by A L Berridge
‘ “The boy!” ’ he said. ‘That’s the Seigneur to me.’
‘He’s André,’ I said. ‘We’re all to call him …’
‘That’s the Seigneur!’ he shouted. ‘That’s our lord and master!’
He rounded on me, eyes burning, hands coming up, I shut my eyes. But nothing happened, and when I opened them again, he slowly dropped his arms down to his sides and just looked at me with this awful defeated expression.
He said ‘And you like him.’
He turned away as if the sight of me disgusted him, then swung back suddenly, his fist shooting out in this white blur and smashing into my face, my head cracking back, the dresser cutting into my back as it ground past me, and I went smack down hard on the floor.
He looked at me lying there.
‘Yes,’ he said, and his voice was quite calm suddenly. ‘I’d say you’re a gentleman all right.’
He walked back to the table and blew out the candle. I heard his footsteps start again, the creak of the door to the other room, then the little thud as it closed.
I was alone in the dark, with an ache in my jaw and the taste of blood in my mouth.
Four
Colin Lefebvre
Forts fell one by one, we had news of it every day. La Capelle, Bohain, Vervins, Origny-Sainte-Benoite, Ribement, even Le Câtelet. Early August and the Spaniards were on the Somme, with only Corbie to hold them. Then mid-August Corbie fell and the road to Paris was wide open.
Things weren’t good in Dax. This was August, right, harvest coming in and soldiers letting us do it, but when it was done they moved in like locusts and took the lot. Left enough for the farms to keep going, but no more. People hungry everywhere, don’t know what we’d have done without the Seigneur. Couldn’t come into Dax himself, but Jacques did, came once a week to see my sister, brought us cash every time.
Couldn’t last, though, couldn’t go on that way for ever. More than five hundred Spaniards in Dax, same in Verdâme, just about doubled our population, not to mention less land to feed them, lot of our crops being outside the Wall. Mostly hops and barley, on account of us making beer for the region, but lot of the sheep out there too, and that was meat we needed. Looked like being a lean winter and no mistake. Lean times for everyone till the Spaniards left.
But they weren’t going. Usual thing with an invasion, right, they come in, do their stuff and move on. Those left behind bury their dead, rebuild their houses and get on with their lives, just the way it is. But not this time. This time they’re not just billeting men in our homes, they’re taking over the old building used to be the original Roland home, the one with Le Soleil Splendide in one wing and storehouses in the rest, they’re taking over the whole thing, extending the back, and turning it into a dirty great barracks. They’re even taking over the old steward’s house, say it’s for a new governor from Spain. ‘It’s the Wall, that’s what it is, Col,’ said my dad. ‘The Wall’s a good defence for them, they’re trying to make us part of Artois, you mark my words.’
Some talk of fighting and throwing them out ourselves, others saying no, that’s the army’s job, like we pay taxes for. Some sense in it too, our own troops were moving at last, driving them back from Compiègne. ‘Wait it out,’ everyone’s saying, ‘Wait it out, they’ll be here any day.’
But days came and went, and those of us who remember the Chevalier Antoine start thinking there’s maybe another way. October comes, and every day there’s more and more of us looking toward Ancre and the Seigneur.
Jacques Gilbert
The boy was clutching eagerly at every scrap of news, working out how long it might take our army to get to us and boot the Spaniards out. I was almost as desperate myself. Being Occupied didn’t bother me as much as it did André, but I knew if our troops didn’t come soon the boy would want to fight.
It was all he thought about. Even teaching me fencing wasn’t for fun, it was all about killing Spaniards and doing it for real. He showed me how to twist and turn and jump to stop someone stabbing me. He showed me how to use a cloak in my other hand to distract or block him, and how to get in close and grab his sword-hand. He chalked an outline of a man on the barn wall and demonstrated the different ways to hit him, all of which had horrible Latin names but all seemed to mean killing the other man stone dead. Then he got M. Gauthier to bring me a real sword from his cache, a proper battle one like his own, strong and edged from point to hilt. It was a beautiful sword, with a guard like a golden cage to protect my hand, but I knew it wasn’t for me to wear and look important as André’s aide, it was there for me to kill Spaniards.
It was the same with everything. He treated me quite differently now I was his aide, he spoke like we were almost equal, but everything was about grooming me to fight. He talked about things to do with honour, he was even teaching me to read, but all his books were about chivalry and stuff and people standing up against horrible odds. My Father thought it was very funny. I knew he was sorry about hitting me that night, he never even mentioned it again, but he still couldn’t take any of it seriously. He might have done if he’d known what it really meant.
I understood why the boy felt strongly, I knew what the Spaniards had done to him, or thought I did. I knew he had nightmares, he’d toss and moan in his sleep, arms thrashing about to fight someone who wasn’t there, breathing hard and painful, face pale and damp with sweat. It was still madness to think of resistance. I knew he could fight, I’d never forgotten the way he hacked down that mounted Spaniard, but I remembered the rest of it too, him running back into the Manor to fight a hundred soldiers by himself and me having to knock him out to stop him. He’d only turned thirteen that August, he’d got no sense, let him loose in a battle and he’d be dead in seconds, and half the village along with him.
I did my best to talk him out of it. I said we’d still be all right if our troops didn’t come, the soldiers wouldn’t need such a big garrison when they saw we were docile, there’d be enough food to go round, they’d stop bullying us and settle down. André just sniffed and said it was a matter of honour, and there was never any arguing with him about that.
What really didn’t help was M. Gauthier. He kept bringing us stuff like sword belts and baldrics, he watched us fencing and even got us to try it on horseback like soldiers in a real battle. He didn’t seem to realize he was encouraging the boy to do something that wouldn’t just kill Spaniards, it might be the end of all of us in Dax.
He brought some venison to the cottage one day, so I grabbed him on his way home and begged him to leave the boy alone. I said ‘It’s dangerous, M. Gauthier, you’re making him want to fight the Spaniards.’
He grinned at me and I had to look away to avoid seeing his teeth. ‘He doesn’t need any encouragement, lad, that’s the man he was born to be.’
The rest of us weren’t, but I suppose he only cared about André. I said ‘But he could get killed, M. Gauthier, don’t you see?’
He stopped to wait while Dog did something disgusting in a ditch. ‘Not the Chevalier André. Don’t you know what he can do? His father was the finest swordsman in Paris, and this one’s better, his father said so himself.’
I did know, actually. The boy had this way of sensing what I was going to do before I did it, in all these months of fencing I’d only ever touched him twice.
I said ‘It’s not that, it’s just what he’s like. I’ve seen him, he’ll do something stupid and get himself killed.’
M. Gauthier was silent a moment, and looked at Dog enjoying his crap. ‘Well, if it has to be, it has to be,’ he said philosophically. ‘There’s worse things than that.’
I couldn’t believe it. ‘Like what?’
He glanced at me in something like surprise. ‘Shame, lad,’ he said. ‘Shame. Haven’t you learned that yet?’
He smiled kindly at me as Dog emerged triumphant from the ditch, then tipped his hat and strolled away.
Colin Lefebvre
Things looked up that November when ou
r army retook Corbie. Imperial troops withdrawing all over, thought we’d only got to wait and they’d all be out of France. But oh no, end of the campaign season is all it was, Spaniards racing each other home to get the best winter quarters, and our own troops not much better. Week passes, then no more Spaniards coming through, all sitting tight in La Capelle and Le Câtelet and waiting it out till spring. More to the point, they were sitting it out in Dax-Verdâme as well, and not just till next year. First time in my life the Dax Gate is shut, soldiers are knocking holes in our Wall and sticking bloody great cannon to point out of them, and it looks like they’re here to stay.
People started talking. People saying this was it, we were on our own, no one coming to help us now. Some said lie down and accept it, there were towns changed hands twice already in this war, but no one happy all the same. D’Estrada doing his best to control the troops, decent man in his way, but soldiers are soldiers, no matter what flag they fly. People being robbed, some getting raped, lot getting beaten, and where there was resistance there’d been a few killed.
The Verdâmers cracked first. Nothing much, nothing big, just a soldier killed now and then and maybe his gun stolen. Rumour said it was a caporal in the Baron’s Guard who’d escaped the surrender at the barricade. Rumour said he was being helped by the Verdâme tanner, man called Stefan Ravel. Nothing to do with us, no one in Dax involved, but the Spaniards didn’t like it, things turned ugly all round.
It started with the Pagniés’ pig. November’s killing time in Dax, and Pagnié always had cider for them as helped. So there we all were, right, butchering it up nice and neat, then in come the soldiers and carry off the lot. Old Pagnié pleads with them, says he needs to feed his people through the winter, but the cabo just takes up the pig’s testicles, throws them in Pagnié’s face, and says ‘Here you go, you can all share that.’
Word got round fast. Thibault farm were butchering too, so they took warning and did it that very night, all very secret and quiet, sent it out in little parcels; we had some of the guts salted away ourselves for making andouillettes. So when the soldiers come swaggering in to take the meat there’s nothing but an empty table and the testicles arranged tasteful on a plate. Soldiers went mad. Robert’s dad taken out and beaten, then the cabo says ‘Well if we can’t have the pig we’ll take the sow instead,’ and they took Robert’s sister into the barracks and had her all night. Poor little Agnès, not much above thirteen, we could hear her screaming through the walls. Wouldn’t have happened if d’Estrada’d been there, but he was in Verdâme that night, that de Castilla in charge, for all I knew he took part in it himself.
D’Estrada wasn’t happy when he got back, had his men flogged and de Castilla reprimanded, but he couldn’t do more. Old Père Gérard pleaded for order, but d’Estrada said he couldn’t blame his men for being rough, said it came of people taking pot-shots at them, said it made them touchy. He said ‘You keep your own folk in order, mon père, then I’ll be able to do more with mine.’
Not a bad type, d’Estrada, but he didn’t know Picards. We’re not like those madmen in Gascony, we’ll bend a while if we have to, but we won’t take bullying and we won’t be made quiet. There was no more talk of lying down and taking it after that, no talk of anything but fighting.
There was only one answer for it, same as there’s always been, and my dad told me straight. ‘Up to you, Col,’ he said. ‘You’re the man for this, seeing as you know them. You cut on up to Ancre and see the Seigneur.’
Jacques Gilbert
As soon as I saw him I knew this was it. We were fencing in the back meadow with the swords that afternoon, and the moment I saw Colin toiling purposefully up the bridle path I knew what he’d come to say.
I couldn’t really blame him, because it was a dreadful story. I knew Robert Thibault, him and me and Colin went round a lot together in the old days. I didn’t really know Agnès, but I’d dreamed about her sometimes, and now I couldn’t even do that, it felt sort of indecent. But the boy seemed even more upset than I was, which was odd, I mean they weren’t people he knew. He stood with his face turned away all the time Colin was talking, prodding his sword savagely into the grass. When it was over he just stared at the ground and said ‘Right then. That’s it, isn’t it? It’s time to fight back.’
I felt a kind of dull ache of acceptance. ‘How?’
Colin started talking enthusiastically about all those who’d be willing to fight, and of course it was all people our own age or not much older.
‘Haven’t we any veterans at all?’ asked the boy. ‘No one who knows how to go about something like this?’
We hadn’t. There was M. Gauthier, of course, and Jacob Pasle the woodcutter, who was even older and had shaky hands with all brown spots, but that was about it. I said bitterly ‘It won’t be much of an army.’
André looked at me. ‘We’ll manage somehow, we’ll learn. But we’ve got to fight them, Jacques, we’ve got to show the bastards, that’s what really matters.’
I thought our surviving mattered a bit too, but he wasn’t in the mood to hear it so I kept my mouth shut. We just packed up our swords into the bundle of firewood we carried them about in, then set off back to the cottage with Colin.
We were just approaching the top of the bridle path when we heard crashing and banging from down by the Manor, and looked at each other in alarm. The soldiers had finished looting Ancre months ago, and we liked it that way, it meant we could ride the horses and fence in the meadow, we didn’t want them coming back now. We crept carefully to the edge of the bank and peered down.
There was a cart on the back apron, and it looked like the same we’d stuck the wheel on. The two soldiers dumping a slab of marble inside looked like ones we’d seen before too, though there was no sign of that fat cabo, I was glad to see, he wasn’t someone I wanted to run into again. Then I looked at the horse harnessed to the cart and forgot all about the cabo and anything else, because it was the old Général.
I loved that horse. He was a huge German-bred beast, the Seigneur used to say he was the best warhorse he’d ever had, but he got a bit of shrapnel in his eye at Casale and had to be retired afterwards. He didn’t understand, the poor old Général, I remember the look on his face when the Seigneur went riding off on Tonnerre instead, and the desolate little whinny when he saw them disappear out of sight. He was old now and confused in the head, but he was still a warhorse inside, he didn’t know how to be anything else. And there he was, harnessed to a cart by Spanish soldiers like he was just some scrubby workhorse from the Auvergne, it made my heart sort of burn.
‘Look what’s in the cart,’ whispered the boy. ‘Look.’
I couldn’t tell at first, they were just big square slabs of marble, some black and some white, then a picture swam into shape in my mind and I recognized the hall floor at the Manor.
‘They’ll be for their barracks,’ said Colin knowledgeably. ‘They’re extending it at the back.’
‘And what about the dairy?’ said the boy. ‘Suppose they take the flags there too?’
I’d forgotten the weapons, but the boy hadn’t, he looked half frantic.
‘We’ve got to get them out,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to do it now.’
I explained we couldn’t stroll in and start digging up the dairy floor while the Spaniards were sitting practically on top of it, but he only said all right, we’d come back and do it at night.
‘Ah, but where will you keep them?’ said Colin. ‘We’re talking about iron and steel here, Sieur, needs looking after, needs to be inside and dry.’
That was typical Colin, he went droning on about rust and stuff, but the boy just flapped at him to shut up and said ‘The barn, we’ll put them there.’
I only just didn’t shudder. I asked what he thought the soldiers were going to do if they found us sitting on a whole armoury of guns, they’d kill the lot of us and burn the house down.
‘Risk you might have to take, Sieur,’ said bloody Colin. ‘Don’t k
now what else you’re going to do, and that’s a fact.’
I could have brained him. I think the boy felt the same, he just said coldly ‘You find the volunteers, Lefebvre, I’ll provide them with weapons when the time comes.’
‘Right you are, Sieur,’ said Colin, all huffy. ‘I’ll do my bit, you can count on me.’ He picked himself up off the grass and went on down the path, oozing outraged dignity through the stiffness of his back.
I started to get up myself, but the boy pulled me back down. ‘Wait a bit,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if they’re going to just take the hall and leave it at that.’
I didn’t see how they could possibly take more than the hall floor in one go, I mean this was stone, it was going to take them days to shift. Even as we watched, the soldiers dropped in a last slab then hopped on the cart themselves, and I knew they were finished.
‘Maybe when they’ve gone,’ said the boy. ‘Maybe we can …’
I stopped listening. The lead soldier flicked his whip and I saw the Général heave, but it was too much for him, poor beast, it was too much for any horse. The soldier flicked the whip again, and I heard him shout, the voice drifted right up to us and it sounded full of swearing.
I said ‘They can’t, they can’t expect …’
The soldier jumped off the cart in a temper, went up to the Général and brought his whip down crack across his flank. The Général shied away, and the whip lashed down again, the Général neighed shrilly, the soldier’s arm was coming up, and somehow so was I, I was on my feet and running down the bank, I’d got to stop him, I couldn’t bear it. I slithered and fell down the last bit, but I didn’t care, I was up and on the apron and running towards the cart.
The soldier on top lifted out a musket, and I guessed they’d got jumpy about their fellows being killed in Verdâme, but when he saw it was just a stupid unarmed peasant, he said something to his colleague, laughed and put the gun back down.
