Fortunes of France 4: League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  Cabusse was soon back, followed by Coulondre and Jonas, all three burdened by a plethora of armour and arms, which they carefully laid out on the table, and from which each of us quietly selected the weapons we’d need, attaching each other’s breastplates from behind, our eyes now turned inward, focusing on the threat of injury or death that awaited both us and the villagers (though outwardly our eyes were still fixed on Jacotte, who was now drinking some warm milk that la Maligou had brought her). It was a prospect that filled us with courage and valour, for we knew all too well what these ruffians would do to the sweet girls in the town if we didn’t arrive in time to dispatch them.

  “So, Jacotte,” said my father, “time is of the essence. Tell us what you know of these marauders: their number, their weapons and, especially, whether they have firearms—pistols or arquebuses.”

  “Excuse me, Monsieur, but I can’t tell you how many there are since I didn’t dare look out of the window, which I closed as soon as I heard them attacking and because I rushed away to tell my poor priest.”

  “But you must have seen them, Jacotte,” said Siorac. “You must have some idea how many there are!”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t know her numbers,” observed Sauveterre.

  “Excuse, me, Monsieur écuyer,” Jacotte corrected, “I know my numbers up to twenty, and may the Blessed Virgin strike me dead if I’m lying.”

  “God is the only one who can strike you dead!” cried Sauveterre wrathfully. “And not Mary, who is not God!”

  “Excuse me, Monsieur écuyer,” replied Jacotte with dignity, “that’s not what my priest taught me.”

  “Now now, my brother,” broke in Siorac in French, “this is not the time to argue about theology! Now, my girl,” he said, turning to Jacotte, the fingers of his two hands extended, “were there ten of them? Or fifteen?”—keeping his right hand open and extending his left twice. “Or twenty?”—holding out all ten fingers twice.

  “Well, I’m going to say, Monsieur, it was maybe ten, maybe fifteen.”

  “Maybe twenty?” said Sauveterre disdainfully.

  “Maybe twenty,” said Jacotte unaware of his malice.

  “Well, now you know, my brother,” snarled Sauveterre. “And what about their weapons, Jacotte?”

  “By my faith,” replied the girl, walking over to the table, “there were some like this”—pointing to the swords—“and some like this”—pointing to the pikes.

  “And some like this?” said my father, pointing to a pistol.

  “Maybe.”

  “And some like this?” he continued, pointing to an arquebus.

  “Maybe.”

  “’Sblood! And what about these?” he asked, pointing to the armour.

  “Oh no! I didn’t see any armour on them!”

  “Well, that’s a good thing!” said my father between clenched teeth.

  “Zounds!” hissed Sauveterre. “If there are twenty of ’em, carrying firearms, with or without armour, there are too many of them for us. My brother, I think we should send a messenger to Puymartin, asking for help, and that we wait till dawn tomorrow to attack, since we’ll be more numerous and will be able to see more clearly.”

  “Ah, Monsieur écuyer,” moaned Jacotte, tears in her eyes, “these brigands are like starving wolves! If you wait any longer, you won’t find anything left of Marcuays but burnt-out houses, dead men and women raped and gutted.”

  “What do you think, my brother?” said Siorac in French.

  “That reason rarely wins out over one’s heart,” replied Sauveterre, clearly shaken by Jacotte’s words. “And so it is with me. Let’s send Miroul post-haste to Puymartin, and though the battle be uneven, by God’s grace, Mespech can’t allow her village to be burnt right under our noses!”

  “Well then, let’s pray Puymartin arrives in time!” agreed Siorac. “La Maligou, Barberine, tie a white strip of cloth on the arms of our men so they won’t kill each other, though thankfully there’s enough moonlight to see tonight. Miroul, tell Puymartin to do the same. My brother,” he said in French, “I want you to guard the chateau in our absence with Faujanet, Coulondre Iron-arm, Escorgol and François.”

  “Oh no!” cried Sauveterre in French, beside himself with rage that my father wanted to leave him behind with a bandy-legged man, a one-armed man, an obese man and a coward. “I’m going to fight, and that’s all there is to it!”

  “But your leg, my brother!”

  “It’ll carry me!” said his fellow lord, angrier than I’d ever seen him. “What else do you want to say?”

  “But I can’t leave the defence of the chateau to François, who’s so young!”

  “Oh, yes you can! François is very good at firing our little cannon, and we won’t be too far away to hear them if he does.”

  “François, can you do this?” asked my father coldly, terribly disappointed that François hadn’t adamantly insisted on joining the fight in Marcuays—as, assuredly, I would have done in his place.

  “Monsieur my father,” François replied, with his long face fixed in that inscrutable look he wore most of the time, “I will do whatever you command. With you in Marcuays if you command it, here if you prefer. And I assure you I’ll keep a good watch out while you’re gone.”

  His reply was not dictated by cowardice, as Sauveterre no doubt believed, being a soldier of the old school and having served under a soldier king. No, my older brother was more calculating. Having no warmth, no heart and no stomach, he was less inclined to save the poor women of the village than to safeguard the seat and chateau of his future barony—which he would have done bravely if the fortunes of war had required it.

  We saddled our horses, and when Escorgol raised the portcullis, I rode up next to my father, who had Jacotte behind him, holding on to his hips. By the light of the moon I could see worry written large on his face. And, certainly, there was plenty to worry about. If there were twenty of these rascals, we were not half as many as we should have been for such a fight: the Brethren, the two Siorac cousins (one already bearing a scar from our battle at la Lendrevie), Cabusse, Jonas, Petremol, Fröhlich, Giacomi and me. Ten in all, given that we couldn’t rely on Miroul, since we’d sent him off to Puymartin and couldn’t count on his arriving at the battle in time—especially since Puymartin was probably off at a soirée in some chateau in the area.

  We dismounted behind a deserted farm called la Fumélie, which lay just outside the town walls—proof that our enemies were not protecting themselves, since they should have posted a guard at this house, which commanded the road coming from Mespech.

  We left Petremol with our horses, since my father had never seen him fight and wasn’t sure how he’d do, and the nine of us (with Jacotte behind) quietly approached the village wall with its strong oak gate strengthened by a lookout turret, in which was posted an old, one-legged drunk named Villemont—who was no doubt asleep when the marauders arrived, and who probably lay dead on the other side of the wall.

  “Jacotte,” whispered my father as we rode up, “go and knock on the door and tell them you’re the priest’s servant coming back late from the fields. As soon as these villains unlock the gate, get away as fast as you can and hide in the cemetery.”

  “Monsieur,” replied the “priestette”, “I’ll pray to the Blessed Virgin to save my priest and protect you and”—she hesitated for a moment—“the écuyer.”

  “Amen!” whispered my father. “My friends,” he continued quietly as the eight men gathered around him, “unsheathe your swords—but no noise!—and keep your sword points low in order not to wound each other. Not a sound from any of you! Walk like cats, one paw after the other! Silence before any claws come out! Don’t fire your pistols unless it’s absolutely necessary, because any shot will alert our enemies within. The rascals are probably out pillaging before they start drinking. No mercy! The écuyer, my son Pierre, Giacomi and I will attack the parish house where most them are probably grouped. The rest of you will remain here as reinforcements wit
h Cabusse in charge. May God keep you, my children!”

  Brave and strong wench that she was, the priestette played her little role without batting an eyelid, demanded entry with a strong voice and even made a little joke as though she believed Villemont was still at his station, instead of lying dead in the mud—which is how we found him a second later, his throat cut from ear to ear, having traversed from his wine-induced slumber into eternal sleep without ever knowing the difference.

  One cut throat deserved another, and, without a cry being raised, the murderer was dispatched in a trice by Fröhlich’s knife, the knave falling like a sack of grain onto the body of Villemont. Our Swiss Guard then threw his entire weight against the chain, broke it and pushed the gate open wide. We were in! My father and I were the first to rush into the parish house through the door they’d left open, and found four miscreants engaged in torturing Pincers, who was hanging by his wrists from a beam—they were trying, no doubt, to get him to tell them where he kept his gold. We ran them through with our swords, though not before one of them had taken a wild shot at my father, who buried his knife in the brigand’s throat.

  “Damn!” cursed my father. “I don’t like that one bit! The noise and commotion are going to bring the cockroaches out of their nest!”

  He headed for the stairs leading up to the loft, but I was quicker than he, wishing to protect him from any shots coming from above; as I did, I tripped over the body of one of the rascals, who was half drunk, half dead from fear, and whom I grabbed by the throat. “Villain!” I hissed, squeezing his throat like a vice, my knee on his chest. “How many are up there? Your life, if you answer!”

  “Just one. The captain.”

  I levelled a blow of my iron glove at his ear and a kick in his side that sent him down the stairs—a blow that saved his life, as I found out later. But when I glanced out of the window, to my horror I could see by the moonlight that our men had been surrounded on the square by about a dozen brigands, who were shouting, “Kill ’em! Kill ’em!” Pulling my pistol from my belt, I dispatched one of them and Sauveterre, on my right, another.

  “My brother,” called Siorac, “go and get the captain with Pierre! I’m taking Giacomi to help our men outside!”

  Since the door at the top of the stairs was closed, I burst it open with a kick and rushed into the room, and was surprised to see a tall fellow preparing to leap out of the window to help his men below; but when he saw me enter, he turned to face me with a sword in one hand, which didn’t worry me much, and a loaded pistol in the other, which worried me a lot, since mine was now discharged—as was Sauveterre’s. I stopped dead in my tracks and my uncle as well, amazed not only that the wastrel didn’t fire, though he continued to point his gun at me, but also because he was naked and, over on his right, lying on Pincer’s bed was one of the village girls, whom the villain had been busy raping—if rape it was, for he was an unusually handsome man, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, long-legged and with a proud air about him: a fierce brigand, destined for the scaffold but scorning his fate. “Monsieur,” he yelled to Sauveterre in a mocking tone while keeping his eye on me, “if I don’t shoot, will you spare my life?”

  “If you shoot,” said Sauveterre, imitating the rascal’s mocking tone, “I’ll kill you in a trice!”

  “I don’t doubt it,” came the fellow’s retort. “May Heaven keep me from believing I’m the equal of a gentleman with a sword in his hand. And yet, even if you kill me, your son will also be dead and will be eaten by the same worms that eat me!”

  “Villain!” cried Sauveterre, trembling with rage. “Am I going to stoop to bargain with the likes of you?”

  “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, Monsieur! ’Tis as true as that my name’s Big Jacquet! My pistol is faster than your sword.”

  “So you think, you rascal!” cried Sauveterre, lunging at him with all his might, but falling short of his mark, since his treacherous bad leg didn’t allow him a full thrust. Seeing this, the fellow whirled and fired his pistol at my uncle, who fell from the shock of the bullet—as did the shooter, a second later, pierced by my blade.

  I leapt to my uncle’s side.

  “It’s nothing,” Sauveterre assured me in no uncertain terms. “I’ll be on horseback in a week! Pierre, throw this scoundrel out of the window so his men can see him and lose heart.”

  But the villain was so big and heavy, and my armour so cumbersome, that I had to call the wench to come and help. Which she did, though she hadn’t had time to get dressed, and the two of us easily managed to do as Sauveterre had ordered.

  “This was a handsome fellow!” she mused when he’d fallen to the courtyard below. “What a pity!”

  “Zounds! It would have been a good deal more of a pity, my girl, if he’d killed you after having deflowered you!”

  “That’s what I thought too,” she answered. “The bird who sings so pretty in the morning will be plucked that evening. But now I’ve been dishonoured without even having had the pleasure of being so! Monsieur, if you tell anyone about this I won’t find a husband in all of Périgord.”

  “Now now, don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul.”

  “Not that you deserve it, you hussy!” hissed Sauveterre, who’d pulled himself into a sitting position against the wall and was reloading his pistol, though very pale and breathing heavily. “Get yourself dressed, get out of here and pray to God for forgiveness for your sin. Pierre, don’t show yourself at the window!”

  At this moment we heard a cry below: “Big Jacquet’s dead!” So Sauveterre handed me his pistol and I stole a look out of the window and opened fire, dropping the fellow in this tracks.

  This done, I reloaded my own pistol as quickly as possible, though it turned out to be unnecessary. When the band of brigands saw their leader down, they fell back in confusion and ran helter-skelter towards their horses with our fellows in close pursuit, cutting them down from behind. But when a sudden cloud covered the moon, my father immediately ordered them to fall back, since he didn’t want us to shoot one of our own by mistake in the darkness.

  “Pierre,” gasped Sauveterre, his face resolute but his voice seeming to weaken, “cut down the priest from his beam. As dissolute and untrustworthy as he is, he doesn’t deserve being treated as a common thief, or even as an evil devil.”

  As I reached the floor below, my father was just coming in; he bounded up to me, crying, “Thank God, Pierre, you’re safe!”

  “Amen!” I cried. “And you, my father?”

  “Not a hair out of place!” he laughed, giving me a bear hug and rubbing his scratchy moustache on my cheek. “And Sauveterre?”

  “He’s wounded by a pistol shot, but says he’ll be on his horse again in a week.”

  “Ah, let me see!” said my father, suddenly growing sombre.

  I was going to follow him when I heard a voice from above, crying, “Hey! Monsieur! Help me! I’m dying up here! My arms are breaking!”

  As Giacomi came rushing in at that moment, I asked him to hold Pincers’s feet up to relieve the weight on his arms. That done, a couple of slashes with my sword cut the ropes, and down he came, like a puppet, onto Giacomi’s shoulders, moaning that his wrists were broken. I untied them and, though the flesh around them was discoloured and swollen, there was no bleeding. I felt the bones and detected no breaks, so I was pretty sure that the worst he’d suffered were badly stretched tendons and some torn muscles, which would bother him at least until the new year.

  Jacotte arrived from the cemetery at that moment, and, seeing her priest in such a predicament, fluttered about like a terrified mother hen and began turning every which way, babbling like a mill in white water. I told her to calm down and rub her priest’s arms with spirits of wine, then to lay him on his bed and give him some opium, which I knew she had, to help him sleep—since Pincers, to earn a bit of extra money, served as a kind of apothecary for the locals, but was so miserly that he never gave out enough of anything to kill anyone.

  As I w
as finishing my instructions for Jacotte, I saw my father coming down the stairs with a heavy step; approaching me with lowered eyes and a very grave expression, he said in French, “It’s not a light wound at all. The bullet pierced the lung through and through. It was madness not to give safe passage to that villain! His life was nothing compared to Sauveterre’s and yours!”

  “But,” I stammered, my mouth suddenly parched and a knot in my throat, “Ambroise Paré claims that one can recover from a bullet wound to the lung.”

  “Assuredly so, but the prognosis is not good for a man of that age and who has so little appetite for life. Pierre, go and find a cart and an ox in the village so we can bring your uncle back to Mespech. He’d certainly never make it on horseback.”

  I found some people in the village still gripped by fear and trembling, and who were already singing the praises of Mespech, for none doubted that, had we not arrived, the marauders, their pilfering and pillaging done, would have put the entire population to the knife, wenches and priest included. They were so relieved to have but two to mourn—if mourn them they did: the watchman Villemont and a fellow named Fontanet, who’d died with a pike in his hands attempting to protect, tooth and nail, his worldly goods—for which he was roundly blamed by the villagers, since, having no skill in swordplay as gentlemen did, he’d merely tried to show off by aping the bravery of the nobility.

  Scarcely had the villagers provided me with cart and ox, amid a great deal of excited chatter, before I heard the sound of a pistol shot, and then a second, which I knew must be coming from the la Fumélie farm, where the fleeing brigands were doubtless trying to make off with our horses, and Petremol was shooting at them from the window of the farmhouse.

  “My friends!” I cried. “Hurry! We need to get to la Fumélie. They’re trying to steal our horses!”

  Already I was running full tilt towards the village gate, followed by our little band, when all of a sudden I heard my father’s voice roar from behind us, filling the village square with its thunder: “Pierre! I order and command you to remain here! Cabusse, Fröhlich, Jonas and my Siorac cousins, run to la Fumélie and carefully make your presence known to Petremol! Do not take any risks! This business has cost us too dearly as it is! Better to lose our mounts than the horsemen!”