it’s called making a mistake.

  I’ve no idea what blew it up, maybe the fresh air going to his head. The first I heard was someone bawling on the road, and by the time I’d strolled out to join them Charpentier was already hauling Grimauld in front of Fauvel. Poor Bonnier was trying to explain, a sympathetic crowd was gathering, and the situation had the makings of a nice little explosion before I even saw the one thing that would guarantee it. André was heading purposefully towards them, shirt-sleeved and barefoot, but with the gleam of suicidal chivalry in his eye.

  I intercepted him in two strides. ‘Stay out of it, soldier.’

  His voice rose in outrage. ‘But it’s Grimauld!’

  I said patiently ‘I can see it’s fucking Grimauld, now do what you’re bloody told.’ I put him firmly aside, and shoved through the crowd to see the damage for myself.

  Grimauld was managing to stand upright and say ‘M’sieur’ in the right expressionless voice, but there was a tell-tale flush of red on each cheek, and Fauvel was positively exultant at the chance to put the boot into his favourite NCO.

  ‘You know what you’ve done, Ravel?’ he said, in a voice hushed with horror. ‘You’ve put a drunk man on duty! I’ll see you broken for this.’

  ‘It wasn’t Ravel’s fault, M’sieur,’ said little Michaud bravely. ‘Bonnier says the man volunteered. How could Ravel know?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Grimauld, with the stupidity of a man clearly drunker than he looked. ‘Volunteered, didn’t I? Nothing wrong with me. Perfectly capable. Perfectly.’

  Fauvel turned away with an exclamation of disgust. ‘Michaud, take this creature to the Piémont and have the archers put him under guard.’

  André had followed me through, of course, and at the mere mention of military police I saw him open his bloody mouth. I planted myself in front of him and said ‘Oh, you won’t want the provost involved, M’sieur, won’t the capitaine prefer it kept in the regiment?’

  I was damn sure he would, Desmoulins seemed unusually keen to avoid outside interference, but Fauvel recoiled as if from blasphemy. ‘The man is drunk on guard at a time of war,’ he shouted. ‘How could you not notice it, Ravel? Are you blind?’

  He really did have a problem with his spitting. I said mildly ‘No, M’sieur, nor deaf.’

  He saw Sury only just not sniggering and turned as red as Grimauld. I braced myself for a rant, but then he seemed suddenly to gain control of himself and became ominously quiet.

  ‘I might have known you’d sympathize,’ he said, his slit of a mouth curving into a smile. ‘Your brother, wasn’t it, who ran the gauntlet for it? Naturally you’d defend a drunkard.’

  All right, yes, that shook me. I didn’t talk a great deal about what happened to Alain, and the only people who knew were André and the men who’d been with me at La Mothe.

  Fauvel laughed. ‘Nothing to say? I thought you were the man with all the answers.’

  I had one for him, Abbé, I had it right in my fist, but I’d just enough sense of self-preservation to keep it there.

  Fauvel nodded in satisfaction and turned back to Michaud. ‘Since Ravel seems to have no further objection, I suggest you do your duty.’ He swept triumphantly back to his tent and I was glad of it. If he’d stayed another minute I’d have dropped him.

  There was the usual burst of chatter when he’d gone, but I pushed through the crowd and walked away. It’s possible I fancied a little privacy, but André followed me anyway, bleating ‘I’ve never told anyone, you must believe that.’

  I did, actually, it would have upset his precious sense of honour. ‘Yes, all right, you’re spotless as usual, now fuck off and leave me alone.’

  I walked on, but a second later I heard footsteps and he was pushing right in front of me.

  I said ‘Get out of my way.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You can’t have changed that much. I heard you try to help Grimauld.’

  ‘Self-preservation,’ I said truthfully. ‘I picked him, some of the blame’s mine.’

  He shrugged that aside. ‘But you’ll stand up for him, won’t you? He did it for Bonnier, he was helping a friend.’

  ‘So?’ I said. ‘We’re at war. How many lives would it cost if a drunk sentry missed something? I’ll explain the circumstances, they’ll maybe just flog him.’

  ‘No,’ he said, visibly shocked. ‘I can’t let them …’

  I said ‘You won’t just let them, you’ll stand and fucking watch.’

  He shook his head violently. ‘I can’t. You can’t either, Stefan, how can you …’

  I grabbed him. I snatched his collar in both fists and yanked him up to face me. ‘I’ve done it, haven’t I? What are you saying, I’m less of a man for it?’

  ‘No,’ he said, wrenching clear. ‘No!’ He tugged at his twisted collar and glared at me. ‘You know I didn’t mean … You know I understand.’

  I was sick of it and sick of him. ‘No, you don’t, it’s the Saillie all over again. You’ll muck in the dirt with the likes of me and Grimauld, but at heart you think you’re better, don’t you? You despise the lot of us.’

  A gust of wind set the tents flapping with a crack of canvas, but André didn’t move. His face was very white in the dark.

  I said ‘Well, you’re wrong. We understand your finer feelings, we just can’t afford them. And right now neither can you.’

  I walked away and left him, and no, Abbé, I didn’t look back.

  Sury was alone in the NCOs’ tent when I reached it. I gave him my best smile and said ‘You bastard.’

  He lifted his hands in surrender. ‘It came up, that’s all. Fauvel was whining to the capitaine you had a problem with authority, I explained about your brother, so what? Desmoulins quite understood.’

  ‘That’s nice of him.’

  He passed over his flask. ‘I should have guessed Fauvel would use it. He’s really got it in for you, hasn’t he?’

  I drank his brandy and passed it back. ‘One way of putting it.’

  He started rummaging for our bread ration. ‘You considered doing something about it? Getting rid of him?’

  I looked at his back. ‘In a battle, maybe. Officer falls to a stray bullet, I’ve seen it done. But in camp?’

  ‘There wouldn’t be an enquiry,’ said Sury. ‘The capitaine wouldn’t care too much.’

  ‘His own cousin?’

  He turned round with what was left of our damp loaf. ‘Let’s say the appointment isn’t working out how he hoped.’

  I was tired of it suddenly, the hints, the politics, all the balls that have nothing to do with soldiering. ‘Because Fauvel’s loyal to the King and our capitaine wants rebels, you mean? People like you and me?’

  ‘Like you and me,’ agreed Sury, getting out his knife to cut off the mould. ‘There’s a few of us in the regiment, it’s time you belonged.’

  Oh, I knew what he meant, but we were at war now. There’d been people thought Praslin was suspect, but faced with a load of dons attacking our men he’d made a choice and the right one. I’d been hoping these others would do the same.

  I said ‘Not if you’re planning on anything t
hat endangers the men.’

  He passed the bread. ‘You know me better than that.’

  I did, as it happened. ‘What then? Going over? Deserting?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, watching me. ‘Maybe not. You in?’

  I liked him, Abbé. He cared about the men he fought alongside every day, I had a fuck sight more in common with Sury than I did with André de Roland.

  I said ‘No.’

  He bit off a chunk of bread. ‘Shame. I used to know a man who thought he could change the world if he stood against it passionately enough. What happened to him, do you know?’

  Oh, they were all at it. I said ‘Maybe he didn’t want anyone letting dons back into France. Stupid, but I think I understand it. You don’t?’

  He was still watching me. ‘I understand who my friends are.’

  I said ‘You don’t need to worry about me, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  He was, I knew it, he’d still got his knife in his hand. I said ‘Come on, think about it. If I wanted to do you down I’d pretend to go along then tell the Maréchal first chance I got. I’m just not interested, Sury, I’m staying right out. Fair enough?’

  I could have counted maybe to ten while we looked at each other. Then he inclined his head and slid his knife back in his belt. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Fair enough.’

  Albert Grimauld

  You think the army would have listened? Capitaine Fabert came from the King to get our Maréchal to shove us on to the high ground at Frénois, but we just went on sitting on our arses dealing with important business like trying defaulters. André came haring straight round when he heard, fizzing with plans for whisking me out under the noses of them archers, but I wasn’t for deserting, not me, I’ve a tougher hide nor that comes to.