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Honour and the Sword

A. L. BERRIDGE

MICHAEL JOSEPH

an imprint of

PENGUIN BOOKS

From all that terror teaches,

From lies of tongue and pen,

From all the easy speeches

That comfort cruel men,

From sale and profanation

Of honour and the sword,

From sleep and from damnation,

Deliver us, good Lord!

– from ‘A Hymn’ by G. K. Chesterton

Acknowledgements

I must apologize to the people of Picardy, not only for dumping my fictional Saillie smack in the middle of the Forest of Lucheux, but also for landing them with so tempestuous a son as André de Roland. I have tried to find names authentic to both place and period for my fictional characters, but if any of these appear to reflect badly on a genuine family of the time, then I apologize unreservedly to their descendants for a similarity which is both unintentional and coincidental. The real personages, however, are written as history shows them to have been, and require no apology from me.

Many of those I should thank most are long dead, for the best sources on seventeenth-century France remain the vast number of contemporary memoirs. I would still have been lost in this wealth of material without the guidance of many members of the Society for French Historical Studies, and in particular Robin Briggs (author of Early Modern France 1560–1715) and Dr David Parrott (author of Richelieu’s Army), whose generous personal help and encouragement I can only acknowledge with astonished gratitude. I am also much indebted to Ken Mondschein for advice on historical fencing, and to David Reid of the St Albans Fencing Club for guidance on practical aspects of the art. Thanks are due also to the many friends who helped with the different languages, and in particular Clare Cox, who polished the lyrics of ‘Le Petit Oiseau’. Anything impressive in this book is down to these experts; the mistakes are entirely my own.

I am also very grateful to those who gave invaluable feedback and advice in the actual writing, especially Julie Howley, Janet Berkeley, Michelle Lovric and Harry Bingham of The Writers’ Workshop, my agent Victoria Hobbs, and my editor Alex Clarke. Thanks also to Mervyn Ramsey and Laura Rawling for their inspiration and encouragement, and finally to my husband Paul Crichton, without whose faith and support Honour and the Sword would never have been written at all.

Editor’s Note

Even the dead can speak.

It is not from me the reader will learn the story of André de Roland, but from the recorded voices of those who actually knew him: a handful of letters, the memoirs of a parish priest, the journal of an adolescent girl, and the transcripts of interviews with a soldier, a merchant, a blacksmith, a tanner, and a stable boy. These interviews are the first in a series conducted by the young Abbé Fleuriot, and appear to be surprisingly frank. The reader should remember, however, that while it is possible for a speaker to reveal more than he knows, it is not only the living who can lie.

In order to render the oral material accessible to a modern reader, I have adopted an informal approach to the translation, and substituted modern English idioms for those of seventeenth-century Picardy. The content, however, is bound to remain alien. André de Roland was anachronistic even in his own times, genuinely believing ‘honour’ to be something which ought to affect his behaviour and play an integral part in his daily life. The reader will not need me to point out the danger of this, nor is that my responsibility. The dead may speak; it is the job of the historian only to see that they are heard.

Edward Morton, MA, LittD, Cambridge,

April 2010

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Editor’s Note

PART I: The Boy

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

PART II: The Soldier

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

PART III: The Chevalier

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Historical Note

PART I

The Boy

One

Jacques Gilbert

From his interviews with the Abbé Fleuriot, 1669

You can trust me.

No one knew him like I did. Not that bastard Stefan for a start, you don’t want to believe a word he says. You don’t need him, you don’t need any of them, except maybe Anne later on. I’m the only one who really knows.

I knew him from when he was tiny. My Mother was his nurse up at the Manor, and sometimes she’d take me with her so I saw a lot of him even then. They had all kinds of interesting stuff there, like a real clock in the hall and a tapestry with all pictures of stags on it, and a great big gong on the landing. Sometimes we’d see the Seigneur himself, and he was always kind, he used to give me sugared nuts which he carried round in a little silver box, and sometimes he’d ruffle my hair and call me a fine boy. More often it was just me and Mother in the boy’s room, and sometimes she’d sing to us, which was nice, and sometimes she’d make me play with him, which wasn’t. He wasn’t really André back then, he was just a baby that cried a lot, because I was jealous of him for taking my mother away and sometimes used to pinch him when she wasn’t looking.

I saw more of him when he was older, because he was the Seigneur’s son and I had to be nice to him and trot him around the paddock and answer all his stupid questions beginning ‘Jacques, why …?’ It was always ‘why’ in those days. It was only much later he started asking the really hard questions, the ones that begin with ‘if’.

But it wasn’t a proper kind of knowing in those days, just sort of knowing the shape of him and the things he did and said. I was only the stable-master’s son and he was André de Roland, he’d be Comte de Vallon when his uncle finally got on and died. But I did use to watch him, because if your own life’s a bit crap you can get a lot of entertainment out of watching people with better ones, and anyway I thought he was funny. He had this awful temper back then, he’d shout and wave his arms about, and sometimes even stamp. He never did it with me, of course, he was always polite with servants, it was only being ordered about he couldn’t stand, or people telling him things he couldn’t do.

What I liked best was watching him fence. I know peasants don’t have anything to do with swords, but there was no harm in looking, it’s like there was a bit of glass between him and me like a window and I was always safely on the other side. I think he knew I watched him, but I don’t believe he minded. He hadn’t anyone of his own kind to play with, his mother just used to drift round looking beautiful and never having any more children, and Colin’s dad said it was a black disgrace, they ought to have a spare in case anything happened. He didn’t say what ‘anything’ meant, but I knew, my own little sister Clare had died that year.

It was a pity for the boy, though, and I think it made him lonely. That makes me feel bad now, him being lonely and me just watching him being it, but that’s as much as I wanted in those days. I remember one time when he sort of reached out and smashed the window between us, and it got me one of the worst beatings I ever had.

It was one afternoon when they were looking for him all over the estate. That happened a lot actually, most days you’d hear someone yelling ‘André!’ round the place, he was never where he was meant to be, that boy, just never. But this time it was important because the new Baron de Verdâme had brought his children to meet the Rolands, and there wasn’t a sign of André anywhere. I just went on mucking out the stables, then I dug the fork back in the straw and there he was, curled up at the bottom trying to hide. I gaped at him, but he got his finger up to his lips, and I heard César, the Second Coachman, go by calling him, and I didn’t say a word.

It’s natural, isn’t it, it’s instinct. You stick together against the adults, though I’d have been fourteen then and him only eleven. So I never said a thing, I just went on working round him, but he wouldn’t keep quiet, he started up gabbing, then someone was coming and he was trying to burrow back under the straw, but it was the Seigneur himself at the door and we were caught.

It was terrible. The Seigneur kind of lifted him up, got him out of the stables and standing on the cobbles in front of him, all with just a look. It was a belting look, that one, very powerful. The boy inherited it, so I should know.

Then he really laid into him. Not the way my Father would have done, it was all just what he was saying, how the boy had let him down, let his whole family down, embarrassed his mother, failed as a gentleman, and shamed them all in front of their new neighbours. I could see the boy getting white in the face and his lip starting to tremble, then his father got even angrier and said in this terrible voice ‘You will not cry, André,’ and the boy swallowed it back and stuck his chin out and said ‘Yes, Sieur.’ There were times I wondered if my own Father really loved me because he beat me so much, but I remember thinking in a way what the Seigneur was doing was worse.

Then he turned to me and said ‘As for you, young Jacques …’ and my heart jumped I was so frightened, but the boy leapt in at once and said it wasn’t my fault because he’d ordered me. The Seigneur looked at him then, and I saw he really did love him after all, but that didn’t stop him giving him another bollocking for putting me in an impossible situation, which was apparently even worse than being rude to the Baron. Then he packed the boy off to apologize, but I saw Father watching on the other side of the track, then I knew I was really in trouble and felt sick.

But the Seigneur was nearer. I was standing in the doorway clutching my hat and rubbing and pulling at it, and my hands were all sweaty and I wished I was dead, but he just leant forward and said ‘You did quite right, Jacques. A gentleman never tells.’ That was an odd thing to say, but I knew he meant it kindly, so I tried to smile and say ‘Yes, Sieur,’ like the boy did, and he reached out and tousled my hair. Then Father was suddenly there next to me, apologizing for what I’d done and saying he’d deal with it now, and the way he was saying it was like telling the Seigneur to piss off.

The Seigneur said not to worry, it was his own boy caused the trouble and he hoped my Father wouldn’t be hard on me for it, but Father just bowed and looked him right in the eye, which you’re not supposed to do with nobility, you’re meant to look at the ground or your boots or something, then he stuck his hand on my shoulder and said ‘He’s my lad, Sieur.’

I could never understand how Father didn’t get sacked or flogged, because quite apart from the drinking he could be really rude sometimes, but instead of ordering him hauled off to have something horrible done to him, the Seigneur just looked at him a minute then turned away. I watched his boots walking out of sight, then Father took me into the stable and beat the shit out of me.

Nobody beat André, of course, that window was round him all the time like a bubble nothing could get through. I remember crawling home that afternoon, bruised and aching all over, and seeing him sitting by the sunken garden with a girl, deep in conversation like there was no such thing as a stable boy trudging past with a black eye and ribs that were purple for a month. That would have been Anne, I suppose, it was the first time they met, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time, I just wanted to get home to Mother and tell her it wasn’t my fault.

I avoided him after that. He caught me at the stables next day to say sorry, and I just mumbled it didn’t matter and wouldn’t look at him, and after a while he went away. He still came hanging round asking questions sometimes, but now I just said ‘yes’ and ‘no’ till he left me alone. It was better that way.

Until the night the Spaniards came, and everything changed.

This is when it really began, the summer of 1636. This is when it gets really hard, what you’re asking me to do. I can remember all right, I remember all of it, but I understand what was going on in a way I never did at the time, so I’m sort of seeing things wrong and not what they were really like at all.

If you want the truth as it really was, then don’t ask me to remember. What I’ve got to do is forget. I’ve got to forget everything I know now and feel now, and everything about what happened later. I’ve got to go back to being what I was then, that hot night in July when the Spaniards came.

Père Gérard Benoît

From his André de Roland, A Personal Memoir, privately printed in 1662

It was yet within the octave of Peter and Paul in the year of Our Lord 1636 that the Spaniards came to our village.

The seigneuries of Dax and Verdâme, or the ‘Dax-Verdâme Saillie’, as they are collectively known, lie to the north of Lucheux, and thrust as a finger into the territory of Artois, at that time in the hands of the Spanish Netherlands. The villages had long been part of Artois themselves, and indeed are still bulwarked on three sides by the now famous Dax-Verdâme Wall, constructed at the time of the uprising in Flanders against Philippe le Bel. This hastily assembled fortification is unusual in its extent, encompassing even a portion of the major farms within its perimeter, but boasts neither flanks nor bastions, nor is even of considerable height, standing in places no more than six or seven foot above the moat. Yet frail a defence as it seems, this Wall had still a significant part to play in our history, as my readers shall learn.

By the time of which I write, however, the Saillie had long been absorbed by conquest into Picardie, and although the Wall remained, its Gates were ever open and its people enjoyed the freedom of the realm of France. So the villages prospered, especially that of Dax-en-roi, where I have the honour to serve as parish priest. It may seem a false modesty to ascribe the name of ‘villages’ to so large an area, but the northern part is entirely given over to a thick forest which extends well over the border with Artois, its steeply rising slopes and great east gorge rendering the land impractical for building.

The Dax of 1636 was a contented community. The Chevalier de Roland kept his own Household Guard, so we had only a small militia to feed and billet, and while the gabelle or salt tax imposed a grievous burden, our crops made us largely self-sufficient, and the visitor could find here no trace of the poverty to be seen in so many villages of our kind. Verdâme was in other case, its Seigneur having died without issue and its new Baron being unacquainted with the needs of a rural population, but its little businesses still thrived, and starvation had yet to come there.

Yet there are dangers other than these, and so we were about to find. The previous year our King Louis had declared against Spain, so that our northern marches now lay directly on the borders of a hostile country. Since by reason of our history Artois was the one side our Wall did not reach, we had already been exposed to raids and skirmishes from this direction, fortunately repelled by the valour of our Seigneur, but the events of 1636 proved of far greater significance than these.

The Spaniards came in the early hours of the morning, and this time they came in force. Mindful of their previous reception, their first target was Ancre, the Roland estate, surmising that by cutting off the head of such resistance as they were likely to meet, they would incapacitate the entire body. Otherwise they would surely have opened their attack on the village itself, which they could not have known to be so empty of soldiery because of the gabelle riots at the Market in Lucheux the day before.

It was Gabriel Lange, sexton of this church, who roused me about two of the clock to warn that the Night Watch reported a large body of cavalry approaching us from the Flanders Road, which bisects the forest. There were, it seems, too many to challenge, but the Watch reported the first part of the force had already turned west towards the gates of Ancre. I immediately sent Gabriel to the taverns to alert the militia, and myself began the tocsin, as Jehan Bruyant, our bellringer, was unfortunately indisposed after a late night at the market.

Jacques Gilbert

I remember the heat. I had a headache, and the flies were bothering me, the horses were all sweaty and snorting, and the straw was dry and prickly against my skin. My back was hurting because Father had beaten me about something, so I had to sleep on my stomach, and it was pissing me off because I wanted to think about Colin’s sister Simone who I’d kissed a few days ago in the lumber room of Le Soleil Splendide, but I needed to be on my back for that, if you know what I mean.

I was fifteen.

I was sleeping in the stables because Father had taken Mother and the children to the Market at Lucheux, and we’d had problems lately with horse thieves. I’d got an arquebus just in case, but it was a rusty old thing, and they’re stupid guns anyway, because most people aim with their eyes not their groin. At least it was a firelock, which was something. I wouldn’t have fancied pissing about with a slow match in all that dry straw.

I was woken by gunfire. It was raining hard and I thought maybe I’d been hearing thunder, but the Général was going bonkers in his stall, and he was an old warhorse who always went crazy at the sound of guns. Then high and clear above it all I heard the distant bell of the tocsin and knew it was a raid.

I don’t know how long it had been going on, but I’d only got one leg in my breeches when the door banged open and César came crashing in. He must have been working late in the coach-house, and was already fully dressed and clutching a nasty-looking scythe.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s the Manor.’

He was stamping about impatiently while I hurled my boots on, he just couldn’t wait to get out and start killing people.

‘Spanish, from the look of them,’ he said. ‘Whole troop. Have you got …?’

He stopped when he saw I’d already hauled out the arquebus and was groping for the powder flask.

‘That’s good, that’s something, but we’ll need my pike against the cavalry.’

Cavalry. My fingers were fumbling, I was spilling the powder, the ball slipped out of my hand, I lost it in the straw and reached for another. His hand came clamping down on my wrist and held it still for a second.

‘Steady there,’ he said.

I took a deep breath, and finished loading. Then I slipped the strap over my head, the flask in my coat, the bullets in my mouth, stuck the ramrod under my arm and I was ready. I felt like a bloody packhorse, but I was ready.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Stick with me and you’ll do.’

I followed him out into the rain. He was a bit mad, really, César, but I was glad he was with me, because I’d never fought before. I’d been bundled off to the woods in the last raid with Mother and Little Pierre, but César was a soldier, he’d only retired after La Rochelle.

The bells sounded louder outside. We took the right-hand fork in the track, down the carriageway that led to the rear courtyard. I don’t think I was scared, not really, I mean we had the Seigneur, and he was indestructible, he could beat anyone. I think actually I was excited. There’s something in the sound of gunfire that makes you breathe faster and run towards it, it’s like you just have to. I remember when we reached the last bend I realized the shooting had stopped and felt disappointed in case we’d missed it all, but César only ran the harder, and his face was grim.

We pounded on down to the apron, the slapping of our boots suddenly louder as we hit the wet flags. There were noises from inside the Manor now, screams and yelling and what sounded like the clash of swords; it all came through the windows, which were open in the heat. Another crashed open right in front of us, and in the light of the flambeau I saw someone scrabbling out, a woman in a long white chemise, her movements clumsy and desperate. She was running before she even got properly upright, and as she lifted her head I recognized Mme Panthon who ran the kitchens, scary Mme Panthon who bawled at me when she caught Marie giving me a cake at the kitchen door. Her hair was loose and wild, her mouth was open and no sound coming out, she saw us and stretched out her arms as she ran. A bright yellow flash cracked in the darkness of the window behind her, a wad of something flew away from the side of her head, her face seemed to turn black, but her legs still ran on two more paces before she dropped in a heap, spattering a spray of water from the stones. Her nightdress was all bunched up round her body, I could see her naked legs.

‘Don’t stop!’ panted César, running past me. ‘Don’t stop!’

I hadn’t realized I had. I tore my eyes off Mme Panthon and ran blindly after César, on across the apron, past the bodies of two of the Household Guard, one on his face, the other staring up at the sky with all black shiny stuff spilling out of his belly, on without stopping and down the carriageway sweeping round the side of the house. I could hear hooves, there were horses galloping behind us, I yelled back to César and ducked off the drive into the bushes while I struggled to bring up the gun. My hands were damp and I panicked the powder might be too, then saw César had slipped on the wet flags and was still on the drive. I jerked myself forward, but he was up and skidding towards me, then the horses came hurtling round the bend.

There were two of them, Spanish light cavalry, with huge red Burgundy crosses flapping on their cloaks, laughing and waving their swords as they galloped. They saw César at once, and rode whooping towards him. He could have got to the bushes, we could have taken them on together, but he stopped running, that stupid, gallant old man, he stopped and turned to face them, that scythe gripped fast in both hands. I was fumbling the gun up again, trying to tilt the barrel high enough to point at a man on horseback. César struck out and hacked into the first, but as he followed through, the soldier behind spitted him right through the body with his sabre. I fired at last and got him, but the horse kept going, and César was dragged with them a few paces before the soldier slid off and César crashed on his face on the wet ground.

I knew the shot would bring someone, so I stayed in the bushes a moment, struggling to reload with hands that were shaking as well as wet, and trying to ignore the pain in my balls where that bloody gun had kicked me. Something moved above me, a man leant out of a window in the middle storey, and for a moment my heart leapt, because those were the Seigneur’s apartments, and if the Seigneur was there everything could still be all right. Then I saw he was a bearded man in a helmet, wearing a scarlet sash diagonally over his black coat like a bad wound, and I knew he was the enemy.

That’s when I realized it was over. The Spaniards were in the Seigneur’s own rooms, and I didn’t see how they could be if he was alive. What’s more, the man looking out didn’t seem like he was in the middle of a fight or anything, he looked like he had all the time in the world. There was screaming going on somewhere behind him, but it clearly didn’t bother him. He just peered out at the darkness, then shrugged, said something to someone behind him, and left the window.

I went to César and turned him over, and unbelievably he was still alive, though there was a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth. His face was covered with mud from the drive, and torn where he’d been dragged along the stones. I tried to wipe it with my sleeve, but my hands were still shaking and I was making it worse. He opened his eyes and saw me, and I felt terrible because I knew it was all my fault for not getting the gun up quicker. He tried to speak but couldn’t, then his eyes went out, and I knew he was dead.

More screaming was coming from upstairs in the house, and now there was laughter as well, and a horrible kind of rhythmic chanting I didn’t understand. I tried to close César’s eyes, but my hands had wet mud on them and I remember I left dark smears on his eyelids. I didn’t try to wipe them off. I was suddenly afraid to touch him any more because he was dead.

I crept back to the bushes to get out of the light from the torches. There was banging and crashing all over the house, but nothing that sounded like real fighting, just a lot of soldiers having a good time. There was screaming coming from the servants’ quarters downstairs, women shrieking and men laughing, and I thought of Fleurie and Marie and felt really sick. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t stop any of it, I just stood by this stupid box hedge, shaking like a kid and doing nothing.

After a bit I cleared my head and started to edge along the laurels towards the front of the Manor. I wasn’t thinking of fighting any more, there obviously wasn’t a defence left to join, but I was hoping the front might be clear and I could escape into the woods behind the dairy.

But it wasn’t. When I peered round the corner I saw horses and a couple of Spanish soldiers guarding them, though they seemed to be more interested in what was happening indoors. They were talking and laughing and looking towards the courtyard doors, then one wiped his mouth on his sleeve, tugged at his breeches, and strolled inside.

I daren’t risk it. I left the laurels and was just crossing back to the first box hedge when I heard a sort of slithering from the house, then the hard thump of boots and a ring like iron on the flags behind me. I jumped like a rabbit, swivelling the gun round so fast César would have been proud, but the terrace looked empty, there was only a sword rolling to a standstill on the drive. Then something moved under the ivy, a small figure sat itself up in the light of the flambeau, I saw a white face with a lot of floppy black hair and realized it was the boy. It was him, I mean. It was André.

I guessed he’d climbed from a window, but the Spaniard at the front had heard him too, he came belting round the corner, blade raised and ready, a tall black-clad soldier slashing down with his sword at a little kid of twelve. The boy dived to one side, but he wasn’t trying to run, he was scrabbling across the drive to retrieve the sword. He snatched it up fast, but it was too big for him and his balance still off, the soldier grabbed his collar, dragged him round, and drew back his sword for the lunge.

I fired. I’d forgotten the kick on that gun, and it walloped me straight back into the bush. I scrambled up fast, but there was just the boy standing bewildered, looking out into the dark like he was wondering where the shot had come from. A black heap on the ground beside him proved at least I’d shot straight.

I showed myself and tried to call out in a kind of loud whisper, which is impossible actually, especially when you’ve got bullets in your mouth, but they’d have heard the shot indoors and someone could come any second, so I waved my arms around and sort of hissed ‘M’sieur, m’sieur!’ He stood staring like his wits had gone, which I suppose was reasonable now I know what happened in there, then suddenly jerked himself towards me, running across the drive on to the lawn, that stupid long sword trailing behind him on the grass.

I yanked him right into the heart of the bush and clamped my hand tight over his mouth, just as three soldiers came charging round the corner. He was wearing this bright white shirt I was terrified would show through the leaves, so I covered him with my body and pressed his face hard down, but he was wriggling away and my hands were wet and slippery, I was scared I couldn’t hold him. The bush was rotten and almost hollow inside, but we were still making it rustle, and the soldiers only feet away, looking at the body of the man I’d shot. Then he bit me, right in the hand, but I didn’t dare yell, I just clenched my teeth and forced him to face me till I saw recognition in his eyes and felt him relax. I took my hand carefully away from his mouth, and turned back to watch the soldiers.

They were looking round to see where the shot might have come from, then caught sight of the other bodies further up, which were César and the first two soldiers. One went to look, but the others peered fearfully out into the dark and I realized they were more scared than I was. They were in the light and totally exposed, they hadn’t expected attack from outside the Manor, and they couldn’t know there was just me and the boy, and our only gun discharged with no time to reload. When the horses started kicking up and neighing round the front, they all jogged back to stop them wandering off, but I think the truth was they just didn’t want to stay out there another minute.

Neither did I. As soon as they disappeared I pulled the boy up on his feet and squeezed us out from the bush. I gave up the idea of escaping from the front while those soldiers were there, and led him back towards the bank instead. If we climbed that, we’d get on to the upper bridle path and the stables.

But as soon as he realized I was leading him away from the Manor he stopped dead and let go of my hand.

‘No,’ he said, and shrank back into the bushes. ‘We can’t leave the others.’

I crouched down beside him and started to reload the arquebus. If there was still a defence going on somewhere I was going to need it.

‘The Seigneur …’ I started.

‘They’ve killed him.’

I think I knew that anyway, but hearing it was awful. If the Seigneur was gone, there was no hope at all.

‘My mother’s dead too.’

There was something funny in the way he said that, though I didn’t know why. I went on loading, I didn’t want to look at his face.

‘The Guard?’ I asked.

‘They’re all dead. What about the militia? Has anyone gone for the militia?’

‘They don’t need to,’ I said. ‘Listen.’

He cocked his head, then seemed for the first time to hear the tocsin, which was still ringing urgently from the village. I was surprised he hadn’t heard it before, even with the rain.

‘They must know,’ I told him. ‘They’ll be here any minute.’

‘How long has that been going?’

‘Ages.’

‘Then why aren’t they here?’

I remember what it felt like as that sunk in. He was right, of course, you can ride from Dax into Ancre in ten minutes, five if you gallop.

The Spaniards must have got there first.

Père Gérard Benoît

The militia were mustered in haste, but as I relinquished the bells to younger hands and proceeded on to the Square, it became clear to even the most sanguine among us that the road to Ancre was cut. The enemy could by this time be perceived by the movement of horses down the Ancre Road, which runs for a mile between the village and the estate. Barriers were speedily constructed, yet we had perhaps fourteen of the militia to man them and had to call upon our own folk to fill the broad gaps between. Our blacksmith, Henri Lefebvre, took the lead among the civilians, and himself took a musket, assisted in the business of loading by his son Colin. Our ranks were further augmented by the return of some of our people from the Livestock Market, among them Pierre Gilbert, the Ancre groom, and Martin Gauthier, the chief verderer, whose devotion to our Seigneur was so great he had needs be forcibly restrained from rushing to his rescue against the entire Spanish cavalry. It is pleasant to record that some of the Verdâme men also elected to remain with us in our extremity, most notably their village tanner, a man named Stefan Ravel.

Yet there was little reliance to be placed upon so slight a defence as this, and I accordingly dispatched Gabriel’s son to plead for aid at Lucheux and convey the intelligence to M. de Rambures, Governor of the citadel at Doullens. He had but just departed when there came a young soldier on foot from Verdâme requesting help of our own Seigneur. It appeared there had been an attack there also, but the Baron was from home, and had only a small ceremonial Guard at the best of times, so the Château had fallen with scarcely a shot fired. The young family of the Baron was believed to be imprisoned within, so this soldier had been sent of his officer to beg help from Ancre in repelling their invaders. He had run all the way through the woods without even shoes to his feet, for there had been no time to dress.

This young caporal was in fact the famous Marcel Dubois, who was later to cause such a stir among us. He was perhaps eighteen years of age at this time, but his devotion to duty was such he would not even permit me to dress his feet, which the stones of the roads had used sorely, but was determined to continue to Ancre as he had been ordered. Only the first movements of the Spanish cavalry against our northward barricade convinced him that help from that direction was not to be thought of, but at this realization he merely loaded his musket and went to the barricade himself. He had failed in the defence of Verdâme, he said, so must lend us his aid in what looked to be the last defence of Dax.

Jacques Gilbert

‘No one’s coming,’ he said. He looked back towards the Manor, and there was another burst of screaming and yelling, then a huge loud crash, like furniture being overturned and crockery breaking. His face was suddenly desperate. ‘There’s no one but us.’

Then he was scrambling to his feet, grasping that ridiculous great sword, and I realized with horror what he was going to do.

‘You’ll be killed,’ I said.

He looked at me, and I saw he was every bit as scared as I was, his eyes looked huge and his breathing was ragged. But he looked back at the Manor and said quietly ‘I must,’ and I understood he had to, though of course I didn’t know why, not back then. He hefted his sword in his hand, glanced back at me and said ‘Coming?’

There was only one possible answer to that, which was ‘no’. It was completely mad, a kid with a sword, and me with a gun which would maybe get one Spaniard before the other fifty pounced on us while I was reloading. I gaped in shock, but he only nodded like I’d said yes, took three quick breaths, stepped out of the bushes into the open and started to run towards the Manor.

I had to stop him, I’d got no choice, he was bloody twelve years old. I was up and pelting after him, swinging the gun as I went. I caught up with him at the terrace, clonked the barrel down hard on the back of his neck, and brought him sprawling down flat on the stones.

I thought I’d overdone it, or maybe he hit the front of his head when he fell, because when I dragged him back into the bushes I saw he was quite unconscious. I tried not to think about the penalties for knocking out the son of your Seigneur, but at least he was breathing, his chest was moving up and down. It felt strange being able to look at him with no one to yell at me to keep my head down, but I did now, and thought he looked a mess. He was pale, with a tangle of long black hair like mine, and one side of his face was bruised and badly scored. He was just wearing nightshirt and breeches, his boots weren’t done up right, he was grubby with earth and scratched and grazed all over. The only pretty thing about him was those long dark eyelashes, which made him look sort of young and innocent.

Which just goes to show how wrong you can be. When I put his wrist down my hand felt sticky, and I saw red traces in the creases of my palm. I uncurled his hand and saw that some time that night it must have been soaked in blood. It was over his sleeve too, and not all the patches on his front were mud like I’d thought. I wondered just what had happened in the Manor before he’d climbed out of it.

But I couldn’t worry about that, not right then. Our only chance of escape was the horses, which meant getting to the stables before the Spaniards did. There was no sign of the boy coming round, but I couldn’t carry him up the bank, not with ten pounds of gun already round my neck, so I stuck his sword under my arm, climbed up half backwards, and actually dragged him. I felt bad because we were going through nettles and brambles and stuff, but it was the only way.

He started stirring before I got to the top, so I whizzed him up the last bit, then laid him down gently on the path and sat back warily because I didn’t want him biting me again. He lay a second, sort of twitching, then his eyes opened and at least he knew it was me. There was this awful moment when I saw him remembering his parents had been murdered, but he didn’t cry or anything, he just looked away a moment then asked what had happened.

I said ‘You got jumped,’ which was true enough.

‘How?’

‘There was another soldier on the terrace.’ That was a bit less true, but I had to say something. ‘It’s all right, I dealt with it.’

He didn’t say anything, he just reached out his hand and got hold of mine, and then I really felt like shit. I had a horrible fear he might go and kiss me, because they do that kind of stuff, nobility, but just at that second I heard hoofbeats below us down to our right, there was cavalry coming up the drive to the Manor. I don’t think the boy heard it, he was still gazing at me sort of moistly, so I slammed his head down quick and said ‘Horses!’

‘Is it the militia?’ he asked.

It wasn’t. It was more bloody Spaniards, sweeping up towards the Manor like it was their home and we were the bandits hiding outside. They drew up before the courtyard gate, and this young officer stood upright in his stirrups and raised the arm nearest us with a sword in it. He waved it about like a baton, directing little parcels of men off round the estate to surround the Manor and check the outbuildings. I didn’t know it then, and it wouldn’t have meant much if I had, but that was my first sight of d’Estrada, the Capitán Don Miguel d’Estrada himself. There was something odd about what I was seeing too, something not quite right, but of course I missed it, like everything else that was really going on round me back then, or at least everything important.

‘They’re coming up here,’ said the boy.

There was a bunch of them trotting gently round towards the apron at the back, they were bound to see the carriageway and if they followed it they’d come right to the stables and us.

‘Horses!’ I said again, and turned and ran for the stables. The boy was hard behind me as I belted inside.

It was warm after the night air, and smelt like home. I threw open the stalls and urged the horses out, then grabbed Tonnerre, because he was the most valuable, a great black Mecklenburg stallion and the Seigneur’s own warhorse. I got a halter on him, but didn’t waste time with a saddle, I just threw his blanket over his back and led him straight out, looped the halter round a post, and ran back for Duchesse.

There was the boy trying to put a halter on Tempête. I should have bloody known it, he loved that horse, but the gelding was too temperamental, I’d have trusted him less than any stallion I ever knew.

I said ‘No, take Duchesse, she’s safer,’ and quickly threw a halter on Perle. She was mild enough to let me lead her, and even if she wasn’t the best of the mares her foal would follow her anywhere, and the foal was Tonnerre’s.

When I turned round, the boy was still standing by Tempête.

He said ‘What did you say to me?’ There was moonlight coming in through the open door, and his face looked different, sort of harder. His eyes had narrowed, they looked like the slits in the donjon at Lucheux.

I said ‘You can’t ride Tempête, take Duchesse.’

‘You don’t tell me what I can do with my own horses.’

It was unbelievable. The Spaniards were two minutes away, there wasn’t time for one of his tempers now. I nearly told him so, but then suddenly what he’d said sunk in with a thud. ‘My own horses’ he’d said, and he was right. His father was dead and he wasn’t the Seigneur’s son any more. He was the Seigneur.

I said quickly ‘All right, do what you like, but I couldn’t ride him myself, not bareback, I’m not up to it.’

I turned away to grab my blanket, and make a bundle of it for the gun and some oats for the horses. I had a bit of bread and cheese up there too, so I took that along with a bottle of apple brandy which Father used to hide under the rafters and didn’t know I knew about. I ran out into the yard, and there was the boy standing by Duchesse. He looked mutinous and thoroughly pissed off, but he was standing by Duchesse like I told him.

I gave him a leg-up, hurled myself on Tonnerre, took Perle’s halter, and signalled the boy to follow. The loose horses were blundering about in confusion, bumping into each other and half bolting, but we weaved our way through towards the fork in the path. The right was the carriageway down to the Manor and about a million Spaniards, the left was where the bridle path wound on up to the north of Ancre and the Forest of Dax. I reached the fork and saw horsemen starting up the carriageway towards us.

Duchesse whinnied behind me, and I turned to see the boy half sliding off her back. The stupid little bugger, he was still clutching that sword in one hand, and actually trying to lead Tempête with the other, he’d got nothing to hold on with and was slipping off towards the ground. I fought back to him through the milling horses, but I’d only got one hand to support him, I was holding Perle with the other, while crushing the gun and my bundle against Tonnerre’s neck to keep it on.

‘Let go of him!’ I shouted, struggling to drag him back up. ‘They’re coming, let go of the halter!’

He turned his face to me, pale and desperate and sheened with rain. Down the carriageway I heard someone shouting.

‘Then the sword, drop the sword!’ I said.

He shook his head furiously. ‘It’s my father’s.’

There was a flash below us, then the sharp crack of a musket. I hauled him back high against Duchesse’s neck, screamed ‘Come on!’ then tried to turn Tonnerre, but we were blocked in by the loose horses, I couldn’t get through, Mai was in front of us, rearing and rolling her eyes white in panic, and the poor old Général was backing into me, trying to turn towards the guns, desperate to get back to his old place in the cavalry lines.

Another horse loomed beside me. I swore at it, then realized with shock it was grey and black, a horse I didn’t know, and when my eyes went up there was a man on him, black and red, and his arm high in the air. Something white was striping down towards me with a sound like whipping air, I tried to jerk back, but another blade whistled in between us, there was the sharp ring of steel as swords clashed just inches from my nose. I dug in my heels, driving Tonnerre back, and there was the boy on Duchesse, one hand screwed in her mane, the other slicing down with his sword, the rush of it changing to a hard squelch as it bit into the Spaniard’s neck. The man was screaming in my face, he was veering back, his arm coming up, an open white palm with fingers splayed in panic, he was falling away, he was gone.

I closed my eyes, yelled again ‘Come on!’, got my head down, urged Tonnerre to the gallop and rode like mad down the other fork. There was no time to look back, but the sound of hooves told me the boy was following, and at least I knew he’d let go of Tempête.

There was more shouting below us, and the neighing and stamping of horses, but no more shots, and I couldn’t hear anyone else coming after us. I suppose they were too busy trying to round up the loose horses, which were a lot more valuable than we were, after all. Perle was still up with me, and the foal tangling its long thin legs as it skittered desperately after her. I risked a glance behind and saw the boy was keeping up too. He was twisting his head to look back for Tempête, but he still had that sword in his hand, and the blade was dark with what I knew was blood.

We kept going. We followed the bridle track where it circled the rear gardens below us, and went on to the northernmost part of the estate and the back meadow. There was rougher land there, where trees had been cut down for building, and