Heretic Dawn (3 page)

“But Father,” I protested, “if this underground passage allows us to send help to the mill, couldn’t it also, if the mill were taken, permit our enemy to invade the chateau?”

“Pierre, my son,” he replied, “remember, first of all, that the passage leads to just inside the outer walls of our fortress, and from there you’d still have to cross the moat surrounding our walls, which could only be managed by taking the two drawbridges, the one that links the bridge with the island and the second which connects the island to our lodgings. Secondly, the opening of the passage is secured by a metal grille which can only be opened from outside. What’s more, twenty yards behind this opening another metal grille can be lowered which would trap our assailants in a cage and put them at our mercy.”

“But how would that put them at our merthy?” asked Samson, his azure eyes widening in wonderment while he lisped the word “mercy”, as was his wont.

“By this trapdoor that you see here,” my father explained, “we can creep down to the roof of the passageway that covers the section between the two grilles and hit our trapped enemies from above with lances and pikes and, if they’re wearing armour, with arquebuses.”

“What a pity,” sighed Samson, “to have to kill so many people.”

“True enough,” agreed Jean de Siorac, “but, dear Samson, can you imagine what they would do to us if they were to take Mespech? And to the women of our household?”

This said, he worked the grilles in their casings to make sure he could raise and lower them at will.

During the night of 24th February, scarcely a week after Puymartin’s warning, my father entered my room, lantern in hand, and told me in a calm voice to get up and arm myself for battle, as he feared a surprise attack, since Escorgol had heard some men moving about near the les Beunes mill, and noticed a fire burning in the woods nearby. I obeyed immediately, arming myself, and went down to the courtyard. The night was clear and frosty and I found there, gathered in the
most ghostly silence, all of the men of Mespech, wearing helmets and cuirasses, and each armed with a pike or an arquebus.

My father, lantern in hand, had two pistols stuck in his belt. “My brother,” he said to Sauveterre, “I’ll take Pierre, my cousins and Miroul to assure the defence of the ramparts near the lake. You’ll have Faujanet, François and Petremol to guard the ramparts nearest the lodgings. Don’t light the torches set in the ramparts and not a word out of anyone! We’re going to give these villains a nasty welcome! There’s no worse surprise than to be surprised when you believe you’re going to blindside your enemy!”

I was very glad to remain with my father, convinced that, at his side, I’d see some action and earn his praise—all the more so since, once we’d passed the drawbridge, he sent Samson and the Siorac cousins off to patrol the catwalk on the ramparts, keeping only Miroul and me with him, which made me feel even more important. Lantern in hand, though it was hardly of use since the moon was so bright, my father headed immediately towards the exit from the underground passage, but once there, instead of raising the first grille as I thought he would do, he lowered the second.

“What, Father?” I whispered. “Aren’t we going to take the passage and head to the mill to give a hand to Coulondre and Jacotte?”

“Is that what you’d do if you were me?”

“Assuredly!”

He smiled and in the light of the moon his eyes were shining from beneath the visor of his helmet. “Well, you’d be wrong. How do you know the enemy isn’t already in the passage at the other end?”

Of course, at this I fell silent, ashamed of my stupidity. And I was more astonished yet when I saw him, lantern in hand, raise the grille at our end of the tunnel. “Pierre, my boy, once I’m inside, lower the grille again but don’t raise the second one yet—wait until I give my express command to do so.”

“But Father,” I gasped in fear, “what are you going to do, caught in this trap?”

“Hide in a niche in the wall that’s farther up on the right and is just big enough to hide a man, cover my lantern and wait.”

“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, but 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.