Marielle

by Sylvia Halliday

  Marielle

  Sylvia Halliday

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1982 by Sylvia Halliday

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com

  First Diversion Books edition January 2014

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-538-4

  Also by Sylvia Halliday

  The French Maiden Series

  Marielle

  Lysette

  Delphine

  Dreams So Fleeting

  Gold as the Morning Sun

  The Ring

  Summer Darkness, Winter Light

  PART I

  The Dream

  Chapter One

  The huge prison door slammed shut behind Marielle with awful finality. She shivered in the chill morning air and wrapped her woolen cloak more tightly around her slim body. Through the barred opening she saw the look of concern on the jailer’s face, and was suddenly filled with fear and doubt. What if her brother Gervais were not here? Dead? Her heart sank at the thought and she shook her head. No! Gervais could not be dead! Not Gervais. Not her sweet and gentle brother, her childhood’s companion. He must be here, a prisoner in this terrible place!

  “Mademoiselle,” said Jacques, the old jailer, “if there be anything you need, remember that I shall be here until the noon meal.”

  “I pray le Bon Dieu that Gervais is here. I have been near to madness since the battle—and my brother missing. May the Holy Mother bless you for your goodness to me,” said Marielle with a wan smile.

  “It was the least I could do to honor your father’s memory!” he said fervently. “He was a fine doctor. But for his ministrations…my dearest daughter…” He stumbled over the words and his voice trailed off. His good, simple, peasant face radiated the gratitude his tongue could not express. “Remember, noon. And then I shall not return until nightfall to stand my watch. Trust no one! Since this struggle began, there are too many strangers on guard here—brought by the Huguenot nobles. And who knows how many townspeople are loyal to my lord Bonfleur?”

  “You are loyal to Bonfleur and the Huguenots, Jacques. And my family and I are Royalists. Yet you help me!”

  He cleared his throat gruffly. “It is a small matter—to smuggle you in and out of prison—that you may find your brother. May le Bon Dieu keep you safe!”

  With a sigh, Marielle turned back to the cell. Until the latest Huguenot uprising against Louis XIII, early in 1629, it had been one of the stables of La Forêt, a huge stone room with a packed dirt floor. Massive pillars and arches broke up this space into dark nooks and hidden corners that, here and there, still held large piles of straw, so recent had been its conversion. Even as a stable it had been dark and gloomy, with the smallest of windows, for the town and fortress of La Forêt had been built in the ancient times, when raiders with crossbows and catapults would come swarming out of the forests to assault the castle. Now the windows let in even less light, owing to the hastily thrown up ironworks that barred the prisoners’ escape. When it had seemed that the small dungeon of the fortress could hold few more prisoners than its usual complement of pickpockets, thieves and whores, the Duc de Bonfleur, the Lord of La Forêt, had sent for Livot the ironmaker to fortify the stable on the east wall for use as a prison. It was this same Livot the ironmaker who, spying Marielle by the river the next day, had told her the news which had brought her to this dismal place.

  “Mademoiselle Saint-Juste!” he whispered hurriedly. “I think I have seen your brother! As I was leaving through the east gate the Duke’s soldiers were moving some of the prisoners from the small dungeon. A sorry lot! If that’s the best that Richelieu can do, there will be a new king on the throne of France by summer!”

  “Alas, Livot!” she said. “If France has a new king by summer, we will have civil war before the leaves turn. But tell me about Gervais!” She held her breath. It had been four days since the battle, when the King’s troops had appeared outside the walls, and Gervais had gone out to join them. A grisly battle, an uneven contest. The King’s troops had been slaughtered, and the remnants of the army had been dragged to the prison in La Forêt. Marielle shuddered, remembering the corpse-strewn field, as the awful task of burying the dead went on. In vain she had sought Gervais among those tortured bodies, glad not to find him, yet agonized because the doubt and fear continued. After that, she had hardly let herself think of him or wonder at his whereabouts, so strong was her dread.

  Livot’s heart melted at the look of pain on her lovely face. He passed a work-worn hand across his eyes, suddenly reluctant to tell her his unpromising news.

  “I cannot be sure, of course. You must not hope too much…but it might have been Gervais. Very bad off he was, with two of the prisoners dragging him along. His head was down…I cannot be sure…mayhap it was your brother!”

  Marielle clenched her fists and closed her eyes tightly, as if she would hold back her pain as well as her tears. It was the first news she had heard, but such dismaying news. And how could she be sure it was Gervais?

  “Listen,” said Livot. “Doesn’t Jacques still guard the Duke’s donjon? Mayhap he has seen Gervais or can get close enough to the stable to seek for him there. He owes his Berthe’s life to your father…surely he will not refuse this small measure of help.”

  Remembering, Marielle turned back to the gloom of the prison. Jacques had tried to help her, but he had not seen Gervais. He had found it almost impossible to search through the stable without arousing the suspicions of the other guards.

  “They watch us so carefully, Mademoiselle Marielle,” he had said with a shake of his head. “Bonfleur still trusts the men of La Forêt who serve him, but that blackhearted Marquis de Gravillac cannot forget the townspeople who went out to help the King’s men. That devil has his men watching everywhere. Forgive me, ma petite, I wish I could have done more.”

  Then it was that Marielle determined to search the prison herself. She knew that Bonfleur, in his haste, had allowed the King’s men to be thrown in at random with the rest of the prisoners. There were enough women, streetwalkers and the like, that she might pass unnoticed through the stable.

  The sight now before her gave her a chill that had nothing to do with the April morning. She was used to sickness and even death; had she not accompanied her father many times to the hovels of the poorest, the meanest peasants of La Forêt? But those poor serfs had suffered the trials of living, the sicknesses, the accidents, the grief that was part of man’s lot on earth. They bore their suffering with dignity and nobility, no matter how lowly their station, trusting in the will of God.

  The degradation and despair that now met her eyes had been caused by man’s inhumanity; there was nothing ennobling about it. The stench and corruption of the wounded and dying, the gaping sores and mangled limbs, the crowding and the filth had produced an air of utter hopelessness which reduced the inmates to animals. She picked her way carefully through the gloom, her eyes ever searching, searching for a familiar face. A soldier in a torn leather jerkin sat cradling a young man in his arms, rocking and crooning low like a mother with her babe. The young man’s face was the color of the gray stone walls, and he breathed heavily with a terrible rasping in his throat that made Marielle bite her lip and turn her f
ace aside in pity. A man with a horrible oozing wound on his thigh sat staring at it as one who is drugged, and as Marielle passed he clutched at her skirts with bloodstained hands. The eyes he turned to her were blank and unseeing, as though pain and suffering had numbed his brain, and he gasped out, “Please. Please. Please. Please,” as though the word alone might ease his agony.

  She cursed silently to herself. If only she had bandages, medicines. Perhaps, when she had found Gervais, she might beg Bonfleur to let her return to the prison and nurse the wounded. Filled with helpless pity, she turned away from the tormented soldier and nearly collided with a ragged and filthy creature who had been furtively gnawing on a dirty crust of bread. His eyes flew wide in fear and distrust, like an animal at bay. With a snarl, he clutched the bread to his bosom and slunk away to a dark corner, glancing suspiciously behind him as he went.

  There were some who moaned and whimpered, and others who, lost in despair, sat numbly as if awaiting something they could not even name. Here and there, in the darker corners, were the streetwomen, brazenly plying their trade for an extra crust of bread, a ring, a coin that Bonfleur’s guards had managed to overlook. Marielle shrank away in loathing and averted her gaze. For the first time in her life, she was painfully aware of her vulnerability as a woman. She pulled the hood of her cloak far down over her forehead to shield her face and wrapped its folds around herself to hide the soft curves of her young body. She! Marielle Saint-Juste! She who had walked the streets of La Forêt with her head held high, fearing no man’s abuse! Who would dare to insult the daughter of Doctor Saint-Juste? There was hardly a family that did not owe a life to the kindly physician.

  The Duc de Bonfleur himself! Had he not returned painfully from that long-ago battle, his arm hanging limp and well-nigh useless? Those other physicians and healers—what did they know? Glorified barbers, that’s all they were! They would cut off the arm, or render it scarred and crippled, cauterizing it with hot steel and pitch! But her father, who had studied in Paris with the great surgeon Paré, would have none of it.

  “There are ways to heal,” he had said, “that do not do more damage than the affliction. This is the seventeenth century! In the name of all that is good, let us relegate the hot irons and hacking knives to the torture chambers of the past where they belong.” He had carefully cleaned the wound, eschewing the pastes and foul-smelling salves proffered by the others, and loosely bound the arm in clean linen, freshly washed and dried in the sunlight. Every day he would come to the château to change the dressings, sometimes bringing the child Marielle or her brother with him. When at last the limb was healed and restored to its full use, Bonfleur’s gratitude was boundless.

  “You are a wizard, a magician!” he exulted, slapping Saint-Juste on the back to show the strength of his arm. “You have healed my wound!”

  Her father laughed gently. “Ah, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Paré used to say ‘I treated him, but God cured him.’ I think we forget in our pride and arrogance how much God can help us if we do not spurn His natural laws.”

  After that the two became fast friends. Marielle and Gervais would play happily in the Great Hall of La Forêt while the two men argued and discussed Love and War and Death for hours on end. It was Bonfleur who comforted the good doctor when Madame Saint-Juste, sweet and gentle and always frail, sighed softly, turned her face to the wall and died. It was the Duke who watched Marielle bloom into radiant womanhood, and delighted in seeing her blush scarlet when he threatened to bring half the gay blades of Paris to La Forêt to fall at her feet. And when Gervais wanted to go to Lyon to study law, it was Bonfleur who sponsored him at the university.

  Gradually, however, a strain began to develop between the two men, a deep ideological rift that could not be healed. They quarreled violently about the King, the autonomy of the nobles, the future of France. The more Cardinal Richelieu’s star rose in the court, the more the petty princes and dukes saw their feudal prerogatives slipping away. The Huguenot nobles feared the erosion of the Edict of Nantes which granted them religious freedom, but many more lords used the religious issue as an excuse to reaffirm the absolutism of their power over their lands, and against the rights of the monarch. Small pockets of resistance began to build up throughout France, as alliances were formed, dissolved and formed anew. Rumor and intrigue hung like a serpent over Paris and Versailles, and the poison touched La Forêt and indeed the whole of the Languedoc region in the south of France. There were whispers of plots hatched by King Philip of Spain, of cabals formed by the followers of the Queen Mother of France, Marie de Medici, who chafed to regain her dominance over her son the King.

  The Duc de Bonfleur began to take small trips away from La Forêt, and Doctor Saint-Juste knew he was meeting with the other great lords of the region. In vain he argued against a course of action to which Bonfleur already seemed committed.

  Their last meeting was a stormy one. Marielle had been present as they paced the room angrily, each heatedly refuting the arguments of the other. At last, with an air of cold finality, Bonfleur turned to the doctor.

  “Do not pursue this further,” he said grimly. “You have been my friend, my physician, but you know nothing of politics.”

  The doctor shook his head impatiently. “I know enough to know that your way leads to chaos. And if you depose Louis? What then? Who would you put in his place? His Spanish wife? Would you bow to the will of Spain and Philip? Or perhaps ‘Monsieur,’ the King’s brother?”

  Bonfleur grunted angrily. “That one, at least, would be easier to control.”

  “Bah! That fat fool!” spat the doctor. “He spends his days plotting against his own brother! He has inherited the Queen Mother’s ambition, but it would seem, alas, her stupidity also. I sometimes think he must rail even against Heaven itself for putting him second in line to the throne!”

  Bonfleur shrugged. “What matter?” he said. “What concerns us most is that Richelieu should fall. Without him…who knows?…Even Louis might soften his attitude.” He paced the floor angrily, sunk in black thoughts. Suddenly he burst out, “Richelieu! That one! He sees his life as a Holy Mission to break the backs of every prince or duke who would threaten the King’s supremacy! Sanctimonious villain! I would see him dead!”

  Saint-Juste stepped back in alarm, shaken by the venom in the duke’s voice. “Bonfleur,” he said gently. “My old friend. You risk much with such treasonous words. Richelieu is powerful…remember how he crushed La Rochelle…remember the suffering of that terrible siege…be guided by my counsel and give up this mad plot.”

  “La Forêt is not La Rochelle,” said Bonfleur through clenched teeth. “We cannot be besieged here. Richelieu will have to fight in the open, and we will have the advantage.” He turned to Marielle with a tired sigh. “Marielle,” he said, “take your father home and bid him hold his tongue. The Languedoc region, with his willing it or no, will be united in this affair. Gravillac…Vautier…Barrault…all of the nobles. La Forêt is my domain. My serfs will stay with me out of loyalty or need. My mill grinds their grain. My hayfields feed their sheep. Loyalty is kept by a full belly and lost by an empty one.” He looked pointedly at Saint-Juste. “Those who cannot willingly join us had best be silent. I beg of you…for the sake of the friendship we once shared…” His voice trailed off. Suddenly he whirled on the doctor. “Confound it, man! I cannot protect you from every lord in the district if you will not be silent!”

  So Marielle had taken her father home to the comfortable cottage near the marketplace, and she and Gervais had tried to keep him occupied with his work and his books. Gervais would challenge him with some fine point of the law, hoping for a rousing argument as in the old days, but the old man debated his points in a lackluster way, or wandered to the window to stare out at the busy street.

  Barrault arrived with his men from Clerbonnet, then de Gravillac from Quiot. The town bustled with activity. Against the east wall, fronting the river Allier, breastworks were hastily thrown up. On the wes
t, where the ancient walls of the old town crowded up against the forest, scores of men were set to work clearing a wide swath of trees and setting up high wooden scaffolding behind the parapet. If the King’s men should cross the river to the north, and descend on the fortress through the woods, the musketeers could easily sight them from their vantage point.

  Most of the townspeople accepted the changes with resignation, and went about their business as before. The castle was filled to the rafters with soldiers…pikemen, archers, musketeers and the like. Every house and cottage within the walls of the town provided billet for the nobles’ retinue. The farms which lay beyond the walls were stripped of their winter stores and livestock, until the granaries of the castle were overflowing, and the sheep, escaping from their crowded pens, wandered crying through the narrow streets.

  Those peasants who objected to the mobilization, or proclaimed too loudly their allegiance to King Louis, were driven outside the walls to scrape out whatever existence they could in the mean hovels that crowded and huddled against the old stone battlements like beggars in the winter sun.

  It was inevitable that Saint-Juste, going about his rounds among the sick, should try to persuade those he met of the folly of their course. And equally inevitable that news of this should reach the lords sitting in the Great Hall. A man of such prestige could exert a dangerous influence on the peasants and shopkeepers, if he were not taught a lesson. And so in due course the soldiers came and turned the Saint-Justes out of their home with scarcely aught but the clothes they wore. While they looked on in horror, the torch was put to their cottage filled with all the things they loved. Marielle’s mementos of her dear mother, her father’s instruments and medicines and most of all his books, books that had refreshed his mind and spirit time and again. By the flickering flames she watched the life go out of his eyes. They managed to find a hut that kept out a portion of the raw wind, and the townspeople, dismayed at their fate, kept them supplied with enough food and warm clothing, but they could not compensate for the emptiness of their existence. Without his law books, Gervais turned surly and bitter, quarreling with Marielle for the first time in their lives. Saint-Juste seemed to have aged overnight. He was not allowed to practice his art and, without his patients, without his beloved books, he took to wandering the streets like a sleepwalker. Once he tried to see Bonfleur, and Marielle had not the heart to dissuade him. When he returned, his face ashen, eyes filled with pain and humiliation, she dared not question him, but held him tightly in her arms, feeling his frail body trembling. He died soon after. Marielle persuaded Lamarc the goldsmith to go to the castle to beg Bonfleur that the old man be allowed to lie in the churchyard next to his wife.