Honour and the Sword (72 page)

I said ‘Where are you …?’

‘I’m just going out for a while,’ he said. ‘Just some fresh air.’

Somewhere away from me. I said miserably ‘Are you angry with me?’

He paused at the door. ‘How could I be? It’s not your fault, is it?’

He opened the door and went out.

I don’t know how long he was gone, but it felt like hours. I had time to pack up my own stuff, and I did it slowly and carefully, folding everything properly, trying to pretend everything was normal and nothing had really changed at all. I had time to go and have a last drink with Colin, I had time to come back and be nervous outside the door and hope the boy was feeling better, then come in and see he still wasn’t back. I had time to put myself to bed and lie there feeling miserable and angry with my Mother and the Comtesse and even André himself, because it’s like they were all blaming me for being who I was, and it wasn’t my fault at all.

I’d been doing it a long time when I heard him come back in. He was creeping about in the dark like he didn’t want to talk, so I tried to breathe regularly and pretend to be asleep. I felt him climb under the blankets beside me, but he didn’t rest against me as usual, he just lay turned away and stayed very still. His back felt sort of rigid, and his shirt was cold. There was a strange, dank smell on it too, it tingled in my nose, then slowly opened into a memory of a day four years ago, the squelch of mud under my shoes and the crack of an open door beside me, a glimpse of white stone shelves stretching back into darkness, and two shrouded bundles being laid side by side. He’d been back to the Ancre vault. He’d been to see his father.

For a moment I felt a stab of jealousy, because I’d like to have seen him too, I’d never been allowed in the vault at the funeral, and that wasn’t fair, because he was my father too. Then I caught myself actually grudging the boy the last tiny thing he’d got left for himself, and a wave of self-loathing went over me like cold water. He’d given me everything. He shared everything he had with me, he’d been doing it for years. He’d made sure I had new clothes when he did, he’d even got me a rapier like his own so I could wear a dress sword like a gentleman. Even now Tempête was dead he was only taking the colt so I could keep his father’s warhorse for my own. He hadn’t held back a single thing, all he had was being who he was, and now I’d even taken that too.

It had to stop. I’d got to do something to show him it didn’t have to be like that, he didn’t owe me anything, I wasn’t trying to take his place. I knew he’d never feel the same about me, there was nothing to be done about that, but I lay awake all night trying to think how to put the rest of it right.

There was one thing I could do straightaway, which was tiny and trivial but at least would be a start. I waited till the curtains began to look red instead of black, then got up quietly by myself and went out to knock up M. Pollet. It took longer than I’d thought, he insisted on doing it all properly, and by the time he’d finished I was terrified I was going to be late. The horses would be waiting in the Square at nine, and the clock was already striking when I came running through the back entrance into the barracks.

André was up and dressed, of course, and looked in a totally filthy mood. I didn’t mind that, actually, it was more like himself, and anything was better than that cold politeness he’d given me last night. He certainly wasn’t polite now, he started snapping as soon as I got in. He was saying ‘Where the
hell
have you been, don’t you know we’ve got people waiting, I’ve been worried sick, where the
hell
have you been?’ then he saw my hair and stopped dead.

His face seemed to curl up in distress and his voice dropped into a whisper. He said ‘Oh, Jacques, what have you …?’ then shut his mouth again, because it was obvious what I’d done, I could see it in the mirror behind him. My hair was nice and neat, but M. Pollet had judged it beautifully, and it was at least an inch shorter than André’s.

I said quickly ‘I had to do something. I don’t want to be better than you, I never have, I just want us to be together.’

His eyes looked huge. ‘But, Jacques, I don’t want …’

‘But I do. I’m still your aide, aren’t I? You said I could be, you’re not going to go back on it now, are you?’

He hesitated. ‘Not if it’s really what you want.’

I said firmly ‘It is.’

There was a little tap at the door.

André pulled himself together and said ‘Come in,’ but he was still looking at me.

Bertrand crept in nervously and wondered if we wanted to delay our departure.

André dragged his head round to look at him, then said ‘No. No, we’re coming directly.’

Bertrand looked at me, because of course we ought to be going down first, so I grabbed the bags, turned to André, said formally ‘We’ll be five minutes,’ and shot out the door before he could change his mind.

My confidence was rising as I went outside. It could still be all right, I was going to be allowed to stay with him, I was his aide after all. The courtyard was empty, but I could guess why, I could hear the rumble of the crowd in the Square even through the gate, and knew the whole of Dax was out there to see the boy off. That was right really, that was how it should be, he was the Seigneur.

Bertrand took the baggage through the gate, and I stationed myself beside it, ready to open it for André. I’d seen M. Chapelle do that stuff so often it felt strange to be doing it myself, like I was a character in a play. I brushed down my clothes and smoothed my hair, and wished I’d got a mirror to check what I looked like.

The side door to the barracks opened and André came out. He looked round the empty courtyard, straightened his hat and began to walk towards me. I remembered him making that walk the other way when he gave himself up to save my life, I remembered him looking up at my window and giving me that little wave. He didn’t wave now.

I watched him getting nearer, and suddenly there was a window back between us and I was seeing the Chevalier de Roland approaching his aide. His clothes were scruffy and his hair too short, but he held himself upright, he seemed sort of tall. My eyes went all by themselves to his sword, it was clearing the stones by inches, and with a stupid pang I found myself remembering a black night and a little boy running towards me, a long sword trailing behind him in the wet grass. The loss was suddenly so unbearable I felt my knees start to shake.

I squashed it down, I stamped it out dead and ignored the fact it made me feel dead too. I got my chin up to face my master, took off my hat and bowed.

I said ‘Chevalier.’ I said it beautifully.

He stepped up beside me and said ‘No.’

My mouth went dry. ‘André, you said I could …’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Like this.’ He held out his hand.

I stared blindly at it. It was empty of course, only it wasn’t, because in it was the one last thing he had to give, and it was the one thing I really wanted. I looked up at his face, afraid I’d got it wrong, scared he was going to hurt me, but it was just the boy, it was André, like no one in the world ever saw him but me.

‘Come on, brother,’ he said, and smiled.

I took his hand, and opened the gate wide. The rumble of the crowd swelled into a sudden great roar as we walked out together into the sunshine.

They were all out there, all of them, people from Verdâme as well as Dax, we’d got the whole bloody Saillie to see us off. They were all bright in Sunday clothes, rows of cheering faces, and a great flurry of hats flying up into the air. I shoved my head down quickly to show I knew the cheers weren’t for me, but André jerked my hand to keep me close, and the noise actually got louder.

I risked a look up. Père Gérard was standing on the church steps beaming right at me, and Mother beside him, shining with pride. Colin was there too, Jean-Marie, Giles, all waving and calling out, and no-one looked disapproving or like I oughtn’t to be where I was. As I mounted Tonnerre I got a sudden dizzying feeling that they might be right. M Gauthier always said ‘The seed of honour’s in every man,’ and at last I understood it, what André had seen at once: that it might even be inside me.

The bells started ringing, a wild, joyous clanging that hurt my ears, and I turned to see André drawing his sword. I took a deep breath, and drew my own.

We rode out like that together. The crowd opened to let us through, and we galloped down the road, through the Gate and onto the fields of France. There was no Wall in front of us, the grass stretched all the way to the beech forest on the horizon. It loomed in front of me like the dark blur of a world I’d never been in and didn’t know, but the sun was flashing on our blades like white fire, and the shadows seemed to part before us as we came.

Historical Note

While it is natural for our narrators to be most concerned with their own little world of the Saillie, the events outside may need clarification for the non-historian.

The Thirty Years War of 1618–1648 was fought between the great Catholic powers of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire on the one side, and the predominantly Protestant nations on the other. Its division along essentially religious lines in part accounts for the extraordinary mix of nations to be found in each army, where mercenaries were drawn from all countries, and the man charged with holding Arras against the French was actually a Scot. The predominance of mercenaries was also a factor in the extreme brutality of this war, in which context the behaviour of even Don Francisco appears impeccably restrained. Atrocities were committed by all sides, usually against a helpless civilian population, and the infamous Sack of Magdeburg by Catholic forces in 1631 remained a byword for centuries in the expression ‘Magdeburg justice’, as used in these pages by Ravel.

Although Catholic herself, France refused at first to be drawn in, for she held a policy of limited toleration towards Protestants, enshrined in the Edict of Nantes, and was moreover inclined to favour any side that might impose a curb on dangerous Habsburg domination. However, in 1635 Louis XIII’s First Minister Cardinal Richelieu finally declared openly against Spain, and France entered the war with offensives in the Rhineland. The empire hit back decisively with the invasion of Northern France with which the Abbé Fleuriot’s narrative opens. Lefebvre’s account of the fall of the forts in the Year of Corbie is remarkably accurate, although none of our narrators seem to have been aware of the full extent of the danger. The Spanish offensive was but part of the invading force, and the outstanding Bavarian general Johann von Werth won a cavalry action which brought Imperial troops to within twenty miles of Paris itself. Only the rapid formation of a new French army under Louis XIII and the help of France’s ally Bernard of Saxe-Weimar saw the Imperial troops driven back from Compiègne. Even then, Lefebvre is likely right in his assumption that the withdrawal of the enemy from Corbie had less to do with the success of French counter-attack than with the need to retire on winter quarters. If this military division of a year into specific campaign seasons seems incomprehensible to us today, we should perhaps remember the importance to an invading army of pasture for the horses as well as food in the fields for the men. The hard winter of 1639–1640 was one reason la Meilleraye anticipated such difficulty in the assault on Arras – and was, in the event, proved right.

France was a long time recovering from the shock of the
Année de Corbie.
The commanders of La Capelle, Le Câtelet and Corbie were all condemned to death for allowing their forts to be taken, an attitude which may help us understand André’s personal sense of shame at having failed to prevent his territory falling into enemy hands. The recovery of ground was slow too, and as Père Gérard says, La Capelle was not retaken until 1637, nor Le Câtelet until 1638. By 1640, Richelieu was desperate for significant victories in Artois, and his generals were warned they would answer with their heads if they failed to take Arras. This may excuse some of the caution mentioned by our narrators, although most historical commentators appear to share Ravel’s rather dim view of the abilities of Gaspard III de Coligny, the Maréchal de Châtillon. I can, however, find no further reference to a ‘Comte de Gressy’ and am inclined to suspect the tactful Abbé Fleuriot of using a pseudonym in this single case.

The little-known march on Aire and Béthune was also a matter of fact, and André seems to have been right in his conjecture as to its purpose, for an account of the meeting with Louis XIII and Richelieu can be found in Puységur’s own memoirs, where the ruse to draw men out of Arras is in fact credited to Châtillon rather than la Meilleraye. Its success appears, however, to have been limited, for while the two French armies did indeed combine to invest Arras on 13 June, the city had by then been reinforced and the siege endured until 8 August.

The role played by the Comtesse de Vallon in the liberation of the Saillie may appear extraordinary to modern readers, but we should not underestimate the influence of women in the French political arena at this time. The salons held in the great town houses (or ‘hôtels’ in the parlance of the day) held enormous sway over society, especially the famous literary
coterie
established round that of Madame de Rambouillet. Neither does Ravel exaggerate the power of the written pamphlets and canards, for it was scurrilous publications of this kind directed against Mazarin that provided the fuel for the later Fronde, just as a hundred and fifty years later they would inflame the populace against Marie Antoinette.

Many of the other personages mentioned in Paris figure prominently in the Abbé’s later papers, so I shall write no more of them here. The reader need only note that I have preserved the contemporary titles accorded princes of the blood, so that when no other name is offered ‘Monsieur le Comte’ can only refer to the Comte de Soissons, and ‘Monsieur le Prince’ to the Prince de Condé. ‘Young d’Enghien’ is of course his son, later known to history as ‘the great Condé’, while ‘Monsieur le Grand’ was the title given to the King’s favourite and Master of the Horse, the Marquis de Cinq Mars, whose conspiracy was later to have such tragic consequences for our hero.