by A L Berridge
He was right, so was André, Anne was a liability. I vaulted over a row of chairs to get to her and saw the man she was bending over was Florian. Her father was sat on a chair above them, his head in his hands, but he lifted it as I reached them and looked at me with eyes that didn’t focus. He said hoarsely ‘They killed my son. What good is a title without a son?’
I couldn’t look at him. I took Anne’s arm, but there was blood under my fingers, she was wounded. She looked up at me, red eyes in a white face, and whispered ‘Florian saved me, he really did, I hope he knows that now.’
He didn’t know anything. His eyes were blank and his jaw sagging open.
‘Come on,’ I said gently, pulling her to her feet. ‘André wants you out.’
He was still bloody shouting it, but he never dropped his guard, not once. One of the guards was reeling back with an arm flung over his eyes, the other scrabbling backwards into the chairs to escape the sweeping blades, but d’Estrada was standing back patiently, watching André tire himself out, watching and waiting for his chance. I hesitated, but Stefan was bawling ‘Go on!’ and our only hope was speed. I lifted Anne off her feet, stuck her arms round my neck to keep my sword arm free, then waded straight through the chairs to the door. I pulled it open, steered us through, and pushed it soft shut.
There was suddenly silence. The sound didn’t reach out here, there was nothing but a distant tinkle of voices and laughter. There was no shouting, no footsteps, no one was coming, and I realized the alarm hadn’t been given at all. This floor was salons and dining rooms, probably the only soldiers around had been the two now in the chapel.
I headed for the back stairs and Charlot, my confidence rising with every step. André could hold for a couple more minutes, the guests would stay in their dining room waiting for the wedding feast, Philibert and Grimauld would be getting the treaty, we could do this and get out without raising any alarm at all.
Albert Grimauld
‘Piece of piss,’ André’d said to me, or something similar. ‘All we’ve got to do is jump from Anne’s balcony to d’Estrada’s and get in through the windows.’
Oh dear, oh dear. The gap didn’t look much from the ground, but up here’s a different thing, see, there’s maybe six feet of air between us and the next balcony, and nothing below it but sky.
‘I’m not afraid,’ says Philibert, fear dripping off him you could smell in Senlis. ‘I’ll go first.’
I watched him clambering over our rail and teetering on our little ledge. His hands uncurl on the railing, he’s leaning forward over thin air, he’s reaching and leaping, and slap his feet are landing on the other ledge. I lets out my breath as he climbs over, nonchalant-proud as a man who’s had his first maid.
‘Come on,’ he says, wiping his hands down his breeches. ‘It’s easy.’
Oh, my word. I gets over the rail right enough, but I need a good foot to kick off with and a good one to land on, and that’s one more than I’ve got. I reckon it’s the kick matters most, so I warn the kid to be ready to catch and springs off that ledge like a fucking gazelle.
And lands like a crippled soldier. The jolt’s shooting up the bone like another shiv in that bastard boot. The twisted bone can’t take the pressure, something goes snap and my knee cracks against the rails as I whack up the second foot and stamp down hard. Now that’s pain, that’s worse nor it was when I couldn’t take it and spilled the lies that sent the laddie to the Place de Grève. But I took it now. No choice, see, there’s not one of the others can do what I can do, they’re fucked to Frankfurt without me. Philibert knows, he clamps his hands on my wrists and hauls me up like precious china till I can get my good leg over and on solid stone. The other’s over easy then, but it’s broken and useless, the foot dangling like something doesn’t belong to me at all.
But we’re here and over and a job to do, so I leans on the good leg and has a look at the window. There’s no curtain over it and candles lit inside, nice and cosy for our don officer to come home to. No one there. But the door’s opposite us with two pikemen leaning on the other side, so I lowers the window handle soft and slow and eases it open with never a sound, then in we tiptoe like a pair of mincey mice.
It’s a pretty room, I’ll say. Tapestries everywhere, even on the floor where people could trample them, and not them muddy brown colours neither, all reds and blues and yellows, bright as sun on a field of poppies. But they’re nice and handy for us right then, they keep our footfalls to no more than little sighs as we creep up on the desk. That’s pretty too, rounded lid painted with flowers and inlaid with mother-of-pearl leaves, but best of all there’s a clear big lock with a brass ring round it, simple as sweet. I lifts the candle off the top, gets the wires out my coat, then behind me I hear a soft, firm click.
I look round at Philibert. Behind me someone laughs and says something in Spanish.
Slowly, slowly, our heads turn towards the sound, but there’s no one, only an arch I’d guess leads to a bedchamber. I blink at Philibert, and he starts to creep silently towards it. I pay him no nevermind and go back to the lock.
‘Two,’ whispers Philibert behind me. ‘They’re playing chess.’
Now that’s tricksy, that is, that’s the kind of man we’re up against here. Locked desk, guards on the door, and he’s only stuck another couple in his own bedroom. But he still don’t know soldiers. He’s imagined them straining to listen for the first sign of trouble, but they’re thinking ‘We’ll hear when the door opens,’ so there they are sat on his bed playing chess.
I go on fiddling. The projection’s talking to me now, loop round her neck to pull her back, but she won’t come past the sliding tongue, so it’s in with a little hammer to press it back, and through she comes sailing easy and the little click as the spring yields. Philibert reaches with trembling hands for the lid, and it opens.
You want to see inside a man’s head, just look in his desk. Little drawers, little packets, everything labelled up neat, the man wasn’t human. I think I’ve only to look for a label saying ‘Treacherous treaties – France’ and I’m home.
‘Here,’ whispers Philibert. ‘Here.’
His plump young finger points to the papers right at the front. No label, none needed, I read that opening line and know what we’ve found. ‘The Sieur de Fontrailles has been sent as an envoy from Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans to the King of Spain with letters from His Highness for His Majesty …’ That’s treason, that’s what that is, treason in any language, and this is plain French. I grin round at Philibert, and he grins back. I reach for the papers, find the top one’s sticking, and give it a little pull to bring it clear. There’s half a blink as I realize the corner’s caught under a stack of tiny drawers, another half when I try to stop my hand pulling, then crash, down they tumble, rattling and rolling like rocks in a bucket.
I drop the papers and go for my sword. Two troopers come leaping out the other room, swords up and businesslike as if they’ve never heard of chess, then one shouts, there’s a scuffling at the door and in burst the two pikemen. Four against a boy and a cripple, we was done like pigs on a ruddy spit.
‘Drop the weapons,’ says a pikeman in the worst accent you ever heard. ‘You’re French, aren’t you? Drop the weapons.’
I lower my sword, but Philibert’s already seen hisself a hero and ain’t having it took away that easy. ‘Run, Grimauld,’ he says to me, me a bleeding one-leg who’s struggling to so much as stand, ‘run and I’ll hold them.’ He flourishes his blade and runs at them like a hero bloody born, and oh Christ in a crucible he’s buying me time.
Stefan Ravel
André couldn’t last much longer. He’d downed both guards, and the one slashed across the eyes looked good as dead, but he was still back where he’d started with d’Estrada to beat. D’Estrada was fresh, but André’d been imitating a windmill for the last five minutes and looked just about exhausted. His face glowed with sweat, one sleeve was slashed and flapping, and I could hear his breathing from
the back wall.
We’d still got to beat that bastard aristocrat if we were going to get out. Bouchard was nursing his injuries behind the altar, Corvacho was calmly bandaging his wound and watching the swordplay, the Baron didn’t count, young Florian was dead, there was only the one with the scarred neck to watch, and even he’d taken another bash from my trusty chair and sat himself down out of reach. That only left d’Estrada.
He was standing back, assessing André the way a man looks at a joint he’s about to carve, then in he came again with those smooth liquid movements like butter melting in a pan. Sword out straight, André’s out to meet it, the blades tickled and separated, but d’Estrada had his underneath, a back-handed flip up, out and round, and André wide open for the lunge. The Don was hard in with it, but André spun on his heel, left arm slashing back in the turn, and the main-gauche slammed d’Estrada’s blade safely aside.
They faced each other again, and I thought d’Estrada looked a touch less complacent. He glanced reproachfully at André’s main-gauche, then at his own empty right hand.
‘Fight fair, Chevalier?’
Jesus Christ. We were fighting for our lives here, we were outnumbered three hundred to seven, and the bastard was talking like this was a gentleman’s game.
For an unbelievable moment André hesitated, but the dagger was his best defence against that left-handed freak, and he knew it. ‘I regret, Señor …’
D’Estrada gave a graceful shrug that suggested he’d only been trying it on. He called ‘M. d’Arsy!’
My friend of the mangled neck jerked himself to attention, then fumbled awkwardly at his belt, produced a short blade like André’s own, and chucked it to d’Estrada.
It was a chance and a good one, I’d have had the bastard while his arm was up to catch, but André stood back like a fool and let them do it. Then there was d’Estrada facing him again, dangerous with one blade, lethal with two. The games were over, and it was time for the kill.
Carlos Corvacho
I’d my doubts about your Chevalier after that blasphemy at the altar, but I won’t deny he did the right thing about the dagger. He’d his own sense of honour, in a French sort of way.
So did M. d’Arsy, which surprised me in a traitor of his kidney. When he sat back down I said ‘Don’t you worry, Señor, my gentleman will settle him,’ and he turned me a grey face and said ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. De Roland’s the only man alive who can give me back my honour.’
Well, I didn’t rate his chances and that’s the truth. My gentleman was as much at home with rapier and dagger as he was with just the sword, I knew how it would end. They were moving faster now, as men do with two blades, there’s no ‘off’ beats, if you understand me. There’s maybe less craft in it, my Capitán always said the single blade was the purer form, but he’d the strength and speed for the business, he was weaving that dagger in and out to draw the Chevalier’s eyes while he’s in and up with the sword. Twice, three times he nearly had him that way, and the last his tip’s that close it gashes a clear red streak across the forehead.
I says to M. d’Arsy ‘He’ll have him next time.’
The tanner gives me a filthy look and, if you’ll forgive the expression, Señor, he tells me to shut my gob.
Stefan Ravel
André looked fit to drop, but there was something else in his swordplay now, a glimmer of the old joy I remembered when he was a kid. He shook his head and almost smiled when d’Estrada cut him, and when the thrust came again he dropped on one knee to duck it and stabbed sharp into the bastard’s thigh. Corvacho yelped, but d’Estrada didn’t, there was never a sound out of him. He merely stepped back with his guard up, tested his weight on the wounded leg, and gave André a tight-lipped smile.
‘Very good,’ he said. ‘You have improved since your last lesson.’
André bowed. ‘Or perhaps you are a little slower.’
D’Estrada’s eyes narrowed, but his only answer was to level his sword and slide back into the attack.
And Christ, it was fast. Two quick crosses, then he dodged André’s rapier and closed distance in less time than it took to blink. He slammed his hilt at the jaw, André’s sword flailing uselessly wide, and jerked up his short blade to stab. André got his main-gauche to it, but the blade still scratched him, another line down his throat, and d’Estrada stabbing again low. Corvacho was on his feet with excitement, but André wasn’t done yet, he used his own sword hand to punch d’Estrada in the face and jump back from the dagger, streaking up his rapier to keep the man at bay. One breath, no more, and d’Estrada was in again, attacking the sword this time, clashing and clashing at it, the dagger glittering in the candlelight as it poised to find the opening.
The door banged but they neither of them turned, they were close again, wrestling rather than fencing, and now I heard d’Estrada, now I heard the bastard, his breathing as ragged as André’s as they struggled and swayed together before the kid managed to stumble back out of reach and slash out again with his sword.
Jacques was in the doorway, and I knew from his face we’d got trouble.
‘The alarm’s given,’ he said. ‘Not us, but a guard’s run downstairs yelling.’
Time to be out. André and d’Estrada were still fighting, and I noticed a new gash on the Spaniard’s arm, but neither was near admitting defeat. I checked my scarred-neck friend was still safely seated, then turned and belted for the door.
Jacques was staring in shock at his brother and the Spaniard. ‘We can’t leave André.’
I’d no intention of leaving André. They were apart again, d’Estrada starting that weaving motion before another attack, so I just struck out with another chair and knocked the legs from under him. I didn’t waste a second on André’s cry of chivalrous outrage, I just yelled ‘Now, soldier!’ and held the door open.
He hesitated, but only a second. He saw d’Arsy up and heading for us and the terror on Jacques’ face, he heard my order and came. He babbled ‘I’m sorry,’ at d’Estrada as he passed, but he fucking came, and as soon as he was out the door I grabbed his arm and pulled.
We made it through to the grand stairwell, and I heard it then, the swelling roar of voices downstairs as the guards were dragged out of billets and thrust towards the stairs.
‘Grimauld,’ said Jacques wretchedly. ‘My fault, I asked them …’
There wasn’t time for apologies. ‘Back stairs,’ I said. ‘Now.’
‘And leave the others?’ said André. He didn’t want an answer, Abbé, he was already wrenching away for the central staircase.
I yelled ‘There’s no time!’ but he was gone and Jacques already following. I said a few choice words and went after them.
Jacques de Roland
We stormed up those stairs and swerved round for d’Estrada’s room. Familiar sounds were coming from it, swords and yells and furniture going over, like part of the same fight I’d been in for years and was never going to see the end of, but as we panted towards the room the noises stopped, and that was even worse.
The anteroom was empty, the inner door open, and men moving in front of me, but as we ran in I saw the fight was over. Grimauld was down with blood over his face and a man menacing him with a pike, while two swordsmen were turning from a crumpled figure I knew at once was Philibert. They thought we were reinforcements and actually lowered their weapons, we charged and finished them in three seconds.
I dropped by Philibert, but his chest was slashed open and he was dead. Dozens of cuts on his face and arms proved he’d put up an incredible fight before they killed him, and I wanted to cry like a dog because I hadn’t even seen it. At least Grimauld was alive, Stefan flung him over his shoulder and we hurtled back to the gallery, but soldiers were already pounding up the stairs and some almost at the top.
André jumped to the stairwell and swiped out with his sword to drive the first man back. ‘Take Grimauld,’ he said to Stefan. ‘Get him out, I’ll hold here.’
Stefan swor
e at him, but the boy was already fighting again, sweeping the sword in a great arc before him while he jabbed with the main-gauche at anyone who got close. He was ragged and bleeding, his face and throat were cut, his shirt hanging off one arm, but he was the same bloody stupid André who never ever gave up. Something pumped up inside me like water in the Samaritaine.
‘Go on, Ravel,’ I said, and took my place beside André. ‘Go on, we’ll hold.’
A soldier pressed forward and I took him myself, just a simple slash and he fell. I actually wanted to laugh, because of course it was easy. They were below us on narrow steps but we were on solid ground and striking down, we could take the whole bloody lot. André darted a thrust at another, and it didn’t just get him, the two behind got knocked off their feet when the man fell against them. I saw Stefan disappearing through the archway and it made me oddly exultant. Grimauld was out, Anne was out, Bernadette and Jeanette were already out, I could mourn for Philibert but we’d bloody well saved the rest.
‘Fence your front,’ said André, stabbing across me at a soldier sidling up my flank. ‘Fence your bloody front and we’ll be all right.’
We wouldn’t be really, my brain was clear enough for that. We could buy time for the others, but there wasn’t a hope for ourselves. We couldn’t do this for ever, and the second we left the stairwell they’d have us from behind. It didn’t matter. I thought of Philibert and his heroic stories and hoped he’d approve of me now. We were holding the stairs, me and André, we were going to fight to the death and go out together in the grandest way there was.
Anne du Pré
It was cold in the stables after the stuffiness of the chapel, and I remember shivering while Jeanette dressed my arm with a strip from her own chemise. I could not even cry for Florian as I wished, for all my emotions seemed in a state of suspension, waiting to learn for certain which way I should let them flow.