by John Jakes
They said nothing. With outright loftiness, he informed them, “The regiment which guards the king himself!”
Flash went the blade, deep into the cheese. Marie wielded the knife almost as if she were striking an old enemy.
“You see, Girard? They got along famously because my son was born to that sort of life. Blood tells! In the end, a man finds his rightful place.”
Sampling a morsel of the cheese, Girard glanced at Phillipe. The latter was too excited by memories of the splendid chateau, the incredible gilt-decorated rooms, the kindly aunts, to notice the dismay in the eyes of the lank scholar.
v
Long after the fire had gone out and they’d locked the inn for the night, Phillipe lay shivering, trying to sleep. He was kept from it by recurring memories of Auguste’s blood staining the snow bright red.
Again and again, he recalled Gil’s reassurances. Gradually, the worry about discovery—punishment— diminished. But he was still disturbed by one aspect of the personality of his new friend the Marquis de Lafayette: the casual way Gil took a life—and hid the deed.
Did the nobility consider another human life worthless when their own lives were threatened? Did they dispose of their victims secure in the knowledge that their position would shield them from reprisals? Did his father, James Amberly, behave the same way? If so, Phillipe could well understand Girard’s approval of rebellion against such high-handed actions.
Troubled, he drifted into chilly drowsiness. His mind turned to the things he might learn from Gil before the young marquis returned to Paris. On balance, perhaps the day had been more good than bad.
I must forget the dead boy the way Gil forgot him, he thought, close to sleep. I must remember what is the greatest crime of all. That is the only crime I must never commit.
vi
In the days that followed, Phillipe—with his mother’s blessing and encouragement—became almost a daily visitor at Chateau Chavaniac.
Gil’s aunts and his feeble, elderly grandmother treated him with polite kindness. And there were so many exciting things to do, and see, and learn, that Phillipe never noticed how the aunts now and again glanced at one another; how they smiled in wordless amusement when Phillipe upset a wine glass or tramped across a luxurious carpet in snow-covered boots.
Gil proudly showed off his military uniform. It was scarlet and gold, with a blue mantle that bore a cross encircled by a ring of fire, the devices sewn in silver thread.
In the stable yard, where the snowbanks glared white in the winter sunlight, Gil demonstrated the rudiments of self-defense with a sword. Of course they didn’t use real swords, only stout sticks. But Gil didn’t seem to mind demonstrating thrusts and parries with the beginner’s implements from which he’d graduated long ago.
Then, two days before the holiday commemorating the birth of Christ, Gil took Phillipe down to the frozen lagoon near the chateau. From oiled cloth, he unwrapped his most prized possession.
“My military tutor bought it in Paris, for my birthday,” he explained. “They’re damned hard to come by, you know.”
He thrust the shimmering walnut-stocked musket into Phillipe’s hands.
“It’s the finest military weapon in the world. Brown Bess. See, even the barrel’s brown. They treat the metal with a secret preservative.”
The incredible gun was more than five feet long. Phillipe held it gingerly, awed, as Gil produced a cartridge box from his pocket and initiated his friend into the step-by-step ritual that preceded a shot.
“Most of King George’s redcoats can load and fire in fifteen seconds,” he commented. “That’s why, militarily, the French hate Georgie and his muskets.”
In less than an hour of teaching, Phillipe learned how to pour powder into the muzzle, drop in the ball and ramrod the crumpled paper which held the powder.
Next—lift the firing-pan frizzen. Bat the barrel with the heel of a hand, to send a little powder through the touchhole—
With the Brown Bess at his shoulder for the first shot, he nearly blundered. Gil cried out, “Don’t keep your eyes open! In a bad wind you could go blind from a flareback from the touchhole. Just hold it tight, aim in the general direction you want to fire, shut your eyes and pull the trigger.”
Phillipe followed instructions. The thunderous impact knocked him flat. A pine branch across the lagoon cracked and fell.
“Not bad at all,” Gil nodded, smiling.
Phillipe stood up, dusting off snow and shaking his head. “Gil, I don’t understand how a soldier can win a battle with his eyes closed.”
“When a thousand British infantrymen close their eyes and fire together, they can destroy anything standing in front of them. If we had such muskets, we could rule the world. Lacking them, we’ve nearly lost it. Try another shot.” He smiled across the sun-gleaming brown barrel. “You hold her as though born to it. Must be the blood of that soldier father of yours.”
Phillipe smiled back, friendship and his secret both serving to warm the bitter day.
vii
But as quickly as it had begun, the friendship ended with Gil’s return to Paris.
The return was signalled on the eve of the New Year, 1771, by the clop-clop of a horse climbing to the inn door. Marie peeked out, clasped her hands excitedly.
“God save us, Phillipe, it’s your friend the marquis! And this place isn’t even swept properly—Girard!”
Her cry brought the gangling man from the back of the inn, just as Gil entered, afternoon sunlight making his red hair shine beneath the tricorn hat.
Flustered, Marie curtseyed. Girard sighed and began to swish the broom over the floor. Phillipe rushed forward to welcome his friend.
“I expected to see you later this afternoon at the chateau!”
“But my grandfather wants me back in Paris two days hence. The coach is departing in an hour. Here, I’ve brought you a gift. I’ve been saving it for the last day we spent together.”
“My lord,” said Marie, “may I offer you a little wine?” Phillipe winced. Her expression was almost fawning.
Gil waved the offer aside courteously. “Thank you, no. I must ride back almost immediately. There’s only time enough to present this to Phillipe.”
He held out a long, slender package wrapped in oiled cloth.
“In token of our friendship. Perhaps you’ll find it more enjoyable to practice with than a stick.”
Touched, Phillipe laid the parcel on one of the scarred tables, carefully undid the wrapping. A bar of winter light falling between the shutters lit the slightly curved steel of the blade, the warm brass of the cast hilt.
“Dear Lord, what a beautiful sword!” Marie breathed.
Phillipe could only agree. The hilt had a bird’s-head pommel and a single knuckle-bow and quillon. The grip was ribbed. Picking up the amazing gift, Phillipe discovered a second, separately wrapped parcel beneath it. Even Girard expressed admiration for its contents: a scabbard of rich leather, tipped and throated in brass.
“There’s a staple and strap for carrying it,” Gil pointed out, obviously enjoying his role of benefactor. “Now you have a briquet like any good French grenadier.”
“I don’t deserve such a splendid present, Gil.”
“But you do! I think you have the natural abilities of a fighting man, should you choose to develop them.”
“But—I have nothing to give you in return.”
The hazel eyes seemed to brighten a moment. Gil’s reply, though seemingly casual, communicated clearly.
“You have given me a great deal, Phillipe. Companionship during what would otherwise have been a typically dull visit with my dear aunts and grandmother. And the pleasure of teaching some fundamentals to an apt pupil. Now I must go back to being the pupil.”
“I hope to have the honor to meet you in Paris one day,” Phillipe said.
“If not Paris, then somewhere, I have a feeling. A battlefield? Well, who can say? But comrades in arms always keep encountering one another. Tha
t’s a truth old soldiers know with certainty.”
With a last, piercing look—the renewed swearing of secrecy—he stepped forward and seized Phillipe in an embrace. It was affectionate, yet correct. It left the older boy with tears in his eyes.
“God grant His favor to you all,” Gil said, waving as he departed. Outside, he mounted Sirocco and hammered away north through the snowdrifts toward Chavaniac.
“He embraced you like an equal!” Girard exclaimed.
“I told you my son’s breeding was recognizable to any man with wits,” Marie countered.
“But—comrades in arms? That’s a peculiar term for a friendship between boys.”
Phillipe closed his fingers around the ribbed hilt-grip of the shining sword. “It’s because I helped him find the sorrel in that snowstorm. It’s just his way of speaking. Everything in military terms.”
“Um,” was Girard’s reply. Phillipe turned away from the blue eyes that had grown just a shade curious—and skeptical.
“Shut the door, it’s freezing in here!” he said loudly.
To his astonishment, Girard did.
viii
The year 1771 brought more of the buffetings of fortune—and this time, the winds were bitter ones.
As touches of green began to peep between the basalt slabs of the hillsides of Auvergne, a courier on horseback galloped to the inn. Refreshing himself with food and wine, he informed Marie Charboneau haughtily that he had been hired to ride all the way from Paris to this godforsaken province to deliver this—
He proffered a rolled pouch, ribboned and sealed with maroon wax. Into the wax, a sigil had been impressed.
Marie retired to the kitchen to open the pouch. Though he hadn’t been told, Phillipe suspected the sigil belonged to his father. He guessed it from the way she touched the wax with faintly trembling fingers, then from the courier’s remark about the pouch having been forwarded across the Channel.
Phillipe was busy hustling up more wine for the irritable messenger when Marie screamed his name, piercingly.
He found her white-faced beside the kitchen hearth. She pressed a letter into his hand. Written in French, he noted. But not in Amberly’s masculine hand.
“It’s from your father’s wife,” Marie whispered. “He’s fallen ill. They fear for his life.”
Phillipe read the brief letter, whose cold tone suggested that it had been penned by James Amberly’s wife on demand of her husband. Phillipe’s dark eyes grew somber by the time he’d finished.
“She says the old wound from Minden has poisoned his system.”
“And he wants to see you. In case he di—”
But Marie could not speak the word. She rubbed fiercely at one eye, fighting tears.
All at once Phillipe noticed something else. A packet of notes lying on the trestle table. Franc notes. More than he’d ever seen in his life.
Suddenly Marie Charboneau was all composure, decision:
“That money is ample for our passage to Paris, then by ship to England. We’ll leave immediately. Surely Girard will keep the inn for us—”
She rushed to her son, wrapped her arms around him, pulled him close.
“Oh, Phillipe, didn’t I promise? I’ve lived for this moment!”
Then he felt the terrible tremors of the sobbing she could no longer control.
“But I don’t want him to die. I don’t want him to die!”
CHAPTER IV
Kentland
i
THE COASTING VESSEL, A lugger out of Calais, slid into the harbor of Dover in bright April sunshine.
Phillipe gripped the rail, staring in awe at the white chalk cliffs rising behind the piers and the clutter of small Channel vessels anchored nearby. Gulls wheeled overhead, crying stridently. The air carried the salt tang of open water.
Phillipe had seen so many new sights and wonders in the past fortnight, he could hardly remember them all. Especially now. He felt a tinge of dread because he was entering his father’s country both as a stranger and as a traditional enemy: a Frenchman.
Beyond that, Marie had not weathered the journey well. During the one night they had spent in the splendid, teeming city of Paris, she had been confined to her bed at a shabby inn on a side street. Phillipe had wanted to roam the great metropolis, see as much as possible before the coach departed for the seacoast. Instead, he’d sat the whole night on a stool beside the bed where Marie lay wracked with cramps and a fever.
Perhaps the cause was the strain of the trip. Or—the thought struck him for the first time that night in Paris—perhaps the hard years in Auvergne had drained away her health and vitality.
He saw further evidence that this might be true when the lugger put out from Calais. Complaining of dizziness, Marie went below. She vomited twice during the night crossing, much to the displeasure of the French crew, who provided a mop for Phillipe to clean up the mess personally.
He gave his most careful attention to the cheap second-hand trunk they’d bought in Chavaniac before departure. He mopped it thoroughly, even though the work—and the smell—was sickening.
Marie lay in a cramped bunk, even more pale than when she’d received news of Amberly’s illness. She alternately implored God to stop the churning of the waves—the Channel was rough that night—and expressed her shame and humiliation to her son.
He finished cleaning up the ancient trunk and stared at it a moment. The trunk contained what little they owned that was of any value. Save for the inn, of course. That had been left in the care of Girard.
Marie’s few articles of good clothing were packed in the trunk. Her precious casket of letters. And Phillipe’s sword.
Why he’d brought the weapon he could not fully explain. But somehow, he wanted it with him in the land of the enemy—
Now he leaned on the lugger rail, squinting up past the gulls to a strange, tall tower on the chalk cliff. His confidence of the preceding months was all but gone.
He saw figures bustling on the quays. Englishmen. Would his limited knowledge of their language serve him well enough? He and his mother still had a long way to travel to reach his father’s bedside. No instructions had been provided in the letter written by Lady Jane Amberly. Perhaps that was deliberate. He looked again at the cliff tower, strangely forbidding, as the sails were hauled in and the lugger’s master screamed obscene instructions to his crew scampering around the deck.
The mate, a man with a gold hoop in one ear, noted Phillipe’s rapt expression and clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He said in French:
“Busy place, eh? You’ll get accustomed to it. The captain would probably have my balls for saying this, but I don’t find the English a bad sort. After all, there’s a lot of old French blood running in the veins of these squires and farmers.”
The mate then proceeded to point out some of the structures high on the cliff, including the Norman keep and the strange, tall tower. Of the latter he said:
“There were two Roman lighthouses up there long ago, not just the one. Their fires guided the galleys of the legions into the harbor. And Caesar’s troops fathered plenty of bastards before they pulled out. So whatever your business in England, my lad, don’t let the locals put you down. Their ancestors came from all over Europe and God knows where else. Besides, we’re at peace with them. For the present.”
As he started aft, he added, “I’ll be glad to help you and your mother find the coach. Shame the sailing wracked her so. She’s a handsome woman. I’d court her myself if I didn’t have two wives already.”
Phillipe laughed, feeling a little less apprehensive. He went below.
He found his mother sitting in the gloom beside the shabby trunk. Her white hands were knotted in her lap. He closed his own hand on top of hers. How cold her flesh felt!
“The mate said he’ll assist us in finding the overland coach, Mama.”
Marie said nothing, staring at nothing. Phillipe was alarmed again. Distantly, he heard the lugger’s anchor splash into the wat
er.
ii
The mate led them up from the quay into town. He carried the trunk on his muscular shoulder as though it contained nothing at all. In the yard of a large, busy inn, he tried to decipher the English of a notice board that listed the departure times of various “flying waggons” bound for towns with unfamiliar names.
“Flying waggon is intended to be a compliment to the speed of the public coaches.” The mate grinned. “But I understand that’s nothing but the typical lie of any advertisement. Bah, I can’t read that ungodly script! I’ll ask inside. What’s the name of the village you want?”
“Tonbridge,” Phillipe said. “It’s supposed to lie on a river west of here.”
The man with the gold ear hoop disappeared, returning shortly to report that they wanted the coastal coach, via Folkestone, departing in midafternoon.
The mate kept them company while they waited, stating that he’d only squander money on unworthy, immoral pastimes if he went off by himself. He was a jolly, generous man, and even bought them lunch—dark bread and some ale—at a public house called The Cinque Ports.
Then he saw them aboard the imposing coach, whose driver kept yelling, “Diligence for Folkestone, m’lords. Express diligence, departing at once!”
The mate had helped them change some of their francs for British money. Now he picked the correct fare out of Phillipe’s hand and paid the agent. He waved farewell as the diligence rolled out of the yard.
Five of the other six persons packed inside the coach chatted in English as the vehicle lurched westward. Phillipe and Marie sat hunched in one corner, saying nothing and trying to avoid stares of curiosity. Among the passengers was a cleric, who read his Testament in silence. But a fat, wigged gentleman in claret velvet talked enough for two men.