Falcon 1 - The Lure of the Falcon

by The Lure of the Falcon (v1. 0) (lit)

  'Well, not so I! You didn't tell me we should have to burn our bridges quite so fast. Only this morning, remember, you were talking of going with the St Nicolas when she sailed!'

  'I didn't know this morning that you had the same idea as I did. I was right to be cautious. Quite right, as it turns out – if you're scared!'

  Gilles leapt to his feet, rocking the table. His eyes were flashing and his face was hard as stone.

  'Never say a thing like that again!' he said. 'By my soul, I'll not stand that from anyone! I am not scared and well you know it. Only I don't want to break my mother's heart unless I'm sure she will leave me no choice. All I ask is a few days to be sure. If you had told me you were thinking of leaving at once, I would have told you.'

  Jean-Pierre, who had risen also, let the flush fade from his face. He even tried to smile.

  'You are right! I'm sorry. The trouble is, we don't know each other well enough yet. Very well. We'll wait for a few days.'

  The Nantais, who had been following the exchange with more interest than he allowed himself to show, now clicked his tongue irritably.

  'Wait! Wait! How you do go on! The ship puts to sea very soon. As for the next vessel, I don't know when that will be. I'm willing to give you a few days, boy, but it will be better, if your friend is ready, if he goes at once. After all, he can as well await you at Nantes and can even make sure that a berth is kept for you. Besides, I did not know there would be two of you.'

  Gilles and Jean-Pierre looked at one another, obviously undecided. In the latter's eyes there was so much impatience, such evident haste, that Gilles guessed what a sacrifice waiting would mean. He smiled in his turn.

  'He's right. You go first. I'll be joining you, in any case, and it's no good two of us wasting time.'

  'Really? You don't mind?'

  'Not at all. Things are not quite the same for both of us. Go and don't worry.'

  'Thank you. In that case, sir, tell me what I have to do,' Jean-Pierre added, turning to the Nantais. But the man shook his head.

  'I am going to tell you. Only, with things as they are, your friend must leave us, for you never know when one may say something indiscreet! There's no offence in this, my boy, only simple prudence. When you've made up your mind, then come back here and find me and I will tell you what you must do then. Agreed?'

  'Agreed! I'm going. Good night, Jean-Pierre. I'll see you tomorrow. And God be with you.'

  'God be with you, Gilles Goëlo. Until tomorrow.'

  Leaving his companion still seated at the table with the Nantais, Gilles left the Hermine Rouge without a backward glance and with a curious sense of relief. After the heavy aroma of spirits, the cold outside seemed delightful. He took two or three almost voluptuous breaths of the sea air, with its lingering odours of seaweed and fish. But it was far from warm and he set off at a run along the harbour in the direction of the Rue St Gwenael.

  He had almost reached the archway of the Porte St Vincent when he heard someone running after him. At the same time a girl's voice, gasping and breathless, called out:

  'Stop! Please stop! You are running too fast for me!'

  He stopped and, turning, saw a red skirt and the white headdress of the women of Vannes caught in the yellow beam from a lighted window. To his surprise he recognized the young serving girl the Nantais had addressed as Manon. A black shawl was clutched round her shoulders and she was running lightly on the uneven cobblestones.

  'Was it me you wanted?' he asked, as she came up to him.

  'Yes! I must speak to you – only I have not much time. I said – that I was going down to the cellar – to get oil for the lamps! Hurry! Come in here.'

  He felt a cold, firm little hand in his, drawing him with surprising strength into the darkness of the archway, while above them St Vincent Ferrier, in bishop's robes, endlessly blessed the harbour.

  'What is it you must say to me so urgently?' Gilles asked, intrigued.

  Manon breathed in two or three times to get her breath back. She was so close to him that Gilles could feel the hurried beating of her heart beneath her shawl, while even after running in the fresh air she still carried with her, lingering in her clothes, the smell of the tavern, a mixture of alcohol and tobacco. She had not released his hand. On the contrary, he could feel that her grip had tightened.

  'Do not go with the Nantais!' she whispered hurriedly. 'I heard what he was saying to you. He is a bad man, a brigand – and he does not work for any great shipowner in Nantes.'

  'For whom, then?'

  'I am not quite sure. I think it is for a Spanish smuggler who, they say, sometimes drops anchor in the bay. We hear things at the Hermine Rouge. But they are always better forgotten.'

  'But surely the Nantais—'

  'Is a devil of a man! Listen! He came to this town once before, two years ago, and three young lads disappeared. They were said to have taken ship at L'Orient and sailed to the West Indies – but a seaman from Auray who had been captive in Algiers and ransomed by the Fathers of Mercy told me, in his cups, that he had seen one of them there – a slave to a rich blackamoor. Instead of sailing from L'Orient, he had been taken aboard the Spaniard's ship one night and the Spaniard had sold him to the Barbary pirates. The same fate awaits you, if you go! Don't go, I beg of you—'

  The girl's words chimed too closely with his own instinctive distrust of the Nantais for Gilles to feel a moment's doubt. Besides which, there was an eagerness and sincerity in her voice which carried conviction. Yet there was something he did not understand and he could not help asking her: 'How long has the Nantais been here?'

  'Two or three months – perhaps more. I don't know exactly.'

  'Have other boys come to him in that time?'

  'Yes – three or four, I think.'

  'And – did you warn them?'

  He heard her breath come a little faster and felt her hesitate. But not for long.

  'No,' she said. 'It was too dangerous. If the Nantais knew – or even my master, Yann Maodan, I might disappear also.'

  'Then why are you taking that risk now? Why for me?'

  'Because—'

  She left the phrase unfinished and pressed herself suddenly against Gilles. Her arms went round his neck and he felt her warm lips against his. It was done quickly and lightly, but with passion. For an instant, Manon's body lay close to Gilles' from knee to lips, then she jerked away as if he had burned her and her voice was murmuring breathlessly: 'Don't ask me why. I don't know myself, except that I like you as I have never liked a boy before. When I saw you with the Nantais just now, it was like seeing a seagull caught by birdlime. And I felt that if I let him make a slave of you I should never sleep again. Now, I have told you everything and I must go back. Take heed of my warning – but be sure and let no one ever know I gave it you, unless you want my death on your conscience.'

  She turned to go but Gilles detained her, almost instinctively. It might have been because of the strange feelings aroused in him by that brief contact of their bodies, feelings that recalled what he had experienced the first time he saw Judith.

  'You have saved more than my life. Tell me how I may thank you—'

  He heard her laugh and saw her teeth gleam in the darkness.

  'By cutting the rope the day they come to hang me.'

  'Why should they want to hang you, Manon?'

  'I belong to Yann Maodan and one of these days the law will take him. When that day comes, I shall have to follow him to the end.'

  'Are you his mistress?'

  'Yes. And he is fond of me. But it is to you that I would give what he takes every night. Listen – there is a single-storey cottage hard by the Porte du Boureau, on the right. My sister lives there. She is crippled and spins flax for a living. I often go to see her there on Sunday nights, after dark, to save her reputation. Come to me there one evening, if you want me. I think, after all, that might be the best way of thanking me! Just knock five times, that's all.'

  She ran off, leaving Gilles f
eeling a little sorry, as well as deeply grateful. The thought of what had lain in store for Jean-Pierre and himself if the girl had not taken this sudden strange fancy to him, made his flesh creep. He thanked God and Manon that it was not too late to avert the danger, but he still had to warn Jean-Pierre and stop him going to his perilous meeting with the Nantais the next day.

  He walked back towards the Hermine Rouge in the hope of meeting his friend, but stopped short of the tavern so as not to alarm Manon. He huddled in the angle of a doorway, both for warmth and to keep out of sight, and waited for Jean-Pierre to come out and pass by on his way home.

  He waited like that for more than an hour and when, his patience wearing thin, he made up his mind to go and peer through the tavern's grimy window, he saw that the Nantais' table was empty. The man had gone and Jean-Pierre also… Perhaps, after all, he had gone home by another way, avoiding the Porte St Vincent, during the time that he had been talking to Manon.

  It was getting late and thinking that his friend would be at school the next day and he would have plenty of time to warn him then, Gilles decided to go home. He flung himself on his bed without even troubling to undress and slept uneasily until cockcrow.

  He was at St Yves among the earliest, but he looked in vain for Jean-Pierre. The boy did not put in an appearance and to Gilles, devoured with anxiety, no day had ever seemed so long. When evening came at last and the college released its pupils, he ran straight to Master Shipwright Quérelle's house in the Rue des Vierges.

  Since he and Quérelle's son had not been friends, Gilles had never been there before but he was ready to dare anything to save the rash boy from the fate in store for him. Unfortunately, although he knocked again and again on the closed door, no one came to answer. Only a neighbour, drawn by the noise, came to her door and told him that Master Quérelle and his family had gone away to Loudéac the previous morning to attend a cousin's wedding.

  'But Jean-Pierre has not gone!' Gilles protested. 'I saw him last night!'

  The woman was evidently not the sort who liked to hear her word doubted. She stepped back inside and closed the door on him, crying: 'Go away, then! I've told you what I know!'

  Gilles did not persist. In any case, he knew well enough. This explained Jean-Pierre's haste to be gone from Vannes. He was taking advantage of his parents' absence. It could not have been difficult for him to get permission to stay at home because, by what they said, Master Quérelle took his son's studies seriously and would probably not hear of his missing his lessons for so frivolous a cause as a cousin's wedding. But where could Jean-Pierre be now?

  With a heavy heart and a dreadful sense of loneliness and impotence, Gilles allowed his legs to follow where his thoughts led until he came to the harbour. Jean-Pierre was to embark on the evening tide and the tide would be full at ten o'clock. And he would be sure to meet the Nantais at the Hermine Rouge as before.

  By the time he reached the tavern, Gilles was ready for anything. He would snatch his friend away from this dreadful place before he could go aboard, whatever might follow. Such was his fear for Jean-Pierre that he gave no thought to his own danger.

  On the threshold he paused briefly to cross himself and then pushed open the door.

  The scene was so exactly as it had been the night before that Gilles felt as if he had stepped back in time. There were the same backs, the same smoke, the same faces. Yann Maodan leaned on the counter in exactly the same attitude and the two serving girls were flitting among the tables precisely as before. Yes, everything was the same – except for one thing: the table where the Nantais had sat was empty.

  Gilles' heart beat a little faster but he set his teeth, squared his shoulders and advanced with a firm step to the counter, Yann Maodan watching him with a frown.

  'What do you want, boy?' he asked roughly. 'You're a mite young for rum or wenches.'

  This was not encouraging. Yann Maodan had too good a memory to forget a customer from the night before, but Gilles did not give up.

  'I want to see the Nantais,' he said coolly.

  The landlord wiped his nose on an arm as hairy as a bear's, cleared his throat, spat and uttered a short laugh before he condescended to reply.

  'That's a pity, because he ain't here.'

  'But he told me yesterday I could find him here if I wanted him.'

  'That's as maybe. All I know is he ain't here now, nor he won't be here tonight. What do you want of him?'

  Gilles ignored the question. He clenched his fists and the eyes that met Yann's hardened a little.

  'That is between him and me,' he said. 'Can you tell me where to find him?'

  'No!'

  The word was almost a roar and Gilles was suddenly aware that silence had fallen and everyone was looking at him. He was aware, too, of Manon, standing stiff with terror at the other end of the counter, her two hands gripping her tray. But his own gaze, icy cold now, never left Yann's which flickered suddenly, like an animal mesmerized. The ex-galley slave had never seen such eyes, especially in one so young. They were like two steel blades driving into his head, stern and implacable, hawklike and unblinking. He wanted to be free of their power and his uneasiness expressed itself in anger.

  'What are you waiting for? I tell you he ain't coming. As to where he is, I don't know. Gone to the devil, I shouldn't wonder! He's left the town, that I do know. Be off with you now, and don't let me see you in here again. I don't want no trouble with the law when someone starts tellin' 'em I'm serving babes of your age.'

  'You are grown very scrupulous since yesterday,' Gilles observed.

  But then his eye fell on Manon's horrified face. The girl was on the verge of fainting and he took pity on her, shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

  'Very well. I'm going.'

  He went out, full of bitterness, not even hearing Yann Maodan's harsh voice calling: 'What are you up to, Manon? What have you forgotten now? Get on and serve the customers.'

  That night, Gilles did not go back to the Rue St Gwenael. Driven by helpless anger and fear, he roamed unceasingly from end to end of the harbour, from one end of the Rabine to the far side of Calmon-Bas, watching for the slightest movement in the boats and always hoping against hope to catch a glimpse of Jean-Pierre's stocky figure. He even went down river as far as the Pointe de Langle, studying the gleaming black waters for a sign of a ship about to sail. But with the high tide had come a sharp, cutting wind, laden with snow, that whined about the tossing heads of the pine trees and no one left the harbour of Vannes that night. Gilles felt neither cold nor wind, nor tiredness. He wanted to cry out, to call to the boy who had been an unregarded part of his life for years and who had suddenly become like a brother to him, a boy he would never see again and was powerless to save.

  When the dawn broke, grey over a grey sea and the mud flats left by the receding tide and the trees on the small island of Conleau loomed vaguely through the mist, Gilles rose at last from the rock where he had come to rest at the end of his solitary vigil and, forcing his numbed legs to walk, turned his steps slowly back towards the town. His head was aching and his heart empty of hope.

  The bell on the island ringing the Angelus brought him to himself. He remembered suddenly that it was Sunday and this was the day when Manon went to the little house by the Porte du Boureau to see her sister, the little house where she had asked him to meet her. With that, he began to run.

  By the time he reached the Rue St Gwenael, it was the time for early mass, attended by servant girls and pious old maids who, indeed, would go on to hear high mass later. Black figures were hurrying cautiously over the thin covering of crisp snow that felted the cobbles and outlined gable ends. Gilles lurked in the shadows of the old hallway until he had seen his landlady and her maid pass by, so as not to be recognized.

  Then, sure of meeting no one else, he went up to his icy room to rest and wait impatiently for evening.

  Fortunately, night fell early in winter. In that overcast weather it was even earlier than usual
and it was full dark by the time Gilles, wrapped in an old cloak of his godfather's, made his way to the flax spinner's house.

  It was not far. He had only to go round the cathedral and take the narrow alley that went under the Porte du Boureau and came out on the far side of the ramparts. The street was empty and utterly silent and but for the snow he would have needed cat's eyes to see his way. However Gilles soon spotted the cottage, like a malignant abscess swelling from the great wall behind, with its front walls bulging and its roof all askew like a drunkard's hat. The yellow light filtering from its two closed shutters looked like peering eyes. But Gilles was determined to discover more about the inhabitants of the Hermine Rouge and so he stepped up to the narrow doorway with its judas window and knocked as Manon had taught him.

  The window in the door opened almost at once. The light of a candle behind the bars fell on a pale face with anxious eyes which brightened instantly.

  'Is it you?' Manon whispered. 'I did not hope for you so soon—Wait a moment and I'll open the door.'

  There was the dull sound of a bar being withdrawn and then of a well-oiled bolt and the door swung open soundlessly.

  Just as in the shadow of the Porte St Vincent, the girl's rough little hand seized his and drew him inside.

  'Come in quickly and don't make a sound. My sister is asleep in there,' she said, jerking her head towards a closed door at the far end of the passage. The whitewashed walls were dazzlingly bright.

  'Perhaps I'm too late and you were just going out?' Gilles stammered, seeing that Manon wore a big, brown, hooded cloak round her shoulders. But she shrugged carelessly and laughed.

  'Too late, no! Only I had not expected you to come tonight and I was just going back to the Hermine because I was bored. But you are very welcome!'

  She led him to where an open doorway threw a bright rectangle of light on the tiled floor. And suddenly Gilles found himself in a world far removed from what he had expected of a humble tavern wench. The room before him was small and low beneath its huge dark beams, but it was charming and almost elegant. A Persian rug covered the flagged floor. Long curtains of Indian muslin hung above the bed with its pink silk counterpane. The white walls were adorned with flower engravings and there were some pretty pieces of furniture, painted grey, while next to the hearth, where a good fire blazed, stood a work table with an unfinished piece of lace upon it.