Honour and the Sword (28 page)

‘It’s all dark,’ he said. ‘I thought there was no one here.’

I led Tempête over so I could stand on the step, then rapped him on the nose to make him lower his head. I lifted the boy at the full stretch of my reach, passing the loop of his tied hands over Tempête’s head, and brought him down safe into my arms.

I held him there a moment. I didn’t dare hug him, I was scared his ribs might be broken, I just kind of folded my arms round to bring him close. What was left of his shirt was damp and cold in the night air, but I could feel the warmth of him through it, and his heart hammering against my chest like M. Lefebvre gone mad. I wasn’t asking how he’d got here, why he wasn’t dead or tortured, I wasn’t even asking if anyone was after him, it’s like none of it mattered. He was here, he was real and alive, and somehow in spite of everything he’d managed to come home.

Twelve

Jacques Gilbert

We dug out the boxes from the paddock, packed our things into sacks, and left the barn before first light. I remember glancing up at the fencing target as we went out. It felt like something I’d outgrown long ago.

We couldn’t come back. The boy was known, and couldn’t risk being seen here ever again. We daren’t even stay till morning, because he’d seen that fat cabo who’d made us fix the wheel and thought he might have been recognized. My family was already in hiding, but we agreed I’d better go to Dax to find out about Colin.

We went to the Home Farm first to get supplies from M. Legros and say goodbye to my family. It wasn’t quite dawn, but my parents were already up and dressed like they hadn’t slept at all. Mother looked worried and dishevelled with straw in her hair, she didn’t even smell the way I was used to. Father looked like someone who’s had just about enough.

We spoke in whispers so as not to wake the children. André apologized for the inconvenience, and promised we’d let them know the moment it was safe for them to go home. He said we were going to live in the woods, but he’d speak to M. Legros and M. Gauthier to make sure they still got good food, and he’d send money regularly, so everything would be just the way it was before.

Then I kissed Blanche in her sleep, and actually I kissed Little Pierre too, he looked somehow young again, all curled up in the straw like a little animal, and I just kissed the top of his yellow head and hoped he wouldn’t mind. I hugged Mother and she stroked my hair and reached up on tiptoe to kiss me, then I climbed out through the hay bales and left her.

The boy went ahead to collect our food baskets so I could be alone to say goodbye to Father, but it was awkward, I felt sort of shy. Father didn’t look like he’d let me hug him, he was kind of leaning away from me, so I grasped his hand instead, and he said ‘Go on looking after yourself, won’t you, boy?’ and let go. His hand was cold.

We were going to move into the Hermitage, of course, though we’d been careful not to let my family know that. It wasn’t the most luxurious place to live, it was just another pile of straw like our own barn, but as I waved the boy off into the forest and set out for Dax in the pink dawn light I remember feeling oddly excited, like something was about to begin.

Jean-Marie Mercier

Quite a few of us had stayed that night at the Hermitage. There’d been the Pedros to deal with, you see, and then it was dark and there were soldiers questioning people in the street, so it really wasn’t safe to go home. I’d liked to have gone, I’d liked to have told Jeanette her family had been avenged at last, only it honestly wasn’t practical.

I remember being half wakened by a single thump on the roof from the sentry. I’m afraid I ignored it, because it only meant someone had crossed the second foresters’ road and given the double wave to show they were one of us. I think I must have drifted back to sleep, because the next thing I remember was a really tremendous outbreak of banging on the roof, which certainly wasn’t any signal I knew.

Stefan sat up and swore. ‘That fucking Georges, I’ll kill him.’

Dom never liked people being rude about his brother. He said reproachfully ‘Easy now, no need for that,’ and strolled calmly out of the door. I heard the murmur of voices as he spoke to Georges on the roof. Then he shouted.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ yelled Stefan, and leapt furiously to his feet. Marcel and I followed him, because it really did sound terribly important.

It was André himself, walking rather wearily out of the woods towards us, leading the brown horse he’d escaped on and which was now laden with baggage. He stopped at the sight of so many of us crowding towards him, pushed his hair rather self-consciously out of his face and said tentatively ‘Hullo.’

Stefan stopped dead and gave a great bellow of laughter, but the rest of us simply surged forward, all wanting to hug him, needing to be sure it really was André, he’d really come back. He seemed quite startled by our reaction, and said there was no mystery about his return, he’d simply ridden along the
gabelle
road and arrived last night. I don’t think he quite understood we hadn’t expected him to return at all.

He was clearly tired and in pain, so Marcel brought him straight into the Hermitage and sat him down in the soft straw. He looked terribly bruised, and I think he was feeling a lot of discomfort in his, you know, his behind part, but after a drink from Stefan’s flask his colour returned and his eyes seemed as bright as ever. Marcel and I sat beside him, but Stefan stayed standing and only leant against a pillar, fingering his flask. There was something about his attitude that was almost defensive. He hadn’t said a word since that first burst of laughter.

André himself was in the best of spirits. He didn’t even seem to mind what Marcel and I had tried to do, he said Jacques had already explained, and we weren’t to worry because it had been absolutely the right thing. When I told him about shooting the plump cabo he was so excited he actually kissed me and said I’d saved the whole of Jacques’ family with that one shot. Then he gave us a wonderful account of his journey back, how he’d had to outride robbers outside Lucheux, bumping up and down on the horse’s neck all the way. It was really terribly funny.

Marcel asked about his injuries, but he insisted he was fine. He said Jacques had already checked him over, and was convinced he must have broken ribs, which made us all laugh again. Jacques had broken his own ribs last year, you see, and now if anyone was injured he was always checking their ribs, it was the first thing he thought of.

Then André asked what had happened after he’d gone.

All the laughter dried up suddenly, because of course none of us wanted to tell him about poor Martin Gauthier.

‘What is it?’ said André. ‘Jean-Marie?’ He turned to Marcel. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ He even looked at Stefan, but Stefan just thrust his tongue in his cheek, hooked his hands in his belt and stared at his boots.

Marcel told him in the end, he was the only one brave enough. He did it as gently as he could, then said ‘I’m sorry, André, I know you were fond of him.’

André looked ahead of him at nothing, and the bruises on his face seemed to stand out more clearly than before. Then he rose slowly to his feet as if he had to go somewhere but couldn’t remember where. He said ‘I’ll kill that bastard don. I’ll kill him.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, André,’ said Marcel. ‘You didn’t ask him to help you.’

André shook his head quite violently. ‘He couldn’t have not helped me, not Martin. I killed him just by being there.’

Stefan pushed himself away from his pillar. ‘That’s right, André, you killed him, it’s all about you.’

Marcel started to say ‘Stefan, please …’ but André struck out his hand as if he wanted quiet. He faced Stefan and said ‘No, it’s not, it’s about Martin. I know you despised him, but he was good and kind and loyal, he was a far better man than I’ll ever be, and he died to save me, how do you think that makes me feel?’

Stefan looked steadily at him, then took a swig from his flask. ‘Gauthier was falling to pieces, he’d have been dead in a year anyway. Most of us get no choice in this world, but if he had, which do you think he’d have wanted? To moulder away slowly, growing more useless every day till he turned to pulp and died? Or be shot in an instant saving the life of someone he loved? Which would you choose?’

André made a curious little flinching movement, but his eyes never left Stefan’s face.

Stefan nodded gently. ‘You didn’t kill him, André. You gave him something we’d all like. You gave him the choice.’

Jacques Gilbert

I was careful going to Dax. I knew if that cabo had talked I’d get scooped up on sight, so I walked through the woods to the graveyard and into the church by the north door. There were a load of people on their knees praying like mad, but no one looked up when I walked through. I slid cautiously out of the west door, pushed my hat lower over my eyes, and stood in the shadow of the porch to look over the Square.

Everything seemed normal at first, I couldn’t understand why I felt it wasn’t. There were more soldiers than usual clustered around the barracks, but I’d seen that before whenever there’d been a big changeover in the troops, it didn’t have to mean anything. There were maybe fewer of our own people about, there wasn’t such a big crowd outside the bakery, but it was still early, that didn’t have to mean much either.

I walked gingerly down the steps and craned my neck to see the entrance to the Forge. It was right next to the barracks and I felt uncomfortable exposing myself that far, but there was hammering coming from inside, and when I looked further I could see Colin himself in the open-sided enclosure, fitting a shoe on a grey horse for a Spanish officer. He wouldn’t have been doing that if that cabo had said anything, he’d have been in prison in the barracks. I risked a few more steps to bring me right on to the Square.

A bunch of soldiers came bustling importantly over, but they weren’t interested in me, they walked straight past and went towards the little cottages by the Almshouses. I noticed the Laroque place still had its shutters closed, and somehow wasn’t surprised when I saw that’s where the soldiers were heading. They didn’t mess about either, they just marched straight up to the house, pushed open the door and walked in. For a second I heard the terrible sound of a woman crying inside, great, tearing, wailing sobs, then the door shut behind them, cutting it off dead. There seemed to be a silence all over the Square.

That’s what was wrong, it had been wrong from the start. Everything was so quiet. People weren’t talking, there was no chatter or laughter, they were all sort of muted, like there was a soft blanket dropped over everything. I listened to the silence, and gradually became aware there was something in it after all, a little distant sound that had been there all the time, but so faint I hadn’t really noticed it.

It was the desolate howling of a dog.

I made myself walk towards it, right across the Square, then down the main road as it sloped towards the Gate. My feet were kind of dragging, I think maybe I already guessed. As I got further down the slope I noticed a little knot of people ahead, then saw what it was they were gathered round and stopped dead.

Near the Gate, by the turn-off into the Dax-Verdâme Road, they’d put up a tall wooden post with a big crossbar which looked like a gallows. There was someone dangling from it, a tall, ungainly figure with white wispy hair, and I felt a cold lump in my stomach and something hard squeezing at my throat. Huddled at the foot of the gallows was Dog, and it was him who was howling. It wasn’t very loud, even now I was closer. It was kind of hoarse like his voice was fading, and I had the feeling he’d been doing it a long time.

I walked up to the post. People parted to let me through, but I don’t remember noticing them, I was looking at the body of my friend. I couldn’t look at his face, I knew what a hanged man looked like, I couldn’t bear to see M. Gauthier like that, with his tongue out and everything, I just stared blindly at his body, at that filthy old brown coat, those horrible baggy green breeches with all rips and stains in them, those strong hairy wrists hanging loosely out of his sleeves. Then that jolted me like a kind of boiling anger, because that’s cruel, you can’t hang a man without tying his hands. My eyes sort of lifted without meaning to, then I saw blood all over his chest, blood and bits of stuff, and I didn’t understand because you don’t bleed when you’re hung, then I had to look up and saw his head. Not his face, because that wasn’t there any more, only the hideous shapeless mess with white hair on top that was all that was left of it. Vomit rose sour in my throat. He hadn’t been hung at all, they’d shot him, this wasn’t a gallows, it was a bloody gibbet, and they’d hung him up on it after he was dead.

I backed away, retching. I was aware of more people arriving around me, but I couldn’t face them, I couldn’t close my eyes tight enough to shut it all out. Then there was a voice louder than the others, someone was saying ‘Martin Gauthier’ like he was a person, not that dreadful thing on the gibbet. I looked and there was the curé standing in front of d’Estrada and demanding the body of Martin Gauthier for Christian burial.

D’Estrada shook his head. ‘I regret, M. le Curé, but the man was a troublemaker and a rebel. He obstructed my men in the execution of their duty, and is to remain here as an example.’

He made to turn away, but the curé took his sleeve. ‘In the name of God, Señor, I demand you release this man’s body to the Holy Church.’

He wasn’t that big, Père Gérard, he had that mild, rather stupid face, and his grey hair was all fluffed up in agitation, but I thought there was something heroic about him all the same.

D’Estrada hesitated, but then his head turned sharply, and I heard it again, a woman crying and wailing, it was getting closer. Four more soldiers were coming down the slope, dragging a limp body in a blue shirt, but Mme Laroque was struggling with them and crying for help. Her elder son Yves was trying to support her, and then I recognized the shirt and knew the body was Pierre Laroque. He was one of us, he was in Jacob’s unit. He was only about a year older than me.