Honour and the Sword Page 6

  It was quiet in the barn when I got back. The horses were nuzzling sleepily after their long day, and it made me feel like I was still in the Ancre stables and had dreamed the whole thing. Then I climbed up to the top level, and there was the boy sitting on a red blanket looking brightly at me and I knew I bloody hadn’t.

  I remembered what Father said about being polite, and knew I hadn’t been, not very, so I took a deep breath and tried. ‘Have you everything you need, Sieur?’

  He looked at me, and it was like the little light in his eyes slowly faded.

  ‘Yes, thank you. I have everything.’

  I looked at him sitting in his tatty nightshirt on Clare’s old blanket in the straw. Beside him were his breeches all folded up neatly, and his boots laid carefully beside them, and the sword nearest him so he could reach out for it if he wanted. That was all he owned in the world now. I felt sorry, because even I had more than that. I had a Mother and Father for a start.

  But it’s impertinent to feel sorry for nobility, so I dropped my head quickly and asked if he wanted any water or anything, and again he said no. I couldn’t think of anything else to be nice to him about, so I said to call if he wanted me, then just sort of bowed and went to my own blanket in the far corner. It was still damp and hairy, but I didn’t care, I was just too tired.

  I dreamed about Clare. I had a nightmare about the day she died, when she just didn’t come out of the fit at all and nothing we did made any difference. I was holding her like I always did, then she gave this great twisting leap and lay still, and Father said ‘She’s quiet now, isn’t she? She’s quiet.’ Then I felt her getting colder in my arms, and I looked at her face and her eyes were open like César’s were, and as I’m waking I think ‘He’s another, he’s another I ought to have saved and didn’t.’ And I’m awake now, but it’s like the dream’s still going on, because I can hear these odd sounds, like something banging faintly against the wall, a sort of thrashing in the straw and the noise of stifled breathing, and someone really is having a fit, then I’m fully awake and realize it must be the boy.

  I move so fast across the barn I trip over my boots. He’s clinging on to the wall, his fingers digging into the boards like he’s trying to hide, and his breath’s coming out in hard little gasps. His eyes are screwed shut, and he doesn’t even know I’m there. It’s not a fit, of course, he’s only crying, or would be if he could make himself let go. I guess he’s afraid of making a noise, of me hearing or anyone knowing, because he’s the Seigneur and must not cry.

  I want to help him, but know I can’t, it would kill him to realize I’ve even seen. I tiptoe away and creep quietly back to my blanket. It’s hard, but I keep reminding myself he’s not really a child, he’s the Seigneur just as much as his father was, and I’ve got to protect his dignity.

  I’m hesitating all the same. I’m remembering the way he looked when Mother put her arms out to him. I’m remembering when he almost cried in the woods and I just shoved the brandy bottle at him. I turn round to look back, and suddenly know I can’t just leave him.

  I go back. I reach out and unpeel him from the wall, which is difficult actually, like trying to get a leech off when it’s still sucking. I turn him towards me, making soothing noises, and next thing he’s made a dive towards my chest, he’s clinging on to hide his face in that instead, his fingers digging into my shirt like he’s trying to burrow his way right through me. I find I’m putting my arms round to shelter him, and as soon as he feels himself being held safe he takes in this great long jagged breath, and at last he cries.

  It sounds like it’s being ripped out of him, it’s tearing up through his throat in these awful broken sobs. I hold him, and find I’m rocking and murmuring to him like it’s Clare all over again. Then I move to put my back against the wall, but I’m still holding him and telling him it’s all right and all that bollocks, and my shirt’s getting wet with his tears, but somehow I don’t mind. Gradually he gets quieter, but I go on rocking and whispering, and he’s relaxing and getting heavier, and at last I sit back and just hold him. We stay like that a long time.

  Then my collarbone starts to hurt where his head’s resting, and I look down and find he’s gone to sleep in my arms.

  That’s too much, it really is, I mean he’s going to go mad when he wakes and finds himself like this. Then I look down at him again, and he’s peaceful at last, and his face is relaxed as I haven’t seen it all day. I rub my cheek against his hair, and he just makes a funny little noise and sort of digs in harder.

  So I think ‘Sod it’. I nudge his head down off my collarbone into the crook of my arm, rest my head back against the wall, and go to sleep.

  Three

  Jacques Gilbert

  I woke at dawn with a stiff neck, but the boy was gone. For a second I was relieved, it meant we needn’t say anything about last night, then I realized there was no sign of him at all and even his sword had disappeared. I didn’t stop to put my boots on, just hurled myself down the ladder and belted outside, fear banging hard inside my chest.

  There he was, strolling across the cobbles, unconcerned as a sparrow and swinging his sword in casual salute. The panic drizzled out of me and I could suddenly smell the warmth of my own sweat. I wanted to yell at him ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, don’t you know it’s nearly daylight and there might be soldiers around?’ but obviously I couldn’t, and in the end I just said ‘Oh.’

  He nodded gravely at me, and dragged something out of his pocket. ‘I thought I’d better fetch this.’

  His hand was grey with earth like he’d been digging, but gleaming on the palm was a little pile of gold coins. I couldn’t believe it. They weren’t even écus, they were bloody golden louis.

  ‘Is it enough, do you think?’ he said. ‘Just for the next few days?’

  It was enough to keep a family for a year. I swallowed and said ‘I think so,’ then followed him into the cottage in a kind of daze. I didn’t even ask where he’d got it from, what mattered was he’d got it, and no one was going to starve.

  It certainly made Father happy. He went straight to M. Thibault’s to get wine, and I heard him whistling all the way to the gate. Mother was happy too; M. Legros sent round eggs and ham and cheese from the Home Farm and she couldn’t decide what to cook first. Little Pierre went for the curé, and he was even happier, he practically sobbed over André and went down on his knees to give thanks for his deliverance. I hoped he’d say it wasn’t fitting for the boy to stay with us, but he didn’t, he only talked a lot about the sacred nature of my trust, which obviously meant that if anything happened to André the person to blame would be me.

  But I didn’t see how to protect him, I didn’t think it could be done. They stuck him in old clothes of my Father’s and talked about him passing as a peasant, but that obviously wasn’t going to work with him strolling about like he owned the place, which of course he did. The best thing would be just to keep him in the barn, but he wasn’t going to agree to that, and I couldn’t exactly make him.

  He had to come out the next day anyway, because we had the funerals at the Ancre chapel, and I couldn’t ask him to miss those. I thought it was safe enough, he’d just be one ragged figure in a crowd, but even then he insisted on standing out. When the curé tried to usher him in he just stopped and said ‘I can’t go in now, I have to follow the biers.’

  The curé blinked nervously. ‘But, Sieur, the Don Miguel d’Estrada is there himself, come to pay his respects.’

  André’s mouth went tight. ‘These are my parents. It is my duty to follow them.’

  Poor Père Gérard. He sort of cringed and said perhaps the Seigneur wouldn’t mind leaving his sword outside and pretending he was a serving boy rather than the Roland heir.

  The boy considered. ‘Very well. Jacques and I will carry candles together, and no one will know.’

  I didn’t like that idea much, if he was caught I wasn’t sure I wanted to be right beside him, but I did sort of under
stand how he felt. Gabriel and his men were just getting the biers off the trap, the bodies all covered in black cloth so no one could see them, then I remembered the fire and guessed why. The boy’s eyes followed the bundles and his face was so taut it looked painful. He didn’t cry, of course, it’s like he’d done it that once for always, but I knew how I’d have felt if it had been me.

  I said ‘We’ll go in together.’

  So we carried candles and followed the biers side by side, but he still didn’t look right, he couldn’t help it, he was walking firmly and upright, he looked sort of dignified. Then I saw a young man dressed in black and gold sitting right at the front, and my stomach jolted as I guessed that was d’Estrada. We were going to walk right by him and the boy was on his side of the aisle.

  He bowed his head in respect as the biers passed, but we were just behind, his head was coming up and the boy right in front of him. I’d got to do something, anything to make him look away. I jerked my hand with the candle in it, saw d’Estrada’s eyes flick to the movement of the light, then had an inspiration and wiped my nose on my sleeve. His head recoiled at once, then the boy was safely past and so was I. I could see Colin looking sniffy with disapproval, but the curé gave me the loveliest smile and I knew he understood.

  No one else did. D’Estrada left straight after the service, but then the boy went into the vault to do the handing over of the ring, and when he came out everyone crowded round him bowing and taking their hats off, and M. Gauthier actually went down on his bony knees to kiss his hand. They kept calling him ‘Sieur’ too, and I had to go round saying ‘No, no, he’s meant to be a peasant, we’re to call him André,’ but no one listened. Colin was impossible, but then he would be, you’ll understand when you meet him. He just said ‘It’s not right, Jacques, not fitting at all, Bible says everyone should be in their place.’ I couldn’t blame him really, everything about André was just screaming nobility, no one could mistake him for anything else.

  I’d got to teach him. By noon there were soldiers already drifting back into Ancre to see if there was anything left to steal, so I kept the boy in the barn and suggested he start learning how to be a peasant.

  ‘Well, if you like,’ he said, puzzled. ‘I’m ready.’

  He wasn’t, he wasn’t anything like bloody ready, it was virtually impossible just getting that sword off him for a start. I finally got him to understand that conquered peasants don’t carry swords and he’d get caught in a second if he did, but he still wouldn’t let me near it.

  ‘I’ll hide it myself,’ he said. ‘A gentleman shouldn’t allow anyone else to handle his sword, it’s a matter of honour.’

  I wondered if that applied to cleaning it, but thought it better not to ask. I just watched as he carried his sword to the hole in the rafters and stretched up to put it inside.

  He couldn’t reach. I waited for him to ask me, but he just went to the other wall and started to roll a hay bale across instead. His face was red with the effort, but he’d got far too much pride to let me help him. He got it there at last, stood on it and solemnly stowed his sword next to the arquebus.

  ‘There,’ he said, stepping down a bit breathlessly. ‘Now we’re done.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘What?’ he said impatiently. ‘I look right, don’t I?’

  It was the way he sounded. He spoke too loudly, like he didn’t care who heard him, he spoke too nicely, with all proper words and no patois. I suggested nervously that if there were soldiers around he maybe wouldn’t mind not saying anything at all.

  He sniffed. ‘Why on earth would I want to speak to a Spaniard?’

  ‘Quite,’ I said quickly. ‘Good. Now maybe just a bit of work on the way you move.’

  I walked up and down the barn so he could watch how I did it, and he looked at me aghast.

  ‘That’s ridiculous. You look like an old woman.’

  I thought that was rude actually, since I was just showing how I normally walked, but I suppose he’d never noticed. I coaxed him into trying, but it was hopeless, he’d start out right but just got taller with every step. At last he got fed up and just stopped.

  ‘This is stupid, I’m not doing this. If there are soldiers around, I can always sit down.’

  I felt suddenly uneasy. ‘Well, yes, but you’ll have to stand if they talk or anything, you’ve got to show respect.’

  He was stretching his arms, but stopped in mid air. ‘I’ve what?’

  I recognized the tone, and saw his eyes were getting narrow, but I had to explain, this was something he’d just got to understand.

  I said ‘You know, lower your head, don’t look at them. I mean they’ve conquered us, we’ve got to be submissive.’

  He looked at me in silence for a moment, then spoke very quietly. ‘I don’t mind outwitting the Spaniards, that’s part of war. But I am never going to submit to them, and you need to understand that right now.’

  I didn’t dare answer. He nodded dismissively, announced he was ready for lunch, and started calmly down the ladder.

  I think that’s when I started to realize what I was really up against. The problem wasn’t his voice or his walk or anything like that, it was what was inside his head. There was nothing I could do to change him, I’d been stupid to think I could. The only way to keep him safe was make sure he never saw the soldiers at all.

  But that was impossible too. They were still all over the estate the next day, but André wanted to go riding and couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t let him. We’d moved the horses back to their own stables, which had already been searched and stripped bare, but it was madness to think of trotting them along the bridle path in full view of the Manor.

  He said ‘I don’t care. They’re my horses and I want to ride them.’

  I said ‘No, I’m sorry, we can’t.’

  Quite suddenly he went mad. One minute he was standing there normal and almost reasonable, the next he was red in the face and shouting. ‘Don’t you dare tell me I can’t do something, don’t you ever dare tell me that.’

  I said desperately ‘I’m only saying it’s not safe because of the soldiers.’

  ‘The soldiers!’ he said. ‘You think I’m scared of the soldiers?’ He started stamping up and down, he even kicked the wall. He said I was making him give in to the enemy and he was never going to do that, never, not after what they’d done.

  I’d seen him lose his temper before, I’d actually thought it was funny, but there was nothing funny about it now. I looked at him slamming about with rage and hitting out at nothing, and at last I understood what was really at stake.

  I’d been trying to stop him being taken hostage, and worried about getting in trouble with the curé, but I knew now none of that mattered. I couldn’t keep him away from soldiers, I couldn’t change him, and I couldn’t begin to control him. He was going to give himself away in seconds, when they caught him he’d fight, and I knew what would happen then.

  They’d kill him. They wouldn’t just take him hostage, they’d kill him, and probably the rest of us too.

  Colin Lefebvre

  From his interviews with the Abbé Fleuriot, 1669

  You don’t want to take too much notice of what Jacques says. Hear him talk back then you’d think looking after Seigneur was the last thing he wanted, but I knew better, I knew Jacques through and through. Family were being paid good money, not to mention the favours they’d be getting when Seigneur came into his own again, advantages were obvious. Wouldn’t have suited me, got to say, I’m an independent sort of chap, but looked like a chance for poor old Jacques, and I’m not the man to grudge good fortune to a friend.

  And he was a friend, old Jacques, we’d been close all our lives. That’ll sound strange maybe, me being the blacksmith’s son and him only a stablehand, but there, he was an amiable lad, never say he wasn’t. Always thought we’d end up together, him and me, sitting in the Quatre Corbeaux, sharing a jug of cider of an evening, getting old together. Seigneur coming put pai
d to all that. Put paid to a lot of things.

  Not that we weren’t glad of him being there, things being what they were. Spaniards weren’t going to stay for ever, stood to reason, and village like ours needs a Seigneur. No other heir but André; if something happened to him we might get sold off like had happened to Verdâme, we needed him kept alive.

  And Dax wasn’t safe. Spaniards were looking for him, men checking everyone went out the Gate, yes and searching them for letters too, in case someone was writing to the old Comtesse in Paris. They searched the curé’s cottage, ransacked all the good houses, turned both the Thibault and the Pagnié farms upside down, even searched the church, and when old Hébert tried to stop them messing about in the crypt they beat him with musket butts so badly he died in three days. D’Estrada didn’t like it, went and apologized to the curé, but the man was dead, nothing to be done, those Spaniards meant business and no mistake.

  They were looting too. D’Estrada said not, but some of his officers weren’t above it, that Abanderado de Castilla, nasty piece of work, he let the men do whatever they pleased. You know what July’s like, waiting for harvest, winter stores as low as they get, everyone on tight belts, and now we’d got Spaniards booting their way into people’s homes, taking food right off the table.

  ‘You get on up to Ancre,’ said my dad. ‘Bad times in the old days Seigneur’d throw open the tithe barn. This one’s got money, he’ll help out. Folk can buy food in Artois, there’s plenty going in Sus, bit of cash is all we need.’

  So I went. Wasn’t for ourselves, you know, Forge was busy enough, even if mostly farriers’ work by rights and none of it reliably paid, but there were others in real need, and people look up to the smith, he’s got a duty to the community. So I upped and went to Ancre, and Seigneur helped out right away, gave me cash to divide with the curé, see no one starved. Only right and fair, but you won’t catch every seigneur acting like that, not by a long way.