by Robert Merle
Of course, I was delighted to part company with Caudebec and went happily to tell Samson the good news of our departure, thinking he, too, would be pleased to put a stop to these endless layovers, which were rapidly emptying our purse, and believing he’d be glad to leave these Norman pilgrims behind and to gallop off with people from our own region. But my beautiful angel, forgetting that he was the keeper of the purse, seemed less than enthusiastic about my news and, turning away, looked so bereft that I understood immediately why, and felt both remorse and the need to remedy the pain I’d caused him.
Taking Miroul with me, and advising him to go and have fun with the other valets and to take his time returning to our room, I sought out Dame Gertrude du Luc in her chambers, and took her aside, since there were two other ladies sharing her room, who pricked up their ears when I entered. I begged her most urgently, by the name of St Gertrude, not to reveal to a living soul what I had to tell her. Breathlessly, she consented. I then informed her that we’d be leaving the next day without saying goodbye to the baron for fear that, bitterly angry to lose the services of his interpreter, he might use force to retain us, which would surely cause Samson and me to draw our swords in our defence. Hearing this, the good lady spun away from the eavesdroppers in the room and turned deathly pale. Then she whispered to me to leave her chambers at once but to meet her on the stairway that led down to the great hall. Which I did. The stairwell was quite dark and reminded me of the stairs at the Two Angels where my hostess and I had taken such a pleasant tumble.
A few minutes later—though it seemed much longer—I heard the sound of the lady’s slippers in the hallway.
“Monsieur de Siorac?”
“I’m here!”
“Oh, Monsieur,” she moaned, her bodice heaving—which I couldn’t see but could certainly feel, for in her great emotion she had pulled me to her with as much force as if I had been my brother—and even though she intended not the slightest malice in this, and nor did I, I was prey to some extraordinary sensations at being thus embraced in complete innocence by a person of her sex.
“Oh, Monsieur,” she continued, her voice choked with emotion, bathing my cheeks with her tears, “what terrible news! Oh, how unhappy I am! He’s leaving! He’s leaving tomorrow!”
“We must set out before dawn.”
“But, Monsieur, why so sudden and brutal a departure? Is there no way to delay you?”
“Alas, no, good lady. Our poor students’ purse will not tolerate so many inns!”
“But perhaps I could loan you what you need? There would be no shame in accepting, Monsieur. Thank God I’m not without resources.”
“Fie, Madame! Borrow money! When we have no need!”
“A thousand pardons, Monsieur de Siorac!” she cried, hugging me ever more tightly, her hands clenching my back. “I must be losing my mind, I’ll wager, so wretched am I at the thought of losing my little patient. But how is he taking all this?”
“Very badly indeed, but he won’t say a word.”
“Ah, he’s so brave!” she said with such happy tones that I was very moved and almost envious of my Samson for having inspired such love.
“Good lady,” I said, “when we get to Montpellier, we shall be lodging with Maître Pierre Sanche, apothecary, on the place des Cévenols, and we are counting on you to do us the kindness of paying us a visit there on your way to and from Rome.”
“’Tis certain I will, Monsieur de Siorac! But will I be able to see your brother today in order to continue my care?”
“Dear lady, I was going to beg you to do him this very service! My valet, Miroul, and I have business to attend to in the town and my brother will doubtless be alone in our room while we’re out, and doubtless too, in great need of your care.”
Even though this was perhaps what she was most hoping for, she nevertheless pulled away and said, almost inaudibly, “But Monsieur, may I do such a thing? Alone with your brother? In his chambers?”
“Your sense of charity will answer for you better than I can,” I replied, feeling a tinge of impatience with this display of modesty, which felt more ceremonious than real.
Groping in the dark for her hand, I seized it and kissed it fervently, then left without another word.
I realize as I reread this that some will raise an eyebrow at my behaviour since, as I have confessed, I am entirely devoted to Venus, yet now, rather than pursuing my own amorous desires, found myself pushing a beautiful—and oh! how ardent—woman into Samson’s bed. It wasn’t just my great affection for him that inspired this gesture, but also my, dare I say, fatherly concern that his life wasn’t being lived in as full a way as his aspect merited: certainly there was nothing impotent or effeminate about him, for, aside from his great beauty, he was stronger, more muscular and more robust than any mother’s son in France, and it was therefore a great pity, in my view, that this handsome stallion should live like a dried-up nun in a cell.
As for the sins that I committed then, and will commit, I’m afraid to say, until Death brings her chill upon me, and although I’m no Lutheran, I would like to share Luther’s powerful and beautiful words on this subject: “I am a sinner and sin mightily, but mightier still is my belief in Christ and my joy in loving Him.” A recommendation that is likely, I admit, to raise some objections, since it appears to allow for too much moral leeway. But that’s not why I love these words; rather, it is because I cannot imagine loving God without loving his creatures. I deeply believe that, just as the body was not meant to be mortified, neither are faith and joy meant ever to be separated.
To cover the thirty leagues that separated Lézignan from Montpellier, we would need at most five days, not because our horses were faster than Caudebec’s, but because they so much needed daily exercise that we could not spend more than one night in each inn.
Our three merchant fellow travellers were old greybeards, but still vigorous, full of animation, easy smiles and friendly words, though beneath their show of amiability, entirely battle-ready and hard as rocks. Their vigilance regarding the load of sheepskins they were carting to Montpellier was constant and unremitting, for they each repeatedly stopped to count their “harvest” to ensure that their valets hadn’t made off with any of their store. They also seemed, as far as I could tell, just as mistrustful of each other, and kept up their surveillance on their fellows from dawn to dusk—and even throughout the night, I’d wager, sleeping with one eye open.
You may well imagine that for men like these a night’s lodging was sufficient as long as they had victuals enough to fill their bellies and beds to restore their strength, their sheepskins stacked next to them at night despite the awful stench such a heap of skins produced. As for the rest, that is, all the things that make our French inns the envy of the entire continent—the fine cuisine, the bouquet of the wines, the sweet and pliable tempers of our chambermaids—none of that was of any interest to these three, who were so single-mindedly focused on their calculations, risks and profits that they went everywhere and saw nothing.
We were so impatient to discover Montpellier, which our father had told us so much about, that we took our leave of our convoy about two leagues before we reached the city. As we galloped away from them, I glanced over my shoulder at these merchants growing smaller and smaller in the distance and then disappearing at a bend in the road, along with their carts, valets and skins, whose putrid smell still permeated my nostrils no matter how deeply I breathed in the good dry air full of the perfume of this countryside. For although these lands seemed rocky and infertile compared to the verdant hillsides of Périgord, they nevertheless spawned a remarkable number of very aromatic plants that the sun cooked to such perfection that every breath of this air was an unmitigated pleasure.
One league from Montpellier, however, the terrain seemed to change dramatically, and suddenly we saw a field of harvested wheat at whose centre stood a hayrick surrounded by a group of labourers winnowing their crop. Their method was so surprising that we reined in our
horses to watch, for in Périgord, which is so rainy even in June, we always flail our sheaves, to separate the grain from the straw, under a shed, whereas here, with the soil so hot and dry, they did this work right in out in the open.
As I walked up to them, I saw a man astride the hayrick, holding the reins of six horses, all blindfolded, and turning them endlessly in a circle by means of a long whip, while his companions, pitchforks in hand, threw the wheat stalks under the horses’ shoes, so that the horses turned the stalks over each time they passed until they perfectly separated grain from stalks.
As they were just then stopping to breathe the horses and take a drink of wine, I went up to one of these labourers, who seemed quite clearly the leader of the group. He was a small, dark-skinned man with sparkling eyes and a ready tongue. He explained that they were waiting for the breeze that always came on towards the evening in these parts, in order to throw the straw and grain into the wind and onto a screen so that the lighter chaff would blow away and the grain settle on the screen. I asked him if they ever did their winnowing in the barn, but he assured me he’d never in his whole life seen that done since it never rained here in harvest season.
With his bright eyes fixed on me, he asked if he might question me in turn since it seemed only fair that if he’d satisfied my curiosity I should return the favour. I readily consented, and told him who we were, where we were headed and why.
He seemed infinitely flattered that we should have come so far and by such dangerous roads to study in Montpellier, which, he assured us, was the biggest and most beautiful city in all of Provence. He confessed that he’d heard that Toulouse was bigger but that being biggest was hardly of any consequence. Certainly, he claimed, there was no city in our provinces that could match Montpellier in beauty, commodities and climate. In Montpellier, he continued, there was hardly any cold season at all, whereas he’d heard tell that the king in his Louvre in Paris on certain winter days could see the Seine ice up before his very eyes. He added, jovially, that when he heard this story he got such a deathly cold in his back that he preferred to remain a field hand in Montpellier than to be king in the capital.
Of course the wisp of a smile that accompanied these words suggested how uncertain the truth of his gasconades might be. As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed the give and take of this light and subtle jesting, and later, when I’d got to know the people of Provence better, I realized that this mirth was part and parcel of their customary finesse.
“A thousand thanks, my good peasant,” I said, and to hear himself addressed in this way, the man smiled, though I couldn’t fathom why. I spurred my horse away with Samson close behind, but Miroul, who had stayed to talk to the winnowers, didn’t catch up with us for another half a league.
“Monsieur,” he said, his cheeks swollen, or so it seemed, with the news he had to impart, “that man you took for a field hand is not one at all, however much he may be dressed for the part. His name is Pécoul, and he’s a powerful bladesmith who sells daggers and swords and has a beautiful shop on the rue de l’Espazerie in Montpellier. He’s the lord of this domain, and prefers to bag his own wheat since he doesn’t trust anyone.”
“By the belly of St Anthony, Miroul!” I cried. “Not much escapes your unmatched eyes! And even less your sharp ears!”
“At your service, Monsieur,” said Miroul, feigning humility.
“And what else did you learn?”
“That if we continue on this road we’ll cross through a field of olive trees where the city hangman exercises his trade; that we’ll then see a high wooden palisade that protects the outlying houses round Montpellier and finally, after passing these houses, we’ll reach the Common Wall.”
“The Common Wall?”
“That’s what the people of Montpellier call the wall that encloses the city.”
“That’s a very pretty name—sounds like commonweal! But this is marvellous, Miroul! You draw so many secrets out of so many people! Samson, did you hear Miroul’s report?”
Alas, my beloved brother had ears neither for Samson’s words nor for my question. He rode along, his eyes fixed on Albière’s ears, the reins loose in his hands, colour leaving or flushing his face, sometimes deathly pale and sometimes scarlet, now biting his lip, now sighing mournfully. He scarcely even knew, I’ll wager, that he was on a horse or in what direction he was heading. A couple of sidelong glances at his face told me that he was visited by such memories, such dreams, but also such remorse that the poor lad was being torn asunder in his mind, his eyes changing back and forth between tender and fearful looks as though hell might suddenly open up under his mare’s hooves.
Although I’d seen more than one olive grove on our journey, I didn’t have to wonder which one belonged to the hangman of Montpellier who had sent so many poor devils to their deaths, for at quite a distance we could distinguish the straight form of the gallows rising up out of the natural tangle of branches of the orchard that surrounded it. The young fruit that would be harvested in September from amid these light-green leaves gave an even more sinister aspect to the deathly form of the gibbet.
Besides the sword and the arquebus, killing a man doesn’t require any stretch of the imagination. The simplest machine will suffice: three lengths of oak at right angles, the largest planted in the earth, the smallest bearing a rope at whose end our hanged man will dance as his judge goes on filling his belly, while awaiting his turn to go before the judge of us all, and then to rot in the earth instead of dancing around in the air as the man he’d condemned had done. A subtle difference, perhaps, which hardly justifies the high honour bestowed on the one and the deep disgrace heaped on the other.
This particular gallows bore no fruit, thank God, but I was too quickly reassured, for Accla bridled beneath me, and I quickly reined her in, my nose burning with a stale, sweet, unbearable odour that I knew all too well. Raising my eyes, I found myself gaping at the strange spectacle before me, for, hanging from the branches of the largest of the olive trees, I spied various parts of a woman’s body, her head tied to one branch by her own hair, and to others, attached by strands of hemp, the legs, arms and torso. Judging from this last that the executioner had stripped her bare to add to her shame, it was clear that the victim was a young wench, and although she’d been dead for at least a week, her body hadn’t yet been too ravaged by crows so that the breasts and belly were still visible. The poor hussy, whose tender body was thus exposed to the curiosity of men and the beaks of the vultures, had been hanged, then, after her death, stripped of her chemise and cut up by the hangman like a pig by a butcher and the parts displayed on this beautiful tree, on which their sinister presence weighed no more than a dead bird.
Samson, suddenly awaking from his reverie, stared sadly at these rotting debris, and Miroul paled and went all sullen, perhaps remembering that he himself had barely escaped the gibbet at Mespech. Nearby, I spied a labourer hacking away with a dull scythe at the nettles along the road without ever raising his eyes towards these human fragments, so odious, I wagered, did he find their presence here.
“Friend,” I asked, “is this your field?”
“Hardly!” replied this man, who was so tall and thin that he seemed scarcely thicker than his scythe, which he now lifted to lean on the back of the curved blade. “I own nothing in this beautiful Provençal land other than my mouth to eat with and my arms to nourish it. This field belongs to my master, and if you ask me, it’s a great pity that he’s rented it out to the consuls of Montpellier to use as a gibbet, though these olives are delicious—even the ones on the tree you’re admiring”—this despite the fact that he himself refused to look at it. “But I don’t like working in this stench, which the wind often carries right into my house.”
“Friend, who was this poor wench, do you know? And what was the crime that earned her this torture?”
“I know not her name, but according to the archers who brought her here, she’d suffocated her child when she had no more milk to give it, the good
-for-nothing who fathered it having left her penniless.”
“He’s the one they should have hanged,” growled Miroul between his teeth.
“I don’t know,” answered the man, “I’m not learned enough to judge. But I do know enough to tell you that if the good-for-nothing had been a count or a baron, the littl’un would have been a glorious bastard and would not have wanted for victuals.”
At the words “glorious bastard” Samson turned silently away, tears gushing from his eyes. He was three years old when his mother, Jéhanne Masure, died of the plague in Taniès, and I doubted he could still remember the face of the little shepherdess, but at least he knew she was his mother, since my mother never deigned to speak to him, never looked his way, never even spoke his name.
“But why in God’s name did they quarter her?” I asked, saddened as I was by Samson’s tears and the sight of her poor dismembered body. “Wouldn’t it have been enough to hang her?”
“Ah!” choked the man. “It’s all the same when you’re dead to be cut up like beef on a butcher’s table, or to remain in one piece. Here in Montpellier it’s the custom to quarter the hanged.”
“What an excessively cruel custom!” I gasped, turning towards Miroul and pretending not to notice Samson’s tears. “When we end our time on this earth, don’t our bodies belong to God, who will raise them from the dead on Judgement Day?”
“Well, that day is not coming tomorrow,” sighed the peasant, “and while we wait for it we must labour on without a moment of joy. To little people, little comfort. And however beautiful the sun is in Provence, we can’t eat it.”