Honour and the Sword (67 page)

He said ‘They’re not coming.’

‘What?’ said André.

Stefan was speaking quickly and quietly like he didn’t want the others to hear, it was hard to get what he was saying. ‘We can see them through the embrasures. They’re not moving, they’re just sitting there a good mile away, I tell you they’re not fucking coming.’

I couldn’t take it in. Our troops ought to be at the Gates right now, but he was saying they hadn’t moved, they were still twenty minutes away, we were right back where we’d started and everything we’d done had been for nothing. As we stared at him in horror, there came the thunder of hoofbeats pounding towards us down the Dax-Verdâme Road.

Stefan Ravel

André snapped out of his trance. ‘Get the Gates open,’ he said. ‘Help Edouard and get the bloody Gate open, we’ll damn well
make
them come.’ Then he turned to Marcel and said ‘Take men from the screen and reinforce the barricade. It’s got to hold now, it’s our only hope.’

Whatever I may say about that kid, he knew how to take control when we needed it, and what’s more he was right. There were mostly civilians on that barricade, Abbé, we’d never thought they’d have to deal with more than a few messengers before our troops relieved us. Now they’d got Don Francisco and what sounded like half the Verdâme garrison coming at them and would need all the help they could get. At least we could spare the men here, it was still nice and quiet on the Square. There was musket fire from the barracks roof, so I knew we’d got soldiers breaking out somewhere, but no one seemed to be attempting to come down the alleys. They might make it into the Thibault farm, but that was walled and we held the gate.

All of which was true, Abbé, and it wasn’t till we heard the shouts from Market Street that I realized the one little flaw. We’d left our ladders up in the farm, and we weren’t the only buggers who knew how to climb.

Jean-Marie Mercier

They came swarming over the farm wall on our own siege ladders. One led directly on to the stable roof, and there were soldiers up it and on us in seconds.

I tried to swing my musket round, but we were packed too close to bring it to bear. The soldiers were swiping viciously down at our loaders, blades against ramrods and bare hands, scarlet blood spattering over us in a great spray. But Colin was on his feet, swinging his musket like a huge club, he smashed the nearest soldier off the roof, then reached out to our ladder, seized its hooks and heaved it out and away, spilling the soldiers off the rungs and thrusting it back down into the farm with one mighty shove. Georges managed to turn his musket on one still up, while Simon fired a pistol into the last, but then I heard them both cry out in alarm, and turned to see the worst nightmare a marksman can possibly face.

There were soldiers on the roof of the barn behind us. The barn was higher than we were, and there were loaded guns pointed directly down at us, at a range of less than six feet.

They fired together in one great deafening volley. I think I’ll always remember the sound of it. Something like a great hammer smashed into my knee, and I think I may have screamed, but there were so many people crying out at once I’m hardly sure. There was choking blue smoke all about us, and suddenly a tremendous weight crushing against me and cracking my head against the parapet, and I think I must have fainted.

Jacques Gilbert

I remember hearing somebody screaming in sheer fury, then realizing it was me.

Then we were charging straight into them, because that’s what cavalry’s for, you bloody charge the bastards, and I was hacking down like I’ve never hated anyone so much in my life. It wasn’t exciting, the way it had been by the Almshouses, that was all over, it had never been real, our troops weren’t coming and we were all dead. Only that bloody shambles on the stable roof was real, that and these black and red bastards suddenly in amongst us like being invaded all over again.

It was d’Estrada, of course, no one else could have kept his head and led a counter-attack like that. I could see him keeping a bunch of his men tight together, they’d somehow got past our first rush and were heading towards the Gate. I reined in Tonnerre to wheel after them, but André was pounding up behind me with infantry at his heels, shouting ‘The barn! The men on the barn!’ and of course he was right. I could see them ahead of me, reloading frantically, and the boy was right, they’d make bloody ribbons of us if they fired that lot, we’d got to take them down.

We turned on them, all of us. They were too high to reach, even on horseback, but André fired one of his pistols into them, I did the same, then Bettremieu snatched a pike from an infantryman, stood up in his stirrups and swung it like a scythe, sweeping half the men back across the roof in a struggling mass, back to where our infantry were climbing up behind. The bastards stopped even thinking about reloading, they just tried to get the hell out before our infantry tore into them. Some jumped off the roof, but André was waiting with his sword drawn and bloody, he was half hanging off his stirrups to reach more of them, slashing about as if to cut them all into shreds. I didn’t blame him. I could see the mess of flesh and bone that had been our men on the stable roof, there was blood trickling down the whitewashed walls into the dust.

I took the last one myself, then turned to ride back through the men who’d got past us. There weren’t many left now, but d’Estrada was nearly at the open Gate and a handful of men with him. Stefan and the infantry screen moved forward to meet them, I saw Dom thrust his pike at one, his face savage as I’d never seen it, and Pinhead faced up to d’Estrada himself, swinging that great sledgehammer he’d been using for the spikes. D’Estrada whirled on his feet and whipped down with his blade, and there was Pinhead falling across the barrel of the cannon, his neck gaping open in one huge red gash, but the sledgehammer struck as he fell, and d’Estrada was down too, rolling over like a rabbit, then lying still. The rest of his men scattered at sight of us, running blindly for the Square, where Jacob’s muskets picked them off from Les Étoiles.

Edouard’s voice was calling down from the firing step. He was looking out of the embrasure towards the fields, but we heard him shout ‘They’re moving, André. Our troops are starting to advance.’

The boy turned at once to the Square and yelled out ‘They’re coming, we can see them, our troops are on the way!’

A great cheer went up from the people by the alleys, by the courtyard gates, on the roofs, all over Dax people were cheering and throwing their hats in the air. André’s head came back to mine, the smile still fixed on his face, but his eyes were anguished. He was doing his best, but he knew as well as I did it could be another ten minutes before our army got here, more if they waited for the infantry.

‘We’ll hold,’ I said desperately. ‘André, don’t worry, we’ll hold.’

There came another crash of gunfire from the Dax-Verdâme Road.

‘Cavalry to the barricade!’ cried André. ‘Come on, we’re finished here.’ He turned to rally our horsemen down the road, then hesitated by the remains of the infantry screen.

‘Take them,’ said Stefan. He was struggling to wedge a chock under the first leaf of the Gate, but seemed calmer than he had. ‘Take them, it’s all quiet here.’

André nodded gratefully and sent the last of our infantry charging after the cavalry. Even Edouard jumped down from the Wall to join them. But Marcel was already running up from the barricade, grazed and dusty with being unhorsed. He panted ‘We need more shot. Roger’s down, there’s only Margot holding them together. The middle wagon’s gone, we’ve no time between charges to push it back, I’ve got to have more shot or we can’t hold.’

‘Take Jacob’s marksmen,’ said André desperately. ‘I’ll hold it till you’re back.’

Marcel ran on towards the Square, and we wheeled again to ride down the Dax-Verdâme Road, but we’d only got as far as the corner when firing broke out from the woods, a shot cracked past my face, and a horse screamed. Tempête was rearing and stamping, André jerked up in the air, flopped back, slipped clear out of the saddle and crashed down heavily on the stones. Behind me I heard M. Lefebvre and Bernard calling their bowmen and realized soldiers were trying to break through the trees.

I threw myself down off Tonnerre, then crumpled to my knees as the shock opened up my leg, but the boy was rolling clear and Tempête collapsing harmlessly next to him, kicking and screaming in agony. André scrabbled in the holster for his pistol and tried to bring it up to the poor beast’s head, but Tempête was thrashing to and fro, and the boy’s hands were shaking, he was still half stunned, and it was hard to do it, to kill this horse that had saved his life on this same road three years ago. I crawled over, grabbed Tempête’s mane, put my own last pistol against his forehead, and pulled the trigger. The gelding shuddered, and was still.

The boy gave a kind of terrified sob, then turned away to grope for his sword. I struggled to stand, though it felt like I’d got a roll of blanket instead of a leg, and I had to put all my weight on the other. Then something drew my eye back to the Wall, something was moving between the second and third cannon. Someone was getting up.

‘The barricade,’ said the boy, climbing shakily to his feet. ‘We have to help Margot. Can you take me on Tonnerre?’

D’Estrada was still alive. Pinhead’s dying blow must have glanced off him and knocked him out for a moment, because he was getting slowly to his feet, his sword still in his hand. I wasn’t totally sorry. The Gate was right next to him, and I didn’t think I’d mind if d’Estrada escaped. We owed it him, after all.

But he didn’t go for the Gate. He went for Stefan. He was totally alone, and Stefan was no threat, he was just trying to wedge the second leaf open, there was no sense in it at all, but he threw himself at Stefan with a kind of howl.

Stefan Ravel

It was lucky for me the bastard was already injured. He was half mad with rage, and that first swipe should have done for me, but his aim was off, and I got my sword up just in time. We were face to face then, the two of us, and I saw in his eyes what it was all about. That’s nobility for you, Abbé. Men dying all round him, fucking French army charging towards him across the plain, and all he’s thinking about is the man who marked his pretty face.

It was likely to prove serious enough for me. He was a swordsman, that one, I knew it right off, and what’s more he was a left-hander. I belted him off and away a couple of times, but that was as good as it was going to get, and I doubt I’d have done even that if he hadn’t got a stiff shoulder from Pinhead’s hammer. I was dead in a minute if someone didn’t settle him, but they’d all gone rattling off to the barricade and I was on my own.

But not quite. I slid my sword up guard to guard, in the hope of getting my other hand to him and throttling the bastard off, but even as he ducked and twisted away, I got a view over his shoulder, and there was André himself at the corner of the woods. He looked shaky as all hell, but he was on his feet, he’d got Jacques next to him, and more to the point he’d got a pistol in his hand.

I’ve no time for pride, Abbé, I’d rather stay alive any day. I walloped d’Estrada away again, and used the second’s respite to shout to the kid. Nothing dramatic, just the old call one soldier makes to another when he needs a hand, the way he’d called me himself that night at the Château.

I called ‘André!’

Jacques Gilbert

We couldn’t reach them in time, and there was no one else. André had the pistol, but he couldn’t use it, he was only alive at d’Estrada’s gift. He did the only possible thing. He stopped, brought his left arm up fast in a fist, bent it at the elbow, levelled the pistol across it, and shouted ‘Stop, or I shoot!’

It was all quiet around us, there even seemed to be a lull at the barricades. There were just the four of us standing there.

D’Estrada stepped back from Stefan, kept him at length with the blade of his sword, then turned his head towards us.

He shouted ‘Private matter, Chevalier! Affair of honour!’

Stefan Ravel

Oh, fuck his honour, I went straight for him when his back was turned, but he’d known I would, the bastard, he was twisting even as I lunged, then he was round again and attacking furiously, I’d never seen anything so fast. He was dancing up close, and I knew he could take me any time, he was only toying with me, I could see it in his smile.

I shouted again ‘André!’

Jacques Gilbert

The boy stiffened all over, then jerked the pistol back up. He was going to shoot a man in the back, a man in the middle of a duel of honour, a man who’d spared his own life. He was ruined, he was shamed for ever, he was really going to do it.

I screamed ‘André, no!’

His face whipped round to me, desperate, hardly recognizable.

‘André, you can’t!’

He blinked, then a shock of despair passed over his face. He flung down the pistol, snatched up his sword and started to run towards d’Estrada.

I tried to follow, but my leg kept going dead, I couldn’t do much more than hobble. It didn’t matter, it was too late anyway. D’Estrada had finished playing with Stefan, he was forcing hard forward, then Stefan stumbled, falling back against the open Gate.

I suppose I must have heard the footsteps before that, but I didn’t take them in. The first I knew was a great cry, then someone rushing forward into the picture I was looking at. Marcel leapt full at d’Estrada, knocking him back with his sword, forcing himself in front of Stefan’s fallen body, then lunging out at d’Estrada’s face. D’Estrada didn’t hesitate, his blade came in fast and clean, Marcel never even saw it coming. He was as unbalanced by the left-handedness as the boy had been, he parried in the wrong place, and d’Estrada’s sword whipped in, taking him full in the chest and punching right into the Gate on the other side.

Marcel hung there a second, impaled on the blade, and he didn’t make a sound, the dreadful cry I was hearing must have been Stefan. Blood poured out of Marcel’s mouth, all down his white shirt, and I knew he was dead, he must have died instantly. D’Estrada pulled out, and Marcel’s body crumpled and collapsed on top of Stefan. The sound of gunfire rose again from the Dax-Verdâme Road.