by A L Berridge
No, I didn’t know the house, but you know the layout, Abbé, the houses are built in a triangle to ensure everyone gets the same river for his money. I only had to loiter on the bridge, watch the road in both directions, and wait for the du Prés to show me their home. One house on the Right Bank side seemed particularly busy, with a succession of armed ruffians being admitted through the porte-cochère, and I somehow wasn’t surprised when the du Prés’ carriage trotted in through the same entrance. It was a splendid property, right opposite the first steps to the river, but it wasn’t much more than a den of thieves inside.
It was also a little public for what I had in mind, so I strolled round into the Place itself, waited a few minutes to be sure my target was settled, then knocked at the kitchen door and announced I had a message for M. Bouchard.
Anne du Pré
Escape now seemed impossible. Florian was furious and said that when Father heard what a spectacle I had made of myself he would have me locked up for a month. I was afraid this was all too likely, and knew I must now forget the convent and find some other way of slipping out before Father came home.
This, however, proved quite as difficult, for Bouchard was angrier even than Florian and wished me constantly under his eye for the sole purpose of tormenting me. I curtsied to beg his pardon, but he only said ‘Don’t you think you’ve spent enough time on your knees for one day?’ When I pleaded to be allowed to change my muddy dress he said ‘But I like the way you look, Mademoiselle, it becomes you very well.’ I was becoming quite frantic. Father was only at the Chambres des Comptes and expected back within the hour.
Then Bouchard’s own manservant appeared, saying a man was come on business so private he wished to speak with him outside. Bouchard hushed him quickly and I guessed he had been expecting just such a visitor on some purpose he did not wish us to know.
He said ‘Bring him to the courtyard garden, Huon. We can speak there undisturbed.’
Stefan Ravel
It was all one to me, Abbé. All I needed was privacy.
I followed some liveried minion through a vast kitchen and scullery labyrinth, then was finally hustled through a door into a little covered garden. It was the usual kind of thing, clean white gravel, a swirly little green parterre, and a row of depressed-looking orange trees in tubs, but what appealed to me most was the absence of ground-floor windows. I planted myself near the orange trees and waited.
He shot out, banged the door shut behind him, and started speaking before he even reached me. ‘What’s wrong? Don’t dare tell me you’ve lost him …’ He saw my face under the hat and stopped abruptly. ‘But you’re not …’
‘No,’ I agreed, bringing my hands out of my pockets.
He drew himself up in hauteur. ‘Then what is your message, fellow?’
‘This,’ I said, and drove my fist into his gut.
It’s a satisfying punch, that one, especially when you’ve a soft pot belly to work on and enough anger to drive it through his spine. The air grunted out of him in a soggy rush of spit, his eyes bulged white and bloodshot, and his hands clawed at my cloak as he wheezed for breath. I stuck my knife under his chin, and said ‘Shout and I’ll kill you.’
He wasn’t up to so much as a squeak. I shoved him down on his knees and ran my eyes quickly over the upper windows to check we hadn’t yet attracted an audience. It was all clear.
‘Now then,’ I said pleasantly. ‘Let’s talk about the amende honorable.’
His cross-eyes gleamed with porcine understanding. ‘De Roland. The little coward’s sent –’
I slammed his head on the ground and began to wipe the gravel with his face.
Anne du Pré
‘We can’t go till Bouchard leaves,’ said Jeanette, furiously buttoning me into the green dress. ‘Huon never stirs from the kitchen while his master’s here, there’s no sneaking out that way.’
I glanced down into the courtyard, but the two figures were still bent close together as if in deep conversation. ‘The message sounded urgent. Perhaps he may be called away.’
‘He’d better be,’ she said. ‘There’s no other way, and that’s a fact. Clement’s in the hall and Denis by the Place door, there’s no end of gallows-faced ruffians hanging about in the cour d’honneur, not a way out anywhere without your brother’s say-so.’
I looked again out of the window. Bouchard seemed to be crouching and the other leaning solicitously over him, but then the man’s arm made a jabbing movement and Bouchard rocked to one side. The man dragged him back up on his knees, hesitated, then looked up and round at the windows.
I stepped back fast. The face, the rough beard and ragged brown coat were all familiar, and in an instant I was transported back to the night when André brought me out of the château, he and his friend, the big man he called –
Stefan Ravel
‘Say it,’ I said, and showed him the knife.
He managed to spit out the words ‘André de Roland is an honourable man and I …’
‘And the rest,’ I said encouragingly. There was movement at one of the upper windows and it was time I wasn’t there. ‘Now.’
‘And I’m a lying piece of shit.’ He gurgled and spat blood.
It didn’t make me feel as good as I thought it would. It was just words in the end, it didn’t undo anything. For a second I nearly sliced his windpipe anyway, but I’d the oddest feeling that wasn’t going to help either.
A distant shout reminded me my position was somewhat precarious, so I whacked my boot into his groin for luck, turned and legged it for the door.
The corridor was still empty. I turned to head back to the kitchens, but a voice behind called ‘Stefan, no! Not that way!’ and there was Anne herself with Jeanette Truyart at her side. ‘Too many servants,’ she said. ‘Come on.’
Anne du Pré. Different dress from this afternoon, hair wild and undressed, but the same calm voice and steady head from two years before. She’d even remembered my name.
Sod it, I followed her. She led us briskly through a storeroom, a clerks’ office, then finally into a little robing room. I heard footsteps and voices in the hall beyond, a man saying ‘If he comes this way yell.’ The steps hurried off, Anne signalled us to wait, and walked out.
A second later there came quick, light steps in the hall, then her voice panting as if from running. ‘Oh Clement, Clement, there’s a man –’
‘You’ve seen him, Mademoiselle?’ said a man’s voice. ‘Where …?’
‘Down there,’ she said, and fuck me if she didn’t sound scared. ‘Oh be careful, Clement, he has a sword.’
‘Trust me, Mademoiselle,’ said the invisible Clement. More footsteps, then Anne was back at our doorway, beckoning us to follow.
The hall was empty, so I ripped back the bolts on the door, pulled it open, and there was the Right Bank road and beyond it the river. I’ve nice manners, Abbé, I turned to thank my guardian angel, but she was already ducking under my arm with Jeanette in tow, and I realized they were coming with me.
It seemed a touch ungracious to shove her back in, but I wasn’t sure I wanted a couple of women round my neck when what I needed most was speed. The road was empty, but I didn’t see it staying that way long. The pursuit had rushed to the back entrances, they could be out of the Place and round the corner long before we reached the bridge.
But I told you, Abbé, Anne had a head on her. She simply led us across to the river steps and in seconds we were down out of sight of the road. I was a little concerned about the water at the bottom, but she only smiled and said ‘Boats cross all the time, Stefan, someone will come when they see us waiting.’
I didn’t think so somehow, but what I hadn’t appreciated is the power of a dress, especially a grand one that suggests its wearer has money. Three boats headed for us at once, and we were in the first in less than a minute. I kept low in the bottom as we pulled out into the open, and ripped off my coat so as not to present a familiar brown patch to anyone on the road above.
Yes, it was cold, but we didn’t want a reception committee riding over the bridge to meet us when we landed.
They could have done it twice over at the speed we were going. The current was like pulling through glue, never mind the bloody traffic. There were three wood-laden barges manoeuvring in, a towering hay load wobbling precariously into dock, and Christ knows how many boatmen pausing mid-stream to lean on their poles for a chat with their neighbours. It took us the best part of half an hour to reach the Pont-au-Change.
I didn’t think it mattered. No one on the Île had thought to look waterside, and by the time our pursuers had stopped scurrying up and down the houses we were long lost in the muddle of water traffic. I took one last look up at the receding Place Dauphine and saw only one figure there, a man on horseback reining to a stop outside the very house we’d just left. It was too far away to make out the detail, but the distant tan blob suggested a buff tunic like my own, while the gleam at his hip looked rather like a naked sword. I guessed him for an ex-soldier, someone exactly like myself.
He vanished from sight as we slid under the bridge, but my mind stayed right with him. Bouchard had been expecting someone like me and if I’d thought about it I ought to have guessed why. ‘Don’t dare tell me you’ve lost him,’ he’d said. He didn’t have to mean André, but I remembered the assorted street scum I’d seen admitted earlier and felt a jolt in my stomach that had nothing to do with the boat.
The clocks struck six before the boatman dropped us at the Pont Marie, by which time I was more than a little desperate. Oh, I’d only got suspicions and vague ones at that, but I still thought André ought to be warned. I didn’t say a word to the women, just herded them fast to the Hôtel de Roland in the hope of getting transport.
I wasn’t sure of the reception Anne would get, but the Comtesse had obviously already heard what had happened on the Place de Grève. She came to greet Anne herself, and when I told her I’d beaten the shit out of Bouchard her aristocratic eyes positively gleamed. She ordered a carriage for the ladies and would even have let me travel with them if I hadn’t said humbly I’d rather have a horse. Oh, propriety my arse, but a carriage would take ten minutes to harness and God knows how slow it would be through the streets. I took the horse they gave me and was out of the gate in seconds.
Oh yes, yes, no doubt your superior wisdom has already spotted what I’d missed. But I’d other things on my mind, I’m afraid, I galloped like hell for the Faubourg Saint-Martin and never once looked back.
Jacques de Roland
We bought muskets and powder, pistols and shot, everything we’d need for a small war, then rode on for the Faubourg Saint-Martin.
Dusk was falling by the time we got to the Porchier farm. We followed the track through fields of leeks and beetroot and there was the farmhouse just as I’d remembered it, safe in its own little courtyard within grey stone walls. One of the strapping farm lads was hanging a lantern outside, and he smiled and said ‘Welcome back, M’sieur,’ in a soft Picardie voice that made me think of home.
We couldn’t all stay in the house, of course, but they’d opened up the floor of the apple barn as a dormitory and extra stable, and it felt really warm and comfortable. Gaspard was actually dozing, while Crespin was making up beds from the straw we’d sent in the morning and glowing with an enthusiasm he hadn’t shown since La Marfée. ‘It’s just like the Hermitage, isn’t it, Jacquot?’ he said, attacking a truss so exuberantly the straw flew everywhere. ‘Just like the old Hermitage.’
I said ‘Where’s André?’
‘In the house.’ He straightened a moment, the straw in the air settling slowly on his head and shoulders like dust. ‘He’s awfully cold, Jacquot. He’s had a hot bath, of course, but …’ His voice tailed off uncertainly.
‘I know,’ I said, brushing straw off my cloak. ‘I’ll bring him out of it, you’ll see.’
I took the sword off my baggage and strode back towards the house. Philibert padded warlike beside me, swishing his sword dangerously against the artichokes, and I knew he was as desperate as me for someone to hit.
I dumped him in the kitchen to help Mme Porchier prepare supper, and found Bernadette larding mutton. I thought she’d be angry now she knew I’d lied about the sentence, but she just clutched my coat and said ‘The Chevalier, oh Jacques, what have they done?’ I kissed her and said everything would be all right, but she said ‘You do not understand, he is not André any more, I think they have killed him.’ I said ‘It would take more than that, my darling,’ and hoped it was true.
I went on up to the parlour and found Charlot in the anteroom, pacing up and down like a sentry.
I said ‘There’s no need for that, he’s here perfectly legally.’
Charlot bowed. ‘As you say, Monsieur.’
He was really irritating that way, Charlot, he’d sort of agree with you in a way that made you know you were missing something. I said ‘What?’
‘We were followed, Monsieur, right to the farm.’
I’d seen them, the rabble wanting their entertainment. I patted his arm, said ‘He’s safe now, you’ll see,’ and went through into the parlour.
The fire was burning cheerfully, just as it was the day they separated us and everything went wrong. Grimauld sat at the table watching a huddled figure by the hearth it took me a second to recognize as André. He was dressed smartly in a black-and-gold doublet, his hair was neat and someone had shaved him, but André never sat hunched like that, never, he oughtn’t to have been sitting at all, he ought to have been pacing up and down kicking things and saying ‘Those bloody bastards’ and stuff like that.
‘Ah, now look here, laddie,’ said Grimauld with that false heartiness people use when you’re ill. ‘Here’s Monsieur come to see you.’
André looked round, but his eyes sort of blinked and slid away. Grimauld said ‘I’ll see about more wine,’ and hobbled to the door using two sticks for support.
André watched him go. ‘You see what I’ve done? The surgeon says one leg’s so twisted he’ll never walk properly again.’
‘He’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘We’ll have special shoes made, there’s stuff we can do.’ I sat beside him on the floor, laying the bundled sword carefully by my side.
He lowered his head again. ‘That’ll make up for it, will it?’
‘It’ll help,’ I said inadequately. I’d been planning a rousing speech on the way here, but it was hard even to talk to him. He was sitting with his arms tight round his knees and his head so low I could hardly see his face.
He made an odd flinching movement with his shoulders. ‘Don’t look at me, all right? Just – don’t look at me.’
I stuck my arm round him. ‘Don’t you be ashamed. You’ve done nothing.’ I heard my own voice and knew I sounded as hearty as Grimauld.
‘It felt like something,’ he said. ‘It felt like letting a lot of people down.’
‘You saved Bernadette.’
His shoulders shifted slightly. ‘I put her in danger in the first place. Her and lots of others. I just want to stop people getting hurt.’
‘You can’t,’ I said bluntly. ‘You’ve got to let them choose for themselves. Grimauld did, didn’t he?’
‘Anne,’ he said suddenly, and looked up. ‘She’s another. She loves me, I’m sure of it, and life’s going to be intolerable for both of us because we can’t be together.’
‘You can,’ I said, furtively starting to unwrap the sword. ‘You’ll be going back to Paris one day, you’ll go back in triumph.’
He almost shuddered. ‘I’m never going back there. Not unless they ask me. Not unless they bloody beg.’
‘Then we’ll make them. We’ll clear your name, expose the lot of them, and they’ll grovel for you to come back.’
He laughed, a horrid dry sound like a sob. ‘How can you get justice when they own the bloody judges? Even Richelieu couldn’t stop them. It’s over, Jacques. Spain will come, the country will be run by bastards like Bouchard. You were ri
ght, it’s time to get the hell out.’
‘No. You said it yourself, it’s time to fight.’ I presented him with the sword.
He recognized it at once. I think I’d hoped he’d grasp it and leap to his feet, but after a moment he just reached out and tentatively stroked the guard. Outside I heard the distant sound of hooves.
He said ‘It was a good sword, wasn’t it? I did it proud once.’
‘You will again,’ I said, hauling him to his feet. ‘Just let me get this on you …’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’d dishonour it now.’
I said ‘Don’t be so bloody silly,’ and worked the scabbard into the frogs of his belt. ‘You’ve got to wear a sword, you know that. But don’t go breaking this one, you’d never forgive yourself.’
He watched me harness him in. ‘I shouldn’t have broken the other, it was yours.’
I tried to sound dismissive. ‘That was just a dress sword.’
‘So’s this,’ he said. ‘You only want it on me so I’ll look right.’
I said ‘You’ll use it one day. Walk with it a bit, try handling it –’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Can’t you understand? My father put this into my hand himself so I could fight and be a hero, not be a liar and a coward and shame our family in front of the whole of Paris. I shouldn’t even be wearing it, it’s wrong.’
He was trying to take it off, I had to grab his hands to stop him. ‘You can wipe it out, you’ll show them, we’ll fight it together …’
‘How?’ he said, his voice rising. ‘What is there to fight? Whispers? People laughing? Those judges today, should I have drawn sword and gone after them? Tell me, Jacques, what is there I can fight?’
Stefan Ravel
There were ten of them. Ten to kill one man.
They caught up with me as I reached the Porte Saint-Martin, and I hadn’t the slightest doubt who they were. Oh, you can pick up a couple in most cabarets these days, there are men who’ll do it for twenty écus and a pint of wine.