‘Why?’ I asked him accusingly. ‘Why do you forsake us and our company?’
He stopped to ogle at me, confused, but then thought about it, shrugged, trying to go past me, his face betraying embarrassment and resentment. I stopped him, and he glared at me, a bit drunk and irascible. ‘They agree with me on many things,’ he blurted sullenly.
‘On the Jacobin ideals?’
‘Yes. On those, but you remember, there are no Jacobins left, and we embrace the new Republic with all our hearts,’ he said as if he had sand in his mouth.
‘You agree with their ideas on what should be done with me and mother?’ I said venomously.
‘Didier is interested in that, perhaps,’ he said slowly, enjoying the small power he was wielding by knowing something I did not. I waited and he shrugged, apparently bored with the game. ‘The bigger of the two Thierry’s men? Wounded at Dego? He wanted me to tell him how Gilbert was bayonetted in Lyons and what that rascal want’s with you and why. He is large, seemingly dumb as an oak, but he asks many questions. The rest do not talk about you, or at least not in front of me, but I recon you all have a destiny beyond my knowledge, one that is inevitable. Now excuse me.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s Vivien, is it not? The reason why you forsake us, and the reason why you lost your interest in me, while I still harbor such notions, perhaps.’ I managed to sound jealous, and found I actually was, a tiniest bit. Had she not bested me in Cleft’s eyes and was that not an insult to my fragile self-esteem? Perhaps I was as much a bastard as Henri was, being possessive and unreasonable, as I understood I wanted to regain what Vivien had taken, even if I would not wish to keep it. I suspected Marcel was right in his fears that I would not enjoy where this road led me.
He was surprised by the reaction, his attention captured by my seemingly jealous mood, and he blushed. He hit a wall of a barrack in sudden frustration, drawing attention from some burly grenadiers who started quaffing around their card game, pointing at us. Cleft was exasperated and threw his hands up. ‘Thierry beats her!’
‘What?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Thierry, Vivien! He hits her when he is drunk, for he is upset how things have turned out. I like to comfort her and she is religious, as I am, so we have much in common.’
‘She is also gorgeous,’ I pointed out and drew the words out, mocking him.
‘She… yes! Not unlike the sunrise above the Alps, she does make my heart churn,’ he looked down to his feet, as he said that, and I envied Vivien for being the object of such words, and cursed Henri and the brief flame we had shared, devoid of such niceties.
‘Does she answer your feelings?’ I inquired sourly.
‘I think she would like to,’ he told me, apologetically. ‘But she is afraid of Thierry.’
I stepped closer to him, feeling a hypocrite, as I looked sad. ‘You left me because men gossiped I was with the captain.’ It had been Cleft who started the gossip, but that was moot.
‘Yes,’ he said, with no attempt to deny it. ‘I will not compete for affections of women with other men, for I am worthy enough as I am. You wanted a higher man, a noble man, and forgot about me and I asked you; do you think we could…’
I felt ashamed as I shook my head, feeling like true bastard, and worse; I felt I was a very, very good actor and a liar. ‘My enemies told you stories that are untrue, Cleft, and you believed them. But so did many others. Now I’m soiled and alone.’
‘You did not deny them, that night! I waited for you, and you came back, drunk, fey, and strange. I knew you had been with the colonel.’ He was blushing and I knew he had indeed started the rumors next day, bitter and feeling betrayed.
I gathered myself, leaned forward and I kissed him gently and looked at his huge, surprised and happy eyes. ‘You are afraid, not ready to fight for your feelings, my friend, and left me because I was drunk, scared and a fool, but I was not a whore. Now you belong to another. Fine, it is my turn to suffer. I can wait if Vivien is whom you want and I will give you room to make your own decisions. But you cannot decide, not while Thierry stands in your way.’
He was nodding, bewildered as he eyed me.
‘Are you there?’ I asked him, close to him, trying to beguile him with my eyes, succeeding.
‘I… yes. So, you think I should be with Vivien, but you also have feelings for me? Still?’
‘I always had them,’ I lied, fighting the urge to vomit for my duplicity. ‘You are a lucky man; to have two women in the camp full of men enjoy the thought of you near them. Must be your handsome face, love, or your stubborn nature.’ And I stroked his face, and I saw he wanted to touch me, and I bent closer to him. It was an intense kiss, full of fire and to my surprise, I wanted it and enjoyed it, but also knew I loved Henri, and so I broke it off, pushing him away. He was holding his head with two hands, desperate with lust and suffering very mixed feelings.
‘Thierry,’ I said with spite. ‘Is between us all. Between you and Vivien, or even you and I, for he would hurt us. I know, love, that you like me, but you have made some commitment to her?’
‘A small one, words,’ he said, regret playing in his face.
I put my hands on his shoulders, echoing his disappointment, feeling rotten for my treachery, begging he would not wish to sleep with me, in order to believe me. I would, if it was so, and I was terrified. ‘In that case, you should keep that promise, and see if anything comes out of it. If it does not work out? Perhaps, you and I?
‘Perhaps,’ he said, happy and full of strange hope, his evening entirely turned upside down, for few men indeed were so situated.
I asked him evenly: ‘will you help us survive Thierry and help Vivien go free?’
‘I… I have to think about it.’ He was a man under pressure, I saw it. He did not wish to betray the men he knew, but Vivien and I were tangling before his eyes, and the noble Cleft was tempted. I resisted the urge to check my skirt for a tail, and my hair for small horns.
‘Give it some time, Cleft, but not too much, for Vivien suffers and I get lonely.’ I clapped his cheek happily and turned to go. His hand reached out and twisted me around.
He was blurting his words desperately, making his decision very quickly. ‘Truth be told, I do not like Thierry, who would? Didier is fine, that Fox is an ass and the captain… Well, you know him. What do you need?’ He asked, resolutely strangling his screaming conscience, as I had when I started to lie to him.
I nodded, seemingly happy by his decision. ‘Keep close to Vivien, to look after her, of course. If she speaks of Thierry and the things those cutthroats do, tell us.’
He was fully committed, for he adopted a mischievous look on his face. ‘What if I told them a fat, juicy lie about some potential bounty out there? They would go…’
‘They would suspect, love,’ I said, sadly. ‘And could you truly lie like that? They know you as a good man.’
He thought about it and shook his head. ‘No, I could not lie. But I will keep my ears open.’
In the end, he was patient, so was I and we would exchange smiles when we passed, and once, I saw Vivien hold his hand gently. We had to wait.
During the coming weeks, I became quite a good looter. Laroche would reluctantly take me with him, afraid of Thierry’s shifty gang, but he employed Charles and Skins to guard and help us. Breadcrumbs and Marcel would make sure we got to act out our criminal plots to our hearts fill, and this might shock you, Marie, for we were bandits in uniforms, few of the many. If we had not worked for the Republic, as soldiers, we would have been guillotined or hung as terrible common thieves, but we were soldiers, guarded by our own laws and the poor Italians would suffer and be unable to help it. Of course, they killed Frenchmen caught in the act, but as a rule, very few were caught by the locals. Soon, Laroche saw I was a horrible thief with a poor understanding of value of an animal or wine, but I was an excellent actor and many of a peasant would listen to my tears, believe my broken Italian and wonder at some sordid tale, while the men took
to the covered cellars and hidden sheds, and came off with their fine booty. It was often wine, spirits, chickens, delicious mutton and savory pork, and we ate well. Sometimes, we would rob an official, or a private contractor supplying the army, and once, Marie, I held a musket on a driver, while Laroche and Skins, disguised as local robbers, stopped a coach of a French official collecting taxes. He had a state priest with him, and from him I got clean, clear papers, an inkwell and I practiced my near forgotten writing with a quill discarded by an unwilling goose we took from a nearby manor.
It was the life, Marie, sad life full of stories of survival and of failure. We likely caused many a family to go hungry, but then, it was either that or die, and we did not wish to die.
Things were deceptively calm, for I was waiting, Cleft was apparently committed, but silent, perhaps not finding anything of use. I was afraid he had changed his mind, but he would still smile at us, and wink conspiratorially.
In December 1794, just before what was the new year in the ancient regime, and what was still celebrated in silence even now, I noticed poor mother was holding her belly. She had been serving stiff drinks to some happy grenadiers, bantering and chatting with the large men, then she had sat down in unexpected pain and the alarmed grenadiers had gone go fetch a doctor, their drinks held gingerly in their gnarled hands. ‘Mama?’ I asked her, gravely worried. She was in pain, but she was smiling.
‘Don’t worry, dear. It’s not bad. I think in some seven months, you will have to care for a baby sibling again.’
‘He made you pregnant?’ I screamed and endured the laughter of the company. Marcel was hoisted on the strong shoulders of the men in the company and he was very, very drunk after the fine feast he was given, and I tucked him in, forgiving him for making mother pregnant, missing the siblings I knew, and cursing the apparently useless Cleft, who had not found out anything of use.
Year changed to 1795. When I accosted him in secret, Cleft told me Voclain and Thierry received letters from Paris, but nothing particular. They would go and loot, but would not mention anything to him before hand, for they were a closed group, and he was not yet accepted as one of them. He and Vivien grew closer, and Vivien even smiled at us, sometime, apparently happy at times, though not with Thierry. Cleft told me to be patient, that Vivien was coming around, and that would help us all for she was in Thierry’s inner circle. I told Marcel and Breadcrumbs, and my other friends that things would move along soon, we would act, we would have help, but we were all growing very impatient with Cleft. When I asked Henri about Paul and Gilbert, he would look gloomy. Gilbert was winning.
Cool spring came, and hot summer followed and the scorching sun beat down upon us, as we lived in the lightwoods around Savona, like forgotten wood nymphs, discarded and forgotten by Paris, turning into myths. In June 29th, Cleft was sitting with us around the fire. We had not spied Thierry for a while, and Henri was up to his elbows in work. Fox and Didier were lounging in Vivien’s place, apparently drunk most of the time, and Voclain was suddenly busy also, for new men were finally arriving, and companies were filling up. Even Voclain got some thirty new men from southern France, with a sprinkling of unhappy Italians amongst them. There had been no sign of any new officers in the fifth company, but occasionally, some old formerly wounded comrade would come home with stories of horror of the hospitals. Of Boulton and Syphilis, for example, there was no sign or even scraps of news, and we often feared our friends dead, for one would get ill in the hospital, often to a disease that was deadlier than what put them there in the first place. There were men, who travelled from one hospital to another for years, collecting things that one would rather do without, and many died that way. Someone was singing somewhere, a ribald song of a homosexual general and a captain in debt, and while I was tittering at the words, Cleft was crumbling at some paper he was reading.
‘Seems general Buonaparte is now Bonaparte. Turning French, no?’ he asked from no one in general, and I nodded, for the Army of Italy loved citizen Bonaparte, formerly Buonaparte. Cleft read from the paper, adopting a sonorous voice. ‘After taking Toulon back from the insurgents, laying waste to Austrians and Piedmont in Italy in 1794, he, the Brigadier General Buonaparte turned down the measly commission in operations against the insurgency in La Vendée. He has balls.’
‘Most men do,’ I said drily.
‘Not Cleft,’ grinned Charles. ‘He doesn’t even go to whores, can you believe it.’ Cleft reddened and eyed me briefly, and Skins hollered.
‘He is staying chaste for our girl here! Or the other one.’
I smiled at Cleft to allay his hurt pride and possibly any extreme reactions, and he swallowed, covering his face with the paper. He continued. ‘He was unemployed in March. He apparently tried to hire himself to the Turks, like some others have. They say he is writing a novel. He looks likely to be part of the history, forgotten, like he was never born.’
‘Jesus, help us!’ we heard Marcel scream and all jumped up. He had been resting with mother in our sad little shack, and most of us rushed inside as if our lives depended on it. Marcel was holding his head in some weird, overpowering motion; his eyes large as eggs and mother was busy drawing painful breaths, gasping and I noticed her water had broken. ‘Help her! God’s sakes, help her!’ Marcel yelled like a doomed man.
I snarled at him and helped mother sit up. She was going to give birth, possibly very soon. Henriette was gasping, trying to speak, finally managing it. ‘Sorry, dear. The baby’s been very busy this past day and I was not sure, since it was like this two days ago as well, but I think you will have to help me get this monster out.’
‘Yes, mother,’ I said with a small, frightened voice, wishing for a battle instead. The company was staring at her; there were some ten men, hats in their shaking hands as if it was a funeral. I screamed at them like a sergeant to new recruits and they dropped the hats, got us linen, boiled it in water, but when it was time to start pushing, in two hours, they had to take Marcel out and make him very drunk. Laroche stayed with me, Cleft as well, but Cleft got dizzy as the baby crowned, and Laroche blanched. We heard Marcel outside, crying.
‘For God’s sakes, keep the bastard quiet,’ mother hissed. ‘He has done this to me, so he should eat his medicine in silence. Laroche, go and hit him. Slap, at least.’
‘Yes, madam,’ Laroche said, carried Cleft out and we heard sharp sounds of slaps follow soon after, then silence.
But for me, things got hard, as I tried to coax her to push, and it took another terrible, long two hours and mother got weaker, but the baby did not cooperate. The top of the head was there to be seen, but the baby would not budge nor obey my desperate commands and clumsy ministrations. ‘Mother,’ I sobbed, trying to help, wondering at her face as it turned grey and white from pain. ‘Help me. What shall I do?’
She shook her head, trying to calm me, but I think she would have died, had it not been for Vivien. She came in, pushed me aside, and got down. After some time, she stared at mother with her hawk-faced, Italian beauty. ‘This won’t hurt at all.’ She took a sharp knife, apparently having boiled it already, and cut at her with deft movement. Soon, a person appeared out of the rubbery, bloody and stretched hole, impossibly large thing flailing its hands and feet, and grasping at the air, and then he cried and pissed on all of us and we laughed as he drenched us. Outside, men were screaming in joy and relief, Marcel was banging on the door, incoherent with joy and drink, and we heard someone slap him again sharply.
Vivien, her face full of triumph, picked the baby up, deftly cut the string, tied the end and gave the baby to mother, who gave it a nipple, which the he took immediately. He, for I realized it was not an it, was a thing of boyish beauty, Marie. He was my brother, and I cried as I hoped Julie and Jean were alive. Mother held my hand and Vivien was sewing at the cut she had made. ‘Usually, a woman giving birth a second time, has an easier time, but sometimes, not,’ she said calmly as she was cutting at the string.
‘This is my fourth,’ m
other said, tired to the bone. ‘The other ones were easy as eating a pie. This one, not so. I thank you Vivien.’
‘You have others than Jeanette?’ she said, cursing at the oozing blood that was making her work harder and a lump of something cloth like fell out. I blanched, but she shook her head. ‘That’s the thing the baby lives in, don’t worry. Now this will bleed, and there will be mucus. Keep your husband at bay for some weeks.’
‘I won't let him near me, the weak livered bastard. Yes, I have others.’ She looked sad and Vivien nodded carefully, probably thinking my siblings dead. Mother shrugged. ‘I have Julie and Jean, they are now six, seven?’ It shocked us both to think about it, and we gazed at each other in wonder. ‘I had to hide them in Lyons from Gilbert Baxa.’
‘Why?’ she asked carefully.
‘His father raped me, and Jeanette took Gilbert’s eye for trying to do the same to her. He is trying to kill the lot of us, to protect his secrets, both personal and ones leading to power. He is mad and utterly cold.’
Vivien shrugged. ‘I’m from Piedmont. I care little for the revolution and Republic. I am sorry things are so strained between us. I was grateful to Thierry when he took me in, after the war took our home, but he has grown evil over the years. I did not love you for competing with me for the little money we could make, but neither do I fully approve this madness the Republic has bestowed on us all. Fox and Didier, and my husband are all hoping the Jacobins will reappear. They wait for it, hope for it. They are just unreasonable, most the time.’
‘And Manuel Voclain?’ I asked. ‘He a mad republican as well? Gilbert writes to him, no?’
She licked her lips and shook her head. ‘Many people write to that one. I have said enough. As I said, I wish we were not enemies and things were not so bad between us.’
‘Perhaps,’ Henriette said, ‘they need not be. At least between us. Women need to hold together in this world, no?’
She looked embarrassed and took mother’s hand. ‘Perhaps so. Let us hope the baby stays healthy. I say this much. I wish I were with someone else than Thierry. I know you know with whom. Alas, he does not have a sergeant’s pay, whatever that is in French army, as he is a private, but he is a good man, who listens to me. I like him. Perhaps… more.’
Reign of Fear: Story of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars (Cantiniére Tales) Page 35