The Brethren (29 page)

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 infesting 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.

“We must think about it,” said my father, But then he added thoughtfully: “But if you take fifteen per cent of our les Beunes fields and a part of our grain for your hogs, you won’t need a salary.”

“Oh, yes I will,” Coulondre replied as sadly as ever, but with a gleam showing in the slit in his eyelids. “At least until the first of my pigs is sold.”

“And is that all?” said Sauveterre haughtily.

Silence. Coulondre stared at the fire with the lugubrious air of a man who expects nothing of this life. “You’ll have to look to my defence,” he said, “and help me build an underground passage from the granary as far as the first thicket on the road to Mespech so that I can get word to you in case of an attack.”

“A bell would be sufficient,” said Sauveterre.

“No, Monsieur,” replied Coulondre raising his iron hook with his good arm as if to relieve his shoulder of the weight. “A bell would also warn my attackers. They’d know that I was signalling you for help and could set an ambush for you on the way to the mill. With an underground passage, I could send my wife to warn you.”

“Your wife?” said my father, sitting up in his chair. “Have you already chosen a wench?”

“Yes I have,” Coulondre replied. “It’s Jacotte from la Volperie. As you know, she’s of our religion.”

“But she’s only fifteen!” said my father, raising his eyebrows.

“Old greybeard that I am, she’s already agreed,” answered Coulondre without blinking an eye.

“La Maligou is going to be talking about magic again,” smiled my father.

“There is none,” said Coulondre gravely. “Last spring, while returning in my wagon from la Volperie to Mespech, I saved Jacotte from four brigands who’d got her down at the bottom of a slope. Jacotte killed the first one with her knife. With my pistols, I killed two others before the fourth leapt on me. But I struck him down with a blow of my hook on his neck and then cut his throat with his own cutlass.”

“And you said nothing of this exploit?” marvelled my father.

“Jacotte asked me to keep it quiet. You know how it is with rumours in the villages. People are quick to say that there was more to it than there was.”

“Coulondre,” said my father, “you’ve made an excellent choice. I know Jacotte to be a strong and valiant wench and one who will do well by you.”

Another silence. Sauveterre, his black eyes ablaze, and his face ringed with wrinkles, said in a somewhat distant tone, tapping his two hands on the arms of his chair, “Well, our business is far from concluded! The baron and I must speak of all this.”

To this Coulondre made no replay, but sat and stared at the fire.

“Coulondre,” said Sauveterre, “if we build you an underground passage, would it not be a great temptation, if the attack were too severe, to abandon your post?”

A shadow of a smile crept over Coulondre’s long and lugubrious visage: “Me? Abandon your grain? Your flour? And my hogs?”

It was a good response, but the Brethren had other worries in mind. For the first time in the life of Mespech, they were forced to discuss a contract that was not from the outset to their own advantage.

Their consultation on the matter lasted a full day, and it’s a pity they did not report it in the
Book of Reason
. I would have enjoyed reading now, but at least I know the outcome of their palaver.

The next evening, the Brethren made a counter-offer to Coulondre. Would he consent to raising, in addition to his thirty pigs, an equal number for Mespech? “No,” answered Coulondre. “Sixty is too many. Large stocks invite large epidemics. What’s more there’s not enough space at Gorenne for so many animals.”

“If we give you fifteen per cent of the harvest of the les Beunes fields, you will have to cultivate them and we will deduct from your portion the cost of renting the cultivator, the plough and the horse.”

“Thanking your masters for the rental,” said Coulondre, “but from my savings I plan to buy a horse and farm implements.”

“If we strike a deal with you on this, will you still contribute your days of work to Mespech like all our other tenants?”

“Yes,” Coulondre agreed. “But only fifty a year.”

“Why fifty?”

“In converting to the Huguenot faith,” replied Coulondre, “I gave up fifty holidays a year which we used to dedicate to the saints. And if I give you fifty days more, that makes 100. With all due respect, that’s enough. I need time for Gorenne.”

Sauveterre frowned. “Do you regret becoming a Huguenot?”

“In no way,” said Coulondre, ever lugubrious and respectful, his eyes fixed on the flames of the hearth.

When he had departed, Sauveterre declared angrily that they should chase Coulondre out of Mespech without further ado for his unbelievable insolence. “And furthermore,” he added, his little black eyes blazing with fury, “he’s a completely lukewarm convert.”