by A L Berridge
Stefan Ravel
Oh, for Christ’s sake.
Look, the kid was fourteen. He was in the army all right, but we didn’t let him lead anything back then, I wouldn’t have trusted him as far as I could spit. Yes, he was turning into a fine soldier, I’ll grant you that, he did what we told him and did it well, but he still had those ludicrously romantic ideals and he was a disaster with a musket. The nearest we let him get was loading for Jacques, but he was happy enough with that, he was happy with anything as long as we let them do it together. St Roch and his dog had nothing on those two.
Oh, it’s true people talked about him, but what do you expect? You want to lift the morale of a bunch of backward villagers, you’re not going to do it by talking about a brave caporal and a tanner from Verdâme. Word got round the Sieur of Dax was playing, and we had volunteers crawling out from every stone. We even had women. That appalling Simone Lefebvre was one of them, and there wasn’t much doubt what she was after. She’d heard Jacques was going to stay with André after the Occupation, and was all over the poor bugger like a blanket. Oh, some were maybe genuine, but you can’t make a soldier out of a woman, Abbé, they’re too unpredictable. There was only one I’d any time for and that was Margot from the Dax bakery, big tough lass who could heft a musket like a man and swear like one too. The others were only fit for loading, so we let Giles Leroux train them, which was as good as having a fox drilling a bunch of chickens. Christ knows how he did it, he was thirty if a day, but he was the biggest stoat this side of Abbeville, wiped the eyes of all our young glory boys where the women were concerned. He never showed so much as a blink of interest, but turn your back for five minutes and there’d be another bandy-legged bint staggering cross-eyed from the undergrowth and Leroux back teaching them like he’d never moved.
Still, we were doing all right. We’d a well-trained little army, and were picking off enough stray dons to keep the bastards from moving in themselves. We were also keeping communication open with France. Both Gates were shut now, but we got people in and out, Abbé, we managed all the same. We had siege ladders hidden in the forest and the back of some of the orchards where the Wall was lowest, but when we needed to take out horses as well as men we had one other little secret up our sleeves.
We called it ‘the gabelle road’. It wasn’t much, Abbé, just a single-track path deep in the Forest of Verdâme, but it was a way out of the Saillie without going through the Gate or climbing the Wall. On the east side the Wall stopped short in the woods because of the gorge, and there was this one place, only one, where there’d been another kind of landslip and the gorge was so shallow a horse could cross it and trot clean into France with the dons none the wiser. It was the perfect way for people to ride out of the pays de grande gabelle to buy salt at a twentieth the price, and bring it back in without bothering those inquisitive militia at the Gates.
The gabelle road really came into its own now. We used it for trade we didn’t want the dons near, such as André flogging off jewellery, or our trips to buy gunpowder from the garrison at Lucheux. But its real function was communication. The Poulet Noir at Lucheux acted as a staging post, and the owner took in letters for us and passed on our own by the next coach. Courier duty wasn’t the most exciting in the world, but it was worth it to keep in touch with the war outside.
That’s what we wanted most, Abbé, news of the war. We got it locally from a bald-headed lunatic called Arnould Rousseau who worked as chef in the Dax barracks, but he could only tell us what the regular soldiers knew, which was frequently bugger all. So we used to pounce on any Spanish couriers we spotted prancing down the Flanders Road, swipe their dispatches, then pass them on to d’Ambleville at Doullens, de Rambures having died the year before. I doubt anyone ever acted on them, least of all that prize goat Châtillon, who had the Picardie command that year, but at least it was a calling card, a way of saying ‘Don’t forget about Dax-Verdâme.’ We still didn’t have enough of an army to boot the dons out, and our only hope was help from outside.
André wanted more of course, and Marcel wasn’t much better, he was forever wanting to redeem his honour by rescuing the hostages from the Château Petit Arx. Oh yes, they were still there, the King being in no hurry to give away important prisoners for the children of a jumped-up banker. André would doubtless have been desperate to help fellow nobility, but a rescue was rather out of the question, since the Château housed officers from both garrisons, and was more heavily guarded than the Bastille. That still mightn’t have deterred the lad from trying, so I made good and sure to keep any news of the hostages’ plight well away from him. What our soft-hearted little gentleman didn’t know wasn’t going to hurt him, and it wasn’t going to get the rest of us killed either.
Jacques Gilbert
I was happy that spring, the spring of 1638.
Things weren’t the same at home, of course, but I’d sort of got used to it by then. My family never talked about what happened that night, it was just accepted that when the Occupation was over I’d go with the boy, and no one ever questioned it or asked why. But obviously it couldn’t happen yet, so it was a bit like saying goodbye to someone then finding they’re still there.
We didn’t actually see that much of them. The barn was our home now, and we only went in the cottage for meals or to see Mother when Father was out working at the barracks stables, which he did as a way of paying taxes. We could have gone at other times if we wanted, there’d never been any open breach, but it felt uncomfortable all the same.
What really hurt was the way things were between me and Father. I hoped for ages he’d forgive me, and I really thought he might, because I knew he loved me really, I’d seen it in his eyes that night when he’d looked at me in the old way I remembered. I’d have given anything to have him look at me like that again, but he never did. I don’t mean I regretted what I’d done, I never doubted I’d made the right choice, but it was just a tiny sadness singing away at the bottom of things that never quite went away.
I didn’t go back to the cottage at nights any more, I used to take wine across the drive and visit M. Gauthier instead. He was always pleased to see me, I’m not sure he ever went to bed at all. Of course he was getting very old now, his cough was disgusting and his teeth kept dropping out. There was one evening I found him rummaging around in his soup for one of them before deciding he must have eaten it in mistake for a lentil.
The truth is I liked him. We’d sit and drink together, with Dog curled up on the floor gnawing at dead animals, and I felt sort of comfortable. He was very wise, M. Gauthier. He knew everything about the Rolands, he’d known them what seemed like for ever. He’d talk about them quite openly now, because I was a family retainer like himself, he even referred to the Comtesse admiringly as ‘the old bitch’. He’d tell me stories about her and the others, and you could tell he’d loved them all. It was our own Seigneur he’d known best, and there was one evening he told me all about him, how he was his mother’s favourite and did everything she said, but at last he broke away and went to the siege of La Rochelle.
‘I was with him then,’ said M. Gauthier wistfully. ‘Me and César. But you never saw a soldier like him, young Jacques, you never did. Surrounded on all sides, Buckingham coming at us from the sea, and my Chevalier walking among us like all that mattered was his breakfast was cold. Never mind the rights and wrongs of it, it was bloody murder, and every one of us in the front line, but my Chevalier, he went in the thick of it every damn day, and came back at night with that glow in his face, my Chevalier.’
He was silent a moment and I knew why. Big fat tears were dropping off his face and landing on Dog’s back. At last he said simply ‘Ah well. Young André is your Chevalier now. Mind you bring him safe home, like I did mine.’
I felt responsibility landing on me like a hayrick. I said ‘I don’t know how, M. Gauthier, I don’t know enough to look after him.’
He cocked his head at me. He had a way of doing that that was just like
Dog, they got more like each other every week that passed.
‘You know enough,’ he said. ‘There’s only three things nobility need, and young André has them all: honour, courage, and the use of the sword. Keep him that way and you won’t go far wrong.’
That didn’t help much. ‘But the honour stuff, he’s going to need someone his own kind to help him with that, isn’t he?’
I stopped because he was laughing. He had this alarming wheezy laugh, like a creaking gate just before it falls off its hinges.
‘Ah, lad,’ he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. ‘A man’s not a dog to be trained that way. The seed of honour’s in every man, ay and woman too, and up to him if he lets it grow. Even Stefan Ravel has it in him, and one day he’ll maybe find it if he looks.’
I never liked to disagree with M. Gauthier, so I kept my mouth shut and pretended to pat Dog, which was a mistake, because he slobbered on my hand then tried to rape my leg. It was always doing that, that dog, especially if you wore bucket-top boots, it thought you were something exotic and exciting.
‘Nay, lad,’ said M. Gauthier, hauling Dog off me and smacking his nose with his soup bowl. ‘It’s maybe true honour’s expected of nobility while for you and me it’s a choice, but there’s no man can escape his own judgement, and you know that same as me.’
I watched Dog trying to lick the soup off its back. ‘I thought that was shame.’
M. Gauthier refilled his bowl from a foul-smelling pot on the hearth. ‘And what’s shame but the door to honour? Pity the man without it, young Jacques, for he’ll never amount to more than that dog.’ He flashed his broken teeth at me and started up singing one of his depressing hymns. It was a belter actually, the one about his wounds stinking and his loins being full of a loathsome disease.
Still he taught me a lot, M. Gauthier, he helped me prepare for when we finally went to Paris and were with proper nobility. That was really going to happen one day, I knew that now. André used the gabelle road couriers to send letters to his grandmother, and she wrote back that of course I was welcome whenever he came. She didn’t know much about me, we didn’t dare identify my family in letters the Spaniards might get hold of, but she knew I was André’s aide and that was enough. At least I hoped it was. She could be quite frightening, the Dowager Comtesse, I remembered her from her visits to Ancre, but I thought she was kind too. She used to smile sometimes like she knew I was there, and once she even used my name. I hoped she wouldn’t mind too much when she found out the mysterious ‘J’ was really only me.
André never told her about the army either. He didn’t lie, of course, but he did miss out rather a lot. After one messy action with a patrol he wrote something like ‘It has been a lovely day, and J and I have spent much of it fencing in the fresh air.’ I think he was worried she might order him back to Paris if she knew he was in danger, and he couldn’t have borne that. He had a job to do here, and so did I.
It was a hard job too, we were working all the time. When we weren’t on duty he was still giving me fencing lessons, and I was getting good now, I was learning all clever vaults and passes, I could do just about everything except hit bloody André. Sometimes Marcel joined us so we could practise two against one, but we still couldn’t beat André, I began to think nobody could. But there was stuff I could teach him too, I was really pushing him with his riding, I was even teaching him to jump. I wished we’d had Tempête back for that, but Perle wasn’t bad and I soon had him sailing over four-foot gates with ease. It didn’t feel like work, though, it was just doing stuff together that we liked. Like I said, I was happy.
I still saw my friends in Dax, but André came with me now because he could pass as a peasant anywhere, he even spoke rougher than he used. I obviously saw Simone on my own, but we’d visit Colin together and sometimes Robert would join us, we’d sit round the fire talking and laughing about nothing, and it was just like it used to be, only better. I’d bring Mme Lefebvre vegetables from Ancre, so she’d be busy and happy at her cooking, and there’d maybe be cider going too, and Colin’s dad hammering away in the Forge next door, and humming as he worked.
It’s strange, when I think about it. That was the spring it all started, the spring d’Estrada went on leave. The Forge was right next to the barracks, there were four hundred soldiers just the thickness of a wall away, but somehow it never seemed to matter. It was the very last time, I suppose, the last time we were all the kids we used to be before the big things happened. When I think back to it now, the four of us laughing, and Colin’s dad hammering away tap-tap-tap in the background, it’s like that was the last of our childhood ticking away right there.
Anne du Pré
Extract from her diary, dated 14 May 1638
Capitán Martínez came today and announced grandly that he is in charge while Don Miguel is away. He has a very impressive beard, but it slopes inward at the bottom and I suspect there is not much chin underneath.
Colette asked about our exchange, but he says Papa seems of little account at court, and no one in the King’s counsel seems interested in our return. He said ‘Doubtless this will be because your father’s title is of very recent acquisition,’ which I thought was rather rude. Florian turned quite scarlet and pointed out Papa was so rich he owned the whole of Verdâme. The Capitán seemed very interested in this. He said his overlord, Don Francisco Mendéz, was considering requesting a pecuniary ransom rather than an exchange, and our information might do much to assist this idea.
We were all a little quiet after he had gone. I do not think Papa has the kind of money they will ask. Much of his fortune was sunk into this estate, and now of course he cannot even be living off its rents.
Colette is very depressed about it. She is to be sixteen next week and is convinced by the time we are free there will be no one left for her to be betrothed to of any quality at all. Florian said she could always marry André de Roland, for he can hardly be betrothed while he remains in the Saillie, but Colette says he is unlikely to survive the Occupation the way he is going, and he is no good to her unless he lives to be Comte de Vallon. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘he is Anne’s pet, and I would not fall out with my baby sister.’ They are very mean, the way they tease me about André. It is only natural for me to be interested in what he is doing, Jeanette talks about him all the time. She says he is a real hero.
The soldiers are making a lot of noise in their mess tonight. I rather like it when they have the guitar, but tonight there are drums and I think they are singing marching songs. The floor seems almost to rumble with their voices.
I wonder how long Don Miguel is to be away.
Stefan Ravel
You know me, Abbé, a don’s a don in my book, but there’s no doubt things were different with d’Estrada gone. Martínez was weak as cat-spit, and we started to see what an Occupying Army can be like with no one to control them.
The looting started again, of course, food and livestock, the usual, but there was a lot more violence with it. We had one especially vicious couple of troopers in Verdâme those days, we called them Fat Pedro and Thin Pedro and made sure to keep out of their way. I saw them kick a dog to death in the street once, just because it failed to kill a mangy cat when they’d bet it would.
They did their women together too, and one day they went after the wife of our local saddler, Frédéric Truyart. I knew him, Abbé, a milder-mannered man you never met, but he came home to find those bastards at Christina, snatched up a knife and went for them. It was hopeless, of course, they beat him senseless then burnt the cottage down over his head, but it wasn’t till they’d finished with Christina she was able to make anyone understand her baby was in the house as well. I tell you, Abbé, when the ashes cooled enough for the bodies to be brought out, there were maybe twenty Verdâmers watching, and the mood was nothing short of murderous.
Oh, we knew we’d got to get them, the army was in one mind on that. Young André was always touchy on the subject of rape for some reason, but Mercier w
as in a frenzy too, he was a friend of Truyart’s sister Jeanette and desperate to see her family had justice. We’d have done it anyway. The baby wasn’t even baptised yet, Abbé, and you know what that means. There was more fire in our bellies than you’d find in any man’s Hell.
We’d have had them that first day, but the bastards had gone to ground and we set our reliable Arnould Rousseau to find out where. He did it too. Late that night there was a loud knock on my door, and in he strolled, our master spy of the saucepans. He didn’t go much for discretion, Rousseau, he went where he liked when he liked, and no one ever questioned him. The dons had decided he was eccentric.
He sat down in my best chair, pulled his wig out of his pocket, shook it out over my floor, then perched it on top of his head to show he was off duty.
‘Christ, this place stinks, Ravel,’ he said amiably. ‘What have you got in that lime pit of yours, a whale?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘The body of the last man who came here and told me my house stank.’
He grinned evilly at me, and accepted beer.
‘Those baby-killing bastards,’ he began. I’d heard he’d had children of his own but lost them all to plague a few years back. ‘Those bastards. They’ve got them hidden away for their own protection, I heard my lot talking. Seems they think we might be going after them.’
‘Fancy that,’ I said levelly. ‘So where are they?’
‘The Château,’ he said casually, as if it weren’t the most impregnable building in the Saillie. ‘They seem to think they’re safe enough there.’
‘They’re right,’ I told him bluntly. ‘We can’t get within a hundred yards of it.’
‘Defeatist, Ravel?’ said Rousseau, fishing bits out of his beer. He was a picky bugger, that one, he always said he should have been born rich.
‘Practical,’ I said. ‘It can’t be done.’