The Brethren Page 26

  Despite the rocking Barberine kept up on Jacquou’s cradle during the evening, he began to wail to burst your eardrums, which set Annet to crying in turn, which earned him boxed ears from his mother, for he’d had a good soup for dinner with goat cheese from Jonas, apple compote and even a bit of meat, which he had a taste for whether hungry or not. Leaning over, Barberine placed Jacquou in her lap, showering him with such tender cooings and murmurings that I nearly melted with envy. The nursling, quieted by these sweet murmurs, was passed to little Hélix, who carried on this lullaby as best she could while Barberine undid the laces of her bodice. This done, her eyes modestly lowered given the many men seated around her, yet for all that, with a certain air of pomp and pride, for she was quite conscious that she was plying her trade, and plying it well, Barberine gave her nurslings good plate and good soup, and to her onlookers a feast for the eyes. As always, her laces were knotted and the knots would not fit through the eyelets so she untied them one by one, without haste, with her large round fingers, thus prolonging our wait. “Barberine,” said my father (but he said it every night), “you must remind me to bring you a new lace from Sarlat.”

  “Oh, this one does well enough, and they’re so expensive,” replied Barberine, untying the last knot. And this said, she drew out from her blouse with a firm hand and an easy gesture first her right and then her left breast, both so round and large and white that a great silence fell over the room so that all you could hear was the tiniest crackle of the fire and the gluttonous sucking of the two hungries.

  Barberine got great relief from these double doses of her inexhaustible supply of milk, whose pressure between feedings caused her a thousand deaths, which is why Annet, now going on four, was still invited to these banquets, despite the inconvenience. “Ouch! Ouch!” moaned Barberine, both hands occupied with her charges. “Hélix, spank this little cheater, he’s biting me.” Hélix applied a firm hand to Annet’s little bottom, who let off sucking for a moment to raise a howl, but quickly snapped up the teat again, this time careful not to bite. There was no doubt a bit of melancholy in my father’s eye as he watched these two little rascals, so handsome and pink and strong, and Annet already a mischievous little tyke with his hands into everything just the way you’d expect, but not the two sons he had lost, who would be just their ages, with Isabelle still alive instead of enduring the tortures of hell. It is certain that damnation and salvation are in the hands of the Lord, and He alone judges our lives in His infinite wisdom, but for those who rejected Purgatory as we did, as but a detestable addition to God’s Word, it was all but intolerable to imagine a beloved being plunged after death into eternal torment.

  If my father was preoccupied with this thought—and he often was, since he made note of it in the Book of Reason—he must have quickly chased it away in order to enjoy the pleasures of the moment, for his eye began to twinkle as he listened to the conversation between la Maligou and Barberine that had been carried on in whispers all evening, but which, in the silence engendered by the suckling, caught everyone’s ears.

  “And what’s more,” Barberine was saying in that serene voice she got when she was suckling, “she’s ugly enough to freeze the blood in your veins.”

  “Ah, and sure you’re right there!” agreed la Maligou.

  “And just who is so ugly?” interjected Jean de Siorac, raising an eyebrow.

  “Sarrazine,” replied Barberine, not without some embarrassment at being overheard.

  “Sarrazine! Ugly!” laughed my father. “My poor Barberine, you’re a pretty bad judge of women’s beauty! You know that to be beautiful, a woman must have three features, like a horse: a good chest, good haunches and a beautiful mane. Now Sarrazine has these in abundance, the first two high and firm given her slender body, and as for her mane, in length, in thickness and in body, it’s as good as the pony’s that Fontenac sent me, whose mane is so beautiful when it’s blowing in the wind.”

  “With all due respect, My Lord,” said la Maligou, “there’s the problem of the colour of her skin.”

  My father made a large gesture with his right hand. “The colour of her skin has nothing to do with it, my poor woman! Your Little Sissy has skin almost as dark as Sarrazine’s, and she’s still a pretty little wench who will break a few hearts.”

  At this, Little Sissy lowered her eyes, and little Hélix blushed with spite, while puffing out her chest to attract my father’s notice.

  “But that’s because she’s a Gypsy!” said la Maligou, looking at Little Sissy proudly.

  “She’s no more Gypsy than you are,” my father laughed uproariously. “But on that subject,” he added with a knowing air, “we’ll hear no more tonight.”

  La Maligou broke the brief silence that followed this remark with a bitter reflection, as if to take her revenge on Sarrazine for the affront she had just received: “It’s not so much that Sarrazine is ugly, My Lord, it’s that she’s the Devil’s own daughter and a succubus.”

  “And how do you know this, Maligou?” asked my father frowning. “Did the Lord whisper it in your ear?”

  “No, but there’s proof enough, My Lord! First, Sarrazine came out of nowhere four years ago. You got her a place in la Volperie, and after three years she changes herself into a wounded she-wolf and gets taken in by Jonas in his cave.”

  “Ah yes, but she continued to work as a servant at la Volperie,” countered my father, laughing. “Coulondre Iron-arm saw her there every week when he did his hauling there.”

  “She made herself double.”

  “Ah, really? How easy it all is! And which paw did the wolf break, Pierre? You saw her.”

  “The right rear one,” I said, happy to play a role in this trial.

  “And Sarrazine, at la Volperie, had her right leg broken?”

  “Not in the least, My Lord,” answered Coulondre. “She walked just like you and me.”

  “The Devil can do anything,” said la Maligou.

  “If this is true, then he’s as powerful as God,” said my father, changing his tone and immediately frowning angrily.

  “Oh no! Oh no!” answered la Maligou, crossing herself, as pale and terrified as if the executioner were already fanning the flames around her. “If it please you to remember, My Lord, that I’m only a poor ignorant woman, and don’t know the why and wherefore of things, and I can keep my peace if you think I’ve said too much.”

  “You haven’t said enough, Maligou,” replied my father, with his sternest expression. “I want the rest of your proofs.”

  “Oh they’re not lacking, My Lord!” said la Maligou, regaining her colour a bit. “First of all, the she-wolf cast a spell on Jonas in his cave so that he’d fall in love with her and want her to change into a woman.”

  “That’s foolishness,” said my father.

  But whether it was foolishness or not, I for one, who had heard Jonas, wasn’t so sure. But I held my tongue, not wanting to add to the stonecutter’s problems.

  “And it was done!” cried la Maligou triumphantly. “The wolf was transformed into Sarrazine, and she married Jonas.”

  “If I understand this tissue of incredible silliness correctly,” said my father, “the wolf, after changing herself into Sarrazine, continued nonetheless to be wolf, since wolf and woman lived together two full months on rather bad terms in Jonas’s cave.”

  “Yes, but one day the wolf disappeared.”

  “Of course she disappeared, since she ended up eating one of Jonas’s goats and fearing her master’s anger ran away. And that’s what you should do too, Maligou,” added my father in a thunderous voice with glowering looks. “I’m telling you for the last time that if you have the misfortune to pursue such spiteful gossip in our villages, I’ll send you away from Mespech and never set eyes on you again. Meanwhile, no one here, man or woman, who values my friendship, shall say or suffer to be said in their presence any of these wicked and damnable lies about Jonas and his wife, but shall hold them both, man and wife, as I do, in particular est
eem. And as for you, Maligou, since you keep secrets with the Devil, ask him if he has made a double of you as well, so that while you tend our stove, he has made you a fat little shiny mouse in my loft who sometimes chews on papers I keep there that I don’t need any more.”

  At this, la Maligou and Barberine exchanged a terrified look, for they wondered if my father wasn’t letting them know that he had discovered in our stables the clandestine altar to Mary. But my father, having spoken, rose, sent the children off to bed, and after a brief goodnight to the two women, his face still marked with irritation, crossed the hall rapidly and disappeared up the staircase.

  Despite famine and pestilence, which I shall recount later, 1563 was a bountiful year at Mespech. The Brethren were able to achieve a long cherished goal “and most excellent project” of purchasing a mill on the les Beunes river. Up until that time we had depended for grinding our grain on the mill at Campagnac, and though the lord of the place was friendly and his price reasonable enough, it still considerably augmented the cost of our flour. During the spring of 1563, however, there was an auction of Church properties at Sarlat, and the Brethren bought from the Franciscans the Gorenne mill for 3,567 écus.

  It was a large and well-built mill housing three millstones: a white stone for wheat, a brown stone for rye, barley and millet, and a stone for walnut oil. Along with this mill they purchased some prime farmland in the ravine between Mespech and Taniès, fields laid out in long strips and snuggled between the hills of Mespech and those of the village. Along this valley ran the crushed-stone road leading west to Ayzies and east to the Château de Pelvézie.

  These fields required long and arduous labour from all of our field hands, tenant farmers and migrant day workers alike. Section after section had to be drained of excess water, for they had become so swampy from years of good rain that in places we were up to our knees in mud. The Brethren effected drainage canals for the runoff all the way to the banks of the les Beunes river, where they built embankments to protect against high-water damage on both sides of the river. To solidify these embankments, they planted willow trees along each side. In so doing, they were planning for the distant future, for it would be many years before Sarrazine exhausted the supply of willow shoots, already plentiful on the hillsides two leagues away near Jonas’s quarry. The spring of 1563 was so dry that this work near the les Beunes could be carried out without too many hitches, but this same drought played against us when it came time to build a road from the chateau to the mill on the north face of our hill in order to cart grains and flour back and forth. The hill was so abrupt that we had to construct this road in “s” curves. Felling the trees on this hill was no mean feat, and uprooting the stumps was even worse since the earth had grown hard as rock for lack of rain.

  After this work was done, we had to find enough rock for paving. As for the mill in Gorenne, the Brethren were counting, as I have said, on a significant savings, but also on much profit, for the many small landowners in the neighbourhood came to the les Beunes mills when their grain was dry in the autumn—or even during the winter months if need arose—to have their milling done for a fee. The mill was so effective, indeed, that the Franciscans who sold it would have done well to run it themselves but, given the distance to the monastery, ended up letting it out to a farmer who ate up all the profits himself and was so miserly that he never repaired anything. For want of a nail, a roofing stone or a little work, this worthy had allowed an entire section of the roofing to cave in and ruin that corner of the building.

  Mespech set to work to make the necessary repairs and it was promptly done, for we lacked neither the hands nor the means to do it. The choice of a carpenter posed another problem, for the Brethren had no wish, as they had done for their stonecutter, to have the Sarlat town crier recruit for them, trusting only men whose worth and mettle they already knew.

  When the work was completed, the Brethren summoned Faujanet one evening to their library, and asked if he wanted to become miller at Gorenne, without giving up his work as cooper, which he could do just as well in the les Beunes, since milling was a seasonal and occasional job.

  “For double work,” added my father smiling, “double pay. And free flour for your bread. What’s more, we’ll find you a beautiful strong wench in the valley, who’s of our religion and who will marry you, give you a hand at your work and bear you some rascals to provide for you later. It’s not enough just to receive your daily bread, the bread of old age is kneaded in youth.”

  The dark little man whom my father had asked to be seated given his limp (which didn’t slow his scything in the least) listened to these alluring proposals without batting an eye. As my father talked, Sauveterre nodding his assent, Faujanet’s black eyes darted from one to the other, yet at every new enticement his look seemed to grow sadder. When my father had finished, he thanked him with dignity. “As for the job of miller, I believe I could do it, being quick with my hands and not too slow with my brain. And as for the extra work, despite my limp” (at this he looked at Sauveterre) “I’m not afraid of it, as my masters know. And my masters are generous in their offer to double my pay, but here at Mespech, having my hearth, my supper and my room and what I’m paid in addition I don’t stand to gain all that much.”

  He paused, then continued as though ashamed, his eyes lowered. “As for the wench, I thank my masters kindly. But marriage, for a man who thinks a lot as I do, doesn’t suit me, if I must say so. A wench who is sweet as honey on her wedding day grows a viper’s tongue within the week. Woman is the opposite of a chestnut: all the soft parts are on the outside and the prickly part is underneath. I wouldn’t trust one any more than a barrel without its hoops.”

  “But there’s the matter of convenience,” said my father.

  “That’s just it,” replied Faujanet, shaking his head, “the convenience is short-lived and the worries are for ever. I’d prefer to be half-hanged than badly married.”

  “There are good marriages,” argued my father, trying a new tack.

  “Never saw one,” Faujanet answered simply. At this Sauveterre could not repress a smile and my father fell silent; as Faujanet became silent as well, the silence grew.

  “If I understand you rightly, my poor Faujanet,” my father said finally, “our project doesn’t really tempt you.”

  “I’m ashamed, after such honest propositions as you’ve made me, to refuse your offer,” sighed Faujanet, “but going to live at Gorenne, even with the advantages you describe, would be like going to live at the gates of death for me. At Mespech, every one of God’s evenings, I go to sleep peacefully on an island defended by high walls, a bunch of well-armed companions, and with two captains braver than any mother’s son in France. But at Gorenne, the first band to pass by on the road from Ayzies to Pelvézie, seeing this pretty little mill by the light of the moon, will get the idea of stealing its grains and flour. And then there’ll be twenty or thirty of ’em, breaking down my door, raping my wife and making lace out of my entrails. Or else, hiding their villainy behind a religious cause, they’ll just roast me like a heretic with my own firewood.”

  “You are a veteran of the Guyenne legion,” Sauveterre reminded him, “and you know how to defend yourself. And we would lend you blunderbusses.”

  “Even if you lent me ten,” returned Faujanet, “they wouldn’t be enough against thirty miscreants.”

  Siorac and Sauveterre exchanged looks, struck by this reasoning and realizing that they would doubtless hear it from others. Would the beautiful mill at les Beunes stand empty for lack of a miller?

  The next evening, they summoned Marsal, but with more than his customary stammerings and cockeyed glances he displayed an equal repugnance at the idea of leaving Mespech to go to live at Gorenne, where he would feel, as he put it “as naked as a tortoise without her shell”.

  They had to face up to the evidence: our soldiers might be brave, but not enough to envisage a solitary combat in the les Beunes against the armed bands that were infesti
ng the region. The Brethren had begun to despair when, forty-eight hours later, Coulondre Iron-arm asked to speak with them. That Coulondre should open his mouth was already an event, but that he should actually ask for an interview astounded the Brethren. They received him that evening, and as Coulondre began the proceedings with a protracted silence that risked outlasting their meeting, my father bid him take a seat on the stool in front of the fire.

  Never had Coulondre’s long Lenten face looked gloomier. His eyes, nose and mouth all seemed to fall earthward, and yet his brown eyes under those heavy eyebrows remained vigilant. “My Lord,” he finally articulated, “why haven’t you ever asked me to be your miller at Gorenne?”

  “Begging your pardon, Coulondre,” replied Sauveterre, “but do you think you’d be up to it with your iron arm?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you wish to do it?”

  “Yes.” And then he added: “But there are some conditions.”

  My father looked up, and Sauveterre answered drily: “Namely?”

  “With the money I brought back from Calais, I’ve got enough to buy two sows. I’d need enough grain from Gorenne to feed them and their pigs.”

  “How many heads do you want to raise?” asked my father.

  “Thirty or so.” The two brothers traded looks.

  “We’ll have to see about this. Is that all?”

  “No,” Coulondre said. “I want fifteen per cent of the harvest from the les Beunes fields.”

  “Fifteen per cent of our les Beunes farms!” cried Sauveterre.

  To this outburst, Coulondre made no reply. His face drawn and expressionless, he stared at the fire.