by Théo Varlet
The Moors, having stripped the Spaniard’s corpses and abandoned them on the sand, naked, tied their mounts to the palm trees and distributed a few gold pieces from their booty, in a spirit of fraternity.
These auxiliaries were found to be generous, but a trifle over-keen, and not very interesting, all things considered—but they regained their popularity thanks to a minor incident. Corporal Venette—the aptly-named11 individual caught barefoot by the attack—discovered a large scorpion under a stone, longer than his middle finger and as yellow as an amber pipe, and started poking it with a palm-twig. People came running.
“Damned spider!”
“No, it’s a crayfish.”
“A sand-lobster.”
“But it’s not red!”
“Be careful,” said Nénesse. “I’ve seen those little beasts in Africa—they can kill a bloke in five secs.”
Laughing silently, a Moor insinuated himself between the huddled troopers and deposited around the strange arachnid a circle of dry twigs. Then, borrowing Nénesse’s lighter, he set fire to them. The surrounded animal ran rapidly around the flaming circle, its claws and tail raised threateningly; it seemed to understand that it was hopelessly doomed. Then, in order to flee the ardent bite, it stopped, arched its venomous tail in reverse, and with two furious thrusts implanted the sharp sting in the joint in its carapace, level with its front legs. It was seen to fall, thunderstruck, and someone extracted the moral: “The fellow’s had enough of war and committed suicide!”
By virtue of this humorous trick, the Moors rose in esteem again. Their example was followed and everyone lay down on the grass beside the spring.
Renard, preoccupied, was smoking cigarettes while walking with Etcheverry, who brought him up to date with the true situation.
The sputter of the motorcycle engine awoke the sleepers.
“It’s the mech, Vidal. He was quick.”
“Shut up—we’ve been resting here more than half an hour.”
“Hey, Vidal, give me some fuel for my lighter.”
“We’re going to take the town, then?”
“Are there bistros inside, at least?”
“Is it true that they’re Spaniards, Lieutenant?”
“Silence!”
And the attack on the city began.
Under the protection of the machine-gunners, who cleared the battlements, where heads had surged forth again, the two sappers went to place a stick of dynamite under each batten of the gate, lit the fuses and came back. A double explosion thundered; stones flew up volcanically; the tower collapsed—en bloc, so to speak—filling the ditch, and when the cloud of smoke dissipated, the two battens of the gate were seen lying flat on the rubble in the middle of an enormous breach. People were fleeing in disorder along a street.
The Moors rushed into the breach at a fast gallop, and Renard, in order to support them, raised his arms and gave the order: “Charge!”
For the moment, the poilus were greatly amused.
“Come on, lads—let’s have them!”
“Get on with it—there’s glory enough for all!”
“Kill! Kill!”
“To Berlin!”
Stumbling over the debris in the breach, the bayonet charge surged into the city—but not a single warrior was to be seen. The Moors had swept away the last resistance; already, their horses reuniting at the fountain at the crossroads a little further on. A few had set about looting the houses, from which cries of agony or fury and the screams of women emerged. Under the pretext of moderating their actions, five or six poilus joined in.
“Try to take prisoners!” Etcheverry shouted at them.
The others, spotting a posada at the entrance to the street, on the left, asked the lieutenant for permission to have a drink. Renard gave permission, went in with them, and accepted a glass of rosé wine from the abjectly-trembling innkeeper—which was delicious, but too sweet for his taste. Then adopting a vast earthenware jar as a writing-desk, he scribbled a note to de Lanselles, which Etcheverry took to the motorcyclist, who had stayed with his machine outside the breach.
The adjutant thought he saw a blue uniform disappear behind a door that reclosed immediately—that was Lénac, who, having filmed the explosion of the door and the Moors’ charge, had noticed a discreetly-raised curtain at a window, and a pretty feminine face with an alluring smile. And the cinematographer, heedless of other adventures, received the hospitality of a robust fille de joie, who began by modestly veiling the image of the Madonna in front of which a small lamp was burning. Their love-making was silent, but at the far end of the street, the shouts rising up became more numerous, mingled with spasmodic laughter—for, having absorbed a glass of wine, the troopers had quit the posada in order to rejoin their mates and the Moors.
Renard waited for Etcheverry, alone in the middle of the street, and they both climbed the slope of detritus, in which dogs were beginning to root around. The noise of the battle—cries for help and howls of pain—guided them to the next crossroads. There, near the fountain, in the crenellated wall of an enclosure, a door opened into a courtyard. They went in. Five or six Moors were finishing running through a black-clad man with the appearance of a sacristan, whose fingers were still clenched on a bunch of large keys.
A few paces away, two poilus, leaning over an air-vent, were calling out jovially: “Is anyone down there?”
“Hey, it’s Latude!”12
In the shadow of a subterranean cell, a person in a monkish robe could be seen, chained at the waist. He raised toward the light a face with keen eyes and noble features, aureole by bright red hair. A Moor had approached with Renard; he uttered an exclamation on recognizing the prisoner, addressed a few words to him in Arabic, and called out to his companions.
They all came running. “Geronimo! Geronimo!” they exclaimed. They set about trying to open the grille. Ten strong arms soon put paid to it, and the red-haired monk was brought out into the daylight. The Moors bowed to him with demonstrations of respect, and then drew away, uttering cries of vengeance.
The red-haired monk, pale and weak but dignified nevertheless, adjusted his robe. He paraded an astonished gaze over the poilus, Etcheverry and Renard, identified the leader, and addressed the lieutenant in Latin. Renard had not entirely forgotten his Classical studies, and was able to understand him, with a little effort. His interlocutor thanked him warmly, and asked who he and his companions were—from what unknown country the Lord had sent the Moors these auxiliaries in blue uniforms: the angels who had just pulled the claws of the Inquisition.
An embarrassing question! With a gesture, Renard vaguely indicated a remote distance, spoke about champions of liberty, named himself, and, in a Latin that would have made Cicero wince, interrogated the monk in his turn.
The latter was Fray Geronimo, prior of the Franciscans of Valencia, Master of Arts at the University. His love of progress and Enlightenment, and his acquaintance with Moorish and Jewish scholars, had caused him to be accused of heresy by his rivals, the Dominicans. Arrested in the middle of the night the previous day, he had been subjected a few hours later to questioning by water...
Recalled to reality by Etcheverry, however, Renard was obliged to interrupt him. In order to avenge their fiend Geronimo, the Moors had just set fire to the stables on the far side of the courtyard, and behind them, from the battlements of the fortress, Spaniards appeared, throwing water on the flames and becoming bold enough to fire arrows. The lieutenant became anxious; the two troopers had taken advantage of his conversation with the monk to rejoin the others, occupied in pillaging, but the city would not remain prey indefinitely to the terror of the firearms and the abrupt invasion. There might be a backlash...
Leaving the Moors there, he drew the monk and Etcheverry away, to set out in quest of his men, whose conduct sickened him.
Slightly disconcerted by their overly facile victory, almost intimidated by seeing the streets so absolutely deserted and only finding women and “civvies,” paralyzed w
ith fear, inside the houses, the conquerors of Valencia had not ventured very far. The second crenellated enclosure, the fortress of sorts whose courtyard they had invaded before breaking into a cell and setting fire to the stables, marked the limit of their advance.
Only a few Moors had gone beyond the crossroads with the fountain and penetrated into the labyrinth of the ghetto to the left. Having explored the main street, the majority of the horsemen and all of the Frenchmen had flooded back into the adjacent side-streets, breaking into houses, knocking down young women, and raiding the savings of that eccentric quarter, specializing in prostitution and petty commerce.
The poilus of the eighth, intoxicated by the sun, the shouting and the triumphant gaiety as much as by the wine, and wearied by the heat, thought it unnecessary to press on. They would have all the time in the world methodically to exploit the resources of the conquered city. For the moment, they were hot and thirsty, and a brief pause in one of the numerous taverns of the quarter would be welcome.
Leaving the Moors, blinded by lust and carnage, to get on with it, Little Charlot, Nénesse and a few other adherents of system D13 made for a bodega just off the crossroads, populated by pretty girls who were a little scared, but welcoming, where they organized a party. When the two men who had assisted in the liberation of the monk came out of the postern, they were hailed by their mates, occupied in laying in supplies of figs, melons, oranges, cheeses and pickles.
“Hey, lads! Little Charlot has unearthed some nice Cointreau. Rally at the Beau dégât des Soles.” (The Bodega del Sol, apparently.) “Stop pestering the locals and bring whatever you want to keep. We’re going to paint the town red, and no mistake! There’s going to be a big blow-out!”
This, when Renard appeared at the crossroads, with Etcheverry and the monk, they only found Corporal Venette in the process of passing solitary judgment, in the shade of a porch, on the contents of a bottle of mulled wine, which he was drinking in gulps.
“Ah, Lieutenant, what do they put in this stuff?” asked the brave corporal, with naïve affection.
Already dissatisfied with everything he had seen, the lieutenant berated him roundly.
“Where are the others?”
“The others? They’re somewhere around, having a booze-up, Lieutenant. Except for the darkies...”
“Enough! You don’t even know where your men are? It’s anarchy here. It can’t go on, I warn you, Corporal Venette. You’ll lose your stripe if you haven’t reassembled your platoon in five minutes and formed a guard-post at the entrance to the town, in the bistro where we first had a drink, and where we left the machine-guns and the sappers’ tools. I’ll wait for you there.”
Venette, extremely discomfited, drew away muttering: “There you go! More duty. Can’t have any fun. It wasn’t worth the trouble...”
He spotted two troopers with hams stuck on their bayonets, then another laden with a fishing-net stuffed with melons—contributions to the “big blow-out”—who were attempting to head for the Bodega del Sol.
“Not there, you lot—the lieutenant’s on to you. Drop that and came with me.”
At the end of the street, in company with the monk, Renard was waiting. Etcheverry had just brought Lénac back, having collected him as he made his exit from his beauty’s house.
With a cold rage, the officer examined the four drunkards. “Nothing to be done with these swine!” he groaned. “It’s vile! You’re behaving like Cossacks. Hurry up and set up a guard; try to find your comrades, have Nénesse alert the Moors, and all reassemble here before nightfall. We don’t know what’s being plotted in the city—we haven’t taken a single prisoner. Instead, you’ve been chasing women and wine! Enough! Keep watch as necessary, okay? I’ll have you relieved tomorrow, and between now and then the motorcyclist will come to fetch news. Make sure you give him a report.”
He listened momentarily to the distant clamors and the sounds of galloping, which gave evidence of the exploits of the Moors. He darted a final glance at the crossroads, where the other seven poilus were showing no signs of life. Then, utterly disgusted, anxious as to the fate of the four drunkards who were about to guard the city gate, and also anxious about what might be happening in Port-sur-Seille in his absence, Renard sent Etcheverry to the crossroads to fetch four horses saved from the fire in the stables, and gave his final instructions to Venette and his worthy acolytes.
“If there’s a serious fight, of course, you’ll have to send a rider to warn us, and dig yourselves in properly.”
The mounts having been brought, he took one of them; the monk, Lénac and Etcheverry bestrode the others, and the little caravan, going through the breach, headed for Port-sur-Seille, where the tricolor as flying over the tower.
The four horses trotted between the Barbary figs and giant thistles with yellow flowers. The heat was declining. A sea-breeze had got up. Behind them, against a background of immaculate azure, Valencia mutely outlined its palm trees, terraces and deserted battlements against the redness of the setting sun.
III. Thévenard, Skull-Stuffer
During the journey, Renard and the monk got to know one another better. From the first stride, the gait of the horse had provoked a violent nausea in Geronimo, accompanied by liquid vomiting.
“It’s the effect of the torture to which I was subjected yesterday,” he explained, between two retches. “I was put to the water torture. They wanted to make me confess monstrous and absurd crimes—but my conscience is clear!”
The sympathetic Lénac offered him a melissa cordial,14 a flask of which he always carried with him, having long suffered from indigestion. The monk took the flask, uncorked it, sniffed it approvingly and took a large mouthful, which caused him to cough, choke and go red in the face, but the eventual result seemed to him to be excellent. Sitting upright in his saddle thereafter, he attempted to decipher the label of the marvelous elixir, and asked Lénac in Spanish to let him have the recipe. There was a brief misunderstanding, sorted out by Etcheverry.
Then, studying the printed label again—such neat calligraphy!—Geronimo recognized a Christian dialect akin to that of the Franks: the northern language he had learned to read in the Chanson de Roland and the more recent and almost-contemporary chronicles of the Sire de Joinville,15 but which he did not speak for want of practice. He renewed his questions. Renard had to admit that he was not a Moor but, in fact Gallus vel Francus—a Gaul or a Frank, and that he had come directly from his homeland.
The monk seemed quite astonished.
“I’ve seen Franks before, from the north and the south,” he said, “but none of them resembled you either in their voice or their costume. The Gauls are tall, it’s true, and of various mores…but what are you doing here fighting with the Arabs? Your people have been the declared enemies of Moors and Saracens for centuries—your kings led crusades against them. But for the war against England, your present sovereign, Philippe VI... Even though you’re a warrior, and scarcely accustomed to meditation, are you, like me, enlightened enough to understand that truth, justice, progress and a better future for humankind lie not on the side of those who are persecuting me but rather, setting questions of religions and patriotism aside, among their enemies?”
Renard judged it too difficult to explain the true situation to his guest, which it would be probably impossible for him to grasp. Perhaps later. In the meantime, he admitted that his civilized preferences inclined toward the Moors, and that he would willingly support them against the backward-looking Inquisitors.
Geronimo, delighted to find himself in such intelligent society, was enthusiastic to elaborate his ideas regarding “outdated institutions” and the tyranny of the Holy Office—for his rancor was still fresh; he still hard the marks of the chains in his flesh and the memory of the torture that the sacred tribunal had inflicted upon his stomach for having dared to think freely.
Renard was curious about that formidable institution, which was about to be, so far as he was concerned, no longer an object of
facile jokes and literary allusions, but a living enemy against which he would need to defend himself and fight for his life. Nevertheless, it was more urgent to obtain information about the man he already considered as a useful, and almost indispensable ally: the Emir.
“What?” the monk exclaimed. “I’ve seen you with his soldiers. Don’t you know him?”
“I don’t know him yet. I’ve only just landed with my troops.”
“So you aren’t taking me to his camp?”
“I’m taking you to my camp, which isn’t far from his—look, there it is!”
Until that moment Geronimo had been riding without paying any heed to anything except for his traveling companions, whom he had not wearied of examining. He raised his eyes, and distinguished for the first time the tower and village of Port-sur-Seille, which the officer was pointing out. He started in alarm, commenced a mechanical sign of the cross, then collected himself and smiled understandingly.
“That was what the jailer meant this morning when he talked about a town sprung from Hell!” he murmured. Then, in a louder voice, he added: “You have powerful Spirits at your disposal, Man of Gaul! Skillful and rapid builders! And the madmen who invoke their paltry and cruel God won’t forgive you for knowing how to command the forces of nature in this way—but I bless the true God for having met you. You’re indubitably his emissaries; you’ll liberate the world from the monsters who want to stifle intelligence. You think like my friend, the noble Abdul Khan, but your power surpasses his by a hundred cubits. No matter—I’ll introduce you to him, and. thanks to your alliance and your combined efforts, this unfortunate land of Spain will finally experience regeneration, liberty, justice and truth!”
Renard experienced a moment of melancholy in thinking that, the day before, he had been fighting for the same ideals, against the same oppression, exercised by other monsters. 1341 or 1917…after a six-century interval, humankind was still at the same point!