by Robert Merle
“Don’t swear, Cabusse,” cautioned Sauveterre.
“Begging your pardon, Captain,” said Cabusse contritely, and then went on with his story, with large gestures and heated voice: “And at low tide, we had to come back and clean off the cannon and fire ’em while all the time the English gentlemen were popping off at us with their arquebuses!”
“Well, but we were firin’ right back at ’em to blunt their aim,” broke in Coulondre Iron-arm, who, though a man of few words, found enough of them to add, “I was one of our marksmen.”
“’Tis true,” confirmed my father.
“These cannon, now,” said Cabusse, “were enormous.” He stroked his moustache and, looking over at Cathau as if he were confusing his own virility with theirs, he added, “They were the highest calibre we had! All fifteen of ’em. And they made an infernal racket! Some said you could hear ’em in Dover!” He paused for effect, and then continued, his eyes ablaze, “It’s our cannon that created the first breach in the citadel’s walls and enabled our troops to storm Calais.”
“Ah, but don’t forget that we had to storm the city!” corrected my father with a smile, for he was very fond of Cabusse and looked with as much indulgence on his obvious faults as he esteemed his hidden virtues. He added nevertheless, “And as to that I can say, like Coulondre, ‘I was there!’ Guise decided to rush the breach that same evening at high tide, and he was the first to leap waist deep into the icy waters of the trenches where we had set up our cannon. He was followed by several hundred marksmen, d’Aumale and d’Elbeuf, his brothers, and a group of gentlemen volunteers, including,” laughed my father, “myself. As wet and frozen as we were, we scaled the ramparts and forced the breach in a furious assault. It was a handsome rout, the Englishmen in the citadel quickly overcome by our numbers. The poor devils never had a chance. Except for a handful who escaped into the city, they all tasted our swords in the heat of combat.
“Once we were masters of the citadel, Guise left d’Aumale and d’Elbeuf in command there and then recrossed the moats, this time in water up to his neck, in order to direct the major part of our army. Those of us in the citadel, however, were cut off from the army for an entire night, until the tide went out, and were separated from a hostile city by a single gate!
“The governor of Calais, Lord Wentworth, decided to mount an attack straight off, despite the impending darkness, and drove us back into the trenches before help could arrive. He reinforced the gates of the citadel with four cannon brought from the streets of the city, and launched numerous attacks on our position but couldn’t manage to dislodge us. When dawn brought low tide, Wentworth, realizing he’d lost half of his troops, decided to surrender. At his request, Guise granted all of the inhabitants of the city safe conduct, just as Edward III had done for the French two centuries earlier, when he had taken the city.
“D’Andelot immediately entered Calais with forty officers to contain our troops and prevent sack, bloodshed and rape.”
“And the English reinforcements?” asked Sauveterre.
“They arrived, but too late. The city was already in our hands. Yes, it was the speed of the attack that did it! The whole thing was done so quickly that Calais was ours in a week.”
Jean de Siorac reserved the rest of the story for his conversation with Sauveterre in the privacy of their study, and for his sons when we should be old enough to be interested in such things.
“I never saw such booty!” exclaimed Jean de Siorac, walking back and forth in the little study, while Sauveterre, whose leg was troubling him, sat quietly in the great armchair. “I’m not just talking about the munitions, but the incredible quantities of goods, of beautiful silver pieces, merchandise of all kinds, handsome furniture, Chinese silks, sheets, pewter, bronze, enough balls of English yarn to be worth 100,000 livres, and sheepskins worth 50,000! D’Andelot took the sheepskins as his share… the rest of the captains got large sums: Thermes, 10,000 écus. Sansac, 4,000, Bourdin and Sénarpont, 2,000…” He hesitated, and looked silently at Sauveterre with an impish air.
“And you, Jean?” asked Sauveterre.
“You and I,” replied Siorac, “received 4,000 écus.”
“Four thousand écus!” gasped Sauveterre, eyes lighting up. “Why, you must have done some exploit that you haven’t told us about.”
“Shh! Exploits come and go, but the money stays. We’ll be able to realize our project of buying a mill in les Beunes.”
“There aren’t any for sale.”
“We’ll wait. And while we wait, we’ll place this money with some honest Jew in Périgueux to give it a bit of fat.”
A moment of silence followed, as heavy as the 4,000 écus, dropping one by one into the coffers of Mespech.
“The Lord continues to watch over us,” said Sauveterre gravely, “and to multiply our wealth.”
“Amen,” said my father. He sat down facing Sauveterre and continued, “You may find it surprising that I asked for my discharge before the peace was signed. But first, you should know that peace is imminent. None of the parties has any interest in prolonging the war. But, more importantly, things have taken a new turn for us. Guise and his brother—”
“Which one?”
“The Cardinal de Lorraine… met Felipe II of Spain’s minister, Granvelle, at Marcoing. During these talks, there was some discussion of peace but, sadly, a great deal more about the struggle against the heretics…”
“I would have sworn it.”
“And Granvelle, who must have had spies in our army, denounced d’Andelot to Guise. Granvelle claimed that he had been preaching Calvinist doctrine in Brittany, had sent suspicious books to his brother Coligny, a captive of the Spanish, and even, during the Calais expedition, had failed to attend Mass. So what do you think Guise did?”
“He repeated the Spanish envoy’s accusations against his own general to the king.”
“You guessed the odious truth. The king immediately had d’Andelot arrested, and since the latter openly confessed his faith the king ordered him to be imprisoned in the Château de Melun. And so the king of France has imprisoned the most illustrious general of the French infantry at the enemy’s suggestion! You couldn’t imagine a more stupid, more tyrannical act.”
“And yet it is good news, despite appearances to the contrary,” said Sauveterre. “D’Andelot is a man of war, and a person of great stature in the kingdom. Admiral de Coligny as well. What’s more, they are nephews of Montmorency on their mother’s side. If d’Andelot can hold out and if Coligny converts, the king will have a hard time bringing them to trial and burning them at the stake. And if the king does not burn them, how shall he burn the others? We’ll all have taken a huge step towards the freedom of conscience we’ve been demanding.”
Siorac merely shrugged his shoulders, disgruntled. “Your hopes, my brother, seem to me excessive. You haven’t accounted for the king’s stupidity. He could easily decide not to burn d’Andelot and yet burn lesser noblemen. Logic has never troubled him before.”
Sauveterre sighed, and his deep-set, dark eyes filled with sadness. From Siorac’s reaction, he understood that his brother was not yet ready, despite d’Andelot’s example, to make a public declaration for the reform. “Jean,” he said quietly, “you are still too much of this world. You cannot give yourself to God without reservation.”
“’Tis not true,” replied Siorac. “I hold back only so as better to devote myself when the time comes. But too many lives depend on mine for me to run headlong to the stake. The important thing is not to die but to make our faith victorious.”
Whereupon Sauveterre sighed again and, clenching his fists on the arms of his chair, fell silent.
“Do you realize…” said Siorac, and at this he rose and, going to the window, stood before it, gazing at the familiar yet nearly forgotten courtyard of Mespech with its well, catalpa tree and constant hustle and bustle. “You’ll be delighted to learn that our soldiers also did very well. Especially Cabusse! Unable to pillage th
e city, they pillaged the English ships in the port. So Cabusse has brought home in his baggage a handsome booty: a good thousand écus.”
“And what will he do with it?”
“Buy some land and marry. But he’s not in a hurry.”
“Ah but, on the contrary, there seems to be a great hurry! During your absence, we had to watch our chambermaid weep torrents of tears and sigh enough sighs to fan the flames of a forge!”
“Aha!” laughed my father. “I always suspected that that little fuse, for all the airs she puts on, needed only a flint to set her off!”
“We’re already beyond the spark stage,” said Sauveterre, “and well into the fire. I suppose you caught the tender glances they exchanged during our Gascon’s epic tale. To tell the truth, this little filly is so in heat and ready for the stud that she may break down the stall to get at her stallion. Better marry them before we have to punish them.”
“Well then, let’s marry them with a feast,” agreed my father.
“But Cabusse must first buy his land. Le Breuil is for sale.”
“Le Breuil? Where is le Breuil? I know the name.”
“It’s a large farm on the road to Ayzies, just beyond our quarry. There are rocks everywhere, but there’s a good spring, and the fields would be good for raising sheep. With thirty head, Cabusse and his wife could make a go of it, especially if we turn our flocks over to him for a percentage of their growth. As you know, our lambs aren’t making us a sol: our current shepherd is eating our profits.”
“But is Cabusse a good shepherd?”
“When he was young, he managed a transhumance of three to four hundred head all by himself.”
“And what about the house?”
“The roof needs some work, but Jonas can see to that.”
“Well then,” said Siorac, “it’s decided. But Isabelle isn’t going to like it. She’ll lose her chambermaid. What have you done with this Sarrazine you told me about?”
“I didn’t keep her more than a week. I found a place for her. Isabelle doesn’t want her at Mespech and with good reason. This wench has no shame whatsoever. She could tempt the Devil himself.”
Siorac opened his mouth as if to speak, then, thinking better of it, fell silent, turned away and began tapping two fingers absentmindedly on the lead casing of the window.
5
WHEN CABUSSE BOUGHT the le Breuil farm, he hired Jonas to replace the stones that had fallen from the roof. But he did not stop there. Having noticed a crack which zigzagged through the stones in the north facade, he concluded that the weight of the stone roof was putting too much stress on a badly constructed wall, and instead of simply repairing the crack, he got permission from the captains to build a buttress which shored it up and gave it an appearance he was very proud of. “Looks almost like a fortification,” he boasted.
He basked in the pleasures of ownership, and every God-given day that spring he would walk from one end of his land to the other, enjoying its rolling hills, its spring and its woods, and grew a little vain as he contemplated large acreage, oblivious all the while to the outcrops of rock which everywhere prevented ploughing or planting of fruit trees, or even much of a vegetable garden. The woods, moreover, consisted only of groves of scrub pine so pinched by the meagre soil that they would give but few logs for the winter.
This poor soil was good only for grazing sheep, as the Brethren had foreseen, otherwise they might themselves have purchased it. But they were well pleased that Cabusse, liege and faithful soldier that he was, had acquired it, for they would not have wanted an untrustworthy neighbour so near to the precious quarry and bordering so closely on the Fontenac lands.
Besides solving the problem of their sheep—which a series of incompetent shepherds had failed to make prosper—Cabusse’s settlement at the le Breuil farm reassured us, since he could bring aid to Jonas, should the need arise. Thus, the le Breuil farm and the quarry, in addition to the profit that could be derived from them—the quarry’s considerably greater than the farm’s—had the advantage of establishing a kind of outpost at the edge of Fontenac, from which the only road coming from Ayzies to Mespech could be closely watched. Moreover—and we had the proof of this the day after their attack, from the fresh horse manure on the road—this was the route taken by the Gypsy band, and had Jonas been at the quarry and not up at the chateau with us, he would surely have been alarmed by the noise of their horses and wagons, and, using his shortcut to Mespech, would have been able to warn us.
His boots wet with the morning dew, hands behind his back, his moustache bristling, his ruddy face breathing in the joy of life and of ownership, Cabusse approached the house where Jonas was working away on the buttress, and said modestly, “Takes a while to make the rounds of my farm.”
“You ought to know,” scowled Jonas, with little grace, “you walk it every day.” And he fell silent, full of bitter thoughts.
Cabusse turned away, puffing out his chest, and walked around his new house, admiring it afresh. “It’s a pretty lodging,” he said.
“It’s not bad,” admitted Jonas. “But it needs a sheepfold.”
“Then I’ll have one built.”
“The captains will make you pay dearly for the stone.”
“I can pay,” replied Cabusse. “I have money enough left for it.”
“There are only two rooms,” said Jonas. “Pretty small for a family.”
“I’ve thought of that,” answered Cabusse stroking his moustache. “When Cathau gives me children, I’ll make rooms up in the loft and build a little tower with a staircase to get up there.”
“So, a tower is it?” sneered Jonas. “And why not a drawbridge? A portcullis? Or battlements?”
“You may laugh, stonecutter,” said Cabusse. “But you can’t tell me your buttress isn’t a handsome piece of masonry. It makes my house into a kind of chateau.”
“It will look good enough when it’s finished,” conceded Jonas, wiping the sweat streaming from his brow with his forearm. “Lend me a hand with this block of stone, Cabusse, instead of standing around playing the gentleman while others work.”
“Ah, Jonas, you’re jealous,” replied his friend, giving him a hand. “And envy is an evil sin.”
Together they fit the stone in place, but not without some difficulty, as strong as they were and Jonas being yet a head taller than Cabusse. When they had finished, they stood up, sweating and breathing hard.
“Weighs a ton,” said Cabusse.
“It weighs a bit,” agreed Jonas. “But in 300 years it’ll still be here. And us, we’ll be long dead.”
“But meanwhile, you’re still alive.”
“This isn’t living,” countered Jonas. “At night alone in a cave with my goats and kids, all day alone with my stones, eating my heart out in solitude. Sure, I love ’em, these stones, but I can’t take ’em in my arms. And I don’t own a thing in this beautiful Périgord countryside other than the shirt on my back. Sure I envy you, Cabusse, sinful though it may be. If I’d fought the English at Calais instead of fighting the Gypsies at Mespech, I’d now have land, a house and a wife. Not that I covet your Cathau, mind you, for it’s not for want of pretty lasses that a man goes without. Take Barberine for example; now if she weren’t already married…” And, after a moment’s reflexion, he added, “Or Sarrazine.”
“So that’s it!” crowed Cabusse. “To think I’ve never even seen this Sarrazine. They say she’s a bitch in heat.”
“And what maid of her age isn’t?” growled Jonas, grabbing his hammer and administering a series of cautious and precise little taps to the stone that chipped away successive layers of thin fragments, gradually smoothing the surface until it looked as if it had been saw-hewn. He repeated, “And what maid of her age isn’t?” And then, “So where’s the evil? Who’s offended? Only the one of the two Jeans who doesn’t care for that sort of thing, not the one who does: which is why My Lady had the poor maid sent away. Which means I don’t even have the pleasure of seeing h
er any more. Foxes like to watch chickens, you know, even when they can’t catch ’em.”
Cabusse said nothing, almost ashamed that he’d left his good companion so far behind, now that he was so well to do. For he loved Jonas, who was always sure to speak his mind, and was as eloquent as he himself was.
Jonas measured the right angle on the stone with his T-square, drew a line with a sharp point and cut into the other face of the stone, the sharp blows of his hammer keeping time with his words: “The long and the short of it,” he said, “is money. With money you can do anything you wish. A beautiful baby with your wife” (here a hammer blow), “and meanwhile another with a pretty shepherdess.” (Another hammer blow.) “And all that with no fear of being out of work, since you’re the master, and you can’t even give yourself the boot! And why are you the master? Money. And how do you earn money? With work? Not on your life! Work only enriches your master while you barely survive. But money, real silver to buy God’s good earth, it’s by pillaging that you come by it. Or commerce. But commerce, friend” (another blow of the hammer), “or lending grain at high interest, as these Lords of Mespech do” (again the hammer blow), “are just other kinds of plunder, just a bit gentler than the other. And now, Cabusse, thanks to what you came away with from the plunder of those English ships, and though pillaging’s a sin, you’re now practically a gentleman, with a wife to boot, and a house and fields and woods—and your manly pride to go with it. Come now, Cabusse, do I seem to be worth less than you?”
Cabusse resorted to his Gascon finesse and cleverness (which had so captivated Cathau) to smooth the asperities of this blunt question: “You’re worth a good deal more than I, stonecutter,” he confessed, putting on his most serious air and deepest voice, “for you’ve got a good trade and you put your heart into it. And except for some shepherding in my youth, I don’t know how to do anything but kill people. Oh, I can do some cooking, maybe shoe a horse, a bit of farming and some handiwork like that, but none of that’s a proper trade.”
