by Joan Aiken
Only later did it occur to me that perhaps Father Antoine had another reason for discouraging my communication to him. I looked upward to a green shoulder of the headland, and there was Father Vespasian, in his dark cloak and hood, arms folded, head bent, walking to and fro, to and fro, in his favourite spot, like a captain on the bridge of a ship. Did he see us? I could not tell. But I realised that as a member of the Community Father Antoine was in duty bound to report anything I told him to the Abbot.
But what he did not know, he could not tell.
We bore the hurt boy directly to the infirmary, where Father Pierre drew in a deep, shocked breath at our story and the sight of the bruised neck. He set pots of broth, wine, and milk to simmer on his little fire, while Father Antoine departed, as he must, to make a report to the Abbot.
Next Father Pierre directed me to help the sufferer upstairs.
The boy, who had been huddled in a chair, protested in a faint whisper that he could manage the stairs very well if someone took his arm.
‘Do not try to talk yet, my child,’ said Father Pierre. ‘Your throat has been severely strained. Only tell us your name.’
‘It – it is Jua – Juan.’
‘Good, Juan. Now say no more. Felix here, who saved your life, will help you up to bed.’
The boy flashed me an odd look: surprise, inquiry, a kind of unwilling gratitude, as if he had far rather not have to be obliged to me. I felt sympathy at this, and gave a slight shrug, as if to say, Oh, it was nothing, what else could I do?
His feelings were plain enough to me. It is a great burden to owe one’s life to a stranger. Especially when one is still not far removed from the brink of death.
His eyes, I noticed, had remarkable coppery gleams in their dark-brown depths.
Slowly and with great reluctance he put out a wrist and hand not much thicker than a chicken’s claw, which I threaded round my waist and so half lifted, half supported him up the wide shallow stone stair that led to the infirmary dorter. He smelled of tar and crushed herbage and felt light as a squirrel.
Up above there was a spacious dormitory and a few little cell-like single rooms. No patients occupied the half-dozen pallets in the dormitory at present, and I would have led Juan there, but he demanded, in a peremptory whisper, to be placed in a room by himself. This, Father Pierre, who had followed us up, permitted with a nod. We lifted the boy onto a cot, then returned downstairs for water and towels.
When I carried up a basin of warm water I discovered that Juan had barricaded himself in. There were no fastenings on the doors, but he had dragged (with strength obtained from heaven knows where) a bench across the room so as to bar the door.
‘No one shall come in! I do not wish anybody to come in!’ he whispered urgently through a crack in the woodwork.
Father Pierre and I stood staring at one another in perplexity. He rubbed his tonsure. To break down the door would be no great problem, but who would be so cruel as to use force against the poor terrified creature? Perhaps, still half crazed by his experience, he mistook us for his enemies.
‘Come, now, what foolishness is this?’ called Father Pierre gently through the door. ‘We do not intend to hurt you, my child; we have brought hot water, to wash you and clean your wounds and untangle your hair.’
‘I will wash myself! I do not wish anybody -anybody - to come near.’
Father Pierre shrugged at that, with resignation. I could see from his expression that he did not expect his new patient to make a very good job of the ablutions, but he was too experienced in caring for the sick to bring the matter to a great issue. Accordingly he replied in a matter-of-fact tone: ‘Very well; if that is what you wish. Your main need at present is sleep and rest. Wash yourself a little, put on clean clothes, which I will bring up, then drink a little broth, then sleep.’
‘Put the water outside the door,’ instructed the hoarse whisper. ‘Also a pair of scissors. I will not open the door while you stand there.’
Father Pierre looked at me a little anxiously at the request for scissors.
‘You do not think he intends to do himself a mischief?’ he murmured.
‘Why do you ask for scissors, Juan?’ I called.
‘To cut my hair, idiot! Can one cut one’s hair without scissors?’
Father Pierre smiled a wide grin of relief and beckoned me to follow him down.
‘Nothing amiss with that one that can’t be mended!’ he remarked, taking out of a press the formidable pair of shears used for clipping the tonsures of novices when they took their final vows. ‘Imagine having so much spirit only half an hour after you were cut down from the gallows tree! Perhaps, after all, he will be able to wash himself well enough. Carry these clothes up to him, Felix my boy, while I put some herbs in the broth.’
From a locker next to the one where my clothes and money belt were secured, he produced a pile of clean but old garments of various sorts and sizes.
‘We keep them,’ he explained, ‘for the poor, or beggars, or the sick who come to be healed by Father Vespasian; once they belonged to patients who died in the infirmary,’ he added matter-of-factly. So, I thought, there have been others besides that poor woman’s baby whom Father Vespasian has not been able to heal, and I spoke part of my thought aloud. But Father Pierre gave me a reproving, somewhat alarmed look, gesturing with his finger to his lips and glancing at the open window. ‘God takes those whom He wishes to call to Paradise in His own good time,’ he admonished me, crossing himself; and he sorted out a canvas shirt, woollen waistcoat and breeches, all old, patched and darned, but clean. ‘There! Carry those to the lad, they should fit well enough.’
Up aloft I found that the basin of warm water had been removed and the door fast closed again. I tapped on it with the scissors.
‘Hola, in there! I have brought you clothes and scissors.’
‘I need some soap, also.’
‘Soap? Who does the boy think he is, le roi Louis XVIII?’ grumbled Father Pierre, when, grinning, I returned to him with this message. However, he turned to a great earthenware pot and scooped out of it a lump of the soap which Father Manuel made from wood-ash and lard. ‘Here, then, take this to him; purity of the skin is doubtless a good step toward purity of the heart.’
I ascended the stairs once more with the soft, clammy handful.
‘Allo, allo, Juan? I have brought you some soap.’
‘Leave it outside the door!’
‘How can I? It is as soft as cream, it will trickle away and be wasted.’
‘Oh –! Peste! Wait, then, one minute.’
Slowly the door opened a crack, and out came a small bony hand. I plastered the soft soap into its palm, then scraped my fingers against the thin wrist, so as not to waste any.
‘Merci, mon ami,’ whispered the small hoarse voice, and the hand withdrew.
‘De rien,’ I replied somewhat coldly as the door began to close again. I was, I must confess, a little provoked at being used with such suspicion by a person whose life I had just saved; and, my tone of voice evidently taking effect, I heard in a moment an even fainter whisper:
‘Do not be offended. I have learned to trust nobody!’
By this I was appeased. ‘Who could blame you?’ I called as the door clicked shut, and I went down to report this conversation to Father Pierre. He eyed me a moment, his red wrinkled brow knotted in thought, then said, ‘Since this poor waif trusts none of us, and since it was you who saved him, it may be best that you continue to tend him; under my supervision of course. I will ask Father Mathieu to excuse you from your garden duties, and you may work here for the time. Wait there and stir the broth. In between stirring, chop those bundles of mint for tisane.’
‘Very well, father.’
In five minutes he came back, nodding with satisfaction.
‘Bien, for the time you become my assistant. Go and find if that one up there is ready to receive nourishment.’
It seemed that one was; for outside the door now reposed th
e basin of dirty water and a little pile of ragged soiled clothes. The clean clothes were gone. Feeling not unlike a servant at an inn, I took these down, emptied the water out of doors, and displayed the wretched garments to Father Pierre, who said, ‘Those are good for nothing but to be made into polishing rags. Tear them apart, then put them to steep in that copper there.’
A great copper vat, filled with water and supported by brick pillars, hung suspended over a fire in a corner of the room. I plunged in the rags and, at Father Pierre’s direction, stirred all round with a long stick.
‘That is well; now you may take the broth up to Juan.’
He had poured it into a horn mug.
‘Should he not have a piece of bread with it, father?’ I inquired.
Father Pierre smiled at me very kindly.
‘I can see that you will make a fine, thoughtful father of a family someday, Felix, mon brave. But no; after strangulation it is best that no solid food pass through the gullet for two days, or even three. There will be great bruising and inflammation, inside as well as outside. Soup, milk, and wine are all he should take.’
I carried the mugful upstairs, tapped, called, and passed it through the crack of the door, which was opened just wide enough to receive it. How long would this last, I wondered? How long before Juan trusted us sufficiently to come out? And then I wondered how I myself would feel if, not much more than one hour before, I had been hung up by enemies and left to die.
‘There is milk and wine after the soup, if you wish,’ I called, and went back to help Father Pierre chop his herbs. Then the bell rang for Sext, and we had to leave the infirmary.
‘Suppose Juan grows frightened and tries to run away?’ I asked.
‘I will lock the door below, so that no one can get in. Tell him this, and that we shall return after None. But he may well be asleep already.’
I went up and called the information through the door, but received no reply. Father Pierre chuckled, on hearing this.
‘I put a little poppy juice into the broth; he will sleep sound as a squirrel for many hours. Sleep is his greatest need.’
Sure enough, when we returned later, the patient was still in a deep slumber. Soft, even breathing could be heard, and, through the crack in the door, nothing of him showed but a tuft of dark hair on the pillow. He slept on, and this was lucky for him, as Father Vespasian sent for Father Pierre and expressed his intention to visit the boy as soon as he was awake and sensible. For, the Abbot said, the healing power in his hands would probably be more beneficial than Father Pierre’s medicines.
Father Pierre promised to send word as soon as the boy awoke.
Meanwhile, after Compline, he told me that I had better make myself up a pallet outside that closed door, in case Juan should rouse in the night and be frightened.
‘He has taken food and clothes from you; he trusts you so far; you had best be the one nearest to him. I will be downstairs, and you can call me at need. I excuse you from Night Office and Lauds.’
This was lucky, as it proved, for Juan did wake while the monks were all in the chapel at their night orisons. I heard a most pitiful sobbing from the small room, which woke me from my shallow slumber. Trying the door, I found that it would not budge, so called, ‘Juan! Juan! It is Felix! What ails you? Can I fetch you a hot drink, or more covers?’
I heard a sniffing and gulping inside the door, then a hesitant whisper:
‘F-Felix?’
‘Yes?’
‘May I have a hot drink? My throat is so sore.’
Father Pierre had left a posset, ready to be heated, which I brought up, with some goose grease, which he had told me would be good to rub on the outside of the painful neck. I offered to come in and do this. To my great surprise, after long hesitation, my offer was accepted, and the door pulled back just enough to let me through; then closed again.
Father Pierre had left a rush candle in the room, which Juan had managed to find and light. By its dim flicker I could see that his appearance was somewhat better, in that he wore the clean clothes and his hair was shorter and less matted. But the big frightened eyes were still hollow and sunken in their sockets, the cheeks haggard and drawn.
‘Get back into bed,’ I said, ‘and sip the posset, then I will rub your neck with this.’
So he scrambled back under the covers before drinking the hot milk. I wondered if Father Pierre had put anything in that, but if he had, it did not have the effect of sending Juan back to sleep; instead he became wider awake and more anxious.
‘I must not stay more than one night in this place!’ he whispered. ‘They will guess that I have been taken here, and they will be after me.’
‘Who are they?’ I asked, though it was not hard to guess.
‘The Mala Gente,’ he said, shivering. He used the French term, Mauvais Gens, for he was speaking in French, but I understood what he meant.
‘It was they hanged you up?’
‘Who else?’
‘But why? You are only a boy. What harm could you possibly do them?’
He cast me a quick, doubtful look under his lashes – they were long, thick, and bristly – then said, ‘I know their names, you see. I know who they are. That is the harm I could do. I could tell the gendarmes.’
‘Ah, yes, I see.’
‘They had me with them for three months,’ he muttered. ‘At first it was their plan to make me into a thief, or a beggar; they would teach me to maund and patter and feign illness. As I would not obey them, they gave me no food.’
Talking made him cough, and I said, ‘Hush! You should not try to talk too much. Drink the milk.’
He took a sip, then said, ‘No, but you saved me, did you not? You gave me back my life. I owe you at least to tell you why they were trying to take it.’ He drank a little more milk, then whispered angrily, ‘It was my brother who hired them to carry me off.’
‘Your brother?’ I was astonished, and wondered if, perhaps, he was feverish. ‘How can that be? Your own brother?’
A strange, satirical expression flitted over his thin face.
‘Hah! You perhaps have no brother? So you believe that all brothers love each other?’ A derisive sniff. ‘It is not always so, believe me. Mine hates me. He is my half-brother, ten years older than I. When his mother died my father married a younger wife, my mother. She was Spanish, Esteban’s mother was French. He has always been jealous, always – though indeed, Maman was always kind to him. So, after she and Papa were killed in the avalanche last winter – ’
He coughed again, drank again.
‘They had been on a visit to Uncle León in Spain, Maman’s brother. And as they were coming back over the Pass of Ibañeta, the avalanche sent their carriage off the road, down a crevasse. Esteban became head of the house, etcheko jaun. He is twenty-three. He made no secret of his hatred, his wish to get rid of me. Only when he took the notion – ’
Juan stopped short, biting his lip.
‘There is no need for you to tell me all this,’ I said, deeply troubled by the thought of such hate between brothers. If I had a brother, I thought, how dearly would I have loved him! Or even a sister. I had always been so lonely. But Juan had begun to whisper again, as if he desperately needed the relief of unburdening himself.
‘My Uncle León in Spain wrote then, to say he intended making me his heir, since he himself has no children now. He lives in Pamplona, you see, and his wife and children were killed nine years ago by French gunfire in the siege; he has never married again.’
‘And his sister married a Frenchman?’ I said, in surprise.
‘Oh, we are all Basques,’ Juan said quickly. ‘Papa did not consider himself French; nor does my brother Esteban.’
This explained his accent, which was not like the French I had been taught by my tutor, though he spoke clearly enough.
‘So then what happened?’ Despite my feeling that he ought to rest, I was becoming interested in his tale.
‘Then I was carried off by the Mala
Gente; and Esteban wrote a letter to my Uncle León telling him that they were demanding money for my return. Many thousands of francs.’
‘But – how could you know this?’
‘Because I heard the Gente talking about it. “He has written to the rich uncle in Spain,” they said. “The rich uncle will send money soon. He will take half and give us half.” Esteban paid them to abduct me, I am sure of that.’
‘How can you be?’
‘They had a box of my brother’s – a little brass box in which he used to keep money – and some jewels of my mother’s.’
‘But they might have stolen those? When they seized you? Or your brother paid them as ransom?’
‘Oh, you don’t want to believe me!’ angrily hissed Juan. He gave a kind of gulping sob, and I exclaimed:
‘No, no, that is not true! Why should I disbelieve you? I saw you dangling like a corpse in the thicket.’ And not once, but twice, I thought; it would be a long, long time, however, before I told Juan that. If at all.
‘Listen,’ he whispered more calmly. ‘This is why I know my brother Esteban is my enemy. His old nurse, Anniq – who was mine, too, but she always hated me and called me the Little Interloper – she came to the cave one night.’
‘They kept you in a cave? Wait, now, while I rub your neck.’
Taking the empty cup, I knelt by him on the floor and began massaging his neck with my fingers, rubbing in the goose grease.
‘It stinks!’ said he pettishly.
‘Never mind that. It will heal your skin and soothe your neck muscles, Father Pierre says.’
‘Yes, the thieves had a cave in the foothills, five or six hours’ ride from our home, which was near Guéthary. I suppose I shall never go back home again,’ he whispered, half to himself.
‘Your nurse came to the cave? With your ransom money?’
‘No, no, no! I tell you, she always detested me. She came to tell them that Uncle León would send no money.’
