Honour and the Sword (9 page)

‘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.

Strange set-up all the same at Ancre. Food was good and plenty of it, they sat me down and poured a bowl of soup I’d swear had beef in it, but the rest didn’t feel right at all. There was our Seigneur dressed in a shabby old shirt of Pierre Gilbert’s, breeches held up with string, clogs on his feet, total disgrace. Old Gilbert was plain loving it too, never been the loyal type, he was smiling all the while like the kitchen cat.

Still, it seemed safe. I was just thinking I’d tell my dad he’d no need to worry about the Seigneur, I was thinking it right that moment, when we heard a cart rattling past down the Ancre drive then suddenly a bloody great crash.

Everyone shut up fast. Shouting and swearing outside, all in that Spanish, couldn’t understand a word. The young one, Little Pierre, he upped and looked through the window, said there’s soldiers outside and a wheel come off their cart.

Didn’t seem much to me, seeing I saw Spaniards every day, but I looked over at Jacques, saw he’d turned dead white, scared half out his wits. His dad was quicker, on his feet right off, ordering Madame into the back room. ‘Now, Nell,’ he was saying, ‘Now.’ I understood that all right, Jacques’ mum was something, wasn’t a man in the Saillie didn’t feel it. Wasn’t much doubt what the Spaniards would do to her, and she knew it, out and in the back room with the little girl in a second.

But Jacques was just as panicky. ‘You too, André,’ he was saying. ‘Go on, quick.’

Didn’t see the need myself, Seigneur looked scruffy as the rest of us, but Jacques pulling at his arm, trying to make him hide. Seigneur shook him off, stayed right where he was. He said ‘I don’t run from Spaniards.’

Too late anyway, there was the door crashing open and in came Cabo Mesía. He was one of the nastier ones, I did a buckle for him just the day before and he never paid a sou. He looked at us sat round the table, checked the bowls were empty and nothing for him to steal, then grunted and jerked his thumb outside.

Gilbert’s up at once, but the Seigneur didn’t move. Sat with his spoon in his hand, looking at Mesía insolent as you like. Gleam of gold on his hand too, and I knew what that was, that was his father’s ring. Jacques saw it too, shot out his hand, grabbed the Seigneur’s and pulled him to his feet, and when he let go the ring was gone.

Didn’t have much French, Mesía, ignorant type, he just said ‘Out,’ and jerked his thumb again, so out we went, the lot of us, Jacques pulling the Seigneur like a mule that won’t go.

Jacques Gilbert

I knew what he’d do, and how they’d react, I knew exactly how they dealt with resistance. I remembered the flames at the Manor, I heard the screaming in my head, I thought of Mother and Blanche and the fear was like a kind of roaring in my ears. I was pulling the boy so hard I was almost dragging him.

The fat cabo came out with us and jerked his head at the wheel. Colin said ‘Right you are, Señor Mesía,’ all sort of hearty, and moved to get his shoulder to the cart. I tugged at André, but when he saw what was in the cart I heard him suck in his breath. It was all stuff from the Manor, all of it, bits of furniture, one of the tapestries, and right on top the old gong. It looked sort of sad and pathetic lying there, I could feel the boy’s anger without even looking. His hand started to pull out of mine, but I yanked it back hard, I hissed at him ‘Please!’

Father and Little Pierre joined us, and we heaved the cart up together. André didn’t push at all, but with Col’s broad shoulder taking the weight no one seemed to notice. Two soldiers rolled the wheel in place, the cabo signalled us out, and the cart jolted back down again, the cabinets sliding about with a bang and a cloud of dust. I let out my breath in relief and finally let go André’s hand.

The cabo grinned in satisfaction. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Well.’ I think he meant ‘good’, but his French was crap. He turned to the boy, reached out his hand and actually patted his cheek.

André wrenched away in outrage, his face white and his eyes blazing with insult. The cabo took a step backwards, the smile dripping off his face like melting fat. I was willing the boy hard in my head, I was begging ‘Look down, look humble, please, for God’s sake look
down
,’ but he didn’t, he was glaring right in the man’s face. One of the soldiers laughed, and the cabo flushed, his eyes went small and hard.

I was talking, I was almost babbling, I said ‘Don’t mind my brother, he’s simple, he doesn’t understand,’ but it was no good, the cabo strode forward and walloped the boy smack on the head, sending him sprawling on the stones.

I couldn’t seem to move, I remember an odd little pulse banging away high on my forehead. Then André rolled over, slapped his palm hard on the ground and began to clamber up. The look on his face was of sheer cold fury, he was going to fight, he was going to get us all killed. I was down beside him so fast I cracked my knees on the cobbles. I snatched desperately at his hands, cold, muddy fingers in mine, I held them like I was helping him up but kept my eyes on his face like I was hoping he could read me, I was whispering so hard I was almost sobbing, ‘Please, André, please, they’ll rip the place apart, they’ll find my Mother, please, my Mother.’

His face changed. Something went out of it, and for a second he looked as dead as César. Then there was a little flicker in his eyes, his mouth tightened, he pulled his hands out of mine and stood.

I stayed on my knees, my hands pressed on the stones, hardly daring to look up. I remember peering fearfully up through my hair and seeing André just standing in front of the cabo, but he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t fighting, and after a long moment I saw him lower his head and look at the ground.

The cabo gave a short laugh like a grunt, reached out and tousled the boy’s hair, then said something to the others that made them all laugh. The boy stood where he was, and they moved past him and jumped back into the cart, lots of loud laughter and creaking of wood, then the crack of a whip and the cart lurched off.

The boy’s head was up in a second, but he didn’t look at me, he didn’t look at any of us, he just spun round and stamped into the barn. Colin stared after him, slack-jawed with shock, he’d just seen the Sieur of Dax knocked flat by a filthy Spaniard and doing nothing about it. Then he turned and looked reproachfully at me like it was somehow my fault.

Father said ‘Better go after him, boy, he’ll be kicking the walls again.’ Then he actually grinned.

I went into the barn. He wasn’t kicking the walls, he was standing quite still on the top level, his hands thrust deep in his pockets and his head right down. I climbed cautiously up the ladder, but he didn’t shout or anything, he kept staring at the straw, and I saw the side of his face was flushed.

I said ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’ he said. ‘Letting an enemy soldier pat me like a dog?’ He lost control suddenly and smacked his fist against the wall. ‘Like a fucking
dog.
’

I’d never heard him swear before. ‘But you saved my Mother.’

He jerked his head back. ‘All right. I know.’ He stepped back from the wall and threw himself down on his blanket. He said quietly ‘Like a fucking dog,’ then turned his face to the wall.

I don’t know why, but I felt like shit. This was what I’d wanted, I’d found a way of controlling him, but something I liked had sort of oozed out of him, and I was almost sorry it was gone.

He wasn’t much better next day. He thought he’d do some fencing exercises in the barn, so I got his sword down and he never told me not to. Then he did his exercises and I watched him like in the old days, but it wasn’t the same, his heart wasn’t in it. At last he just stopped and sat hopelessly in the straw, and I looked at how slumped he was, and thought he really did look like one of us now, he could have just been one of us.

Then I heard this strange droning sound in the distance, which gradually turned into the moaning noise of M. Gauthier singing one of his horrible hymns. He never sang any of the cheery ones, he liked things about the corruption of the body and the worm of sin, he seemed to find them encouraging. I suppose if I’d had a body as nasty as M. Gauthier’s I’d probably have been the same.

I said brightly ‘That’ll be M. Gauthier coming to see you.’

The boy sighed, got slowly to his feet, and followed me down the ladder.

The gamekeeper came striding in with a sack over his shoulder and his horrible dog at his heels. I used to find him quite scary, M. Gauthier. He was very tall, about a hundred years old, and filthy. He had a huge head, enormous ears and terrifying eyebrows which jutted right out from his face and had spiky wispy bits like the antennae on a beetle. The dog was like a kind of smaller version, only even smellier, and as far as I could work out it was just called ‘Dog’.

M. Gauthier snatched off his hat and bowed, like the boy was receiving him in a salon at the Manor, not dressed in rags in a straw-filled barn.

The boy said dully ‘Good morning, Martin. What can I do for you?’

M. Gauthier said there’d been a party went round the Manor the first day to see what could be retrieved after the fire.

‘Yes, I know,’ said the boy, his arms clasping themselves round his body like he was cold. ‘The curé told me.’

‘The curé!’ said M. Gauthier, and grinned horribly. ‘The curé collected valuables for your future, Sieur. I was looking for things you might like now.’ He lifted his sack and dumped it on the floor with a thud.

The boy let his arms slide slowly back to his sides and knelt down to open it. I looked over his shoulder while he felt around inside and brought out the contents one by one. It was an odd collection, but the boy was fascinated, he got more alive with every thing he pulled out. First came two blunted swords he said were fencing foils, and then a rapier wrapped in soft linen: his father’s dress sword, the mark of a gentleman and the
noblesse d’épée
. Then there were books, there was paper and chalk, a quill pen and a bottle of ink. There was a hard little rag ball for a game called tennis, which he used to squeeze to strengthen his fingers for fencing. Then there was a little wooden horse all charred from the fire which he seemed specially pleased to see, he actually touched it to his face. I used to have one like it myself which the Seigneur gave me one day as a present. I called mine ‘Héros’ and played with it a lot till Father threw it at Mother during a row and it broke.

Next came a flat metal thing with hinges, which had pictures of André’s parents inside, joined together to make like a sort of book. The boy sat staring at it, like if he breathed it might go away. Then he went over and hugged the gamekeeper and just said ‘Thank you, Martin.’ He even kissed his cheek, which I wouldn’t have done, you never knew what might come off.

There was one last thing in the bottom of the sack, and when the boy dug right down he came up with his father’s scabbard. He turned it solemnly over in his hands, then looked up at M. Gauthier and said ‘I will wear this one day, Martin. I really will.’

‘Course you will, Sieur,’ said the gamekeeper, blowing his nose in a revolting handkerchief. ‘Course you will. Maybe you’d like a pistol too?’

We stared. He bent down to yank the empty sack out of Dog’s fangs, and said casually ‘When we were going round the Manor, a few of us just happened to collect up weapons from the dead soldiers. They’re under the dairy floor. Just for when you want them, Sieur, that’s all.’

André’s hands stilled on the scabbard. ‘You think it’ll come to that?’

‘Oh, our army will drive them back, Sieur,’ said M. Gauthier. ‘La Capelle, Le Câtelet, Corbie, we’ll hold them.’

The boy went on looking at him.

‘Ay, Sieur,’ said M. Gauthier. ‘I think in the end it’ll come to that.’

The boy’s eyes seemed to gleam in the darkness. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good.’

I didn’t think it was good at all, I didn’t see a bunch of peasants being able to do much against a whole Spanish army no matter what weapons we gave them, but it didn’t seem worth worrying about just then, we’d got armies out there fighting our battles, they weren’t going to need the help of people like us.

The idea of it still made all the difference to André. He forgot all about being miserable when M. Gauthier had gone, he spent ages arranging his possessions carefully round his blanket, his books in a neat pile, the tennis ball in a nest to stop it rolling away, his picture propped up so he could see it all the time, and when he’d finished he stood back and nodded in satisfaction, like that was his home.

Then that evening he got out the foils and said it was time I learned to fence.

For a second I almost stopped breathing. It was something I’d always wanted to do, ever since I’d started watching him all those years ago, but I knew it was only a stupid dream.

I said carefully ‘André, I’m a peasant.’

He studied me with his head on one side, like he was seeing me for the first time. Then he gave a little nod, put down the foils and picked up his cloak instead.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s something we need to do.’

I was a bit nervous following him, because it wasn’t really dark yet, there might still be soldiers around, but he didn’t head for the Manor, he strode across the paddock towards the Home Farm and led me to the back of the barns where the beehives were. It wasn’t somewhere people liked to hang about in daytime, but it was all quiet now, just a sort of gentle buzzing coming from the skeps like the bees were all snoring peacefully. The boy walked straight past the trestles to the stone wall at the back, bent down and started working away a rock at the bottom, then reached into the hole to drag out a large wooden box. I glimpsed another in the darkness behind.