Honour and the Sword

by A L Berridge

  Colin started blustering, like he always does when he’s scared or in the wrong. He said the men had come to the Forge that evening, he told them we wanted the weapons hidden and they’d volunteered to help.

  ‘Tried to ask first,’ he said. ‘Went round the cottage myself, checked the barn, not a sign of anyone. Thought it better not to wait. Thought you said it was urgent.’

  He sounded all injured, so the boy said he quite understood and thanked them for their trouble.

  There was a little silence, then the one who’d been on the floor gave this discreet little cough behind his hand and stepped forward.

  He said ‘I have to confess we had something of an ulterior motive.’

  André liked frankness. ‘What was it?’

  The man looked at him very directly. He was nice-looking, blond, sort of fresh-faced, and really not much older than us, probably only about eighteen. There was something clean about him too, a sort of innocence that made him seem younger. Just looking at him made me feel old and scabby and cynical.

  He said ‘I hoped you might lend us some of your weaponry. We want to raise an army to fight the Spaniards.’

  I suppose we should have guessed, but it felt like a miracle all the same. Then he introduced himself as Caporal Marcel Dubois of the Verdâme Guard, and that was even better. He wasn’t a kid like us, and he wasn’t just a farm labourer who wanted to fight, he was a proper trained soldier who’d been in battles and knew what he was doing. The boy looked at him like he was the Archangel Gabriel.

  Stefan Ravel

  It was quite a change, Abbé, he was all over Marcel as if they were long-lost brothers. When Marcel told him I was a soldier too, he clasped my hand and actually gave me a great big smile.

  I gave his hand a really tight squeeze, just to show I hadn’t forgotten the way he’d been looking at me a minute ago, but his smile never faltered and he gave me one fuck of a squeeze right back. So I thought ‘all right,’ and really put the pressure on till his eyes glazed. He didn’t make a sound, I’m glad to say, just gritted his teeth and glared, but when we let go I noticed him rubbing his hand under cover of his cloak. Someone else saw him too. The silent young man standing beside him took one look at André massaging his fingers, then turned his face towards me and for the first time our eyes met.

  Jacques Gilbert. Well now, Abbé, what would you like me to say about young Jacques? The stupid stable boy, devoted nursemaid, loyal companion, gallant soldier, take your pick. But what I first saw in his eyes was something a great deal more primitive than that. Ownership, Abbé. Possession. He had his hand on the kid’s arm, and the look on his face was saying ‘Keep off’ in every language you’ll ever hear.

  It wasn’t very effective, unfortunately. André had obviously decided we were now all bosom friends, and insisted on proper introductions whether Jacques liked it or not. He knew Durand, of course, and remembered he’d personally crowned him King of the Bird last May Day, which made Durand flush pink with pleasure. Rouet was a social challenge to anybody, I’m afraid, but he muttered away respectfully enough, and backed off at the first opportunity, lurking in a corner and cracking his knuckles with nerves. Me, I leant against the wall in deliberate imitation of the kid, and watched the little pantomime with considerable amusement.

  It served a purpose for all that, because now the kid was promising us everything. We could have the weapons, we could borrow his horses, he had a hideout in the Forest we could use, and he was pretty sure he could find us a number of volunteers too. All very nice, Abbé, all very helpful, except for one little snag.

  Marcel saw it right away. ‘Forgive me, Monseigneur, but surely you will want to use some of these things for your own forces?’

  ‘My forces?’ said young André. ‘We haven’t got any, that’s why we’re so pleased to see you. Now you’re here, we can build up a regular army.’

  Marcel gave that apologetic little cough of his. He’d a few nervous habits like that, Abbé. He used to bite his nails as well.

  ‘It would be better to keep our forces separate, Monseigneur. M. Ravel and I are professional soldiers, and we’ll want to run our own army.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the kid, surprised. ‘Of course you must run it, I wouldn’t expect anything else. I only want to join it, and fight like anybody else.’

  Marcel hesitated, so I knew it would have to be me put the boot in.

  I said as nicely as I could ‘Look, you’re the bloody Sieur of Dax, aren’t you? Surely you can see that’s not possible.’

  Jacques Gilbert

  M. Gauthier bristled at once. He growled ‘Watch your mouth, Ravel,’ and went and tried to loom over him, which was a bit difficult actually, because he was really big, Stefan, he sort of dominated everything around him. Even now when he was leaning against the wall, he had his legs apart and his left hip thrust out, and that great naked sword clanking on his belt, it’s like he tried to take up all the space he could. He can’t have even been that old then, he was maybe only nineteen, but he made you feel like he was older, like he’d seen everything in the world and pissed all over it.

  ‘You remember who you’re talking to,’ said M. Gauthier.

  Stefan smiled cynically. ‘You see? How can we have the Sieur of Dax in the army if we’re not allowed to talk to him like anyone else? How are we going to give him orders? And if we do, would he take them?’

  I felt my heart sort of sinking, because I could see his point. I couldn’t meet his eyes, and neither could M. Gauthier, he just muttered and looked away.

  André didn’t seem bothered. ‘In the army one takes orders from all kinds of people. My father served under a German mercenary at Casale. There’s no shame in it.’

  I could see Stefan’s lip curling at that phrase ‘all kinds of people’, but it was M. Gauthier who got in first.

  ‘It’s different, Sieur,’ he said urgently. ‘That would be a man of senior rank to your father. M. Dubois here is only a caporal. You are Chevalier, you are an officer, you cannot take orders from a caporal.’

  The boy shook his head. ‘In this army he’ll be Capitaine. I can take orders from a capitaine, can’t I?’ He smiled at Marcel, and Marcel smiled back. It felt warm and friendly, you could see them liking each other.

  Stefan ruined it at once. ‘And I’d be Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘How do you feel about that, my young Sieur? Take orders from me as well, would you?’

  ‘Even you,’ said André, looking him right in the eye. ‘I give you my word.’

  Stefan gave a short grunt like a laugh, but Marcel said quickly ‘He’s right, Stefan, we should all swear. We’re forming an army, we should swear ourselves in.’

  We did it all properly and formally, we dug out a sword for Marcel and all swore allegiance as volunteer soldiers in his army. Then Marcel swore to lead us fairly and justly, all the usual bollocks, and kissed the sword, which I bet he wouldn’t have if he knew they hadn’t been washed or anything, they’d just been taken off dead men and bunged under the floor. Stefan had to make the same oath, and he did it somehow without being struck by lightning, but he never took his eyes off the boy, and I didn’t like his smile.

  Colin Lefebvre

  Jacques ought never have allowed it. Sieur of Dax agreeing to take orders off a thug like Ravel, absolute disgrace. Anyone could see Ravel was a troublemaker, he might have been one of them Croquants we’d got insurrecting round the country. Talked like a rebel and smelt like a tanner, and got it in for our Seigneur from the start.

  But Seigneur was so red-hot to fight he’d have taken orders from Gauthier’s dog. Keen as keen he was, insisted on unpacking and loading the weapons like everyone else. Friendly too, even saw him trying to make conversation with that dimwit Rouet, and that took some doing, the man only had about three words in him and they were ‘crossbow’, ‘bolt’, and ‘cranequin’.

  One funny thing though, tell me what you make of this. Durand was digging out the last bits from the cache when up he came with t
his dagger. Beautifully wrought it was, lovely bit of steel, proper bloodied up from something but the Roland crest on plain to see. So Durand offered it the Seigneur, right, and Seigneur’s face went suddenly tight-white. Took that knife like it would burn him, backed right away from the hole, and next thing I saw he was outside, wiping it as careful as if it was a baby, making the blade bright and clean again on the wet grass.

  Jacques Gilbert

  Yes, I saw that too. I knew it was André’s knife, I’d seen it in his belt in the old days. I guessed he’d had it with him that night at the Manor and stabbed someone. He’d never told me anything about what happened in there, he never talked about it at all, but I knew he’d fought someone, I remembered the blood on his sleeve.

  He didn’t say anything now either, he seemed all right after he’d cleaned it, and when we set off in a great file in the dark I could see his excitement coming back. There were eight of us now, we really did feel like a proper army. The tramping of feet, the snorting of horses, the clatter of muskets and jingling of swords, the muttering of men’s voices, he was sort of breathing it in and loving it.

  It was just as well really, because M. Gauthier was right, it was a bloody long walk to the Hermitage, especially with all those guns to carry. He took us up to the back meadow, then plunged confidently into the darkest part of the Forest with the rest of us floundering behind him like baggage mules. I couldn’t see how he was finding his way at all, but he talked us through it and made us notice landmarks as we went, like a tall tree with a spiky crest we had to head for till we hit the stream. It’s funny how that stuff comes back to you, I could take you there right now.

  The Hermitage stood in a clearing in the middle of a dense patch of trees, and you could still see the slimy dead trunks where the wood had been taken to build it. The air was very still, and the atmosphere close and heavy, even at night. It was unbelievably quiet, except for a distant kind of soft rushing sound I guessed must be the stream.

  There were three buildings. The Hermitage dominated everything, huge and dilapidated, but there were two smaller outbuildings on one side, which M. Gauthier said were more solid and would do for our stables and armoury. We tethered the horses and went forward to explore.

  ‘I thought the Hermitage itself might make a good base for you, Sieur,’ said M. Gauthier. ‘You could have a hundred men in here.’

  It was certainly big enough, but I didn’t like anything else about it, it looked like something out of a scary story for children. It was all made of planks of wood, and what struck you first was that it was totally green. There was soggy-looking moss all over it, the walls as well as the roof, and the far end was choking with ivy.

  ‘It’ll maybe need a bit of work, Sieur,’ said M. Gauthier. ‘But I’m sure we can make it right in a couple of days.’

  There were rickety steps onto a kind of wooden stage, which had pillars supporting the front end of the crumbling roof. Marcel put his foot on the first step, and it cracked under his weight.

  ‘Well, maybe a week,’ said M. Gauthier.

  The wood creaked damply underfoot as we followed Marcel up and through the open door. It took a minute to adjust my eyes to the total darkness, but I was already aware of the swirl of space around me. I took a tentative step forward, but something squelched under my boot, and I nearly slipped over. M. Gauthier caught me before I fell.

  ‘Careful now,’ he said. ‘There’s maybe a few toadstools.’

  There were thousands. As the picture became clearer, I could see them stretching away in front of me like a field. Above them was just nothingness, this dark, empty space which took shape at the far end with a kind of raised platform. The roof was held up by dark pillars that seemed to be growing out of the fungus like giant stalks. I put out a hand to steady myself, but snatched it back at once. The wall was cold and furry with mould.

  ‘It’s perfect, Martin,’ came the boy’s voice behind me. ‘Just perfect.’

  Marcel obviously thought so too, he couldn’t thank the boy enough. ‘There’s everything we need for an army here, Chevalier, absolutely everything.’

  I thought we probably needed men as well, but kept my mouth shut because André was almost glowing. It was extraordinary really, I’d been with him every day for months and months, but it wasn’t till we were standing in a freezing forest in the middle of the night discussing how best to kill lots of Spaniards that I really saw him happy.

  Stefan Ravel

  Forgive me if I throw up.

  Oh, come on, Abbé, the way they all fawned round him turned my stomach. Durand was distressed with himself for having the temerity to offer the kid a dirty knife, Rouet watched him with his mouth hanging open like this was the baby Jesus himself, and Lefebvre called him ‘Seigneur’ every other word. Even Marcel balked at calling him André until the kid insisted it was a kind of nom de guerre and no disrespect in it at all, at which Marcel declared we should all do the same, and he was ‘Marcel’ and I was ‘Stefan’ for the duration.

  Ask yourself, Abbé, ask yourself what the kid had done to earn that respect. He’d got himself out of his home alive when all his servants were murdered, but that was just about it. Oh, and one other thing. He’d got himself born into the right family.

  But I’m a fair man, and the kid wanted to be a soldier. Naturally he’d need breaking first, but I’m good at that, Abbé.

  I’m very good indeed.

  Six

  Jacques Gilbert

  The first thing the bastard did was make us clean the Hermitage.

  M. Gauthier didn’t mind the filth much, it probably made him feel at home, but André hated it. I watched him with his lips tight shut scraping the crud off the walls, shivering with the effort not to be sick. But whenever Stefan poked his head in to see how we were getting on, the boy just said ‘Fine,’ and went on scrubbing. Stefan smiled sarcastically, then went back to oiling weapons in the warmth of the outhouse.

  At least Colin was recruiting people in Dax, so we weren’t on our own long. First Jacob Pasle the woodcutter came to chop up trees with M. Gauthier, then Dom and Georges the under-gardeners turned up to help inside. Georges was a bit of a pain at first, he kept chucking toadstools and clowning around, but Dom explained he’d only been five when their parents died, and said ‘He’s had no one to show off to, Sieur, do you see?’ When we went back in and saw Georges had stuck a big toadstool on his head, the boy laughed and clapped, and Georges looked like someone had given him a present.

  I was glad Dom was with us. He was dark and slender where Georges was plump and fair, and I’d always thought him wise and kind in a dreamy sort of way. I saw a lot of him in the old days, because I shovelled shit out of the stables and Dom took it away in a cart to spread on the gardens. He called me his ‘Brother Shit-Shoveller’, and looked at things differently from anyone I knew. I’d look at the horse manure and see a pile of shit, but Dom would see flowers blooming and vegetables ripening. He didn’t even seem to mind the Hermitage, he went scooping up great armfuls of fungus, humming gently to himself as he worked.

  Next came Robert Thibault, but I’d expected that after what the soldiers had done to his family. I’d always looked up to Robert. He was strong and handsome, and his dad was second biggest tenant farmer in Dax, so when we played soldiers he was always capitaine. He was kind though, as long as you remembered he was in charge. Once when Bruno Baudet was beating me up about something Robert came and stopped him, he stood with his hands on his hips saying ‘Jacques is my friend, and if you hurt him you’ll answer to me, do you understand?’

  I watched him being introduced to Stefan and even from a distance I could see Robert wasn’t keen. When he reached me he said ‘Hullo, Jacquot, that man’s a bloody tanner, you could smell him in Abbeville. What are we supposed to be doing?’

  I told him and he sniffed. ‘Fuck that. I came here to fight dons, I’m not cleaning out bloody stables.’

  At that moment André rushed out of the Hermitage and was noi
sily sick in the bushes. Robert shut his jaw with a snap, rolled up his sleeves, said ‘On the other hand …’ and walked purposefully into the building.

  Most of the Dax men were like that. Marin Aubert, the baker’s son, hairy Bruno Baudet from the mill, Simon Moreau from the Quatre Corbeaux, Edouard and Vincent Poulain, the mason’s sons, none of them liked the idea of menial work, but when they saw their Seigneur doing it they joined in like it was their idea of a holiday. Stefan watched them all and smiled.

  Others saw it differently. Next day we were replacing the rotten wood when that enormous Bettremieu Libert came up from the Home Farm. André was staggering along with this great load of timber, but Bettremieu had it off him in a second, saying reproachfully in his mangled French ‘You don’t do that, Sieur.’

  ‘Yes I do,’ said the boy. ‘When it’s for the army, I do.’

  ‘No,’ said Bettremieu calmly. ‘Not when Bettremieu is here to do it for you.’ He nodded firmly and carried the wood up the steps without another word. He never did say much, Bettremieu, which was maybe just as well because he was Flemish.

  But with people like him along we started to make real progress. Clement Ansel and Luc Pagnié brought us straw from their dads’ farms, and the Hermitage started to feel warm and comfortable. The walls and pillars had been scrubbed so hard the wood was almost white, and we’d even uncovered a window under all the moss, which let in the daylight and made the whole place feel bright. Colin made little tin holders to stick candles in, and we wedged them at intervals all round the walls. After dark it looked almost like a church.