Fortunes of France 4: League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  The days will seem like years as long as you are absent from me. Ever since this blessed snow had the misfortune to melt and the ground to harden, I swear that not a night have I passed dry-eyed.

  I kiss your hands a hundred thousand times more.

  Quéribus

  “Catherine,” said my father at last, “have you read this note?”

  “Would I have brought it to you if I hadn’t read it?” replied Catherine with a somewhat impertinent respect.

  “I understand perfectly. But what do you think about what it says?”

  “My father,” answered Catherine, “I shall think of it what you tell me is suitable for me to think of it.” And saying this, she made an even deeper curtsey to my father, who was clearly astounded that one so haughty could bow so low and put so much mute rebelliousness in her pretended submission; this strange mixture so embarrassed him that he doubtless would have preferred to confront five or six desperadoes, sword in hand, than to engage in this peaceful conversation. He so loved his daughter, calling her “my sweet, my soul, the apple of my eye”, that the enemy had rushed into the breach before he’d even drawn his sword.

  “Very well,” he concluded, choosing to break ranks rather than continue the battle, “you may retire, Catherine”—which she did with a majestic rustle of her skirts, a flame in her eyes and her head held high, leaving me amazed that someone so young had known how to put so much defiance into a gesture of respect, and communicate such implacable resoluteness in the language of obedience.

  “Well then!” breathed my father, when the door had closed behind her. “What do you think of all this, my brother?”

  “That we must end all commerce with this scoundrel immediately!” cried Sauveterre, his eyes aflame.

  “And why would that be?” frowned my father.

  “Because he has broken the laws of hospitality in sending a secret note to the daughter of his host that’s false and mendacious!”

  “Mendacious?” asked my father, raising an eyebrow. “I find it rather touching. In what way does it seem mendacious to you?”

  “My brother,” snarled Sauveterre indignantly, “was there any sign that Quéribus has been crying every night since the snow melted? Who would believe such a thing other than a virginal little girl?”

  “My uncle,” I broke in quickly. “Quéribus is not a liar! ‘Not a night have I passed dry-eyed’ is simply a figure of speech. That’s simply how they talk at court ever since Ronsard.”

  “What?” stormed Sauveterre, now beside himself with fury. “Ronsard! Have you read Ronsard, my nephew? This sworn enemy of our faith?”

  “I’ve read his love sonnets,” I replied, somewhat ashamed to admit such a thing in this library where there were no frivolous poems, except perhaps those of the Greek poet Anacreon.

  “This is hardly the point,” said my father. “My brother, for Quéribus, the courtier no doubt hides the man. The man is of good mettle. Nothing required him to go to a great deal of trouble and take such a risk in order to hide Pierre after the St Bartholomew’s day massacre and then bring him home safely to us. And as for his note, I don’t find it so damnable to assure one’s lady of one’s respect and say that one is ‘ready to witness one’s love before God and man’. I think we should let this run its course.”

  “Run its course!” trumpeted Sauveterre.

  “Certainly! Let’s wait for the baron to declare his love openly, especially since Catherine is so infatuated with him, given the way she brandished his note in front of our noses.”

  “She was defying you!” said Sauveterre bitterly.

  “Forget the defiance! I’m not going to cross swords with my daughter, as I so regret doing with my late wife, whose haughty and rebellious temperament she’s obviously inherited. A gentle hand is the only thing that will work with this tough lass. What’s more, I don’t want to hurt her if I can avoid it.”

  During the week that followed, and though the baron affected a calm demeanour, I felt that he was suffering so terribly from Samson’s flight from the paternal nest, having no idea when he’d return, that I decided to delay somewhat my own departure so as not to add so soon to the distress of the man whom I believed to be the best father there ever was. Assuredly, he would never have said what Montaigne had said, that he’d “lost three of four children in infancy, not without regret, but without great anger”. For, great warrior that he was—having, as everyone knows, distinguished himself at Ceresole and at Calais—he showed those he loved a degree of tenderness and affection that was truly maternal, always placing our well-being above his own. Indeed, during these melancholy days after Samson’s departure, I heard him say more than once that he was delighted that his pretty bastard was going to marry Gertrude in Normandy and that he would receive the apothecary shop in Montfort as dowry from her. He was also heard to say, begging my reader’s pardon for these rustic words from a man of the countryside, “There’s no greater happiness for a man than to spend his nights enjoying amorous ‘encunters’ with a good woman and his days in work that he’s chosen.”

  I had another reason for wanting to linger. Spring was disclosing its beauties in the myriad flowers that were budding as Mespech entered the verdant months that I so yearned to enjoy here after the rigours of the long winter. As soon as the thaw had rendered the roads passable again, I wrote to Angelina to assure her that I would always keep her image in my heart as fresh as the day I first laid eyes on her. But a lover’s heart is so crazy and unreasonable that, of course, no sooner had my letter departed than I began to be impatient for a reply even though it was manifestly impossible to expect one before the middle of the summer.

  Fogacer, his little page in tow, had left Mespech in the company of Quéribus, no less impatient than the baron to see the Duc d’Anjou, especially after the business in Périgueux, hoping that the duc would quickly reassure him of his protection.

  His was the first letter I received, towards the end of August. After a thousand compliments and thanks to the lords of Mespech for their hospitality, he informed me that, since the duc had been elected king of Poland, he had raised the siege of La Rochelle, not wishing to alienate the Protestant minority in his future kingdom. In this wise, he made a treaty with the French Huguenots that they never would have dared hope for after St Bartholomew’s day. This news delighted the Brethren, though they were very sceptical about the duration of this precarious peace, since the French papists were so fanatical about the eradication of our people.

  Fogacer added that Quéribus intended to follow the duc to his new kingdom, though with a heavy heart (for reasons which he thought I would understand), and that he himself would do the same, not so much because Dr Miron needed him, but rather because where his shield went, he could not but follow. It seems he preferred this frosty Polish exile to the flames I already knew about. Nevertheless, he was convinced that this separation wouldn’t last long, having observed while at the Louvre how sickly Charles IX was becoming. I had a little trouble understanding this last sentence, and had to go in search of a dictionary, since Fogacer had written it in Greek, fearing that his letter would be read in transit.

  Although Catherine had little taste for study, she insisted on standing behind me and leaning over my shoulder as I was working at this, and when I’d translated the Greek, she said, “What does this mean? What difference does it make to Fogacer that the king should be coughing and feeble?”

  “Well, if the king renders up his soul to God, then the Duc d’Anjou will come back to France with his entire retinue.”

  “Well, in that case,” she replied with a sly smile, “I’m very happy for Fogacer!”

  I smiled at this, but made no reply, since, for all the months that Fogacer had spent at Mespech, Catherine had never once taken notice of him.

  My knowing smile didn’t fail to induce Catherine to open up a bit more, and, putting her hand on my neck (she who was so sparing in her caresses), she asked if I would read her Fogacer’s letter, which I di
d immediately—it was something she couldn’t have done herself without a lot of effort, since she knew her letters scarcely better than my Alizon in Paris.

  “Dear my brother,” she cooed sotto voce when I’d finished, “why was the baron’s heart so heavy to have to leave France for Poland?”

  “But, Madame my sister, you know all too well why!”

  “Me?” she replied raising her eyebrows with an air of childlike candour that struck me as half-natural, half-feigned.

  “Didn’t the baron tell you in the letter you found in your sewing basket that ‘the days will seem like years as long as you are absent from me’?”

  “But do you think I should believe him?” Catherine asked with a kind of anxious urgency, as though all her most secret thoughts of love were about to be realized. “Didn’t the baron write love notes like this to all the gallant ladies of the court in Paris? Can I really trust him? What a pity the baron must hide himself away in this villainous city of Warsaw! Who forced him to go there? Don’t you think he’ll forget me when he gets there?”

  Hearing this, I stood up, turned to face her and burst out laughing.

  “What?” she cried, frowning, her hackles raised. “You dare laugh at me?”

  “It’s just that I don’t know which of your questions to answer first!”

  “Well then, answer them all, you heartless creature!” she cried, stamping her foot. “All of them! I shan’t be satisfied until you do!”

  “Hear me, then,” I answered, suddenly quite serious. “Here’s your answer, Catherine, my dear, sweet sister, as best I can respond. I believe Quéribus loves you deeply and that he will not fail to ask your father for your hand in marriage before he leaves for Warsaw.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “Assuredly so.”

  “Oh, my brother!” she cried; and, forgetting her usual haughty airs, she threw her arms around my neck, pulled me close as though I were the object of her affections, and gave me a hearty kiss, saying, “Oh, Pierre! Oh, my brother! You’re the most lovable of men!”

  “Now, now, my sweet!” I laughed. “You’re exaggerating! The most lovable of men is the one who has written that his eyes have not been dry since the snow melted.”

  My father received a beautiful letter from this same man a month later that was so full of spelling mistakes that he was as appalled by the anarchy in the arrangement of the letters as he was moved by the sincerity of Quéribus’s expressions of his great love for my sister. But there are plenty of clerics in this kingdom, not to mention educated gentlemen, who admit that they’re uncertain of their writing, and this “malady” has even invaded the printers, as is evident by the fact that the same word may take on, like a coquette wearing different clothes, a plethora of different spellings in the same book.

  So my father, assuredly one of the most learned men in the whole of the Sarlat region, didn’t hold this foible against Quéribus, but wrote him a long letter in response in which he acquiesced in principle to his overtures, but in very prudent terms, not wishing to commit his daughter’s hand entirely to a lord who might be away in Poland for God only knew how long.

  As for me, as the summer was drawing to a close and the August weather, as often happens in Périgord, dissolved into storms that brought lightning and cold rain, I began to pack my bags for Bordeaux, feeling that Giacomi, Miroul and his Florine were growing impatient to live in a big city—Giacomi because he was from Naples, Florine because she missed Paris and Miroul because he simply loved strolling through the streets of a big city. So I sat down with my father and we decided on 1st September as the date of my departure from Mespech. Alas! Once again it was not to be.

  We were all sitting around the table at nightfall on 31st August, each in his accustomed place—Cabusse, our stonemason Jonas and Coulondre Iron-arm had all joined us, accompanied by their wives, for this Sunday dinner—when our porter, Escorgol, rushed in, breathlessly asking to raise the portcullis to let Jacotte, the priest of Marcuays’s chambermaid, inside our walls. It appeared that she was breathless from running and screaming at the top of her lungs, begging to be given protection and banging with both fists on the gate. The Brethren agreed, so Escorgol hurried off, and soon returned with the poor girl, who was trembling, out of breath and dripping with water.

  She threw herself at my father’s feet and begged him with hands joined in supplication, and in a voice broken by sobs, to hurry to the defence of our priest and the town of Marcuays, which, without the succour of Monsieur the baron and Monsieur the écuyer of Mespech, would be completely destroyed, and all its inhabitants killed by a band of vicious brigands who were sacking the place. She herself had been able to flee out the back through her garden, and cut across the meadows, but fell into a ditch that had been flooded by the recent rains—which explained why she was soaked through like a crouton in soup.

  “La Maligou,” ordered my father as he rose to his feet, “give this poor wench some hot milk with a shot of spirits of wine. And you, Barberine, fetch her one of your dresses for dry clothing. Jacotte, undress in front of the fire, right away! Miroul, stoke up the fire!”

  “What, Monsieur?” pleaded Jacotte. “Naked! In front of all these men! Ah, no, Monsieur, that’s a sin!”

  “There’s no sin where necessity is the preacher,” replied my father. “Would you rather catch your death of cold from your bath in the icy water? Then do what I told you, Jacotte, and while you’re doing it, answer me.”

  “All right, Monsieur,” conceded the “priestette”, who, having sacrificed her Christian modesty under orders, wasn’t so unhappy about playing Eve to this assembly, since she was reputed to have the most abundant and firm bosom of any wench in the whole region.

  “Cabusse, take Jonas and Coulondre and fetch our cuirasses, helmets and arms,” continued my father, who’d picked them for this mission because their wives were getting jealous. And, certainly, that’s how the other unmarried lads understood it, for they were secretly laughing and elbowing each other, greatly enjoying this order, which deprived their Herculean companions of the spectacle and allowed them to get their fill of the charms before them, forgetting for a moment their fear of the combat that awaited them outside.

  Their emotions seemed entirely foreign to Sauveterre—or, if they weren’t, he repressed them by prayer and simply turned away, not daring to countermand his brother’s orders, doubtless understanding that this was the only fire in the chateau and that the girl was indeed chilled to the bone and trembling so violently it was heartbreaking to watch.

  But for these two eyes that were averted, many others opened so wide you’d have thought they’d pop out of their sockets at this unexpected and unheard-of display of the priest’s chambermaid, who was standing as naked as the day she was born. It was a thing they’d never believed possible even in their wildest dreams: an event that surpassed in consequence even the battle they were about to wage against the ruffians in Marcuays—and one they couldn’t wait to brag about to anyone who hadn’t seen it.

  However, their anticipatory laughter was suddenly followed by a silence, in which you could have heard a chicken feather turning in the wind, when Jacotte removed the last of her soaked clothes and appeared in all her robust flesh: large of foot, with finely muscled legs, rounded croup and incredibly generous but firm breasts.

  Taking advantage of Sauveterre’s lack of interest in this spectacle, Miroul threw a large log on the fire, which flamed up suddenly, illuminating this statue of flesh and blood in all its feminine beauty. And, no doubt encouraged by the additional warmth of these flames, poor Jacotte (but could one really call her “poor” given the riches with which she’d been endowed?) turned this way and that to warm herself even more, and not one among her audience had eyes enough to take in this invigorating sight. My father noticed that even François, who had feigned indifference, was secretly eyeing this idol through half-closed lids, and called out in the language of the province, “Well now! The duchesse or the working
girl—it comes down to the same thing when you see them as nature made them!”

  “Well, I’ve never seen a duchesse in my life,” laughed Barberine, who was arranging some clothes for Jacotte in front of the fire, “but no one’s ever seen teats like that around here! Heavens! Even mine when I was nursing these little gentlemen were never so large and beautiful!”

  “Oh, yes they were!” I shouted. “I know because I drank from them for three years!”

  “Four!” corrected Barberine. “And I even suckled you occasionally, glutton that you were, when I was nursing Catherine!”

  “Ah, how well I remember!” I agreed. “Round they were and soft to the touch!” At which she laughed wholeheartedly.

  At this, poor Petremol, our saddle-maker, who’d lost his wife and children to the plague six years previously, spoke up in his scratchy bass voice: “Excuse me, Jacotte, and you too, Barberine, but Sarrazine’s boobies, when she was nursing the kids at the table here in Mespech on Sunday, were smaller, maybe, than yours, but they were marvellously golden brown. And I loved watching her—no offence, Sarrazine!”

  But Sarrazine, who well understood that Petremol was suffering terribly from loneliness, looked at him with compassion in those beautiful, gazelle-like eyes of hers, smiled and—realizing (as all the women present did) that the pleasure of this nourishment was simply for the mother and babe, as God certainly intended it to be—said simply, with a voice I would have said was as sweet as the Blessed Virgin’s if I weren’t a Huguenot, “Thank you, Petremol.”

  “For pity’s sake,” growled Sauveterre in French (which none of our servants understood), “are we going to stand around admiring these teats while they’re pillaging Marcuays?”

  Certain it is that he couldn’t have expatiated very long on Jacotte’s mammaries, since he was so obstinately turning his back on her.

  “Wait, my brother,” said the Baron de Mespech. “We need to arm ourselves for battle! We can’t go charging into the fray with our doublets on!”