by Robert Merle
“Wait for what?”
“Jacotte.”
“So, Father, what must I do in the meantime?”
“Stand ready to raise the grille at the exit. Miroul should be ready to raise and lower the second one. Don’t show yourself. The moon is up.”
I knelt out of sight at a right angle to the grille, straining to see into the inky darkness into which my father had disappeared, crouching in his niche like a fox in its den. His lantern, though covered, emitted a little light, but he knew how to keep marvellously quiet—so quiet that, listen as intently as I might, I couldn’t hear his breathing. On the other hand, I had no trouble hearing the clatter of wooden shoes as Jacotte hurried through the tunnel.
“Who goes there?” hissed my father, without emerging the least bit from his hiding place and without showing his lantern.
“Jacotte.”
“Alone?”
“With my sweetling.”
My father then said something that would have astonished me if I hadn’t understood from the way he pronounced the words that they were a code they’d agreed on long before: “Is the babe well, Jacotte?”
“Well indeed.”
Which doubtless meant that no one was standing behind her with a knife in her ribs, for my father uncovered his lantern and held it out at arm’s length, but without yet showing the rest of his body. I could now see that Jacotte was standing behind the second grille, breathing hard from her run through the passage, looking pale and terrified. She was, indeed, alone.
“Miroul! The grille!” said my father.
And immediately the grille was raised and as soon as Jacotte passed beneath it, it was lowered after her.
“Pierre! The grille!” ordered my father.
I raised the grille blocking the exit and my father, leading the good wench by the arm, emerged with her from the passage.
Jacotte was a tall, robust and resolute lass, who, with the little knife she wore in her belt, had killed a highwayman two years before when he and three others had tried to rape her behind a hedgerow in the fields. Coulondre Iron-arm, who luckily happened on the scene, dispatched the three others—one of the reasons that she’d married him, though he was twice her age. And yet as strong and courageous as she was, she was trembling like a bitch before a wolf, not for herself, but for her husband, who’d ordered her to leave him at the mill.
“How many are they?” whispered my father.
“At least a dozen but not more than two score.”
“Do they have firearms?”
“Oh, yes, but didn’t shoot. And, respecting your orders, Coulondre didn’t fire either. But the poor man,” she continued, her voice trembling, “won’t be able to hold out for long. The rascals have piled some sticks in front of the door and lit them, and oak though it may be, the door’s going to burn.”
“It’ll burn all right, but those villains won’t piss any straighter because of it. Miroul! Go fetch Alazaïs! On the double, my lad, on the double!”
Miroul was off like he’d been shot from a crossbow and, for the few minutes that he was gone, my father, frowning, pinched his nose as he meditated on what he’d do next—and I wasn’t about to interrupt him!
Alazaïs, who, as my father put it, “had the strength of two grown men, not counting her considerable moral strength” (being a severe and implacable Huguenot), appeared, wearing a cuirass with a brace of pistols and a cutlass tucked in her belt.
“Alazaïs,” my father said, “hie thee quick as a bird and warn Cabusse at the le Breuil farm and Jonas in the quarry to arm themselves and be on guard. They may be attacked too!”
“I’m off!” she panted.
“And tell Escorgol to send me Samson and the Siorac brothers. We’re going to lend a hand to Coulondre Iron-arm!”
“Ah, Monsieur!” breathed Jacotte in relief, but couldn’t get another word out through the tears that choked her.
“Jacotte,” replied my father, tapping her shoulder, “go tell Sauveterre where I’m headed, and tell him not to budge until I return. And as for you, take your babe to Barberine and then hurry back and close the grille after we’ve gone.”
Which she did. And so we headed into the passageway, running like madmen, with Samson, Miroul and the Siorac brothers following me and my father, who, despite his fifty-three years, was bounding along like a hare, his lantern extended in front of him. It’s true that the passage ran steeply downhill since Mespech, as its name indicates, is set on a hill and the les Beunes mill is down in the valley.
Coulondre was immensely relieved to see us appear at his mill, though his long, sad, Lenten face gave no sign of it and he breathed not a word nor a sigh. The room which the tunnel opened into was quite large and on our left was the door the assailants were trying to set fire to, and we could hear the flames crackling through the thick oak. On our right was a latticed enclosure that opened onto the pigsty where the sows, piglets and hogs were squealing in panic at the smell of the fire.
“Monsieur,” hissed Coulondre, “shall we save the animals and push them into the tunnel?”
“No,” said my father as he studied the burning door, “there’s not enough time and we have more urgent things to do. My friends, let’s pile the bags of grain to create a rampart that will protect us when they come in, and with the door to the tunnel behind us, we’ll be able to escape if need be. Make a thick pile, shoulder high, so we can hide behind it as they come in.”
We did as he ordered and he pitched in, working as hard and as fast as any of us, his face radiant with the excitement of the work and the impending battle.
All our labours no doubt made some noise, but I guessed that the ruffians outside couldn’t hear us, partly because our entire porcine population was squealing loud enough to break one’s eardrums. Our wall of grain now a yard thick and chest high, with gaps here and there to allow us to see our assailants, we all crouched down behind it. Having lit the wicks of our arquebuses and primed our pistols, we waited feverishly, our hearts pounding, yet secure in the knowledge that we had the underground passageway behind us.
“My brave lads,” my father said, “when I shout ‘God with us!’ stand, make a terrible din and fire!”
“’Tis certain,” growled Coulondre Iron-arm, “I’ll shoot straight at ’em and aim to kill! When I think these villains are burning my oak door with my own firewood!” He said this with heaviness in his voice, but then Coulondre always sounded sad, being so taciturn by nature and lugubrious of tone—despite the fact that he’d done all right for himself, was well paid for keeping our mill and our swine, and, though already grey, married to a strong and handsome young woman who took good care of him.
“Don’t worry, Coulondre,” soothed my father, who held him in great affection. “Don’t worry! Don’t cry over your door. At Mespech I’ve got plenty of seasoned oak and finely cut! I’ll tell Faujanet to make you a new door, even stronger than this one and braced with iron!”
“Thank God and thank you, my master!” replied Coulondre, who’d only complained so that he’d be promised a new door. And however much his grey eyes retained their usual sad expression, I thought I could see a hint of a smile behind them. And I felt secretly happy as well, not only to be here, however much my heart was pounding, beside my father and my brother Samson, not just because it recalled our struggle in la Lendrevie when we took on the butcher-baron, but because this battle looked to be ours, since the villains thought the mill was unguarded and that the miller was, as he always was on Sunday nights, away at Mespech, Coulondre having been careful to make no sound when they had begun their attack.
“Pierre,” my father whispered, “I know how brave you are but don’t be foolhardy. When you’ve fired your pistols, I want you to duck out of sight. There’s no shame in taking cover.”
“Father,” I replied, deeply touched by his great love, “don’t worry! I’ve learnt my lesson. Caution, prudence and patience are the teats of adventure.”
My father laughed at this, bu
t his laugh was as silent as a carp and I, having received such excellent advice, decided that the best thing I could do would be to pass along some good advice to my brother. I elbowed him softly and whispered:
“My brother, remember, I beg you, not to be so slow in firing as you were in the battle in la Lendrevie and when we fought the highwaymen in the Corbières.”
“I promith, Pierre,” he lisped, and as he spoke the door of the mill burst into flames, illuminating his beautiful face, and I couldn’t resist throwing my arms about him and embracing him, which elicited a bit of a smile from my father.
“What an incredible force, two brothers who love each other as you do!” he said quietly, his eyes still fixed on the door in flames. “It’s the same with Sauveterre and me: no one has ever been able to defeat us, and no less so, as you’ll soon see, than this dog Fontenac! My brothers in arms, God keep you! Here we go, I believe!”
When you think about how long it takes a beautiful oak to grow, it’s a pity that it can burn as quickly as this poor door did—and all the more pity that it took so much careful artistry to fashion it. My Huguenot heart bled to see such a waste of this handsome and well-crafted portal—not to mention the massacre these villains would have wreaked on our pigs, our grains and our mill if they’d been able. The bitterness of these thoughts sharpened my anger against these miscreants and eradicated any compassion I might have felt. Clutching my pistols in both hands, I wanted only to dispatch them quickly.
Meanwhile, the fire burned so hot that the iron hinges gave way and a few blows from a sledgehammer and a battering ram finished it off. They’d soon dragged it outside and now had their way clear. And clear they no doubt believed it was, and the house empty, for they crowded inside, as one might say, as grains into a mill, torches in hand, as if they wanted to set fire to everything inside, and our pigs set up an even more deafening wail of squealing.
“God with us!” shouted my father in a stentorian voice. And rushing out from behind our sacks we let out screams that would have unstopped a deaf man’s ears, and the highwaymen were frozen in their tracks and stood open-mouthed in disbelief, changed into pillars of salt like Lot’s wife. We shot them like pigeons, and except for one among them who thought to throw himself on the ground, we mortally wounded or killed all of them. Coulondre Iron-arm leapt forward to dispatch the sole survivor, but my father prevented him from this, and, hoping to interrogate him, ordered that his hands be tied and that he be brought back through the tunnel to Mespech.
This was a good-looking fellow, about thirty years of age, black of hair and of skin like a Saracen, with fiery eyes and a proud mien, and well spoken, it appeared.
We threw him down on the ground in the great hall of Mespech, and my father, standing over him, hands on hips, said with his usual jolly and playful manner, “Your name, you rascal!”
“Captain Bouillac, Monsieur,” the fellow answered proudly, his black eyes emitting sparks.
“Captain!” replied Jean de Siorac. “Some sort of captain you are!”
“At your service, Monsieur.”
“You serve me ill, villain! I intend to hang you.”
“Monsieur!” answered Bouillac without dropping his proud manner. “May I not buy my freedom?”
“What?” spat my father. “Take stolen money from a blackguard?”
“How now? All money is good when given,” returned Bouillac. “What’s more, this money’s honest wages. I was paid for my services.”
“I think,” said Sauveterre, stepping forward into the hall with a furled brow and his usual limp, causing all our people to give way to his dark humours, “I think we should hang this blackguard straightaway.”
“But wait!” replied my father. “None among us was killed or wounded.”
“I still think we should hang the bastard.”
“But wait! Bouillac, where did you get this money?”
“I’ll be glad to tell you, Monsieur, if you accept my offer.”
“You’ll tell all once I put you on the rack!” answered Sauveterre, his eyes burning with anger.
“True enough,” said Bouillac without losing his haughty demeanour, “but torture takes time and you’re very pressed for time. As for me, since I’m destined for the noose in any case, I have an eternity to kill!”
At this flash of wit, which was not without its salt, aftertaste or piquancy, my father broke out laughing in admiration of the bravery of this rascal, and very interested in what he still might learn from him.
“Bouillac,” said he, “let’s talk frankly. How much will you offer us for your life?”
“One hundred écus.”
We all fell silent and looked at each other, so struck were we that a highwayman should have such a hoard. But at the sound of these coins, Sauveterre changed his expression and said, with a cutting tone, “Two hundred.”
“For shame, Monsieur!” said Bouillac. “Bargaining with a beggar!”
“A good Huguenot always bargains!” laughed my father.
“Two hundred,” repeated Sauveterre.
“Oh, Monsieur, you’re strangling me!”
“Perhaps you’d prefer another kind of strangling!”
“Agreed! Agreed!” confessed Bouillac with a huge sigh. “My neck will have it no other way.”
“We have a bargain!” crowed my father. “But now we have a battle against time!”
“Monsieur, while we were preparing to kill your swine and burn your mill, Captain Belves’s band was heading to le Breuil to massacre your sheep.”
“By the belly of St Vitus!” cried my father. “I thought so! How many are they?”
“Seven, with Belves.”
“I thank you, Bouillac. I’m going to head off this attack.”
Rushing from the room, my father ordered Miroul, Faujanet, Petremol and the two Siorac brothers to saddle up immediately and gallop to help Cabusse, who luckily wasn’t alone since he had the Herculean Jonas with him and possibly Alazaïs as well, if she’d been able to reach the sheepfold, which I calculated she would have since she was a crafty wench.
“Bouillac,” said my father on re-entering the hall, “who paid for and planned all this?”
“A brigand who robs and steals without ever leaving the comfort of his chateau or dirtying his hands.”
“Fontenac?”
Bouillac nodded but said not a word, and my father well understood the reason for his reticence, merely looking Bouillac in the eye.
“Monsieur,” said the highwayman, “am I free to go?”
“Certainly, once your ransom’s paid.”
“I’m off to get it,” said Bouillac, “as long as you’ll return my horse to me, and my pistols, sword and dagger, which are the tools of my trade and without which I’m unable to exercise my particular talents.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Sauveterre. “We’ll release you unarmed. If you want your tools, it’ll cost you another fifty écus.”
“Ah, Monsieur,” returned Bouillac, “you’re feeding me poisoned fruit!”
“Fifty écus… or nothing,” ventured my father.
“Nothing?” said Bouillac, frowning.
“Nothing, on condition that you formally bear witness against Fontenac before Ricou, the magistrate.”
Bouillac fell silent and thought about this for several minutes before finally giving in. But little did his testimony matter in the long run, for ’twas in vain that the Brethren brought his evidence to the parliament in Bordeaux, since the papist judges were so inflamed against the Huguenots that nothing ever came of our complaint.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Scarcely an hour after we captured Bouillac, Michel Siorac (who could now be distinguished from his brother by the deep scar on his left cheek from the battle in la Lendrevie) appeared in front of the chateau gate at Mespech on his frothy-mouthed gelding and shouted to Escorgol that they’d killed all the intruders at the le Breuil farm or put them to flight. My father and Sauveterre put their heads together and decide
d that, after having dispatched the wounded men, they’d pile the bodies on a cart and, in the dark of night, take the dead from the two bands and dump them on Fontenac’s drawbridge.
“Let him bury them,” snarled Sauveterre, “since he paid them!”
But before dispatching the funeral wagon to its intended destination, my father picked out one of the thinnest men killed at les Beunes for us to dissect before rigor mortis set in. Alazaïs carried the cadaver on her back up to the library of Mespech, where, having laid him out on the large table, she shamelessly undressed him without batting an eye. She made no more of a naked man than of a flea and put all her love in the Lord, directing her entire appetite to the Eternal.
Miroul started a roaring fire in the hearth and lit a large number of candles, and, still sweaty from combat, our helmets and cuirasses scarcely removed, my father set about the prosection. He had no compunction about this, even though it was a task which, at the school of medicine in Montpellier, no ordinary doctors would have stooped to, considering themselves too elevated for such work, according to some vainglorious belief that to touch a body would lower them to the level of the labourer, who is considered inferior by the learned physician. The sad consequence of this practice is that the prosector, normally a barber surgeon, ends up knowing a great deal more about the human anatomy than the doctor, since he has delved in with his hands (which no eye can replace) and discovered the physics of the relationships of the organs within the body.
And so it was, by the light of a candelabrum that Miroul held high above his head, that my father, in the silence of our exhausted household (Sauveterre himself having long since gone to bed, hunched, broken and dragging his lame leg behind him like an old crow), cut into the chest of this poor devil, who that very morning had been alive and sure of victory, while I sponged away his blood, to get a better view of his insides.
“This churl had a lot of blood,” I said. “It’s gushing like a cataract!”
“Hah!” agreed my father. “You’re right about that! It flows. And that’s the great mystery of life. Blood flows through our bodies. But why? But how? What force makes it flow upwards when we’re standing? Notice that if blood flowed like the water through the les Beunes mill or the Dordogne or any of our earth’s rivers, our brains would naturally empty of blood and our heels fill up with it the minute we got up in the morning. But that’s not what happens. So blood must possess some mysterious property that moves and circulates it through the body. But what is this property?”
