by A L Berridge
‘Steady, Monsieur,’ said Charlot.
The candle was a big one, I think they’d said four pounds, and the flame flickered as he adjusted the weight in his hands. I looked at the whiteness of his bare legs and shivered in the warmth of my woollen cloak. I thought of the roughness of the stones under his feet, and saw the brown line on his soles left by the snow-puddled mud. The wind gusted at his shirt and he pressed the candle hard into his body to hold it back down. His face was scarlet with humiliation, but when he lowered it the executioner said something sharp and he had to lift it again so people could see.
And they did see, everyone was staring, he must have felt their eyes like so many stones. A bunch of well-dressed merchants were grinning and murmuring, a lady leaned out of a carriage to get a better view. A red-nosed pedlar chuckled to himself, took a slurp from a bottle, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. A hard-faced old woman stared with dull eyes like she’d seen it all before, she’d seen people hanged and tortured, this was nothing. A little boy said ‘Why’s that man got no breeches on?’ and I wanted to close my eyes with misery, but a woman’s voice said ‘Hush, little one, that is a very brave man.’
Something sparked inside me. I looked again at the crowd and saw that lots weren’t jeering at all, some even looked angry. A woman’s voice called ‘God bless you, Chevalier!’ and I remembered the people at Chagny, the way they’d tried to save him. Another shouted ‘We know you didn’t do it!’ Then a man yelled ‘Fuck the bastards!’ and I felt a sudden rush of hope as people surged forward. But the troopers were ready, someone shouted an order and the muskets came up levelled at the crowd, jagged knives plugged into the barrels to make bayonets. The yelling lapsed into mutters, and the little resistance faded and died.
I think a bit of me died with it. I saw it then, I saw what I’d missed. It wasn’t just André being spat on, it was everything he stood for and people believed in, and at last I understood what that was. I should have died before I let him do it, I should have done anything to save him from this. Honour? This was honour, a man stripping himself of all self-respect to save the people he loved, this was honour, and the only shame in any of it was ours for watching it and mine for making him do it.
Stefan Ravel
Yes, yes, I know, Abbé, I’d thought it was only a lie, but I saw and heard it all, remember, and the reality was something else.
André reached his position and the executioner prodded him to a stop. Then Bouchard looked at him. He leaned back in his chair, legs wide apart, and looked at him. Muddy feet, bare legs, flimsy shirt, and that flushed, humiliated face, he studied the kid as if he were a work of art. Then he said to the executioner ‘All right, let’s see him kneel.’
Oh, it was deliberate, Abbé, he was goading him into doing something stupid. He wasn’t far off it either, André stiffened as if someone had stuck a rod up his back, and I knew he was within a heartbeat of smashing the candle over the bastard’s head and damning their whole stupid pageant to hell. If he did it he was dead, and that’s just what Bouchard was playing for.
But André had given his word. I saw his shoulders heave as he took a deep, deep breath, and slowly, carefully knelt on the stones. The crowd sighed.
‘Close,’ said the trooper in front of me, chewing on his tobacco. ‘He’s good, that Bouchard. You want to put money on it?’
Possibly my expression answered for me. He shrugged, said ‘Suit yourself,’ and spat a stream of brown juice on the stones.
André lowered the candle, and the executioner thrust the paper in front of him.
Bouchard said loudly ‘I can’t see his face.’
André wasn’t lifting it either, his only hope was if he didn’t have to meet that vicious bastard’s eyes, but the executioner said ‘You must look up, Chevalier,’ and when the kid didn’t react immediately he grasped a handful of his hair and jerked up his head, forcing him to look right at Bouchard.
I watched Bouchard’s squint-eyes on André’s face, I heard his soft little chuckle of enjoyment, and something curled inside my belly like a snake. This wasn’t punishment, it wasn’t even politics, this was fucking rape. I stopped wanting André to stick it out to save himself, I wanted to see him get up and smack that yellow-haired monster back into the mud where he belonged. I like my skin where it is, Abbé, but my hand was on my hilt, I was edging nearer the trooper, and God in his bloody heaven I was ready to fight.
Bouchard knew André needed only one little push to send him over the brink. He said over his shoulder ‘Can you see all right, Mademoiselle?’
Anne du Pré
The shock on his face was like a blow to my own. I was gripped with the terror of what it would drive him to, but then his horror changed to a dreadful contempt and he looked away.
I tried to speak, but my throat was swelling with the hardness of tears. I had no sword, nothing but my own wretched self and a desperation to do something, anything to save him, anything at all.
Stefan Ravel
The executioner shook the paper. ‘The words, Chevalier, you must say them.’
Bouchard leaned forward. His voice was low but I heard it, me and maybe half a dozen others at the front. ‘You’ve never had her, have you, Chevalier? But I’m going to marry her and have her whenever I like.’
André’s hand batted away the paper. His knee was off the ground, foot bracing to stand, but a loud clatter broke the silence, his head jerked towards it, and there was Anne on her feet, her stool rolling loose on the stones.
Jacques de Roland
She was just standing helplessly with tears running down her face, but it was enough to stop him dead. He stared at her in bewilderment, and I felt a wild return of hope.
The crowd were murmuring, I heard the name ‘Mlle Celeste’, but she kept looking at André, no one else. Her bloody brother was cringing with embarrassment and reaching out to pull her back down, but she brushed him aside, took a step forward, then slowly and deliberately knelt on the muddy stones.
The crowd gasped, then erupted into a great roar. Even those foul merchants stared and clapped. Bouchard’s face screwed up with rage, but André was just gazing at Anne, the bewilderment gone and understanding growing there instead. She loved him. No one in the Place could have doubted it now, and the knowledge made him almost shine.
‘Magnificent,’ said Gaspard in sudden passion. ‘Ah God, she is magnificent!’
The brown slush was seeping up her dress, the hard ground must have been agony on her legs, but she knelt upright as André and never flinched. Her brother tugged feebly at her arm but she resisted and he only succeeded in dragging her sideways on the flags. The crowd hissed with annoyance and he backed off fast, but Anne just knelt back up and pushed her hair out of her eyes, leaving a little smear of mud on her cheek. Gaspard was right, she was brilliant, and the crowd watched her in something close to awe.
Anne du Pré
I felt I could stay like that for ever, just the two of us with our heads on the same level and André looking at me with that new softness in his eyes.
But his punishment was not yet over and the executioner again thrust forward his hateful paper. André looked at me in anguish, and I said ‘You don’t have to, it’s all lies.’ He blinked in surprise, but how could I say anything else? It was his own life, how could I wish him to do anything with it but what he wanted?
The executioner said ‘Do you refuse, Chevalier?’
André tore his eyes away from me, cleared his throat and said ‘No.’
I did not understand, only that he felt he had to, and it was therefore my job to help him. He lifted his head and began to speak, and the crowd became hushed as a church.
He did not read from the paper, the words were clearly already burned into his soul, he kept his eyes on me and began to say them. He confessed his wickedness in offending God, the King and Justice, and begged forgiveness of all of them. He faltered a little and I knew the worst was now coming, but I kept my eyes on his face
, listened to the start of each word and said it aloud with him. If he had to be shamed then I would be too.
We said we had wronged the dead Musketeer Dubosc, we had wronged MM. Fontrailles, d’Arsy, Desmoulins and Lavigne, we begged their pardon and declared them all worthy men. Last of all we begged pardon of Bouchard and said he too was a worthy man, but André’s mouth twisted and the words came out in more spit than breath. The executioner removed the paper, then André lifted his head, closed his eyes, and said ‘And may God forgive me if I lie.’
Bouchard said ‘Those aren’t the words, he can’t say that, make him do it again,’ and the judges murmured together and looked grave. I almost choked with rage, but the priest demanded ‘How can it ever be a crime to ask forgiveness of God?’ and they lapsed at once into silence. They were right to be ashamed, I wish they would die of it. They have forced an innocent man to shame himself in front of all Paris for something he has never done.
Jacques de Roland
It was over. The pikemen marched him to the carriage, a horrid, manky thing for smuggling out people whose names were like swearing. The crowd was thronging round it, but Crespin called out ‘The Chevalier’s brother, please let him through,’ and people parted for us in silence. Their scorn burned my skin like hot wax.
Then I was through to the carriage and there was André sitting on the step to put on his breeches. I ripped off my cloak to wrap round him, needing to cover him, hide him, keep him warm.
He ducked away and stood to pull up his breeches. ‘They’ve seen it now, they can’t unsee it, can they?’
Neither can I. Not even now I can’t, my brother stripped and humiliated and me standing by and letting it happen.
‘Anne,’ he said, fumbling with his belt. ‘She might be in trouble after today, you’ll look out for her, won’t you?’
I glanced back at the Place. Bouchard was certainly giving her a nasty look, but her brother was escorting her back to her carriage and she was obviously safe with him. The crowd was dispersing noisily beyond them, but one figure stood still in the midst of it, a tall, rough-looking man in a brown coat who was watching Bouchard with an intensity that meant business. His hat was tipped low over his eyes, but I knew it was Stefan.
‘Come on, M’sieur, move it, will you?’ said one of the pikemen. ‘Ain’t you got a home to go to?’ His mates guffawed.
For a second there was a flash of anger back in André’s eyes, but then it faded and he turned silently back to the carriage.
I said ‘I’ll see you tonight, we’ll find a way to put it right.’
‘If you say so.’ His voice was as dead as his eyes.
I couldn’t stand it, I’d got to reach him somehow, then in sudden inspiration I scrabbled out my sword. The pikeman backed off in alarm, but I shook my head impatiently and pressed the guard into André’s hand.
‘Your rapier,’ I said. ‘It’s time to take it back.’
He backed away, banging into the carriage step. ‘No.’
‘You must,’ I said, forcing it into his hand. ‘It’s yours.’
‘Is it?’ he said. His voice was louder again, there was something almost wild in his eyes. ‘Is it, Jacques?’ He took the faible in his other hand, then smashed the blade across his knee.
I stared in disbelief. His father’s rapier. His father’s dress sword that M. Gauthier had brought out of the ruins of his home.
‘It’s a gentleman’s sword,’ said André. ‘What’s it got to do with me?’ He dropped the pieces to the ground, climbed into the carriage and slammed the door.
I stooped to pick up the bits. They were useless, of course, you can’t reforge a rapier, but it had been our father’s sword, my father had worn it, I’d seen him with it a hundred times. The carriage jolted forward.
‘Come on,’ said Crespin. He was already mounted, so was Gaspard, and Charlot was leading up Tonnerre. ‘Aren’t you going with him? Come on.’
As the carriage rumbled past I saw the spectators on the other side, faces and faces of condemnation staring back at me. It was like looking in a bloody mirror.
‘No,’ I said, and grabbed Tonnerre’s reins. ‘You go, Charlot will show you the place. There’s something I’ve got to do first.’
Most of the crowd were running whooping after the carriage down the Rue de la Vannerie, so I was home in two minutes. I leapt off Tonnerre, flung the reins to Guillot, said ‘Get Philibert, I need my things packed in ten minutes,’ then strode indoors, took the stairs two at a time and was on the gallery in a moment. Robert was outside the salon, I heard him say ‘But Madame is with –’ and batted him out of the way with the back of my hand. I said ‘Madame is with me,’ pushed open the door and went in.
There was a man inside with his back to the door, but he turned as it crashed open and I stopped as abruptly as if it had been the Cardinal.
That face. I’d known there was no nose, I was prepared for a kind of hole, but there was this great red spongy thing growing there instead like it had squashed the nose out the way and was starting to eat the rest. I flinched and had to look away.
‘Don’t fret, Jacques,’ said the Comte. From the corner of my eye I saw him move to the table and pick up his mask. ‘This hurts a little if you wear it all day, surely you understand that?’
I understood a lot of things. Those cosy little chats I’d had with him, happy to let him say honour was rubbish, everything was rubbish but us and our survival. I’d listened to his wisdom as he spoke in my father’s voice, and all the time what was behind the mask was this.
‘All right, Monsieur,’ said my grandmother soothingly. ‘We understand how hard today has been. Will you tell us?’
It was nothing that could be understood in this beautifully decorated room. I took the pieces of sword, flung them on the floor, and said ‘There you are, that’s what we’ve done. We’ve been wrong about everything. The only person who wasn’t shamed today was André, and the only one who didn’t let him down was Anne.’
My uncle stooped to pick up the pieces, then turned them over slowly in his hands.
I said ‘Disinherit me if you want, I won’t be here anyway. I’m going with André and not coming back till I can bring him with me.’ I looked at my grandmother, said ‘I’m sorry,’ then turned and walked out.
I went straight to André’s room. It was quiet in there, the air heavy and muffled with dust. It was cold too, there hadn’t been a fire for more than a year, and the bed curtains were damp to the brush of my hand. The presses were all open and his clothes gone, Charlot had had them packed to send to the Porchier farm, but I knew what he’d have missed.
There was a great oak chest by the far wall. When I lifted the lid a tiny breath of warmth wafted out, like a memory of a summer day in 1640. We’d packed all his old stuff in here, the things he wasn’t going to be needing for a while, and right at the top was the sword.
I unwrapped it and held it to the window. This was a real battle sword, the one André had taken from his father’s own hand, the one he’d fought with all through the Occupation and used in the last stand at the Gate. He was right, he didn’t need a gentleman’s dress sword any more, the time for posing and duelling was over. He needed a weapon for war.
‘Antoine’s sword,’ said my grandmother’s voice. She was standing behind me, looking smaller than ever next to the great swathes of the bed curtains. ‘May I?’
I felt oddly reluctant to give it to her, but she grasped it quite naturally and seemed quite prepared for the weight.
‘We gave it to him for La Rochelle,’ she said, checking down its length. ‘He was riding the Général with his father’s gold saddle-cloth. He looked very fine as he rode away.’
I said ‘I’m sorry, I can’t live up to all this. You were wrong to try and make me.’
‘I was right,’ she said calmly, and reversed the sword to offer me the hilt. ‘I said you were a Roland, and now you are proving it. Go and find André, do what you have to do to restore our honour. I only
wish I could go with you.’
I took the sword, laid it on the chest and hugged her. For a moment she clutched me fiercely, then she patted my shoulders and reached up to kiss me correctly on both cheeks.
‘Take care of yourself, my dear. Remember I have two grandsons now.’
I stroked her hair, and found it was actually soft. ‘I’m sorry, I know it leaves you in a mess. If my uncle dies –’
‘He will not die,’ she said firmly, stepping back and patting her hair back into place. ‘He will not dare die until I am ready. Now go quickly before I change my mind.’
I found Philibert in the courtyard with my things piled on Tonnerre, but he was holding another horse and there were bags on that too. I said ‘It’s all right, you don’t need to come,’ but he looked at me with eyes bright with hurt and said ‘I go where you go, Monsieur, unless you don’t want me.’ I nearly hugged him too, but he’d probably have hated it.
Guillot bowed low as we swept through the gate. The Rue du Roi de Sicile was half empty, so I looked over at Philibert then the two of us dug in our heels.
Tonnerre was at the gallop in seconds. The wind blew off my hat but I didn’t care, the speed was uplifting, the clatter of the hooves stirring me like drums before a battle. I wasn’t noticing how grand and impressive the great street was, I wasn’t intimidated by the towering buildings and elegant pedestrians, it was just a road to get me where I needed to be and for the first time since I’d come to Paris I knew where that was. My place was with André and always had been, I was turning my back on everything to follow him, and somehow, between us, we were going to put things right.
PART THREE
The Man
Twenty-One
Stefan Ravel
Paris is a wonderful place for a footpad. Bouchard’s carriage was stopped in the traffic down the Rue de la Ténarue, and when I saw it finally inch its way on to the Pont Notre-Dame I knew I had him. He was following the du Prés on to the Île, so I belted down the riverside, nipped up the Pont-au-Change, and got to the Place Dauphine first.