by Robert Merle
“So?” I said frowning and placing my hand on my dagger.
He turned this way and that in his saddle, and realizing that the archers were too far away to help, he licked his fat lips and said in a faint voice, “It’ll be twenty-five écus and not an écu less.” “It’s a bargain!” I said, not wishing to shake or discuss it further with this scoundrel. Then I added, “Twenty-five gold écus on the spot. But, hangman, remember this: if, after this bargain, the victim dies slowly, you will die quickly.”
“Monsieur,” said Vignogoule, “money down guarantees results.”
Coming closer, despite my entire repugnance at the odour of death that emanated from this block of sludge, I counted out his gold, which took some time since he had to bite each coin to test it, just as his horrible woman had done before him. So I was greatly relieved when I left him to return to Fontanette’s side.
“My poor Fontanette,” I whispered, “I’ve made a deal with this villain. As soon as he places the noose around your neck, close your eyes. You won’t feel a thing and will die instantly.”
“Oh, Pierre,” she gasped. “Praise be to God and to you too! It’s a blessing that I met you to ease my death! And even more so to learn from your lips that you never told Dame Rachel I’d stolen from you!”
“Ah!” I cried, my fists clenched on the reins and gnashing my teeth. “I will crush that evil woman! It’s her venom that has done this! Without her, I would have found you in Grabels, and released you from the hands of that awful farmer!”
“Pierre,” she sobbed, tears again streaming down her beautiful face, “don’t say such things! You’re breaking my heart with regret, and I want to have the courage to face what’s coming. And Pierre,” she said looking at me with those beautiful naive eyes, “do you still love me a little?”
“Fontanette,” my throat and eyes stinging, “I love you with great love and friendship and will never forgive myself for having taken your first bloom on that rooftop.”
“No, Pierre! Don’t say bad things about our moment there under the moon. It was my little moment of paradise. All the bad things came later.”
I was so touched by the goodness of these words, which seemed to exonerate me, even though at first she’d seemed to blame me—I’d never know which was the case. And even though Fontanette didn’t want to hear any more about the irrevocable chain of events that led her here, I couldn’t help coming back to the cause of her unjust fate: “So Dame Rachel didn’t tell you she’d learnt from your confessor that you’d consorted with me?”
“No, my love, not a word. The only thing she said was that I’d stolen two handkerchiefs from you.”
“And all that time I was looking for you in Grabels! Two or three paces from Accla’s hoof beats you were eating your heart out about my supposed injustice! Oh, Fontanette, words, words, words, what a poison they’ve put in you to separate us!”
“Pierre, let’s speak no more of those terrible things. You’re here by my side. I can’t touch you, for my hands are tied behind my back, but if I could ask you to put your hand on my shoulder I’d be content.”
I did what she asked, and scarcely had my fingers touched her when she leant her head over and laid her cheek on them, which had the same effect that a bird’s palpitations would, if it lay dying cupped in my hand.
The road inclined sharply upward and our horses and mules slowed to a walk in the heat. At the top of the hill, my blood ran cold all of sudden as I spied, a few toises from us on our right, the gibbet, and beside it, immobile on his horse, Cossolat, who was waiting for us.
“Oh!” said Fontanette. “Here we are! Oh, Pierre, I found you again only to lose you so soon!” And she added in a sad, sweet and piteous voice that broke my heart again, “I’m only eighteen! My life was so short!”
Oh Christ! It was like a brass dome that closed over me! Christ! Can I never forget this moment? This gibbet, the archers, this oafish hangman and my sweet Fontanette, who was going to die right before my eyes! My God, how can I have the strength to tell what happened next? Every word that I write is like a strip of flesh that I’m pulling from my incurable wound thirty years later!
As soon as he saw me, Cossolat came over and tied his horse’s reins to mine and I was suddenly separated from Fontanette and surrounded by archers, who kept a careful watch on me, their arquebuses ready and the fuses lit. As for me, my throat was so tight I couldn’t speak, as though paralysed by the pain I felt. I saw everything as if through a mist, and yet with extreme attention. I saw Vignogoule get down from his nag, untie the stool he’d strapped on the croup of his mount, and step onto it to arrange a blackened and threadbare rope on the scaffold. This done, he placed the stool directly below the noose and ordered his woman to sit down there, which surprised me, since I couldn’t guess what role he’d given her to play. Vignogoule did all of this with a sad expression, head lowered and gestures so slow and limp that you would have thought he was a jellyfish floating between two tides.
Once his woman was seated on the stool, he dragged himself over to Cossolat’s horse, his breasts and stomach jiggling at every step, and asked in his high voice if the captain commanded him to continue. At which Cossolat, reddening in anger, stood up in his stirrups and shouted at the top of his voice, “Get on with it, for Christ’s sake! Do it and make it fast!” And he added in Provençal, “Aviat! Aviat!”
“Captain,” whined Vignogoule, “my art disdains doing things in a hurry. Work done slowly is work done well.”
“By the seventy devils of hell!” shouted Cossolat. “Get on with it! And don’t waste any more of my time or I’ll lay my sword on your backside from here back to Montpellier!”
His face an implacable mud pie, Vignogoule, still shaking like gelatin, shuffled over to Fontanette, and, while he untied, with the same disheartening slowness, the cord that attached her to the saddle and the trappings of her mule, his eyes began rolling, and his breathing became louder and more hoarse. I shivered, as if emerging from a trance, and moved my hand towards one of my pistols. But Cossolat, putting his right hand on my arm, said quietly, “Remember your promise, Pierre.” And, turning towards the hangman, he again shouted, “Aviat! Aviat!”
I fell back into my daze. And Vignogoule, seizing my Fontanette by the waist, lifted her like a feather from her mule and placed her on the ground. Still panting and eyes bulging out of their sockets, he pushed her with the flat of his hand towards the gibbet. She was facing away from me, but when he ordered her to sit down on the lap of his woman, with her neck at the same level as the noose, Fontanette managed to turn enough to look for me in the crowd, and, locking her eyes on mine, never looked away.
As soon as Fontanette had sat down in her lap, the ogress locked her arms around her victim’s chest, and squeezed her tight so that she seemed to seep into her monstrous flesh. The hangman, drawing the noose near to him with an infinitely slow gesture, passed it over Fontanette’s head and fastened it to her neck. For a terrible moment I was afraid he’d break his promise. But leaning towards her, he squeezed her neck with a single hand, his thumb on her throat. Without making a cry or even a sigh, her head fell inert onto her chest like a strangled pigeon’s. Vignogoule ceased his panting. It was over. But I had to stay until he’d hoisted her body to be sure that he hadn’t half strangled her, as he’d done with Cabassus.
“All right, Pierre,” said Cossolat, touching my arm, “don’t hang around here. She’s not moving or shaking. Look, no convulsions, or feet dancing in the air. She’s dead.”
“Dead?” I said, as if disbelieving.
I could say no more, stunned as I was, my eyes fixed on Fontanette’s stony white face, her eyes wide open, her neck twisted. Oh God! Was that the sweet wench, so lively, so tender, whom I’d held in my arms under the moon, feeling the swell of her heart’s blood beating against mine? Poor lost soul, hanged in the bloom of her youth and destined to be hacked to pieces and to have her parts hung from these sterile olive trees, which would now bear these sad
fruits until they rotted away!
“Pierre,” Cossolat urged, “don’t stay here eating your heart out! Come away! Come! I’ll set you on your way again.”
And, slapping Accla’s croup, he made her leap forward, and we both took off hell for leather, followed by Samson and Miroul. We galloped at least two leagues before we stopped to breathe, and I later understood that Cossolat had forced me to get away from there because he feared that, in the grief-stricken trance I was in, I might kill Vignogoule and his hag before I knew what I was doing.
I was scarcely aware that Cossolat had gone, and hardly noticed where I was going as I rode along, crazy with grief, unable to manage Accla. My head was as benumbed as if I’d been beaten, and I could hardly see anything but the image of the hateful gibbet that I carried with me through hill and dale. I felt as though I were dead to myself, bearing in my frozen heart only the feeling of my immense guilt and infinite sorrow.
At noon, with the sun beating down on us, and we were sweating rivers under our thick armour, Miroul trotted up beside me and dared point out that our horses were exhausted and that we needed to stop. When I finally understood what he wanted, and seeing a small grassy knoll off to our right, I told him in a faint voice that we should make that our stopping place. As I dismounted, I undid my armour plates and threw off my helmet; then, handing Accla’s reins to Miroul, I stumbled forward a few steps and dropped, face down, onto the grass, giving way to my fatigue and my grief. Digging my fingers into the ground and burying my face and my mouth in the rich tufts of grass, as warm as a mother’s breast, I gave myself over to my tears so convulsively and for so long I thought they’d never end.
Our little troop reached Nîmes on 30th September, as eleven o’clock was chiming over the town, and stopped at a fortified gate, surmounted by a tower, whose parapet was patrolled by about twenty men who seemed dressed so as not to appear to be soldiers, yet who bore a varied assortment of weapons and armour of all kinds, some quite ancient, and including such things as shields, coats of mail and even cuirasses. These fellows seemed very inflamed, and were strutting around pulling on their moustaches with very bullying airs, and as soon as we presented ourselves at the gate, armed for war as we were and wearing helmets, they stared suspiciously at us from their tower, a few going as far as to light the fuses of their arquebuses, as though the three of us had devised a plan to attack the town.
I dismounted and, handing the reins to Samson, I walked up to the gate. “Soldier, please open the gate. We have safe-conduct documents.”
“We open to no man,” replied the gatekeeper, a twisted little fellow clothed in a suit of armour much too big for him, and holding a halberd that looked way too heavy for him to lift. He added, “Neither in nor out. Them’s our orders.” This said, he put on a great frown, but finding this expression more for show than for real, I said, in Provençal, in a somewhat lighthearted way,
“Hey, friend, what’s the good of a door if you never open it? And where are we going to sleep tonight, if your beautiful city will have none of us, despite our safe-conduct passes?”
“Ah, Monsieur,” said the man, softening his manner when he heard my playful tone. “I’m right sorry for you, for you seem an amiable sort of fellow, but there’s nothing I can do. Orders are orders.”
“Your orders? So you’re a soldier?”
“Not a bit of it!” said the little man with a certain swagger. “I have a trade and I’m very good at it. I’m a wool carder. And these others you see up here on the parapet are weavers, bootmakers, cobblers or silk workers, but these last I don’t like a bit since they’re all stuck up and think they’re superior to the rest of us, because they work with silk and not wool.”
“But how does it happen that you’re all here on a Tuesday guarding the town gate instead of working your trades?”
“What?” replied the carder naively. “You don’t know?”
“How could I,” I said, “since I’m outside and not inside?”
“It’s because today we seized the town from the papists, who are holed up in the chateau.”
“Well, this is good news!” I cried. “My brother and I are of the reformed religion. And my valet as well.”
“What?” said the carder in surprise. “You’re Huguenots? All three? Why didn’t you say so? I would have opened the gate for you!”
“Well, open it now!”
“Nay!” said the carder, raising his cap and scratching his head. “Don’t know if I ought to now, since I didn’t do it before. Orders are orders, even though you’re Huguenots. The devil if I know what I should do! What do you think, Monsieur?”
I thought it odd that he should ask me, since I’d already asked it of him and was preparing to persuade him to open up right away, but wagering that after giving my view of it he might hesitate some more, I said, “My friend, my view of it is that you ought to go and ask your boss so he can decide for you.”
“By my faith, that’s a right good idea!” confessed the carder. “I’ll go and ask him right away.”
He went off a bit unsteadily in his very large corselet, dragging his halberd behind him, though I was certain he’d never be able to strike anyone with it since he couldn’t even lift it. But he hadn’t taken three steps before he was back and said, “Monsieur, my name is Jean Vigier.”
“Jean Vigier, is it? I like that name very much, as it’s the name of a very worthy fellow. They call me Pierre de Siorac.”
“Are you a nobleman then, Monsieur, or are you simply pretending to nobility?”
“I’m the younger son of the Baron de Mespech in Périgord.”
“Ah, Monsieur! Who would have guessed it to hear you speak so amiably? I see you’re not as scornful of artisans as some are.”
“Certainly not. A skill is a skill. And the work of a carder is every bit as important as that of a silk worker.”
“Monsieur, I like the way you talk! I’ll go and fetch my boss.” And off he went, dragging his halberd along behind him, and soon returned with a tall, thin, dark-skinned fellow whose countenance was far from being as pleasing as his subaltern’s.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I’m Jacques de Possaque, house marshal in the cavalry brigade of Captain Bouillargues, and I’ve just learnt of your request to enter our town. May I ask what business brings you here?”
“The desire to visit your beautiful city,” I said, not wishing to reveal that I was intending to reside with Monsieur de Montcalm, who was a royal officer and a papist, and was doubtless not considered by those of our party with much favour at a moment like this. “We are students from Montpellier,” I added, “and I have a letter of safe conduct from Captain Cossolat, who’s one of ours, addressed to Captain Bouillargues.”
As I pulled the letter from my saddlebags, I showed him the address on the letter without handing it to him. But even sealed as it was, this document proved to be an open sesame.
“Monsieur,” said Possaque (whose “de” supposedly indicating his noble status struck me as a pretence, as Jean Vigier had put it), “I’ll escort you to the Seashell inn where I’ll ask you to wait until Captain Bouillargues can see you. However, I doubt that will be before this evening. Except for the chateau—whose garrison is too weak to cause us any alarm—the city is in our hands. And the captain has a few scores to settle with some of the papist fanatics, scores that won’t admit of any delay in the settling.”
As he said this, Possaque gnashed his teeth and his eyes gleamed in a way that I thought would offer very little comfort to those he had mentioned. “Ah,” I thought, “the fanatics aren’t just on one side in this mess. Here I am with a reformist cut from the same cloth.”
Possaque, having admitted us into the city, invited us to dismount and walk our mounts, which we did. We then followed a platoon of about twenty men, holding a stunning variety of weapons, amongst them Jean Vigier, who’d managed to trade his unwieldy halberd for a short sword. He carried this sword in his hand, having no sheath for it, and seemed so ha
ppy to be armed that, as he walked, he would practise great slashes with it in the air. Possaque, worried that he’d wound a comrade with these antics, sent him to the back of the platoon, where he was very happy to find us, and I was just as happy to converse with him, for without him we would never have learnt the particulars of this drama we’d been plunged right into.
As we progressed towards the centre of town, the noise of the tumult seemed to grow louder, not because of any great combat or resistance, for the papists were huddled, terrified, in their homes, but because the streets were full of various brigades, running this way and that, shouting at the top of the lungs, “Close up your shops! All shops closed!”—an order the merchants were careful not to disobey, for they all feared looting. In a trice, Nîmes became a dead city, stalls removed, shutters closed, doors barricaded, and the populace ensconced behind their walls—all except those who ran about, shouting “Kill the papists! Kill! It’s a new world!”
“Ha!” I thought. “What kind of a new world is this, that begins with the massacre of people who, when all is said and done, have the same God that we do but worship Him in a different way?”
“What?” I said to Jean Vigier. “Are you planning to kill all the papists here?”
“Oh no!” he replied. “We’re not Turks! From what I’ve heard, none of the women, children or moderate papists will be killed. But as for those who were continually preaching against us and promising that we’d all be burnt at the stake, they’ll not piss so high when we’ve got our hands on them.”
“Vigier,” I said, “do I hear you right? Executions? Without trials and without judges?”
“Oh, as for judges,” he replied, “how would we find any? They were all on the other side and against us.”
