Honour and the Sword (70 page)

The boy flushed. ‘Had it not been for your magnanimity I would have acted very differently at the Gate.’

‘Indeed,’ said d’Estrada, smiling, ‘for you would not have been there at all.’

It was a touch, but the boy deflected it gracefully. ‘Then I must thank you for your generosity.’

D’Estrada matched him courtesy for courtesy. ‘My folly might be a better word. Had it not been for that, your army would have arrived too late. Next time there will be, shall we say, less generosity.’

The boy’s eyes flashed. ‘Next time, Señor, there will be no need for it.’

D’Estrada actually laughed, and after a second André joined him. Over their heads my eyes met de Saussay’s for a moment, and we both looked away hastily, because of course he wasn’t listening, and neither was I.

‘Oh, Chevalier,’ said d’Estrada, ‘I look forward to it.’

‘So do I,’ said André.

They bowed gravely to each other, then de Saussay took d’Estrada back to the gate.

It was only then I caught sight of someone in a brown coat leaning against the barracks wall, picking his teeth and watching us with a sour expression on his face. It was bloody Stefan, and I knew he’d seen the whole thing.

Stefan Ravel

Oh yes, I saw them, André and his little friend d’Estrada, chatting away in the open courtyard as if there was nothing to be ashamed of. The man was responsible for the deaths of half our men, but he was a gentleman, you see, Abbé, which made it perfectly all right. It turned my stomach.

André didn’t even see me till his new friends had gone and he was free to notice such a thing as a lowly tanner. I can’t say he looked ashamed even then. He simply said something to Jacques and came strolling over, certain I’d be pleased at his notice. I let him be quite sure I’d seen him, then walked away.

He came after me, of course. He followed me right the way to my room, which I guessed must have been Don Francisco’s once, judging by the scarlet silk on the bed and the clutter of looted ornaments. I wasn’t keen on the stink of lavender, and the bear grease on the pillow was rather unsavoury, but it was private, and that’s all I was interested in. Not that that bothered André, naturally, he came straight in after me and said he wanted to talk.

Oh, I won’t weary you with it, Abbé, it bored me quite enough at the time. He was giving it a lot of yap about honour and d’Estrada sparing him, but I can’t say I gave a toss. I already knew the important thing, which is he wouldn’t fire a pistol to save my life, and Marcel was dead as a result.

He said ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Marcel. I couldn’t know he’d do what he did.’

I started rummaging through the clothes press to see if there was anything worth looting. ‘What else would he do? What kind of bastard puts the life of an enemy above the life of a friend?’

‘It wasn’t like that. You and d’Estrada, that was a personal fight, a duel.’

‘In the middle of a battle?’

His face hardened. ‘You know what I’m talking about. That cut on your face proves it.’

I might have known he’d bring it back to that. ‘All right, so what?’

‘You cut him when he was helpless. He was our prisoner.’

I found a rather nice fur-lined cloak and chucked it on the bed. ‘Young de Chouy was theirs. Seen him yet, have you?’

He shook his head, eyes wide.

‘They tortured him half to death. That’s how your honourable friend treats prisoners.’

He sat down abruptly on the bed and put his face in his hands. At last he said ‘It’s different. They needed information, I can see that. You had no reason to hurt d’Estrada at all.’

‘Didn’t I?’

‘All right then,’ he said, lifting his head and looking at me. ‘Why did you?’

How can you answer something like that? You do what you do, you don’t always work out the reasons for it first.

I turned back to the press. ‘It shouldn’t matter why, we should still be on the same side.’

‘Not in this. I couldn’t shoot a man in the back who was engaged in a duel.’

I chucked a couple of embroidered baldrics on the pile next to him. ‘Come on, I’ve stabbed dozens of men in the back in this war, and so have you. I saw you at the Château. And how many did you get last night in that tower?’

‘That was war.’

‘And so is this, André! It’s war! You and d’Estrada, saving each other’s lives all over the place, what the fuck do you think this is, a game? War’s war, and you fight the enemy until they’re dead or you are. That’s what Marcel did.’

‘Not for that,’ he said quietly. ‘He did it for you.’

I didn’t need telling that. Poor, lonely Marcel. I’d never felt for him the way he wanted, but he gave me his life just the same.

‘Well, maybe,’ I said. ‘Maybe he was stupid enough to care.’

‘So do I,’ he said miserably. ‘That’s why I’m so sorry.’

You know, I actually pitied him. I said ‘You can’t have it both ways. You want to be honourable, go ahead, but you can’t care about anyone if you do.’

He got wearily to his feet. ‘It’s what we did in the battle. We did our duty, but we tried to look after people too.’

‘And look what happened to them.’

He struck out savagely, scattering a row of toy soldiers all over the floor. ‘That was that bastard de Gressy.’

‘There’ll always be other bastards,’ I said, and bent to pick up the soldiers. ‘If you want to care about people, you’ve got to be prepared to lie and cheat and grovel, yes and kill when you have to, otherwise you’re fucked. It’s a rotten world, André. A man with humanity can’t afford honour as well.’

He saw me struggling with an armful of soldiers and held my knapsack open so I could shove them in. ‘Well, I’m going to try, that’s all.’

It was tragic really. ‘Then I’m looking at a dead man.’

He met my eyes. Clear, green eyes, I never saw any like them in my whole life, Abbé. Never until now.

I said ‘Ah, Christ, André, couldn’t you just have pulled that fucking trigger?’

He turned away abruptly and began fiddling with some miniatures on the dresser. He was fumbling and ill at ease, and after a moment I guessed why.

‘It was Jacques, wasn’t it?’

His hands stilled.

‘I heard him yell at you. You know why he really did it. He blames me for killing his father.’

He kept staring down at the miniatures. ‘I tried to tell him. I said it was my order, but he won’t believe me.’

‘If it hadn’t been for Jacques, you’d have fired.’

There was a long silence. Then he turned round at last, but his eyes were weary and defeated. ‘I don’t know. Yes, Jacques stopped me, but he was right, and I hope I’d have seen it for myself.’

Well, you can’t say I didn’t give him a chance. I said ‘Then we’ve got nothing left to say to each other, have we?’

I turned back to the clothes press, and rooted through what was left.

‘But if we’re going into the army …’

I laughed. ‘Oh, I’m joining the army. But for your own sake you’d better pray I never meet you there.’

I heard him step towards me. I heard him say ‘Stefan.’ I just went on flicking through the shirts. After a moment I heard the floorboards creak, then the soft closing of the door.

Anne du Pré

Extract from her diary, dated 11 June 1640

As soon as we stepped out of the house I knew.

My nice old water-vendor threw his hat in the air at sight of me and cried ‘Good luck, Mademoiselle!’ Antoinette the flower-seller ran up and pressed a bunch of forget-me-nots into my hand, saying ‘For love, Mademoiselle,’ and gave me the most beautiful smile. When we left the Place Dauphine for the Pont-Neuf there were two painters squabbling beneath the statue, but they stopped as we appeared and both cried ‘Good luck, Mlle Celeste!’ They only call me that because it is the name of the character in that silly play, but Colette does not like it, she says I should not let people be so familiar. I do not care at all. For all these months I have missed my home, but today for the first time I understood something of what makes Paris what it is, and why there is nowhere like it in the world. The full length of the Pont-Neuf it was the same, ‘Good luck, Mademoiselle! Good luck!’ Tonight I shall hear it in my dreams.

We had the news officially from a crier outside the Tuileries, who announced the Saillie was free and the Chevalier de Roland alive and well. I wished at once to rush to the Hôtel de Roland, but Colette said I should not dream of it until the Comtesse invited us herself. She said ‘You must be very careful, Anne, there has been no word of a betrothal, and you will be exposed to ridicule if she does not offer one now.’

I know very well she may not, she has been scrupulous in making no promises, but I did not say so, for Colette seemed quite cross enough already. Florian was kinder, and said ‘Ah but when André comes it will be a different story. He will surely persuade his grandmother to do whatever he wishes.’

Colette quite snapped at him. ‘When André comes he will be seventeen and a hero who could have any woman he wishes. Why should he remember a childish flirtation with our poor sister?’

Poor Colette. I know she is worrying about her own impending marriage. Last night she came to my room and said she thought it would be all right, because she had heard of something one could do with fish skin so one’s husband would never know. I would like to have said that at the Baron’s age he should consider himself lucky she was even female, but she seems set on him so I didn’t.

I still feared she might be right about André, and tried very hard to stay calm and sober all through the walk back, but when we arrived home and saw a horseman at the
porte-cochère
I could not help a ridiculous hope it might be one of his men after all. Of course it was not, it was only a military courier, but he said he had ridden post all the way from the Saillie, and leant down to put a little packet into my hands.

Florian at once became very dignified on my behalf, and said ‘Is that really all there is, fellow? Surely there is a letter to accompany it?’

The courier turned to him a face lined with sweat and dust, but otherwise blank of any expression. He said wearily ‘My apologies, Monseigneur. The Chevalier had just fought a battle, he may have had one or two other things on his mind.’

I knew what at least one of them had been, and did not need a letter to tell me so, for when I opened the packet I saw he had sent me a rose. It was a little soft with the travel and faintly brown at the edges, but it was the same salmon-pink as the one he had sent me before, and I knew it had come from the same garden and been cut by the same hand. I knew the meaning as clearly as if he had stood beside me and spoken it.

He is coming for me. And this time, please God, he will stay.

Jacques Gilbert

By late July we were ready to go.

Lots of people came to say goodbye to us in the barracks, and the boy found it really depressing. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t see them again, loads were joining the Ancre staff when the Manor was rebuilt, but for him it was never going to be the same. The Occupation was over, he was the Seigneur, and no one called him ‘André’ any more, they called him ‘Sieur’, and stood respectfully with their heads down, because he was nobility and they weren’t supposed to look in his face. I knew that was right, that was the way it had to be, but I felt him hating it all the same.

What was upsetting him most was that Stefan didn’t come. We hadn’t really expected it, they hadn’t spoken to each other for weeks, but I think deep down André was disappointed. So was I in a way. I’d like to have kicked his head in for upsetting the boy.

But none of that was going to matter now, we were off to Paris and a completely new life. I was desperately excited, and André kept telling me new things to expect, like beds with all feathers in the mattress instead of straw, a little room one actually went to piss in, and food like Arnould cooked every single day. I told my Mother all about it when I went to say goodbye, and she smiled and agreed it sounded wonderful, like the Manor in the old days, only better.

Then she brought me my omelette and said ‘What about the Comtesse, darling? You haven’t forgotten you’re going to ask her about telling André the truth?’

I looked down at my plate, but my appetite was suddenly shrivelling. ‘I don’t have to right away, do I? It’ll be better once she’s got to know me, so she doesn’t think I’m after anything.’

Mother was silent.

I said ‘Maybe it’s best if I don’t even tell her I know. She wants it kept quiet, doesn’t she? She’s looking forward to seeing me, André says so, I don’t want to spoil things.’

There was a sound of whistling from the back yard and the creak of the well rope as the bucket came up. Little Pierre had obviously finished in the stables for the day and was come home to wash.

Mother said ‘You’ll have to tell them both, my darling, you won’t be able to hide it.’

‘She’s kept it secret nineteen years, hasn’t she? Why can’t I?’

‘Because of this,’ she said, and reached out and touched my face.

Something in my stomach started flapping about with nerves. I said ‘But it doesn’t show much now, not with my moustache.’

There were splashing noises from outside and Mother rose quickly to make Pierre his omelette. She said ‘You will still tell the truth, my darling, because that is what is right.’

She was funny, my Mother. She couldn’t make a decision about anything, she even used to stare at the eggs in anguish and ask me which I thought I’d like, but when it came to something as big as knowing what was right or wrong she didn’t seem to need anyone else’s help at all.

She was right this time too, and I knew it really, I was thinking about it all the way home. It was going to be bad enough telling André the truth, but if he found out I knew and hadn’t told him he was going to go mad. I told myself I’d talk to the Comtesse the very first chance I had.

Home was that little room at the top of the barracks, but it was all right actually, we’d got old Bertrand from the Steward’s household looking after us, and he’d found us feather pillows and a basin to wash in, he’d put red curtains over the window and stuck a looking glass up on the wall, he’d made it almost grand.