Honour and the Sword

by A L Berridge

  The one on the ground ignored him, he was raising his whip again, the Général snorting and trying to back away. I panted up and tugged the man’s sleeve, I said ‘Please, Señor, don’t hit him, he can’t do it,’ but he wasn’t listening, he just swung round violently, then there was this tearing pain shrieking through my belly, I was folding myself in two, sucking in air in great whoops. He’d punched me in the guts.

  He didn’t even look, he turned and whipped the Général again, and there was nothing I could do, I might have been in fucking Germany. Somewhere in my head I heard running feet, but they didn’t seem to matter, there was a kind of fierceness screaming inside that forced me upright, I was reaching out and grabbing the bastard’s hand, wrenching the whip right out of it, I was saying ‘You leave him alone, you hear me, you leave him alone.’

  He shoved me back, he was tugging the sword out of his belt, then behind us came the explosion of a musket. The Général screamed and reared, I turned and saw André pelting up with a sword in his hand, he’d got his bloody sword, no wonder the man fired. But he’d dodged the ball, he was charging straight on, and for the first time since I’d known him I thought he looked frightening. The man on the cart did too, he was trying to reverse the musket and use it like a club, but André was up to him, reaching up and grasping the barrel, and I remembered how strong his grip was, he just twisted it out of his way, his other hand coming round, and in it the sword.

  Something was hacking down at me, I only half saw it, but I’d fenced long enough to know to spin on the back foot as the soldier’s sword slashed through the air where I’d been. I knew the next move, I was leaping forward on his inside line, I got both hands to his sword arm and tried to wrestle the blade away, but he was too strong, he clenched his arm to tighten his elbow round my neck. Behind us the Général was rearing and kicking, then one of his hooves came swiping through the air, my man ducked in panic, and I didn’t even think, I swivelled and punched him with everything I had, and the back of his head went down crunch against the hub of the wheel.

  I’d killed him, I knew it, his eyes rolled up and he was making gurgling noises in his throat. Behind me came a cry and a thump, and I looked round to see the other man on his knees, André standing over him with a sword that was bloody halfway to the hilt. I looked back at mine, and he was sliding to the ground, still making choking noises, then stuff dribbled out of his mouth and at last he went still.

  The cart lurched, and I saw the Général slumping down on his front knees. I was up to him in a second, I’d got my knife and was sawing at that bloody crappy degrading harness, but it didn’t help, he just slumped further, his nose was almost in the dust. I was on my knees and stroking him, and I think he knew me, he gave this last little whinny, then a white film went over his eyes and stayed there and I knew he’d gone. My tears were falling hot on my wrist, but I wasn’t sad, I was almost elated. He’d never wanted to die miserably in his stall, the Général, he’d wanted to die in battle, and he had, he really had.

  There was a little tinkling sound behind me, and I turned and saw the boy looking down. He’d got two bandoliers slung over his shoulder, and I knew he’d been spoiling the dead. I didn’t care, I’d got this savage kind of gladness boiling up in me, I said ‘We beat them, didn’t we? We beat them.’

  He reached out and touched my arm. ‘We outnumbered them,’ he said. ‘You, me, and the Général.’

  He understood. He didn’t think I was stupid to fight over a horse, he bloody understood. I felt strong suddenly, I remember standing up and saying ‘You’re right, André, you were right all along. We’ve got to fight these bastards, it doesn’t matter if we lose, we’ve just got to fight.’

  He bent to clean his sword on the coat of the nearest corpse, and my mind turned over and realized what he’d done. He was thirteen years old but he’d seen me in danger and come to save me, he’d just killed a man without my even looking. ‘Silly,’ he said. ‘We’ve already started.’

  Five

  Stefan Ravel

  Oh yes, I’d been busy. It wasn’t only André de Roland who didn’t like being invaded, you know, there are other kinds of heroes in this world.

  Marcel was one of them. I’d been nursing him at my tannery since the night at the barricades, and he turned out quite a little firebrand, desperate to continue his own private war. It was a matter of honour, of course, as you’d expect when it’s something unbelievably stupid. He’d failed in his duty to defend the Château, he’d allowed his patron’s family to be taken prisoner, and the shame of it needed to be wiped out. Honour, Abbé? It kills more people than plague.

  Me? Oh, there’s nothing heroic about me. I rather doubted an army of two could achieve much against a thousand, and suggested we’d be better off nipping over the Wall to join our own troops. And who knows, Abbé, maybe we’d have done it if it hadn’t been for the accident.

  It was a lone trooper, who came looking to steal leather to make himself a nice buff jacket. I told him there was bugger all left, his mates had nicked it, I said ‘Nada, you understand? Now fuck off.’ But well, he couldn’t take a hint, he went poking and prying about, and next thing he’d turned up Marcel’s uniform coat, which unfortunately he recognized. I’d have talked my way out of it, but there was Marcel in the breeches that went with it, and the trooper knew he’d caught himself a stray enemy soldier. I thought he’d be off for his sergeant at once, but no, he turned out to be an even worse bastard and said kindly he wouldn’t report us as long as Marcel agreed to ‘be nice’ to him.

  No, I wasn’t shocked, Abbé, I’ve seen the Italian disease in our own army, and Marcel was an attractive lad, young and blond, just the type they like. But willing’s one thing, unwilling quite another, so when the filth dropped his breeches I gave him my graining knife in the guts. Messy, I grant you, but effective.

  We still had a little problem in the form of a corpse on the premises, but Durand helped us with that one. That’s Philippe Durand, local butcher, a sweet-tempered man, but he didn’t like thieving and liked bullying even less. He came round, butchered the body fit for a banquet, then I carried it out in sections and dumped it in the lime pit. It took weeks to rot down, but at least the stink of decomposing don kept looters away from my tannery for quite a little while.

  It didn’t deter Giles Leroux. He was the Verdâme verderer, used to go to the livestock markets with me and Durand, along with Martin Gauthier and that pisshead Pierre Gilbert from Dax. He was round next day, saying ‘I hear you’re killing dons.’

  ‘Says who?’ I said.

  ‘Says no one,’ said Leroux. ‘But Durand and I want in, Ravel, so bear it in mind.’

  Marcel was right after all, it looked like we had the makings of an army. Durand was a champion longbowman, and Leroux a first-class shot, they were both good fighters who’d stood with us at the barricades. Then Durand brought along Bernard Rouet from the vineyard, who was a top crossbowman if otherwise scarcely human, and that brought us up to five. We ambushed a few pissed soldiers who were stupid enough to wander near the woods at night, and then we’d the guns to look for a few more.

  I considered Gauthier, a mad old bugger but soldier through and through, but unfortunately he had one weakness I couldn’t ignore: he used to lick the arses of the Rolands till you’d think they’d be red-raw. Oh yes, Abbé, he’d told us all about young André, son of his father, retainers lining up to die on his behalf, but the kid was thirteen and nobility, two things I rather thought we’d be better without.

  But there was one thing he told us about his young Sieur that caught Marcel’s interest, and no doubt you can guess what. And we knew something else he hadn’t mentioned, the name of the man rumour said distributed money for him. An unattractive personality, as you’ll know by now, but we thought he might be dim enough to look kindly on men who’d stood alongside him at the barricades.

  We thought we’d put it to the test, that night in November. And yes, Abbé, from your rather singular point of
view, that’s the night my life starts to become interesting.

  Jacques Gilbert

  We couldn’t do much to hide the bodies. The boy said it didn’t matter, the Spaniards would think it was those people from Verdâme, they’d never imagine it was miserable peasants like us.

  But the Manor would be even less safe from now on, so we waited till dusk then sneaked across to see M. Gauthier. He’d crawled over every inch of the forest stalking; if there was anyone who could find a new hiding place it was him.

  I’d never actually been inside his cottage before, and it was pretty horrid really, it was sort of rancid. He had a dead deer and what looked like stoats on the floor, and a couple of pheasants hanging on hooks which from the stink ought to have been eaten last week, but he said no, they had to be hung till the necks rotted and the bodies fell off, that’s how you knew it was time to cook them. We nodded politely, then tried to find somewhere to sit that wasn’t underneath them.

  The boy explained, and M. Gauthier nodded wisely then sat in silence to think. I listened to Dog crunching bones and tried to close my nose against the smell.

  ‘There’s the old Hermitage, Sieur,’ said M. Gauthier at last. ‘Secret enough, aye, and big enough for your horses too. There’s a stream, you’d have water. It’s very deep in, mind, maybe three miles, you’ll want to think about that.’

  I didn’t want to think about it at all because of having to slog there twice a day to do the horses, but right then nothing seemed to matter as long as we could fight. The boy just said ‘The deeper the better, so the Spaniards won’t find us,’ then looked at me and grinned.

  We loaded up the horses with straw from the Home Farm, then tied them up behind the wash-house while the three of us crept furtively to the dairy. We didn’t really think there’d be soldiers hanging round after dark, but we couldn’t be sure, we hadn’t expected them this afternoon either. M. Gauthier made us both wear our swords.

  I’d always liked the Ancre dairy, it was cool and airy with whitewashed walls. I used to stand in the doorway watching Fleurie making butter, her eyes flicking up at me sideways through her hair, her hands moist and slippery, and everything feeling fresh. It wasn’t like that now. There were filthy boot-marks and a pungent smell like the soldiers had been using it to piss in. The big churn was gone, the stool was on its side, the trestles had collapsed, and there was broken pottery crunching under our feet along with sticky grit where the salt crock had smashed. Something soft caught at my boot, a trail of muslin unravelled like a huge bandage. I remembered watching Fleurie making cheese, measuring out the muslin, then placing the strip between her little white teeth and ripping it clean off with one jerk of her head. I remembered her keeping her eyes on me all the time she was doing it, and how it made me feel. But now the muslin was blackened and disgusting, and Fleurie was dead.

  ‘The floor looks all right,’ said the boy.

  We went to the far corner where there was a slab you could tilt to slide your hands underneath. M. Gauthier and I prised it out between us, then the one next to it, and now there was a white sheet exposed, with the gleam of dark metal and polished wood showing underneath. Behind us the boy gave a faint sigh of relief.

  We laid the top three muskets in the sheet and wrapped them into a bundle. Under the next sheet were two pistols, but the boy was just lifting out the first when I heard a distant rattle of shingle and realized someone was crossing the drive.

  M. Gauthier was by the window in a second. The boy didn’t seem to have heard, he was still taking out the second pistol, but I touched his arm and indicated the window, and he was on his feet at once, sliding his sword out the scabbard in the same movement. I fumbled out my own, but it felt awkward and unfamiliar, like I’d never handled it before.

  M. Gauthier came back from the window.

  ‘Four,’ he whispered. ‘And another waiting on the grass.’ He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, pushing him gently down by the milk cans, and signalled me to crouch next to him. He was too tall to join us, so he just sort of stood and melted himself into the shadow of the corner. If the soldiers went past the door they wouldn’t see anything, and I couldn’t think of a reason in the world why they’d actually come in.

  Then suddenly I could, and an odd flush sort of rippled through me as I realized how stupid we’d been. Those men we killed, someone was bound to have missed them and come looking, they might go through the whole Manor before they checked the apron. I was praying desperately ‘But not here, not the dairy, please don’t come in here.’

  But they did. We could hear them as they came up the track towards the wash-house, then took the fork to the dairy. M. Gauthier bent low, left arm flung out to protect the boy. He was unarmed, but he was big, and those huge long arms looked ready to tackle anything. I told myself we had surprise on our side, there were only four, and we had André, who could surely take two out by himself. I was confident I could get one too. I was sixteen now and bloody strong, I’d been fencing six hours every day since July and thought I ought to be a match for a single Spanish foot-slogger. Then I remembered it wasn’t enough just to hit one, I’d got to stick the blade right in him, and I’d never done that in my life. My hand started to feel sticky on the pommel, and the tip of my blade was wobbling.

  The darkness by the door thickened and shapes appeared in it. They came forward, closing the door behind them, and the little patch of moonlight narrowed to a crack. I heard their boots crunching on the debris, then an exclamation, and knew they’d seen the floor was up. There was a faint metallic rasping and a pale flash of light as one of them drew a sword.

  I shifted position to spring up, but my boot nudged a milk can and it rocked back into the others with a great clang. The men jumped round, but M. Gauthier was already leaping forward and grabbing the one in front. The boy was right behind him, smashing at someone with the heavy pistol, then I heard the clash of steel as he engaged the one with the sword. I was on my feet and dodging round him, there were arms and elbows everywhere, something soft bashed against my shins, then I was clear and the fourth man right in front of me. I jerked up my sword, but he exclaimed and jumped back, he was in the crack of light from the door, and then I was yelling ‘Stop, everyone, André, stop!’ because it was only bloody Colin.

  For a second nobody moved. Then Colin stepped back a pace and pulled the door wide open, letting moonlight flood into the dairy.

  André was standing very still, the point of his blade against his opponent’s throat. Half a second later, and he’d have killed him. The man he’d hit with the pistol was on his hands and knees on the floor.

  M. Gauthier looked into the face of the man he was throttling, then shoved him away with an oath.

  ‘Durand!’ he said in disgust. ‘Philippe Durand!’

  I peered in the gloom, and saw it was. Everyone knew Philippe, the butcher from Verdâme, he was fat and jolly with a huge grin that showed his missing front tooth. He and M. Lefebvre had this big rivalry between them in the archery competitions, like the May Day contests weren’t so much between Dax and Verdâme as between Lefebvre and Durand.

  André didn’t take his eyes off his own man. He said simply ‘Friends of yours, Martin?’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that, Sieur,’ said M. Gauthier, glowering round at them all. ‘But I know them. The one on the floor lodges with a friend of mine.’

  ‘And this one?’ said André, looking thoughtfully at the man on the end of his blade.

  ‘That one,’ said M. Gauthier, and spat on the floor. ‘That’s the so-called friend, Sieur. That’s Stefan Ravel.’

  Stefan Ravel

  So here it is at last, the wonderful moment in my life when I first came face to face with André de Roland. Three loud cheers, and bring out the brandy.

  Not that I saw much of him at the time. He was rather smaller than me, Abbé, and you’ll appreciate I was having to carry my chin a little high. When I peered down his blade all I could see was the steel of his guard and the
se dark eyes regarding me coolly over the top. So, no, I wasn’t hugely taken with him. For one thing, he took his time getting his blade out of my neck, just to make sure I understood he’d beaten me. Oh yes, Abbé, of course he had, but I didn’t see why I should give him the satisfaction of admitting it, so I stared right back and gave him a nice smile.

  I said ‘Take that fucking blade out of my throat or I’ll break your back.’

  Something sparked in his eyes, and for a second his blade twitched against my skin. Then slowly the hilt lowered to show more of his face, and I saw him smile back.

  ‘I should like very much to see you try.’

  I knew who he was then all right, there wasn’t a peasant in the world spoke like that. I didn’t need Durand gibbering with shock, saying this was the local Seigneur himself, I knew what I’d got here without that. I merely observed I couldn’t be expected to see who I was talking to while I was stuck with my nose pointed at the ceiling, and if he’d have the goodness to get the fuck out of it I might be able to converse in a more civilized fashion.

  A toss-up, I grant you, Abbé, but it paid. The kid lowered his sword and stepped back, and I got my first proper look at him. He was a scrawny little thing, scruffy clothes, hair all over his face, and grubby as a street urchin.

  I said I was delighted to make his acquaintance.

  Jacques Gilbert

  Stefan hated him on sight.

  He was pissed off at being beaten, of course, he just kept staring at the boy, and I didn’t like his look. But M. Gauthier seemed quite comfortable, he just said ‘What was that you were saying, Ravel, about our Seigneur being too young to fight?’ then creased himself up in wheezy laughter.

  The last man came shuffling in while all this was going on, no one I knew, just a shabby little man in a stupid woollen hat pulled too low over his forehead, who looked round nervously then tried to hide himself among the milk cans. André waited patiently for them all to settle, then leant arrogantly against the cheese bench, folded his arms, and said ‘Well, gentlemen, would somebody care to explain?’