Honour and the Sword (19 page)

I drank the wine and watched him sort of furtively, but I wasn’t imagining it. He even passed me the tinder box for his pipe like he used to, and nodded approvingly when I sparked it right first time. He started to whistle ‘
Bransle des Chevaux
’ half under his breath, and I found myself remembering things that went back to when I was little. Sometimes when there was no one around we’d play horses, he’d sit me on his shoulders and run all the way down the bridle path, then put me down and walk into the cottage all sedately like we’d never been running at all. Mother used to look at him suspiciously, and he’d smile and look innocent, but he’d be whistling ‘
Bransle des Chevaux
’ all the while, and sometimes when I caught his eye he’d wink. I looked at him now and the picture was so clear I half expected him to wink again.

He reached out a finger and pressed the tip of my nose. ‘Big eyes,’ he said, and smiled. Something warm flooded over me inside. The dull aching feeling sort of went and hid in a corner so I could forget it was there.

Mother sat watching us, looking nervously happy. Father poured her some wine, and she actually had a sip and smiled as if she liked it.

‘That’s right,’ Father said encouragingly. ‘Drink it up. Let’s celebrate getting your favourite son back. No more dreaming of being a gentleman now, is there, Jacques?’

Another picture came up to shut out the ones of me and Father, a picture of André’s face as he’d looked that morning by the barn door. I screwed up my eyes to get rid of it and said ‘No.’

Mother gave a high-pitched little ‘oh’ of disappointment. ‘But why, darling?’ she said. ‘You haven’t fallen out with André? You seemed all right this afternoon.’

Father gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Of course they did, nobility will put a face on anything. You think he wants it known he took a beating from the son of his groom?’

My cup sort of jumped in my hands, it slopped wine all over the table. Mother stared at me, then back at Father.

‘But that was the horse,’ she said reasonably. ‘Jacques told us. It was the horse.’

‘Horse!’ snorted Father. He took a gulp of wine and looked at her impatiently. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, if Tonnerre had kicked him that hard, he’d be dead.’

I said ‘I didn’t, it wasn’t me, I didn’t touch him,’ but Father stopped me.

‘Of course you didn’t. But next time you tell that story, have the sense to keep your hand out of sight.’

I looked down and saw my knuckles were grazed where I’d punched the side of Stefan’s jaw. I opened my mouth to explain, then I met Father’s eyes and he just nodded.

‘It’s all right, boy. He drew on your father, didn’t he?’

Mother was aghast. ‘You didn’t, Jacques? How could you, that little boy?’

Father said patiently ‘He’s not a little boy, he’s thirteen and he’s nobility. In another year it won’t just be swords, it’ll be women as well.’

I drink more wine. It’s sort of numbing that ache inside, I can understand why Father likes it so much.

‘Don’t talk like that,’ says Mother. ‘Nobility are people, same as us.’

‘Oh, maybe in the beginning, you can turn a child into anything if you get the bringing up of it. Look at our Jacques here, he’s his father’s son, isn’t he?’

Mother looks at me throwing back the wine and turns away quickly. I close my eyes and drink and try to bring back the nice pictures I’d had in my head, only now they won’t come.

‘But André’s too old for that,’ Father says. ‘We’ll need to be careful from now on. He won’t talk, but he’ll take it out of us if he can.’

‘Of course he won’t,’ says Mother, and her voice sounds hard and angry. ‘As if André would ever do anything to harm Jacques. Look at everything he’s done for us.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ says Father, and his good mood’s gone out like a snuffed candle. ‘The brat’s never done anything that didn’t suit himself. People like us, we’re nothing to him, we’re less than one of his horses.’

The pictures are back, only this time they’re different. The boy this morning, saying ‘I’d like to make sure everything’s all right.’ The boy laughing and clapping at Georges with his stupid toadstool in the Hermitage. The boy trying to put his cloak round Jean-Marie. We weren’t nothing to André. We weren’t.

‘I’m sorry, I won’t have it,’ says Mother, and I have to come out of my head and look at her. This is my Mother, who always needs a man to tell her what to do, but here she is standing up to Father all by herself. ‘I know you’re annoyed about this morning, but André was only trying to protect me.’

Father says quietly ‘It’s not his business to tell me how I can treat my own wife.’

‘I was his nurse,’ says Mother. ‘And this is his house, isn’t it? We work for him.’

‘Thank you for reminding us of that,’ says Father, and walks over to where she’s sitting. I want to scream he’s getting dangerous, but then I look at her face and see she knows. She knows, but she’s fighting him anyway.

The boy running back into the Manor to fight a hundred soldiers by himself. The boy fighting Stefan when he knows he hasn’t a chance. The ache inside me is almost unbearable now and I drink more wine to deaden it.

‘Taking sides against your own family, Nell?’ says Father, and starts playing gently with her hair.

‘It’s not a case of taking sides,’ says Mother, trying to move her head away. ‘It’s about what’s right.’

But it is, it’s all about sides. Me talking to the boy about honour and him thinking I understand. Me sitting here now, getting credit for having beaten him. Me sitting back while Father bullies my Mother right in front of me, like he knows I won’t do anything because I never do.

‘What’s right is standing by your husband,’ says Father. He winds her hair round his knuckles, drawing her closer.

Me standing by and watching while a big man beats the shit out of a boy I’m meant to be looking after.

‘It’s natural for me to be fond of André,’ pleads Mother. ‘I nursed him for five years.’

‘Yes, you did, didn’t you? With my little Pierre back here crying for his mother, you were always over at the Manor with the Seigneur’s brat.’

Me sitting in the boy’s room while Mother sings softly, ‘
Rencontrai trois capitaines, avec mes sabots, dondaine, oh, oh, oh …
’

She says ‘We needed the money.’

‘You didn’t do it for the money. You don’t now. What is it, Nell? Is he getting old enough to be interesting?’

‘That’s disgusting.’ Mother wrenches her head away and stands up.

‘I agree.’ He’s blocking her way to the bedroom. ‘It’s filthy. Fawning over another man’s child under my roof. How do you think that makes me feel?’

She turns wearily to face him, pushing her hair out of her eyes. ‘It should make you ashamed.’

Shame. I know what that is now all right. Shame.

‘No, you don’t give me that,’ he says, and seizes her by the arm. ‘You to talk about shame?’

She’s crying out, he’s dragging her towards him, and suddenly it’s easy and there aren’t any choices to make at all, I realize I’ve already made them.

I stand up and say ‘Stop it.’

It doesn’t come out deep and manly, it’s actually a bit squeaky, but it makes my Father look round all the same, and his expression is so surprised it’s almost funny. Then it clouds over and isn’t funny at all.

‘Shut your bastard mouth and get out.’

Mother cries out in protest, then it’s a sudden sob of pain because he’s twisting her wrist. I can’t take it, I’m yelling ‘Stop it, I won’t let you!’

He really does laugh at that, a great loud rumbling laugh from his chest. Then he goes quiet and looks at me with something like pity. ‘Stick to hitting children, boy. It’s all you’re good for.’

‘I didn’t,’ I say, and the relief is wonderful. ‘I never touched him. Why would I?’

‘Why?’ says Father, and there’s no pity about him now, his eyes look almost hot. ‘Do you really want to know?’

‘Pierre!’ says Mother desperately. She pushes in front of him, but he shoves her aside, hand up to smack her, then I’m moving, I’ve caught his arm, and pulled him right round to face me. He shakes free and his fist’s coming up, so I hit him in the face, and I’ve knocked him down.

I’ve hit my own Father.

Everything goes silent as he stands up. He wipes his mouth deliberately with the back of his hand, but never takes his eyes off my face.

‘You poor, stupid bastard,’ he says.

Then he’s on me. I try to defend myself, but he’s just hammering into me and I can’t seem to stop him. I’m young, I’m strong and fit, but he’s bigger and heavier, and it’s somehow hard to hit him, it’s hard to see my Father’s body and drive my fist right into it. And I’m not André, I’m not this unbeatable force, and when he’s got me down I bloody stay down, and now he’s kicking me, his boot in my belly, my ribs, my thigh, and Mother’s screaming at him, then Blanche starts crying and I can hear Little Pierre too, and finally he stops, and everything’s going quiet and dark.

Mother’s footsteps, her feet in front of me, and her voice, very low, ‘Please, Pierre.’ Father’s soft laugh. ‘Look at him, Nell,’ his voice says. ‘And that other one in the barn. Not very impressive, is it? Why can’t you stick to your own kind?’

There’s a pause, heavy footsteps, and he’s gone.

Then Mother’s cradling my head and saying I mustn’t listen, he doesn’t mean it, and it’s all her fault, but I can’t bear it, I push her away. My body hurts all over and I want to be on my own.

But I can’t be, of course, not these days. I stagger out on to the cobbles, and there’s the boy pelting towards me, barefoot but with his sword in his hand. He stops short then runs to me in horror. I shove him away and say I’m all right, leave me alone. He looks past me at the house, and his face goes very cold, and his grip tightens on his sword, and he’s striding towards the door. I’ve got just enough strength left to grab his arm to hold him back.

‘No,’ I manage to say. ‘He’s gone, he’s gone out. He won’t hurt her any more tonight.’

He looks at me, and believes me. But I’m staggering so much I can’t stand, my ribs are squeezing me, and I can’t breathe through the blood in my mouth and nose, it’s all bubbling, I can’t breathe. Then his arm’s round my shoulders and he’s lowering me to the stones, and I hear him say ‘Wait there,’ and I do, because I can’t do anything else, and it feels good just to let go and let someone else take it. I hear him go to the house, he’s calling ‘Nelly!’ loudly and clearly like he’s the master of the house just come home, and it feels safe, it feels like someone’s in charge and I’ll be looked after, and then everything goes black.

When I come round I’ve got Mother on one side and the boy on the other, and they’re getting me into the barn, and Little Pierre’s there too, looking mutinous with a basin and cloths. Then Mother’s getting my shirt open, and it hurts, and the boy’s saying he thinks I’ve got a broken rib, maybe two, then someone’s giving me water and I close my eyes.

I must have slept, because next there were voices murmuring and someone prodding me, then there was M. Pollet the barber strapping up my ribs and M. Merien the apothecary doing something nasty with leeches on the inside of my arm. I struggled to sit up, and said ‘Where’s André? Where’s André?’ but the boy’s voice said ‘It’s all right, Jacques, I’m here,’ and I strained up my eyes and saw him holding a candle for the doctors. He smiled like everything was all right so I lay back down and told myself it was.

It was really quiet. I could hear M. Pollet’s breathing as he finished the strapping, and an odd clicking in M. Merien’s throat as he checked his leeches. I’ve often wondered about leeches. I’d see the doctors fishing them out of the jar, and wonder if they picked the same ones each time that got all the blood, and if there were like tiny starved leeches at the bottom that never had anything.

If there are I think I’ve got them all, they’re taking for ever. M. Pollet says conversationally ‘Having quite a little party there, aren’t they, Monsieur? Been drinking anything nice?’ and his eyes are bright and twinkly like he knows.

M. Merien’s insisting on examining André’s injuries, and the boy’s hating it, of course, he doesn’t need doctors fussing over him, he’s not helpless like me. M. Merien’s moaning about leaving things too late, he says the ear should have been seen to long before, but the boy’s just saying ‘Damn your impertinence, it’s my ear, isn’t it?’ and I smile to myself because that’s André, that’s what he used to be in the days when it was all so much simpler and no one expected anything of me except to know what to do with horses.

When I next wake up we’re alone. It’s dark and silent outside, everything feels still, and I know it’s the middle of the night. I can see the boy sitting a few feet away watching the door. His sword is close by his hand and I know why. He’s wrong, though, Father won’t come here, not now. He’ll be sleeping it off somewhere and be fine in the morning, he always is. Maybe he’ll be sorry, maybe he’ll even forgive me. I can’t think what I’ll do if he doesn’t. I’ve got nowhere else to go now, there’s nowhere I belong.

I sit up and find actually my body feels better. Maybe my ribs aren’t broken after all, or maybe the strapping’s helped, but I can move and it doesn’t hurt much. My nose starts bleeding again so I reach for one of the cloths beside me, but then André’s there, coming to help like I’m a baby can’t even wipe my own nose. I tell him to leave me alone.

He almost smiles. ‘I let you do mine.’

I try to laugh at him, but it all goes wrong, and something terrible’s happening, blood and snot is coming out of my nose and I’m shaking all over. Sixteen years old, and I’m crying like a kid.

He reaches out to comfort me, and I can’t stand it, I shove him away. He kneels back obediently, but the cloth’s still in his hand, he’s just waiting his chance.

‘Don’t,’ I warn him. ‘Don’t. It’s stupid.’

‘Why?’

‘There aren’t any Spaniards here, you don’t need to pretend with just me.’

Blood went down my throat, I had to jerk my head back again, and before I could stop him he was holding my head and wiping me.

‘Hold still,’ he said.

I needed to talk, and he was wiping a bloody wet cloth over my mouth. I waited till he took it away to rinse it, then said ‘You’re not supposed to look after me, it’s just stupid.’