by Perrat, Liza
‘She’s shocked and sad,’ I said. ‘Maman does not mean what she says.’
Grégoire and I too, were shocked and sad, and my anger at that murdering baron wouldn’t leave me, the pain like all of Maman’s sewing needles jabbing into me at once.
‘We’ll find the villain,’ Grégoire said, his dark eyes grim, his face pale with the rage. ‘And throw rocks at his head until he too leaks out all his blood.’
‘I’ll kill him myself,’ I said, feeling the first stirring inside me — a bitter hatred of every noble person.
4
The following year Maman decided I was old enough to attend my first hanging.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to go; I cannot see such a terrible thing.’
‘Don’t be an idiot, hangings are fun.’ Grégoire said. ‘And there is always such a crowd.’
Maman snagged my arm. ‘You have eleven summers now, Victoire — quite old enough to see what happens to wicked people.’
I kept tugging against her grip as she hustled me across the village square, where the wooden frame of Lucie’s gallows stood opposite Saint Antoine’s, the looped rope hanging from a high beam.
It seemed all of Lucie gathered on the square that sunny May afternoon to see the boy die: old people and babies, the women who wove silk from their homes, the families of the baker, the clog-maker, the stone-masons and the blacksmith. Even the day labourers had stopped their field work.
I’d seen this boy before. Grégoire told me his family had recently come to Lucie from a village two leagues distant. Nobody had any idea why they would leave their own village, and we didn’t know their names, so we simply called them The Foreigners.
‘But what has he done?’ I asked.
‘The boy is accused of celebrating black Masses on the naked body of his sister,’ Maman said.
‘Black Mass?’
‘The most evil blasphemy,’ Maman said. ‘The worst mockery of the Holy Mass.’
I frowned, still not understanding.
‘They bleed a baby to death over the body of a woman who lies naked on an altar,’ my brother said.
‘Grégoire! Your sister does not need to know every detail,’ Maman said. ‘And where did you learn of this?’
‘Shush, it’s about to start.’ The blacksmith’s wife tapped a finger to her lips. The crowd fell silent, all eyes on the boy whose tears rolled down his cheeks.
Surely he was too young to die. Then I remembered Félicité and Félix were only three when God called them.
Two big men were pushing the boy up the steps because he wouldn’t go on his own and kept screaming, ‘No, no! I am innocent.’
Père Joffroy stood beside the struggling boy. ‘Repent my son, before it is too late!’ he said in his loud priest’s voice, the great cassock opening in the breeze as if trying to swallow up the boy’s cries for mercy.
The executioner tightened the noose around his neck. A large stain appeared on the front of the boy’s breeches. A few people laughed.
‘Ha, he’s pissed himself!’ a man cried. ‘A sure sign of guilt.’
The boy seemed stiff with terror, his eyes opening so wide I thought they’d burst from his skull.
‘Why doesn’t Père Joffroy save the boy, Maman?’
My mother said nothing; she simply gripped my hand tighter, the fingers of her other hand folding around her bone pendant. She slid the angel back and forth, along its leather thread.
The boy’s screams had died down to moans. The villagers were quiet again. The birds stopped singing and I imagined even the flowers and trees stopped growing for this one moment — the end of the boy’s life.
The square was silent, as if everyone held their breath. The executioner pushed the boy from the platform. I wrapped my arms around myself and turned from the body writhing and flipping like the fish we caught in the river.
‘Watch, Victoire.’ Maman’s firm hands pivoted my shoulders around. ‘Public punishment is an important lesson to deter people from committing crimes.’
‘But how can we be certain of his guilt? What if he is innocent, and dies for nothing?’
I kept trying to avert my eyes from the boy, who was still twisting about. How long did it take to die?
‘Hush.’ Maman frowned at me. The executioner took hold of the boy’s legs, and stretched them out backwards.
I flinched as his neck snapped like a summer twig. Maman pulled me close and held me tight, and from far-off, a woman’s keening cry echoed deep and mournful through the valley.
‘I know a boy’s passing is a terrible thing to see, but death is part of life, Victoire and, apart from unforeseen tragedies, you now know it comes early to those who do not obey the ways of the Lord.’
I nodded, thinking of the boy who had not repented in the end. I pictured him falling fast, deeper and deeper, until he reached Hell. The devil was waiting for him — a scarlet, horned creature surrounded by great flames. The devil’s fangs drooling spittle, it gobbled the boy up, and he disappeared into everlasting darkness.
A small girl with tangled hair appeared beside us, and startled me from my thoughts of the devil.
‘Madame Charpentier, the baby is coming.’ She was tugging my mother’s skirt. ‘Maman sent me to fetch you.’
‘Grégoire, Victoire, go straight home,’ Maman said. ‘No wandering off in the woods. Those beggar people are so wild and poor they will steal your clothes and clogs one day, and remember, no going near that dangerous river.’
We nodded. ‘Yes, Maman.’
‘Prepare the soup, Victoire, and Grégoire, light the fire under the pot please. This is her fifth babe, I shan’t be gone long.’
Our village had no physician, so my mother alone cared for the people. She looked serious with her hair pulled back like that, in a chignon sitting low under her cap, but I understood Maman had to look serious when she was birthing babies and healing the sick of Lucie.
Our mother was not always serious though. She often smiled when we were alone in the evenings, reading a funny tale together, except when something reminded her of The Day of the Storm. Then Maman would stop smiling, and shadows darkened her green eyes as if she was seeing right up to Heaven to check on Félicité and Félix.
***
‘Let’s go?’ Grégoire said.
I nodded, glad to get away from the boy’s body swaying in the breeze like someone’s forgotten scarecrow.
We hurried from la place de l’Eglise, out across the fields, through corn and wheat as tall as me, the green already speckled with gold. Cherry and pear blossoms floated from branches like snowflakes, as we flew past. Fat crows circled and squawked overhead, as if eyeing us as prey. We reached the woods and slowed down, breathing fast.
‘We’re safe,’ Grégoire said. ‘Nobody will see us here — no tale spinners to tell Maman we didn’t go straight home.’
‘There she is, the mad witch!’ I pointed through the trees to an old wooden hut, so well hidden between the large oaks that you could easily mistake it for some tangle of branches, leaves and ivy.
‘Not too close, Grégoire, she’ll see you and cast spells on us.’
But I was certain the witch-woman had already spotted us. A dark eye, rimmed in red, stared from around the open doorway.
‘No such thing as witches.’ Grégoire rolled his eyes. ‘That’s only another stupid peasant story. You’ll learn, Victoire, when you’re as old as me.’
Witch or no witch, I was glad we hurried on, breathing more easily when we left the woods, on the side near Monsieur Armand Bruyère’s grapevines.
Léon Bruyère, bent over the vines, was seventeen now, and when I’d watched him weed and plough the earth, this spring, I saw he was as strong as a man.
Léon smiled as we waved, the sun shining off his skin the same bronze colour as the King’s statue on la place de l’Eglise. Léon stuck his thumb up, which meant he could sneak away and meet us on the riverbank.
Grégoire and I continued on, past the Br
uyère farm perched on the ridge like a king surveying his great domain. We somersaulted down the grassy slope, shrieking all the way to the riverbank. Fingers of sun tickled my cheeks, my nostrils flared with the scent of spring grass and damp earth, and the Vionne River twisted like a green serpent through the valley of the Monts du Lyonnais.
We walked the opposite way from where our cottage had stood. Since The Day of the Storm, Grégoire and I avoided the pyramid of stones and rotting beams that had been our home. Even if I caught a glimpse of the fireplace, the only thing left standing, my belly heaved and I felt sick.
‘A hearth without a home is worse than a home without a hearth,’ Maman had said.
We rounded a bend, to where a group of women were washing clothes and sheets in the river.
‘Quick!’ Grégoire pulled me behind an oak tree. We leaned against the trunk, listening to the women chattering about what their husbands made them do in bed.
‘… bend over like a dog,’ one was saying.
‘Tie … rope around … neck,’ another said, giggling. ‘… lead him … like a pig!’
I nudged my brother and we cupped hands over our mouths to smother the sniggers.
As much fun as it was listening to their stories, we tramped on until we came to our secret place where the water flowed fast around a bend, sweeping across ferns, and boulders with mossy faces, emptying acorns, twigs and leaves into a deeper pool.
From the pebbled shore, we skimmed stones, breaking the smooth surface, waiting for Léon. Grégoire was showing off, boasting he could skim pebbles better than I could.
Léon soon sauntered towards us, and as he pulled off the boots he now wore instead of his old clogs, I saw Grégoire eye them, and I knew he would love to have such a pair.
Perhaps, if we found that golden treasure from the fables’ book, my brother would have a lovely pair of boots, and I might have a princess dress.
The boys rolled their breeches up and waded into the river.
Grégoire grimaced. ‘Ah, freezing!’
I knotted my chemise and petticoat on the side and followed them into the icy water.
I never understood why Maman worried so about the river. Grégoire and I had come to know every ditch and hole in which you might lose your footing; we were aware of every twist and bend where the current snagged and became a swirling whirlpool. We paid no attention to the villagers who called it la Vionne violente.
If Maman discovered we actually swam in the river, she’d have worried even more. The river was for scrubbing clothes, for cooking and drinking. Nobody wanted to swim, or even wash, in it.
Grégoire always said we must not tell people we came here; that they believe the river is bad for you, even deadly if you get your skin wet. He said they would treat us as if we had a curse.
Tiny fish darted like fireflies, moss glowed the brightest green, and the sun’s rays stretched right down to the smooth, rounded stones on the riverbed. I flicked water at the boys and laughed, longing for the hot summer days when we would swim and lounge beneath the waterfall.
‘This is the loveliest place in all the world,’ I said.
‘That’s because you’ve never been out of Lucie,’ Grégoire said.
‘Oh but I will, one day, Grégoire. I’ll journey across the country like Papa did, and see exciting places.’
‘I don’t see why you’d want to do that,’ Grégoire said with a snort.
Léon’s large hand wrapped around a trout, and as he held up the writhing fish, the poor hanged boy flashed through my mind.
‘Your supper,’ Léon said.
‘Keep your fish,’ Grégoire said. ‘Or our mother will know we’ve been at the river.’
Léon pushed the trout towards me. ‘Tell her I gave it to you, it is the truth.’
Grégoire shook his head. ‘Keep it, I told you. I’ll catch one for us.’
Léon lit a fire. We danced around the small blaze, and when our feet were warm, we fell into a heap on the grass, giggling. I never knew what we found so funny, but something always made us laugh until we were breathless, and clutched our sides.
Léon plucked a poppy, lifted my cap and wove it through my braid. The afternoon sun lay across my shoulders like a warm stole and my father’s words chimed in my head.
You have your mother’s tresses, Victoire, that gleam like a fox in the moonlight.
How I missed him, and how the rage bubbled in me each time I thought of that noble baron and how a peasant could do nothing to punish such a person.
‘Stop touching her hair,’ Grégoire said. ‘You’re not supposed to play with girls’ hair.’
‘Wherever did you hear such a thing?’ Léon said. ‘Anyway, your sister doesn’t seem to mind.’
‘She’s only eleven — not old enough to know what she minds.’ Grégoire grabbed my arm and pulled me upright.
‘Come on, we have to get home before Maman.’
I wondered why Grégoire didn’t talk to me all the way back, and why I had to run to keep up with him.
***
Maman lit a candle, which threw long shadows onto the walls. I shivered as I mopped up the last of the pea soup with rye bread. It was not really cold but after five years in the damp church room, I still shivered, remembering our cosy cottage hearth.
‘Be thankful for what we do have,’ Maman had said. ‘We are lucky to have a roof; blessed we don’t have to live like really poor beggars in open huts in the woods.’
Maman opened the copy of Les Fables de Jean de la Fontaine, which Père Joffroy had given us when we lost everything The Day of the Storm. I sat beside her, following each word with my finger.
‘Maît-re Cor-beau, sur un ar-bre per-ché…’
‘You are reading so well now, Victoire,’ she said, as I started on the next story.
‘How strange,’ she said, pressing her nose into my hair. ‘It smells like the river.’
I stole a glance at Grégoire, sitting on her other side. Even in the dim light, I could see my brother’s face had darkened. He sniffed and looked away, as if studying the candlelight shadows.
‘And what’s this?’ Maman plucked a scarlet petal from my braid. ‘A poppy petal? I haven’t seen poppies anywhere besides the riverbank slope.’
The tap-tap on our door saved me. ‘Madame Charpentier?’
‘Who’s there?’ Maman asked.
‘Françoise, the clog-maker’s daughter. Maman told me to come for you. The chest sickness has got my father again.’
Maman gathered garlic, dandelion, thyme and some other things from her stocks, which had taken us all those five years to replenish. She was thankful for the few shelves Grégoire had built, though they were nothing like the light and airy place in the cottage she’d stored her herbs and flowers, her special mortar, pestle and bowls. She kissed us and disappeared into the darkness with Françoise.
‘I hope they’ve got doves,’ Grégoire said.
‘What for?’
‘Because, silly, don’t you know how Maman heals the chest sickness?’
I shook my head.
‘You slice a white dove down the middle — a live one.’ Grégoire grinned. ‘Then you put the two shuddering halves on the man’s chest.’
‘That cannot be true! Maman would never kill a lovely bird. Our mother could never kill anything.’
‘She kills babies,’ Grégoire said.
‘Maman does not kill babies, she births them! I could slap you, Grégoire, for saying such a terrible thing.’
‘What do you think an angel-maker does then?’
‘Well … makes angels, of course.’
I knew Maman needed three different herbs and flowers to make her special angel tea, but after that, I really had no idea how the angel came to be.
‘No stupid,’ Grégoire said. ‘An angel-maker gets rid of a baby from its mother’s belly. She kills it.’
My hand flew to my heart and I thought I would pass out with the shock that our kind and gentle mother killed babies
in the womb.
5
‘He’s dead, the old King is dead!’ As the voice skittered over the sun-warmed cobbles, I hurried out onto the square.
‘Gather, gather, let me tell you the story of the old King’s death,’ the journeyman said, the familiar traveller’s rags hanging from his ragged body.
As word passed around that a pedlar had arrived with a tale to tell, the people of Lucie scuttled from their homes. After all it was a Friday so we were not busy doing anything — the baker’s oven was cold, the silk-weavers’ looms still, the clog-maker and the blacksmith’s hammer quiet. It brought bad luck to do business on Fridays, dig a grave, give birth, bake food or change your clothes. Nobody began the harvest, sowed seed or slaughtered a pig, and the worst thing you could do on a Friday was wash clothes — garments washed on a Friday would become shrouds.
‘How is the old King dead?’ a silk-weaver woman asked, as the villagers crowded around the mountebank, who stepped onto an upturned crate.
Once the man had everyone’s attention, he held up a dark-coloured bottle.
‘My elixir to heal aching joints,’ he said. ‘It works like magic.’
‘Tell us about the King first,’ one of the quarry men said.
‘The old King is dead from la petite vérole,’ the traveller said. ‘The speckled monster got him!’
‘Oh là là,’ the clog-maker’s wife said. ‘The speckled monster chooses from all classes.’
‘The aristocrats may believe us commoners ignorant,’ the pedlar said, ‘but we are all, sadly, too familiar with this smallpox, which fills our graveyards and turns our babies into changelings their own mothers shudder at.’
‘Well I have a remedy for the smallpox,’ Maman said.
‘Your mixture of viper flesh and sweating paste no longer heals us,’ the blacksmith said.
‘Madame Charpentier’s remedies no longer seem to heal much at all,’ another silk-weaving woman said, clicking her tongue.
‘No, this is an entirely different treatment,’ Maman went on, ignoring the taunts. ‘Something far more efficient — the variolation — a procedure the royal government wishes all doctors and midwives to learn, to treat the smallpox.’
