by A L Berridge
Charlot had the watch that day, poor bugger, he was sodden with rain when he squelched through the door to announce the Comte. That wasn’t too funny at his age, so I nobly volunteered to take over while he dried himself off, but I’d hardly taken a step to the door when the Comte raised an imperious hand and said ‘That won’t be necessary.’
He made a strange figure in that barn. He was heavily shrouded in his fur-lined cloak, a masked and huddled creature facing two flushed and sweaty young men in their shirtsleeves, but there wasn’t much doubt where the power lay. He held out a paper almost invisible under important red seals, and said ‘You won’t need a guard now, Chevalier. You’re a free man.’
André didn’t exactly cheer, I don’t remember him speaking at all, but there was something about the way he wiped his face with his sleeve and laid his sword carefully down in the straw that I thought said rather a lot. He took the paper, broke the seals, and read it aloud.
He was pardoned. Not cleared, I noticed, the King didn’t seem desperately well disposed towards the people who’d made him execute his own favourite, but it was at least a pardon. André got his property back and was graciously permitted to go wherever he wished in His Majesty’s realm.
‘It’s not much,’ said Jacques depressingly. ‘It doesn’t even admit he’s innocent.’
The Comte turned the blue beak in his direction. ‘They need to be discreet, surely you understand that?’
Jacques looked mulish. ‘People might go on thinking things.’
The Comte’s defensiveness gave its own answer. ‘What if they do? Everyone who matters will know the truth. Bouchard’s been banished, so has d’Arsy, everyone who signed that document.’
André looked up from the paper. ‘Even the Baron? Anne’s father?’
‘No exceptions,’ said the Comte. ‘But in consideration of Anne’s loyalty she’s to be allowed to keep the confiscated property herself. You’ll be marrying a rich woman, André.’
André gave him the predictable glare. ‘You think I care about that?’
‘No,’ said the Comte, and smiled. ‘Why don’t you come back with me now and see her?’
André picked up his shabby coat and shoved the letter into a pocket. ‘I’m not going to Paris, Uncle. Not even to see Anne.’
The Comte made a huffing noise. ‘Now that’s just childish.’
‘Perhaps,’ said André, pulling down his shirtsleeves. ‘But I said I wouldn’t, and until they can find a way of undoing the amende honorable I’m not going to. Anne knows that, we’ve decided to marry in Dax.’ He began to put on his coat.
Jacques reached for his own. Bernadette stood to brush the straw from her skirts, and even Grimauld made feeble heroic movements to at least sit upright. I picked up my hat.
The Comte looked round in confusion, then back at André. ‘Where are you going now, for heaven’s sake? I’ve brought the carriage to take you back.’ He turned to Charlot for support, but the big valet was sticking his own soggy hat back on his head, and only gave him a deferential bow.
André buttoned his coat. ‘I’m a free man now, Monseigneur? I can go wherever I like?’
The Comte looked at him, and I’ll swear he was starting another smile. ‘Yes, Chevalier.’
‘Good,’ said André, reaching for his hat. ‘Then I’m going to find Bouchard.’
Jacques de Roland
We based ourselves in Dax. It was right on the Artois border, the perfect place to start looking, and more than anything else it was home.
For the first time we could stay openly together without doing stupid stuff like hiding in vegetable carts. Crespin hung about Paris for news of Bouchard, but the rest of us lived at the manor, even bloody Stefan who had a perfectly good house of his own. Bernadette stayed with Mother for the look of things but actually I think she liked it, it was sort of like having a home of her own. You remember my mother, she hated making decisions about anything, but Bernadette used to just take the pan out of her hand and say ‘No, today we are going to make an omelette because Jacques likes them.’ Mother used to look at her in awe.
Anne couldn’t stay at the manor, of course, she was Dame of Verdâme and lived in her own château, but André still visited every day. They were very proper about it, they always had chaperones and things, but we hoped it wouldn’t be for long. They were planning a spring wedding, which we thought gave us lots of time to deal with Bouchard.
But finding him was harder than we’d expected. When the boy was on the run I felt he’d be caught any minute, I didn’t see how they could miss him, but now it was our turn to be the hunters it seemed the most impossible task there’d ever been. The Comtesse wrote to friends in England and Rome, but they said Bouchard wasn’t in any of the obvious places that exiles head for. Crespin heard nothing at court, and Stefan got nowhere with old soldiers in Amiens and Abbeville. Charlot managed to track down some of his old servants, but all they knew was that they hadn’t been paid. André, Gaspard and I went over the border to get friendly with Walloons in Sus-St-Léger, but no one had heard anything about a fair-haired Frenchman with odd eyes. We even carried Grimauld to Lucheux to talk to some mysterious people he said sometimes ‘knew things’, but nothing came of that except him getting pissed. No one knew anything at all.
I was starting to wish I’d killed Bouchard in the chapel when I’d had the chance, but André said ‘I have to kill him myself, Jacques, I’m dishonoured for ever if I don’t.’ I did understand, I mean it’s shameful to let anyone insult you without fighting them, but what Bouchard had done was far worse. He’d destroyed André’s reputation and humiliated him in public, he’d even taken a sword to the woman he loved. If André didn’t kill him he couldn’t hold his head up anywhere, not even in Dax. We kept on bloody looking.
We’d got one last chance, and that was Anne’s father. The Comtesse’s friends said he was in Rome, so Anne kept writing and sending him money in the hope of a reply. I wouldn’t have bothered myself, I mean he’d signed that paper, he was as bad in his way as Bouchard, but she said he’d never understood that what he was doing was wrong. I remembered the du Pré carriages rolling into the courtyard at Éspehy with their crest blazing openly on the panels, and thought she might even be right.
In November he finally replied. I guess he was pretty snotty, Anne said he still couldn’t see why he was being blamed for a simple political arrangement, but he did tell her that Bouchard was in Flanders with d’Estrada. That sounded odd to us, I mean the coup had failed, there was no reason for him to be still hanging round the army, but the Baron seemed sure, he’d heard it from fellow exiles.
Flanders is still a big place, and not even Gaspard could wander over all of it asking for d’Estrada. We needed proper military information, so André simply wrote to Richelieu and asked. I thought we’d a good chance, actually, I mean Richelieu owed us something, he’d have been dead or banished by now if it wasn’t for us. Crespin took the letter himself, and we waved him off feeling full of hope.
I remember the day he came back. It was the first week in December and Grimauld was trying to walk round the terrace for the first time. His leg had healed much straighter since being reset but it didn’t stop him leaning heavily on André and swearing horribly at every step. I was sat on one of the stone benches, feeling the cold seeping through my breeches and thinking ‘One more round then I’m going indoors.’
Sound carries further in a frost, and I heard hooves on the drive long before we saw Crespin. He spotted us on the terrace, reined to a skidding stop and dismounted on the gravel. Then he took off his hat.
‘What’s happened?’ said André, dumping Grimauld on the bench. ‘Crespin, what is it?’
He said simply ‘The Cardinal.’
It wasn’t till I heard the tolling of the bell of St Sebastian’s that I understood. For a second I just thought ‘That’s a bugger, now we can’t find Bouchard,’ then I remember the blankness as the real shock hit. No one was bigger than Richelieu, he coul
dn’t just die. But there was and he had, and Spain had found another ally after all.
Carlos Corvacho
Now, that was more like it, Señor. The old devil was gone, if you’ll excuse the expression, and France had lost her own head. ‘No more dealing with traitors, Carlos,’ says my Capitán joyfully. ‘We can go back to good clean war.’
He’d had enough of politics. You’d never credit it, but there were people blaming that treaty business on my Capitán his own self, as if he’d ever wanted to be involved in their dirty dealings in the first place. One of our guests bringing the French in, another committing murder, well I ask you, it’s not what a gentleman expects. We were all for throwing Bouchard out on a dung heap where he belonged, but the Conde-Duque said he’d something else in mind and made us keep him and M. d’Arsy round our necks all winter.
Not that it looked like mattering now we were going back to war. The Conde-Duque wanted the pressure off Catalonia and the French kept out of the Franche-Comté, so a campaign in northern France seemed just the thing to distract them. The reports were coming in very tasty too. Your new First Minister, this Cardinal Mazarin, he’d left all the northern forts under strength, and given the command to a mere boy. The Duc d’Enghien, Señor, barely twenty-one, and little more experience than Arras and Perpignan.
De Melo made his plans. We’d enter through the Ardennes, but we wouldn’t repeat the failures of the past, Señor, we were going to take a fortress to make a base in France herself. Now that’s a tricky business and de Melo knew it, he didn’t want another Corbie we could only hold till the winter. ‘We’ll give them a governor France will accept,’ he says. ‘We’ll give them a son of Montmorency.’
My poor gentleman, he’s stuck again, lumbered with Bouchard and his hangers-on to nursemaid through the whole campaign. All I can hope is we take the fort quick and get rid of him before my Capitán loses control and duels the man his own self.
At least de Melo’s already chosen the place, a fort close to the border with a garrison under a thousand. Nicely fortified, I’m bound to say, star-shaped before your Vauban ever came near it, but de Melo says we’ll take it in a week, install Bouchard and move on. My Capitán hears those last words and says ‘Yes’ with as much enthusiasm as I’ve ever heard. That’s the only advantage I see in it myself, Señor, a rustic bit of nowhere I wouldn’t spend an evening in for choice.
‘Never heard of it,’ says Bouchard, examining his glass for finger-marks. ‘Now Amiens, perhaps, or Doullens …’
‘Precisely, Monseigneur,’ says my Capitán. ‘We would never endanger your person by placing you somewhere even this Mazarin would feel compelled to relieve.’
Bouchard swills his Jerez in his mouth before swallowing it. ‘Well, perhaps. We have friends in Champagne, of course, and can count on a high degree of support.’
‘And can encourage more,’ says my Capitán. ‘We thought of printing handbills for the populace.’ He hands the brute the papers, and I see him wiping his hands when he’s done it.
Bouchard studies them complacently, as well he might, them all being heroic captions over pictures of his own self. ‘Not bad,’ he says, ‘but I think I can do better. Perhaps I’d better speak to your artist.’
‘You have something special in mind?’ says my Capitán, ringing the bell in haste to be rid of him.
The animal smiles. ‘Oh yes,’ he says, throwing me his empty glass to catch, yes, Señor, throwing it as if closer contact would give him plague. ‘I’ve thought of something that might be rather fun.’
Anne du Pré
Extract from her diary, dated 16 April 1643
It may be wicked, but I would like to see Bouchard burn in hell.
Today was always going to be hard. The Comte and Comtesse have arrived to stay until the wedding, and today they took us to the notary in Lucheux to sign the papers. We had Jacques with us to make it a family occasion, but André was still dreading it. He has avoided the towns for months, and I knew he was afraid people would sneer.
Even the carriage was an ordeal. He had not been in one since that terrible journey out of Paris, and I knew from the way he looked at it that the associations still linger. He sat beside me as tense as if he were about to enter a fight, and when the door was shut on us I felt his arm quiver against my own. Beneath my cloak I let my fingers find his and we held hands all the way.
The Comte sat opposite, his eyes flicking between us behind the mask. At last he said ‘Come on, Chevalier. It doesn’t matter if people look, does it?’
André gazed out of the window. ‘It depends how.’
The Comte smiled faintly. ‘No, it doesn’t. You’ll get used to it.’
André’s fingers felt stiff in mine. ‘I’ve no intention of getting used to it.’
The Comte settled back into his blanket. ‘Then you’re a fool. Just ignore it, André. It’s the only way, you’ll see.’
André’s mouth tightened. He leaned back in his seat with half-closed eyes and did not speak another word.
Jacques de Roland
We had to walk through the crowds to get to the notary’s. André’s shoulders were all hunched and defensive, and when a woman bawled next to him he shied like a nervous horse, but no one took the slightest notice and gradually he got less bristly and more like himself.
The signing seemed to help too, he and Anne were looking soppily at each other all the way back. The Comtesse took us to wait inside St Léger’s while Charlot fetched the carriage, but André and Anne lingered to look at market stalls as if the other two hundred people weren’t there at all.
There’s not much to see in St Léger’s except statues and paintings of him with his head off, so after a while I wandered out myself. Someone was selling trussed-up chickens by the porch, all squawking and flapping and scattering little brown feathers, but beyond them I saw a bunch of people clustered round a handbill on the wall. The murmur of their voices drifted over the clucking chickens, and then someone said the name ‘de Roland’.
I remember moving very slowly towards them. People parted for me politely, but the ones in front kept their noses to the handbill and went on talking like I wasn’t there. A woman said ‘I don’t know, I’ve heard he was innocent,’ a man with a high voice said ‘All the more shameful. No gentleman should take such a thing lying down,’ then a porter said ‘Didn’t, though, did he? Took it on his knees like an Abbeville whore.’
The paper was in front of me. Broad black letters spelt out ‘Dieu aide le premier Chrétien baron!’ which was the old war-cry of the Montmorencies, but I was being hit in the face by the picture. Bouchard was standing with his hair swirling round him and an upraised sword in his hand, but kneeling in the dirt at his feet was André. The picture blurred and bulged in front of me, the Place de Grève, André in his shirt, the faces of the crowd, I watched my own hand reaching out and grasping at it, making a fist to rip the whole thing off the wall.
‘Hey,’ said a man behind me. ‘I haven’t seen that yet.’
I turned away with the bill. A woman protested ‘Put that back!’ but others were muttering and shushing, I heard the name ‘Vallon’ and looked up to see the Comte in front of me, my grandmother on his arm.
He said ‘What is it, boy?’
I hesitated, but he just clicked his tongue and held out his hand for the paper. They bent their heads over it together, then the Comte muttered ‘Dear Christ.’
I said bitterly ‘You still think he should get used to it?’
He looked up so suddenly I had to step back. His eyes burned at me from behind the mask.
‘Never mind that,’ said the Comtesse, her voice clipped with urgency. ‘Where’s the Chevalier? What will he do if he sees it?’
I knew exactly what he’d do, and so did she. He’d fight, he’d have to, I’d got to find him and stop him. I looked frantically round the parvis but people were milling about in front of me, faces blurring, backs in my way, flashes of market stalls, and in the distance angry voice
s. It wasn’t a crowd, it was a mob, and somewhere in the middle of it was the boy.
Anne du Pré
We were only looking at the flowers. André insisted on buying me a basket of pink and blue anemones, and when I pointed out he had flowers as good at Ancre he said only ‘These are here and so are you.’
A voice behind said ‘Lilies would be more appropriate,’ and someone laughed.
André did not hear, he never does when his back is turned, but like a fool I allowed my face to betray me and then of course he looked round.
Three elegant young men lounged against the stall consulting a handbill. They returned André’s look of enquiry with knowing smiles, and one even sniggered.
André’s face changed. ‘You wish to address me?’
‘Not I,’ said the one who had laughed. His moustache was a thin black line that curved upwards as he smiled. ‘We admire the façade, that is all.’
André said ‘You permit?’ and extended his hand for the paper. It was his left hand, and I did not have to look to know where the other would be. His happiness was all gone and in its place was the hardness I remembered from the Parvis Notre-Dame.
‘Of course,’ said the youngest-looking of the men, handing it over with a smile. ‘There are plenty to be had about the town.’
André looked at the bill, and for a moment the parvis seemed to recede into a blur of gaudy colour so that I saw only him, standing alone in utter stillness, his hands clenched tight on the paper, his cheek a sudden painful crimson which faded only slowly to white. Then he looked up.