Liberty

by McWatters, Nikki;

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t write to you more when you were in Brisbane,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d hate me for falling in love with Walter.’

  We walked on for a bit before I answered. ‘I didn’t know for ages until I came home at Easter,’ I told her. ‘Just before the accident. I was confused at first but not angry. I should have come straight around to see you that day after we heard. I’m sorry. You must be so, so sad. I’m so sorry, Laura.’

  The cemetery next to the church had one gaping open hole and a little mountain of dirt beside it. I looked to the far-eastern corner and thought of Mum over there. I could see the flowers that Murray and I had put there a few days earlier.

  ‘I … I … we …’ Laura stammered. ‘We had our whole lives ahead of us. We were going to get married when he got back and … oh Fi,’ she looked up at me, her eyes stricken behind the dark gauze, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  I gasped and stopped, still holding her hand.

  ‘Oh,’ I said because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  The two of us went over to a fallen log just outside the cemetery. We sat there in silence, listening to the carking of crows and the low sombre rumble of conversation from the mourners.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked. ‘I’ll help you as much as I can. And your parents … the whole town will rally behind you.’

  ‘Murray asked me to marry him,’ she said almost inaudibly.

  I took in a sharp breath. ‘What? My brother?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He is such a good man and although I was with Walter, I still care very deeply for Murray and when I told him, when he came to see me the day we got the news, well, he said he wanted to do the honourable thing because a child needs a father and …’

  I let my mind take all that in as I looked across to my brother, who was in his best brown suit, talking with the Leary family. It was a strange thing. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea but at the same time I wasn’t sure it wasn’t. I knew that Murray really loved Laura. He had for as long as I could remember. But to raise not only another man’s child, but Walter Leary’s child, that was something different altogether.

  ‘That’s … um … and you said yes?’

  ‘I did,’ Laura said softly. ‘Murray can apply for a deferment of his service. We’ve talked about it a lot these last few weeks and we’re certain. He won’t have to go away. We want to get married as soon as possible.’

  I felt the relief flood through my veins. That was one positive to the strange arrangement.

  ‘Anyway, I’d best get back,’ Laura said. ‘Murray and I are going to talk to your father tonight. The Learys have been wonderfully supportive.’

  I nodded mutely and watched her walk back to the people congregating around the grieving family. I sighed and felt a breeze blow over my skin, giving me goosebumps. I’d been back only a week and already it felt like my term at uni was a distant dream. Agnes rang me every night crying, begging me to come back. The cows lowed outside my bedroom window every morning. I baked bread and biscuits. I stripped the sheets and did all the laundry. I helped Murray pull dead birds from the guttering. The rain filled the dam. Murray rode out on the plains with Oscar racing beside him to herd the lower paddock of sheep. Life went on in Bandaroo Flats like it always had. Round this part of the Darling Downs nothing much ever changed.

  I stood up and began to walk through the dried grassy aisles between the headstones until I came to Mum’s.

  ‘Hey, Mum,’ I whispered.

  I looked at the headstone, so new compared to those around it.

  Lillian Daisy McKechnie (nee Fergus)

  Beloved wife of Alistair McKechnie.

  Adored mother of Murray and Fiona.

  Real love stories never have endings.

  ‘I miss you so much,’ I said, bending to arrange the flowers and trim the yellowed petals. ‘I know you’d be sad about Walter. I know you thought the best of everyone, even nasty people.’

  A huge rolling bank of clouds was clumped against the horizon and I wondered if we would get another afternoon storm. I looked over to the churchyard. Almost every single resident of Bandaroo Flats and the surrounding district was there. All except one. My father.

  ‘Try to get Dad to forgive him too, Mum,’ I whispered. ‘It’d be good for him.’

  I smiled, remembering all the times that Murray and I had gone to Mum to get her to intercede on our behalf with Dad. She always knew how to talk him around. It had been Mum’s intervention and persuasiveness that had made my father soften and let me attend high school. She’d been so good at that.

  ‘And maybe talk him into letting me go back to uni,’ I said.

  I wondered how Dad would react to the news that Murray had asked Laura Bell to marry him.

  ‘Thank you for the sister book, Mum,’ I said, kneeling down, talking to the headstone as if she were sitting there, smiling back at me. ‘It’s amazing. I didn’t mention it in front of Murray the other day because it’s our special book, isn’t it? I can’t get over the names. The places. The history. We are part of something special, aren’t we? A real bloodline of the sisterhood. And I’ve also been reading your stories. The ones in the suitcase. You could have been a writer, Mum. They are so good. They say I’m a good writer at uni. I guess I got that from you. And so much more.’

  I wondered what Mum might say back to me about the book, her stories, about Walter, about Dad, about Murray and Laura. I imagined she might have asked me what I missed most about university. I imagined I might have answered that I missed the intellectual stimulation, the social scene, the Foco Club, Agnes, Luke’s meatloaf and potato chips, Brisbane’s sultry heat, and even Barton and his megaphone. Yes, I missed Barton’s fire and passion. It made me feel alive and part of something important. But what I think I missed most was the climate at uni that allowed me to think for myself, to use my own voice and to make sense of my place in the world.

  ‘I love you, Mum,’ I said and stood up. ‘I’ll come by again soon.’

  I walked back to the others as they began to stream into the cemetery. I linked arms with my brother and pressed my cheek into his strong shoulder.

  ‘I love you, Murray,’ I whispered. ‘You’re a good bloke.’

  And we went and buried Walter Leary and I laid to rest a great heaviness in my heart, feeling so much lighter and freer for it.

  When I got home, Dad was sitting on the front porch. An orange and white dusty Kombi van was parked behind the Holden. I walked up the long driveway, more than a little surprised to see Barton and Agnes sitting beside Dad, drinking ginger ale. They all waved like it was the most natural thing in the world. I pulled off my hat and laughed and, whooping with joy, broke into a run. I whispered, ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  I gasped. It was as if the presence of the King had altered the air in the room. I knelt into a deep curtsey to match Giselle’s.

  ‘Mademoiselle Jeanne,’ the King said to me, his voice like treacle. ‘Rise. Let me look at you.’

  I rose and stood there in my hose with slippers on my feet, wearing Mama’s fancy lace dress. I felt like a child who has been caught dressing up in her mother’s clothes but no one in the room seemed to notice. The King’s man stood with his back straight, his eyes trained on a spot high on the ceiling; he was as still as a statue. Giselle stood with her head down, her gaze on the floor, and the ladies’ maid, Liesel, gaped like a fish. Behind Liesel, I could see the rest of the household pressing up in the hallway toward the doorway.

  Jean Lagoy pushed his way in, coming up behind the King, his head reaching higher than the monarch’s wig.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Your Majesty,’ he said breathlessly. ‘I was out in the stables when you arrived and I hurried straight upstairs. We can retire to speak in the parlour.’

  ‘I have not come to speak to you, Lieutenant, though we will discuss the unsuccessfu
l bid by Charles and his Burgundians to take Beauvais. It has been a deep wound to his pride and he marches on with a little of the wind taken out of his sails. Beauvais did very well.’

  ‘My men fought tirelessly and—’

  ‘You did well Lieutenant, but I have not come to speak to you. So, please. Leave us,’ the King commanded.

  ‘Leave you? Leave you where?’ Lagoy stammered and looked to me, a glimmer of surprise registering on his face when he saw me clad in wedding attire.

  ‘Leave me here to speak with Jeanne,’ King Louis said, dismissing Lagoy with a raised curl of his hand.

  ‘My betrothed is just being fitted for her vestments for our marriage, perhaps she can meet us downstairs in—’

  ‘Au revoir, Lieutenant,’ the King said with a tap of his walking cane, which I had not noticed until that moment.

  His manservant sprang to life and with a guiding hand led Giselle and Jean Lagoy from the room but not before the Lieutenant shot me a look of daggers. I wondered what he meant by it. He looked angry but I could not see why it was any fault of mine that the King of France had appeared, rather surprisingly, in my new bedchamber and was standing before me with a warm smile. The door closed and the King gave a long, loud sigh of relief, pulling off his wig and cap and throwing them on the dresser beside him.

  ‘Too hot for such formalities.’ He laughed and went to sit in the brocade armchair by the window, leaning his cane against the wall. He motioned for me to sit in the matching chair inclined toward him. ‘Please sit, my dear.’

  I walked across the room and sat, although my legs could barely function. I had never seen the King so close except for the unflattering side-on silhouette portraits that were hung in the manor house and the featureless statue at the city gates. Looking at him front on, the King was much more handsome and normal. He was swarthy with severe eyebrows dividing his forehead from the rest of his face, but his deep-set eyes were gentle and held a hint of mischief.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ I mumbled, tripping over the words. ‘I think you mistake me for someone else. I am simply Jeanne Laisné, daughter of the widower Matthew Laisné and I—’

  ‘Single-handedly drove away the Burgundian army led by my nemesis, Charles the Bold, a most ruthless and vile adversary. Yes. That Jeanne Laisné. Charles the Bold. Charles the Bold. Hate him. Always have. Since we were children. He tortured cats.’

  ‘I did not know that,’ I whispered, folding my hands in my lap and staring down at them.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Almost seventeen, Your Majesty.’

  ‘The tales of your bravery, first in taking up arms with your army of recruited women and then boldly sabotaging the gunpowder stocks, have spread far and wide,’ the King smiled, leaning back in his chair, his belly rising up as he did. ‘I am indebted to you. A girl. And so young. You are something of a David to the Bold’s Goliath, oui?’

  I laughed with embarrassment and covered my mouth as it was not seemly to be laughing in front of the King. It was all I could do to resist looking him in the eye.

  ‘I saw you once,’ I said timidly. ‘When I was about ten years old. You had just been crowned and you came through Beauvais on a great golden chariot with white horses. I imagined you had flown down from Heaven. I thought you were an angel.’

  The King roared with laughter.

  ‘Many a king has thought himself as much and more,’ he chortled. ‘But I assure you, Jeanne. I am nothing more than God’s servant and a brutish man of flesh and blood who feels fear and anger and can be moved by a sunset like every other person on this earth.’

  My eyes met his and I could not bring myself to look away. This ageing man with tufts of hair about his protruding ears and a mean slit of a mouth had the kindest eyes that I had ever seen, other than my papa’s. Again I thought he might perhaps be an angel in disguise.

  ‘They call you Hachette.’ He laughed. ‘Jeanne Hachette. Tell me how you came to wield a weapon so well.’

  I gave a small smile, stood and went to the chests carrying my belongings, opened one and lifted out the one small hatchet I had managed to save after my foray into the woods, the subsequent wrath of my husband-to-be and my luxurious imprisonment. I went back and knelt before the King, offering the little hatchet into his hands to inspect.

  ‘My father crafted it,’ I said. ‘He made two for me when I was very little, as my mother had been murdered by marauders many years earlier and he taught me to protect myself.’

  ‘Very wise.’ He nodded, turning the handle over in his big hands, letting a finger test the blade.

  ‘I have practised my aim and delivery for many years,’ I told him, warming to the conversation, feeling the knots of shock and amazement unravel from me. ‘Never did I think a day would come when this little axe might become a symbol of resistance and victory. It saved my life. The other … well … it took one.’

  The King nodded and patted the top of my head.

  ‘You saved your city, Jeanne,’ he said softly. ‘Your courage was the flame that fired them into action. Your actions, rising up and defying conventions, defying your superiors, sometimes these things are more important than being obedient, oui?’

  I shut my eyes. I had never heard someone tell me that it was a good thing to be disobedient, to do what you felt was right in your heart, turning away from what was prescribed to be the correct course of action.

  ‘You are to be married?’ he said softly. ‘It is a good marriage for you, I hear. Lagoy is a lieutenant with great prospects.’

  I looked up at him and into his face and my eyes brimmed with tears.

  ‘Non?’ he frowned, and all I could do was shake my head very gently from side to side, dropping my eyes, not wanting him to see my sadness and terror.

  ‘Ah, Jeanne,’ the King smiled, putting a hand under my chin, lifting my face to his. ‘You are not happy? You do not love the Lieutenant?’

  I shook my head, feeling raw and vulnerable to be sharing such intimate truths with the regent of all of France.

  ‘Let me tell you a story, Jeanne,’ he said. ‘Take a seat, wipe your eyes and listen.’

  I did as I was asked, blinking rapidly to dispel the tears and I sat, adjusting my mother’s lace dress around my knees nervously, wondering how it came to be that King Louis XI was sitting with me, about to tell me a story. No one but my father had ever told me a story.

  ‘When I was thirteen, my father forced me to marry,’ he said.

  I looked up at him quickly. ‘Thirteen?’

  ‘Yes.’ He laughed. ‘My bride was nine years old. It is a strange thing when you are royal. They would have you exchanging rings in the womb if they could. It’s all about geography and gold, my dear. Love never ever enters the equation.’

  ‘Nine,’ I whispered, still reeling from the information.

  ‘Of course, it was just a marriage of political convenience,’ he explained. ‘Not a real marriage. I barely, if ever, saw the girl. She was ensconced at court like a porcelain doll and treated as one, while I went on and lived my life, fighting, playing, travelling. She died some years later and I could feel no grief because she was little more than a stranger. I had a true love, a Spanish girl name Patricia, but she was a commoner and …’

  He looked sad. I gave him a small smile to ease his pain and let him know how very much I understood his words. Louis then looked up at me sharply, the sadness suddenly clearing like the evaporation of storm clouds from the sky, spontaneously and surprisingly, and the sun came out, spreading over his ruddy cheeks.

  ‘Tell me, if you will, Jeanne Hachette,’ he said, leaning forward, his eyes glinting from unspilled tears. ‘If I am out of place to ask tell me so, but are you reluctant to wed the Lieutenant because your heart sings elsewhere?’

  I took a sharp intake of breath, unnerved. It was almost like the King could see right through me as if I
was made of gauze. My mouth went dry and it took three attempts for the words to come.

  ‘Um, yes … yes, Your Majesty.’

  He clapped his hands. He made me laugh. He was so very theatrical and dramatic as he spoke.

  ‘Jeanne, my dear,’ he said. ‘I came here today to ride through the town to congratulate Beauvais on her marvellous courage and fortitude but as soon as I cleared the city gates, all I heard was Jeanne Hachette, Jeanne Hachette. The heroine. Jeanne d’Arc come back to earth. And I thought then that I must seek out this girl and reward her handsomely.’

  ‘It is not necessary, my liege,’ I whispered, feeling once again overwhelmed by his enthusiasm.

  ‘All my life,’ he said, walking around the room, touching ornaments, running his hands over the furniture, stopping to look out the window as he spoke. ‘All my life, I have been inspired and humbled by the courage and strength of my subjects, people like you, Jeanne: peasants, farmers, the salt and bone of our great France. My life is so much pomp and ceremony and yet even I cannot, and never could, marry for love. What a world! We sing songs and odes to love but it is out of reach for most, oui? Even for me. I chose my second wife for political reasons and almost lost the throne for it. And she turned out to be … well … let’s just say I did not marry for love!’

  I nodded.

  ‘But I have the power to choose and permit or deny marriages other than my own,’ he said kindly. ‘It is just one of my many pointless privileges and yet …’ He stood still for a moment before turning around to face me with a smile. ‘And yet, perhaps, by way of thanks, I could grant you the gift of happiness.’

  I put a hand over my mouth and the tears came, feeling hot against my cheeks.

  ‘Who has stolen your heart, Jeanne Hachette?’ he asked.

  ‘Colin … Colin Pilon, Your Majesty. A simple chicken farmer. He’s in the stocks in the dungeon of the Cathedral.’