Honour and the Sword (16 page)

Then Stefan’s there, hands bloody where they’ve finished off the lead man, and he grabs for the bridle to catch the loose horse, which is about to bolt with fear. Horses can’t stand the smell of blood, and I begin to think I can’t either. It’s all over me, and it smells like the Forge, it smells like hot iron. I’m panicking, then I look up and face the boy, and he looks pale but sort of peaceful, and suddenly I feel all right too. He cleans his sword on the grass and smiles at me. We did it. We killed one. One.

Robert was trying to sit up, and we went to him at once. The horse hadn’t trampled him, but he was rubbing his head and looking a bit sick. Stefan took one look, shoved me out of the way, ran his hands expertly over Robert’s head and neck, then forced him to look in his eyes. After a moment he nodded and said ‘That was a brave thing to do, lad. Nearly cost your life, but it was fucking brave,’ and Robert, who didn’t need any praise from a smelly tanner, smiled up at him, and some of the stress went out of his face.

Stefan grunted in satisfaction. ‘Rest a minute and you’ll be good as new. You can thank young Jacques it’s not worse.’

I watched him with oddly mixed feelings. This was Stefan, I hated his guts most of the time, but I think I’d have died to win his respect, and just for that moment I had it, and it made me feel seven feet tall.

Giles’ voice came suddenly from the tree. ‘Infantry. Quarter of a mile.’

Stefan straightened. ‘How many?’

‘Six or seven,’ said Giles. I could see him on his branch, leaning casually against the trunk and chewing tobacco.

Stefan sighed. ‘All right, lads, wrap it up. Quick as you can. Thibault, stay where you are but keep low.’

We knew what we had to do. The boy ran to retrieve the ropes, Colin started to drag the first body into cover for spoiling, while Stefan and Jean-Marie went into the road to clear away traces of the struggle. I led the horses back into the forest out of earshot of the road, tied them to trees, then ran back to help the others.

I’d only got about halfway when I heard the shot.

Colin Lefebvre

Poor old Mercier. Clumsy sod at the best of times, and face it, this wasn’t one of them.

They’d just got clear of the road when the infantry appeared round the bend. We crouched down low, quiet as mice, while they marched past. Robert still out there, but huddled low in undergrowth, they never saw a thing. Then Ravel upped and signalled, me and Mercier went to get the second corpse, and that’s when it happened. Must have had a pistol in his hand, must have been lying in his palm, and Mercier moving him triggered it off.

Shocking sound at close quarters, pistol shot when you’re not expecting it. We were all stuck like statues, infantry only yards away.

‘Run!’ yelled Ravel. ‘
Run!
’

It was an order, right, so I turned to leg it, but there was Mercier with his gob open, not moving at all. Ravel was out in the open, gone back to help Robert, and the infantry already dashing back round the bend. They were pike, this lot, well trained too, straight down and level with the weapons and charging at Ravel. Then suddenly there was the Seigneur himself, wasn’t running away, not him, coming out the trees, heading right for the pike from behind, drawing his sword as he came.

‘Run!’ yelled Ravel again, shoving Robert hard for the trees, but Seigneur ignored him, charging the soldiers before they can turn and form up properly, too close for them to do a bloody thing. Thing about a pike, right, it’s twelve, fourteen foot long, not much use when there’s someone a foot away stabbing with a sword. Seigneur had one in the back before they even knew he was there, and whipping out at the next like it was all one big game.

Ravel turned back himself, dragging out his pistol. André fighting a second man now, but this one blocks the sword bang with his pike, others dropping the pike and snatching for their swords. Ravel fired and brought one down, but Seigneur in trouble and no mistake. Dodged the pike and wounded his second man, but had to whirl his sword to keep the others away, and one thrusting right at him. Movement from the tree line, and there’s my poor old Jacques …

Jacques Gilbert

… running at them with my sword out, yelling as loud as I could, trying to make them look, anything to get their eyes off the boy. Three minutes I’d left him, just three minutes, and he was fighting the whole Spanish army.

There was a pike coming at me, but I knew how hard they were to control, I got my left hand on the shaft to thrust it away. I kept running forward, my hand scorching down the wood, the soldier was wide open and my sword coming at him, I didn’t even lunge, the point slithered into him like butter. I felt the weight of his body on my blade, it was bending, I had to pull out fast before it broke. He was screaming, but I heard the boy’s voice over it, he was shouting ‘Yes, Jacques, yes!’ then ‘
Down!
’ just like it was the two of us on the back meadow, and I didn’t think, I ducked without looking and felt a pike slice past my head. I looked round for the boy, but his blade was locked against a pike, someone else was thrusting behind him, and I couldn’t help, my soldier had his sword out and at me, then the crash of a musket from the signal tree …

Jean-Marie Mercier

… and the man behind André crumpled to his knees. I reached for a second gun, while Jacques threw himself at the next soldier and Stefan grabbed the shaft of the last man’s pike. I aimed at his back, but Colin was there first, spearing him savagely from behind. Poor Colin, he probably felt terrible at having set the pistol off in the first place, but it honestly wasn’t his fault, it might have happened to anyone.

I turned the barrel towards the others, but André had finished his man and was turning to help Jacques, only Jacques was pulling out of his own and they were every one of them down. I lowered the gun and looked at the man I’d shot, his feet scuffling in the leaves for ages before he finally lay still. I felt a little uncomfortable, but behind me Giles said ‘Nice shot, soldier,’ and when I turned round he gave me the nicest smile.

Stefan picked up his pistol, panting slightly, and glared round at us as if we were the enemy. I could hear the faint sound of hoofbeats approaching in the distance.

‘
Now
will you fucking run?’ he said.

Jacques Gilbert

We left the others at the first foresters’ road, and ran all the way home. We were so out of breath when we hurtled back into the barn we couldn’t do anything but bend double and pant, grinning at each other like a couple of idiots.

We’d fought side by side and I hadn’t let him down. Between us our unit had killed nine, and it was the most of anyone, the best ever. The boy was elated, he kept pacing up and down thrashing his sword about, I couldn’t even get him to sit down. In the end I just squashed him on to a hay bale and fetched a jug of wine from the cottage, but when he helped himself he’d got hands like Jacob Pasle, the cup was going
dink-dink-dink
against the jug as he poured. He gulped it back in one go, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, put down the cup and let out his breath in a long sigh. He was happy.

So was I. I’d fought before, of course, but then I’d been defending myself, this time it had been the Spaniards having to fight for their lives, it had been their turn to be frightened. I thought César would have enjoyed that, and Mme Panthon and all of them at the Manor, and Robert’s sister and all of them since.

I said ‘I bet your father’s proud of us now.’

There was a long silence, then the boy said ‘Mmm.’ He was still lying back, but I thought the light had sort of faded off his face.

I wondered if it was wrong to remind him of his father. ‘At least we’re hitting back, aren’t we? It’s like putting things right.’

He was quiet again, and I wondered if he’d heard me. He’d do that sometimes, just go off in his head and not come back till I stuck myself right in front of him.

But he’d heard me this time. After a moment he said ‘Doesn’t make up for everything, though, does it?’ then rolled on his side to face the wall.

Seven

Anne du Pré

Extract from her diary, dated 10 February 1637

The soldiers downstairs are angry, we can hear their raised voices through the floor. I think really they are frightened, and I am glad of it.

I am still sorry for Don Miguel, who truly does seem a kind man. He visited today to enquire after our well-being, and I would have liked to tell him about the food, but Colette says we are at the mercy of the men here and must not risk upsetting them. She may be right. This morning the Slug came on duty still in his outdoor clothes, and he was wearing that beautiful pleated brown coat Josef was so proud of. Florian says it proves nothing, Josef perhaps ran in only his nightshirt, but I cannot believe he would have left that coat behind. There is also a tear in the back, I saw the line of lumped stitching where a hole must have been, and Josef would never have been so careless. Dear Josef, who would not so much as kill a mouse in the kitchen that day, and told Françoise only to let him know when it was gone. I think Colette is right and these men are capable of anything.

However, Don Miguel was as kind as ever, and even brought with him a chess set so that he and Florian might play. It is so good of him to do that. My poor brother, I sometimes worry about the way his mind is wandering, but he can still be sharp at chess, his face takes on quite the old look and for an hour or so he is Florian again. Don Miguel seemed quite puzzled how to beat him when that servant of his arrived with the news.

He is very jolly and friendly, the servant called Carlos, but he was not in the best of moods tonight. He spoke in Spanish, of course, with no idea that I understood him, but he said there had been eight of their men killed and the ninth likely to die from wounds within the night. He said the man claimed his assailant had been a very young man with long black hair who was exceptionally skilful with a sword, and Don Miguel sat up so abruptly he almost upset the chess board. He said ‘André de Roland, Carlos, what did I tell you?’

They said no more in front of us, Don Miguel conceded the game and left, but it was enough for me, it is still enough now. All this time Colette has said André must have escaped to Paris and cares nothing for us, but I now know for certain that is not true. He is out there. Somewhere outside my window he is out there and fighting back.

Carlos Corvacho

From his interviews with the Abbé Fleuriot, 1669

Oh no, Señor, call me Carlos, I’m more than happy with that. My Capitán used to call me Carlos. That’s the Don Miguel d’Estrada as was, Señor, a most amiable gentleman. I’d only been an ordinary corselete in his company, but he took to me from the first, and when his personal servant died at the Dax barricades I was the natural choice to take his place.

Oh bless you, no, I’m quite comfortable in French. Most men in the Army of Flanders pick up a little, but it was that much easier for me, you understand, my poor mother being half French herself. Tragic it seemed to me, two Catholic countries fighting each other instead of standing together against the heretics. Tragic.

Still, it’s all behind us now, isn’t it, Señor, and very nice to be back at Ancre. Got it all back looking beautiful, haven’t they? Just the way it was. Not that I saw much of it myself, you understand, I was mainly outside the Manor that night, hardly went in at all, but the men that did – well, they talked, Señor, it’s only natural.

But it’s not old Carlos you want to know about, now is it, Señor? My gentleman now, oh he was a one, people stepped out of his way on the streets of Madrid. The ‘Lacemaker’ they used to call him, did you know? He’d have been sixteen then, still only a young abanderado in our company, which is what I think you call an ‘enseigne’, is that right, Señor? It was only his second duel, but his opponent was afraid of his reputation, and turned up in the biggest shirt you ever saw, sleeves like young sails, or so they say, hoping my gentleman would be deceived into missing his body altogether. He wasn’t fooled, Señor, not our Don Miguel, but attacked the shirt as if he were, reducing it to ribbons till it resembled nothing so much as fine Venetian lace. ‘Ah!’ says my gentleman. ‘So there is a body under all this finery. Let us see if there’s a heart as well.’ He then proved there was by stabbing the silly fellow right through it. Oh, he’d wonderful wit, my Capitán.

But he was a kind man underneath. There were men in our company complained he wasn’t hard enough, there ought to be more reprisals, but that wasn’t my Capitán’s way, he used to say it was a poor lord who murdered his own servants. You need to understand, Señor, this occupation business didn’t come natural to him. He was a soldier, the very best, he ought to have been back campaigning, not stuck in this dunghill with a pack of rebellious peasants. But that’s the way it goes with politics, isn’t it, Señor? There’d been a little trouble over his killing a friend of the Conde-Duque’s in a duel, so here we were stuck, and nothing to be done but make the best of it until a proper governor could be found to take over.

But we had to tame the natives first, and that didn’t look like happening just yet that winter. We’d lost a few men before, nothing too serious, but then nine men down in this single day and things started to look different. There was this one fellow managed to speak to the surgeon before he died, and we didn’t like what he said at all. Oh, you know about that, Señor? Now, you’ll forgive my asking how?

No, no, not in the least, I’m very happy for the Señor to keep his secrets, I’ve nothing to hide. Yes, it’s true, my Capitán thought one of the attackers might be de Roland. Oh, we knew about him, the padre told us he existed, the hostages gave us his description, we knew he was about somewhere. He wasn’t in Dax, any nobleman would have stood out like a blister in a place this primitive, but he might be hiding in the woods, seeing as they stretched for miles and no hope of searching them without a full
tercio
with nothing else to do for months. We weren’t that bothered at first, he was only a lad and not much harm in that, but now we started to wonder if letting him escape wasn’t the worst mistake we’d made yet. As my Capitán said, occupied villages generally come to heel fast enough, but if there’s a leader left over from the old regime, who knows what kind of resistance they might stir up?