by Robert Merle
“We’re not talking about lice, my friend, but libel, and libel from you-know-who! They can’t forgive Mespech for being a nest of heretics and although we’ve made peace with your side and Coligny is now received at the king’s court and well ensconced, it would seem, in the royal favour, some Présidial judges, out of religious fervour, are inclined to place the blame on your sons.”
“And on what evidence would these judges base such an iniquitous falsehood?” demanded Uncle Sauveterre.
“On the basis of the testimony of the priest of Marcuays, of course!”
“Pincers!” cried my father. “But is there anyone in Sarlat or in the entire region who doesn’t despise this drunken scoundrel?”
“He’s a priest,” said Monsieur de La Porte, “and that’s enough for his testimony, however full of inconsistencies it may be, to outweigh the Gypsy’s.”
“Full of inconsistencies?” asked my father.
“Infinitely so! When Pincers was in Malvézie’s sway, he wrote a version of the incident that put all the blame on your sons. But when the seneschal demanded that Malvézie release him, I took Pincers from between his claws and set him back up in his church in Marcuays where he wrote in my presence a testimony that concurs pretty much with what I heard here.”
“So we’re safe!” said Sauveterre.
“I’m afraid not. You see, the minute I left, Pincers became terrified that Malvézie would come for him, so he put himself under the protection of the bishop of Sarlat, and there he wrote a third version of his testimony, which is unfortunately quite close to the first one.”
“Well, that’s testimony that must be disqualified because of its variations!”
“Not at all! The majority of the judges in the Présidial have declared the third version is the valid one since it was delivered in the presence of the bishop and consequently inspired by the Holy Spirit.”
“The Holy Spirit!” cried my father, gnashing his teeth. “Would you listen to these hypocrites who advance their worldly affairs under the mantle of religion!”
“Monsieur,” said Monsieur de La Porte—though I couldn’t tell whether he was kidding or in earnest, “I am a Catholic and I respect my bishop.”
“Monsieur,” countered my father, “Huguenot though I be, I also respect your bishop, but not in his worldly dealings. The Holy Spirit blows where it wills, as John writes in chapter three, verse eight, but why would this wind not turn this weathercock around again? What does the latest wind say?”
“In a word: that your sons surprised the baron on the les Beunes road and fell upon him and killed him.”
“That’s a huge and shameful lie!” I cried.
“So I believe,” said Monsieur de La Porte, “but I have only provided the evidence for the matter and cannot serve as judge in it. And all that stands between my arresting you and your brother and bringing you to the parliament in Bordeaux is a majority decision by the Présidial judges, who disagree with me.”
“Can this really be?” gasped my father.
“It can,” answered Monsieur de La Porte gravely.
At this, we four paled and fell silent and sat there trying not to let our distress and indignant anger explode in front of our visitor.
“Monsieur,” said Jean de Siorac finally, “I thank God that you’ve come here in your own person to warn us. But may I push your goodness and indulgence a bit further and ask what you would decide to do if you were thrown into the predicament we are facing?”
“I’ll wager,” said Monsieur de La Porte, “that the king has invited you, Monsieur, along with all the other noblemen of Périgord of both the papist and the reformed persuasions, to come to the capital to attend the marriage of his sister Margot to Prince Henri de Navarre, which will be celebrated in August.”
“Indeed, I have received the king’s invitation.”
“Well then, instead of going there yourself,” suggested Monsieur de La Porte, rising and speaking very quietly as if he wanted to be only half heard, “send your two sons to Paris to represent you. Once there, they can use their visit to beseech the king’s pardon in this matter.” And he added, speaking in the same soft voice and out of one side of his mouth, his face turned away from us: “They must be gone by dawn tomorrow. I would be devastated to find them here at noon.”
“At noon!” cried my father, leaping to his feet. “What? So soon?”
“Ah, did I say noon?” replied Monsieur de La Porte. “It must have escaped me! Oh, and also,” he added, as if a detail of no importance had suddenly occurred to him, “they should not go through Périgueux, where I might pursue them, but through Bordeaux, making a most useful detour to the chateau of Michel de Montaigne, whom they should ask to compose their petition to the king, which Montaigne will assuredly do. He is a man of substance, who cannot abide partisan iniquity, and who has a very good opinion of you since you were such a faithful friend of Monsieur de La Boétie, whom he continues to mourn, and always will.”
“Ah, Monsieur,” cried my father, “How can I tell you—”
“Don’t say anything,” interrupted Monsieur de La Porte with a smile, “since I’ve said nothing to you, but came here just to chat about my haying, because with all my troubles, I’m probably not going to have enough for the winter.”
And having said this, he bowed to Sauveterre, who, always crippled by his old wound, couldn’t stand up to see him out, then embraced my father warmly and took his leave.
When Miroul came to wake me the next morning, well before daybreak, I was sleeping peacefully, my arms around Little Sissy, my nose buried in her long black hair, which always smelt so clean since she washed it every day and dried it in the sun whose rays, she hoped, would give it a slight shade of copper. I don’t know which of the wenches in Mespech would have taught her this recipe, but it didn’t really show, her hair remaining as deep and shadowy as before. As for me, loving the bluish darkness of her locks, I was always amazed at our sweet minxes’ ways. God gave them a face and they want to make another one, either by make-up or by colouring their hair. They just seem to want to be different from what nature made them.
But don’t mistake me. I don’t blame them. I do the same with these memoirs when I cross out a word that seems too dry and put two words in its place that I find more to my liking. Am I any different in this than those Parisian ladies who, believing they’re too bony in a certain place, will wear false rumps and fluffy petticoats to make them look bigger? The coquetry of our sweetlings—this dear and delicious half of humanity—is but art added to nature. We should admire them (quite the opposite of what the ministers preach to them) for the infinite care they take to look in the mirror. Otherwise we wouldn’t love women for their femininity but for some stupid criteria imposed on them by monks and preachers.
By the light of the oil lamp that Miroul had brought, I arose, sprinkled my face and body with water and, wetting a corner of my towel, washed and scrubbed my teeth, which were naturally in excellent shape, and I wanted to keep them that way as long as I lived. Meanwhile, Miroul was waiting, shoes in hand, ready to give them to me, and, out of the corner of his eye, watching my Little Sissy, who, sitting naked on the bed without any sense of shame whatsoever, was caressing her firm, apple-shaped breasts; and then, pulling up her knees and resting her elbows on them, she placed her delicate hands on her temples and stretched her dark liquid eyes sideways to make them more almond-shaped, which she knew I liked. This done, she began to complain about my leaving:
“Ah, Pierre! You’re scarcely here a week and now you’re off again! And when will you return? What good is it being Pierre de Siorac’s wench if I never get to see him? Poor, poor me! Did you ever see a pretty girl who got less loving than me?”
“Come off it, Little Sissy!” I scolded. “I should be the one to complain! I kill a felon in a duel and now I have to go into exile to keep my neck from the gibbet!”
“Ah, Monsieur!” said Miroul, handing me my shoes, his brown eye shining. “Our exile wo
n’t be so terrible. Monsieur your father has furnished us with plenty of money. Paris is the most beautiful city in the kingdom. And what’s more, Madame Angelina will be living there.”
“What?” shrieked Little Sissy. “Madame Angelina is in Paris? Oh, Pierre, I’m done for! You’ll never come back again!”
“Go easy, there, silly girl!” I frowned. “Don’t deafen me with your screams when I’m not even awake yet, still groggy and dreamy, hungry only for my bed—and for you!” (Hearing this she softened a bit.) “And now I’ve got so many leagues to go before I find a bed for the night. Of course I’ll come back here, silly bewitched girl, as soon as I’ve obtained the king’s pardon! My father’s money won’t last for ever. And isn’t Mespech the nest where I was born?”
“Ha!” snorted Little Sissy. “If it were just Madame Angelina, who, being a virgin and all, you must respect, but there are all those Parisian harlots, so expert in their wiles and so rigged out that they’ll have you jumping about them like a cat on hot bricks every day you’re there!”
“Then I know a lot of Parisian girls in Périgord!” I laughed, and, pulling her to me, with cuirass and helmet already on, I said, “Come, Little Sissy, give me a kiss, my pretty! One last kiss for the road! Be a good girl, and polite, and work hard while I’m gone! Get up early! Don’t lie around in the sheets! Don’t run from difficulty! And don’t argue with Alazaïs or with Barberine, who is so good to you!”
“Oh, my Pierre!” she cried, throwing her bare arms around my neck. “May it please God to have made me pregnant in the last week, so that I can laze about in bed and eat as much as I want and do nothing but dream about you, ’cause I hate housework and want only your love and to care for the baby I’ll give you! Oh!” she said, pulling me close despite my rude chain mail. “I’m so proud to be your wench, and will be prouder to make you a little Siorac baby. That’s the work I want, Pierre, and none other!”
“Little Sissy, my pretty, a kiss!” I said, keeping back my tears. “Another kiss! And be a good girl, behave! And if you do I’ll bring you back something pretty from Paris!”
“Really? What?” she cried, her beautiful black Gypsy eyes lighting up, her hands pressed tightly as if in prayer.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I smiled, heading for the door, “maybe a ring, or a lace kerchief or a silk ribbon…”
“A ring!” she cried. “It’s a ring I want! A gold ring not a silver one, so it’ll look pretty on my brown skin!”
“A gold one then,” I said, caught up in her pleasure, “on condition you don’t argue with Alazaïs and that you do her bidding.”
“I promise, Pierre!” she cried as I opened the door. “And may God watch over you!”
“Well, Monsieur,” smiled Miroul, who was carrying my arms as we traversed the corridors of Mespech, “now you’re in debt for a ring when you could have got off with a ribbon! The wench won that hand and handily so!”
And even though he said this as a joke, I could see that there was a barb to his words, and feeling this prick I replied:
“It’s all right, Miroul, a master should be generous: didn’t I buy you a new outfit in Montpellier?”
“I thank the Lord and I thank you, Monsieur, and Madame de Joyeuse… But as for her, she’s not going to be in Paris to fatten your purse, so you’d better think about that.”
“It’s all right, I tell you, Miroul—Samson will think for both of us!”
“But this ring, Monsieur! And gold! We’ve scarcely left and we’re already ruined! And for a wench who serves so poorly at Mespech.”
“Yet she serves me well enough! And when you come right down to it, she’s bewitched me!”
“Ah, Monsieur! Who doesn’t bewitch you! You’re made of such tender stuff when it comes to a petticoat.”
“A frailty I inherited from you-know-who.”
“Who, I’m sure, would never have promised a gold ring to a chambermaid who doesn’t do two sols’ worth of work in an entire year!”
“All right, Miroul, that’s enough of that refrain! You’ll get me really angry if you continue with it.”
And, in truth, I was already angry, but at myself, and, although I wasn’t going to show it, my Huguenot conscience was sorely pricking me for having played at being a rich grandee with Little Sissy.
Down in our great hall, my father was sitting alone, waiting for me and devouring a beautiful white bread, some ham and a bowl of milk. He looked serene, though I thought I detected some melancholy in his expression. After having gestured to me to have a seat and enjoy my breakfast, he rose and began pacing back and forth, his boots ringing on the stone floor; however, when I was in the midst of my meal, he cried, quite angrily and in stentorian tones:
“A week! I waited a year for you and Samson! A whole year! Providence is mighty stingy to give me only a week with you! A week and you’re out on the road again! Outlaws! In mortal danger! Oh, how fatal Samson’s delay to shoot that dog Malvézie! If he’d killed him we’d not be in this mess! Left alone, Madame de Fontenac wouldn’t have tried to get back at us, given how grateful she is for having saved her daughter and because she knows better than anyone the evil committed by her husband, who, in his youth, kidnapped her, raped her and forced her to marry him! But this Malvézie never stops plotting, scheming and pushing! He wants to take over the Fontenac domain for himself! He’ll do anything to acquire rights that he didn’t inherit from his bastard birth. Diane and her mother are done for if he succeeds. Two women! What can they do against this monster?”
But then coming to a sudden halt, putting his hands on his hips, and his tone and expression altogether changed, Jean de Siorac said, “I heard you call maestro Giacomi your brother. Did you become brothers?”
“In word only, not by a notarized decree, since neither of us possesses any goods that he could settle on the other.”
My father thought about this for a moment, smiled in his sly and humorous way and said, “You who were born in the second half of this century do things much faster and more precipitously than those of us born in the first. It took you two days to take Giacomi as your brother whereas Sauveterre and I took two years.”
“But you loved Sauveterre straightaway!”
“Ah, yes! At first glance! At the first shot! In our first battle! As soon as I saw what kind of a man he was, of what nobly tempered steel he was made of!” But then he smiled and sat down opposite me and said: “As for maestro Giacomi, other than that I’m very reassured to have such a skilled swordsman accompany you, I must say I like him a lot. I don’t care whether he’s of noble birth or not: there’s a natural nobility about him. In matters large and small he’s a man of infinite elegance.”
I was very happy to hear these words and, blushing with the pleasure he’d given me (though still worried about the question of the ring that Miroul had so stung me about), I said, “Do you think we’ll have any trouble getting the king to pardon us?”
“I don’t know. Coligny is reputed to be in great favour with Charles IX. Unfortunately, I don’t have much confidence in this little king who lets himself be governed by his mother, and even less so in the woman herself. My Pierre, tread very carefully at court and be prepared to turn on your heels! Queen Medici is the soul of the state, she who has no soul! And to tell you the truth, this so-called favour granted to our side by the king frankly stinks! Paris hates us! Guise is forever plotting! The papist priests are screaming for our extermination! I would never have sent you hence, you and Samson, into this perilous Babylon, were it not absolutely necessary!”
“My father,” I replied, full of trepidation from the sombre tableau he’d just painted, “I will return on the very day our pardon is granted.”
Hearing this he looked me in the eyes and gave a great sigh of relief. “Oh, Pierre, your departure is making me feel very old! I’m already too sedate, too heavy, too ripe. To see you and Samson here in all your youthful vigour, such beautiful branches from my old trunk, keeps me young! When you’re gone, m
y mind focuses on the number of years I have left and is constantly whispering how to grow old and die. A week! How little I’ve drunk from that fountain! Adieu, Pierre! Be well, keep yourself safe! And since they killed your Accla, take my beautiful Pompée from my stables. She’s yours.”
“What, Father? You’re giving me your mare?”
“Take her! Take her! No thanks necessary! She now belongs to you.”
I would actually have preferred it if he had not given her to me since it hurt me so much that, for my sake, he would deprive himself of something so dear, and I couldn’t help seeing in this deprivation the kind of indifference to oneself which is sometimes found, along with miserliness, to be one of the effects of age—whose ravages were already so apparent in Uncle Sauveterre, so dried up and halting in his black clothes that he reminded me of a limping black crow in the bottom of a ravine. But my father, who still seemed so youthful and vigorous as he came and went, still enjoying his Franchou (as well, no doubt, as other passing petticoats in the farms around our chateau), seemed now to be showing some signs of heaviness, not of body, but of heart, and a kind of diminution of his usual gaiety of spirit.
My adieux bid to all this ageing family of Mespech (though ’twas true that there seemed to be no lack of children, my father assuring their continued arrival), I threw myself into Pompée’s saddle—she seemed very surprised and, as lively mares often do, wanted to test my reactions and tried to throw me off. But I showed her immediately that my hand, my seat and my legs were as steady as my father’s, but in no way scolded her for her petulant display, since I didn’t want our marriage to begin with blows. When she had calmed down, though I was still trembling slightly from the combat she’d just waged, I caressed her neck, admiring how her golden coat and blonde mane shone in the early-morning light. And I whispered to her in a calm and caressing voice: “Hey, beautiful Pompée, I’m so happy you’ve shown such spirit, for we’ve got some good leagues to go before you get your oats in Montaigne, and many more leagues still before we get to Paris.”