The Brethren (30 page)

“Like most of our household,” smiled my father. “But at least he hasn’t remained a papist at heart like some I could name.” He paced back in forth in the room stiffly, hands on his hips. After a
moment he continued, “And it’s not so insolent to try to defend one’s interests, just as we do.”

“He’s too interested in defending his own interests!”

“Just as he’ll defend them at Gorenne! Our flour along with his pigs! Just as he defended Jacotte on the side of that slope, where the brigands had dragged her. With tooth and nail! By hook and by crook! And with the very insolence you reproach in him. Did you catch his clever remark about the bell alerting Mespech? This fellow is not light-headed or soft-willed.”

“I still believe we should get rid of him,” Sauveterre persisted, waving his right hand martially, his face twisted in anger.

“And I believe we should give him Gorenne!” laughed my father.

“What! Give him Gorenne! On his damnable terms?!”

“My brother, my brother!” said Jean de Siorac, coming up behind Sauveterre and placing his hands on his shoulders. “We have to give up a little to gain a little more.”

The next morning, Sauveterre gave in. And so it was that, mercenary that he was, Coulondre became a tenant farmer, while in the hard times we were experiencing, many another small landowner was selling his property to the grain merchants in return for a few sols and cultivating it for them.

1563 was indeed a calamitous year in the Sarlat region. Just as six years previously, in 1557—the year Faujanet was always talking about, so terrified was he by God’s awful anger and obstinate refusal to share the rain from His clouds—the drought was, in my twelfth year, unspeakably terrible.

Already the winter had been more cold than wet, and when March arrived the weather turned hot, almost like summer, and aside from a few showers, so weak they hardly dampened the ground, no rains
fell from the heavens. The grass was even lucky to get a start on its brilliant green spring shoots, but it remained stubbly, like after the autumn grazing, and as early as May, with the hot sun blazing down every day, it began to yellow. The wheat got off to a bad start, its shoots tiny and scattered, the thin sheaves scarcely bending them, the harrowed ground cracking and splitting into fissures as if it were going to open up into hell, and, worst of all, our good rich and moist humus dried to dust and was carried off in swirls by the bitter north-west wind.

As early as July, the springs and wells dried up by the dozens, the ponds dropped dangerously low and the normally tumultuous current of les Beunes diminished to half its normal flow. The millers forbade anyone to draw their water, and the baronies in their turn outlawed any trench works or dams that would have siphoned off water from the mills downstream. Our neighbouring villages came to Mespech with vats on their wagons to beg water from our moat, enough to water their livestock, and at first we granted them permission, but soon we had to restrict such use to our own tenant farmers when we realized that our own spring had slowed to a trickle. Our well itself never went completely dry, but the level of the moat dropped a full five feet, which of course terrified us all, for according to the Brethren it hadn’t even decreased that much in 1557.

Haying time arrived, but there was not enough grass anywhere to invite a scythe blade except down in the dales where the ground stayed fairly moist. But there we had to keep our eyes and ears open, for at night people came with sickles to cut what they could to give to their goats or their starving cattle. Our soldiers went to stand guard and quickly caught one of these miscreants, who, believing himself justly headed for the gallows, bemoaned not so much his own lot, but that of his widow and children. But the poor wretch was from Sireil and the Brethren were reluctant to hang a man from our own
villages. It also turned out that he was a papist, and they were afraid people would believe religious zeal had prompted their actions. So they decided to look the other way and, after keeping him locked up in the tower for two nights, they released him against his promise to give us forty unpaid days of work in each of the next two years. The man gave us his word, and I can still see him at our table, sneaking half of what la Maligou served him into a sack for his wife and six children. His name was Pierre Petremol and he was the younger brother of the man who had cured himself of rheumatism—as well as life itself by diving into the fountain of St Avit in wintertime.

But the mercy of Mespech was not sufficient—any more than severity would have been—so great and pressing was the general need. Theft of our grasses continued. We had to hurry the haying in the dales and, as soon as the sheaves were ripe, do our harvest since, already, wandering beggars were devouring the standing wheatfields along the les Beunes river, stalks and all.

Escorgol had his hands full during this period, for there was a constant parade of shepherds and farmers, who arrived with tears in their eyes and their hands joined in prayer to beg a bit of grain for themselves and hay for their livestock. Loans were given against pledges of fields or future harvests, and since all, or almost all, of them were already in our debt—some paying us an annual percentage of their harvest—some went as far as selling us their land to pay for their bread. Others, unable to feed them, sold us their livestock, at prices favourable to us, for the price of cattle had dropped by half since the drought had so increased the number of sellers.

Thus, during every famine, Mespech increased its domain and multiplied its herds. My father was deeply troubled in his conscience. He said and oft repeated during this period that he would have felt fewer scruples selling our grain in Sarlat at the unheard of price of three livres a quart for wheat and fifty sols a quart for rye. But
Sauveterre preferred increasing our land to accumulating écus in our coffers, and would not give an inch on the matter.

“But what will happen to our villagers,” protested Siorac, “who don’t have any land to pledge or even to sell? Are we going to let them die of hunger?”

“Not at all. We’ll lend them grain against the strength of their arms. They can repay us by workdays during the year. We won’t have to spend so much for migrant workers when haying and harvest time comes, or for our road work.”

My father lowered his head and stared at his boots, a sad frown furrowing his brow. “So,” he said finally, “everything, even drought, brings us bread and honey, helps us to grow, brings us wealth. It seems to me, brother, that we prosper too much from the hardships of others.”

“We are not responsible for the times,” replied Sauveterre, “and remember, I beg you, Calvin’s words: ‘It is God’s special grace when he brings us to understand what most profiteth our cause.’”

“True, true,” answered my father. “But at this rate, the poor around us only get poorer and Mespech grows apace.”

“I fail to see why this should cause us unhappiness or to whip ourselves in guilt,” said Sauveterre. “Let us not take on the hypocrisy of the papists, who wear purple robes to preach the virtues of poverty. No, Jean, Calvin’s teachings are most enlightening in this regard. That there are many poor and few rich is not due to chance. What each man possesses does not come to him by chance but by distribution from Him who is the sovereign Lord of us all.”

“So I believe,” my father agreed. And yet, after a few moments of meditation, he said in a quiet voice, “But why is my heart so troubled at this grace which is given to us, which often seems excessive?”

On 6th July, the Brethren received a message from Monsieur de La Porte. The police lieutenant informed them that the plague had broken out in Sarlat with great violence, and was taking 100 victims a day. To avoid the spread of the contagion in the whole seneschalty, he had ordered the consuls to close the town gates. But since the town had still to receive provisions, he requested that my father notify our farmhands that the markets would operate on the usual days, but outside the town walls in the la Lendrevie quarter. Thus, villagers could continue to bring eggs, butter, vegetables, cheeses and meat, but would not be allowed within the walls, all buying to be conducted by intermediary commissioners lodged in la Lendrevie who would deliver merchandise to their clients through windows established for this commerce.

Monsieur de La Porte asked if the Brethren would contribute to the town’s supply by butchering and delivering a side of beef. “To tell the truth, the demand for meat is not what it was. All the nobility and rich bourgeois as well as the judges, the bishop and his curates have fled the town before the gates were closed and have sought refuge in their country houses. Nevertheless, there still remain two consuls, four surgeons, the royal officers and myself, who would prefer not to die of hunger in the awful peril we are in.”

La Porte added in a postscript: “You will be distressed to learn that Madame de La Valade died of the plague on the 4th. Her body removed, her poor chambermaid Franchou, formerly Your Lady’s servant, was quarantined in her mistress’s house, the doors and windows boarded. A cruel practice of course, but strictly according to our rules and which I can do nothing to alter. Franchou receives her provisions by means of a basket which she lowers to the street on a rope from an attic window. She is subsisting only on public charity and at that not very well. The poor wench has nearly gone mad with fear, hunger and despair and spends her time crying, moaning and
calling out, begging us to kill her rather than keep her prisoner in an infected house.”

My father received this letter on the morning of 6th July, and it caused a most bitter exchange with Sauveterre. As the library window was open due to the unbearable heat, I could hear the echoes of their quarrel but could only guess at the reasons. However, I saw my father come down the steps a few minutes later looking quite tense and resolute, and tell the Siorac brothers to butcher a young bull we had just bought, to clean and quarter it and to load it on one of our carts.

The same afternoon, while François, Samson and I were engaged in our sabre lesson with Cabusse, who came every day from le Breuil to teach us, my father entered the fencing room with a worried look about him. “Good morning, Cabusse!” he said, attempting with some effort to adopt his usual lighthearted manner. “Good morning, my little rascals.”

“Good day, My Lord,” replied Cabusse saluting him with his sword and addressing him with a great display of finesse midway between respect and familiarity, as if he himself were almost a gentleman.

“And how is Cathau?”

“Rounding up nicely, My Lord,” said Cabusse pulling on his impressive moustache with his left hand, his right leaning on his sword as if on a cane. He added with a large manly smile: “She’s getting close to term. She’s supposed to give birth at the end of July.”

“The end of July! In this heat! The child will end up susceptible to colds.”

“I fear it will be so,” Cabusse agreed.

“And how is your neighbour, Jonas?” added my father.

“Oh Jonas! Jonas!” answered Cabusse with a sudden gust of Gascon poetry. “Since he’s got Sarrazine and his house, he no longer whinnies after other oats, but, heart against heart, he’s happy.”

“Give him my greetings, and to your wife and his wife as well. And how are my boys doing?”

“Passably well,” said Cabusse who was sparing in praise if not in words, being quite taken with his own eloquence. He continued: “Each has his faults and his virtues. Of the three, Master Samson is the best. He’s got a wrist of iron. But, no offence to him,” he added with a brusque sensitivity that appealed to my father, “but he’s a little slow-witted. Master François there’s got a quick and vigilant eye and he parries and defends well, but he’s too careful and doesn’t press his attack. Master Pierre, now, is all fury and onslaught, dreams of mortal wounds and charges like a little bull. But he doesn’t keep his guard up. I could have killed him a hundred times over.”

“Each of the three should teach the others his strengths,” my father observed. “My rascals,” he continued, suddenly turning serious, “the plague has broken out in Sarlat. I am going there tomorrow to take a side of beef to Monsieur de La Porte. Because of the contagion, I can’t take any servants as an escort, only family members; the Siorac twins and one of you, if he is willing.”

“Me,” I gasped, still sweating and out of breath from the assault I’d just mounted on Cabusse. “Since I’m going to become a doctor, it’s time I started to get used to sickness.”

“Take me,” said Samson as soon as I’d spoken.

“Me,” added François with a moment’s delay.

“No, not you,” said Siorac. “I can’t expose my eldest son to such a risk. But I’ll take Pierre and Samson, since I have their consent. Good day Cabusse! Good day, boys. I’m proud of you. Bravery doesn’t show only when you’ve got a sword in your hand.” Whereupon, his eyes shining with emotion, he turned on his heels in his own brusque way and left.

That evening, my father told Samson and me to go up to the north-east tower room after dinner, where we’d been sent on my sixth
birthday after I’d hit François. But it had been quite transformed in the last twenty-four hours: the walls were whitewashed, the floorboards washed with vinegar, and despite the terrible summer heat, a great fire blazed in the fireplace smelling of aromatics: gum benjamin, lavender and rosemary. I also saw two beds, separated by the entire width of the room, which indicated that Samson and I were not to sleep in the same bed as we usually did. And on a stool beside each bed were laid out our travelling clothes, smelling of the same herbs that were burning in the fireplace.

Against the wall, I spied the short swords that we were allowed to bear only outside the walls of Mespech. My heart leapt on seeing them. I unsheathed mine and practised wild blows to the right and to the left, cutting to pieces the plague and its terrible hired assassins, which evoked howls of laughter from Samson, though not at my expense, for mockery was completely unknown to his pure soul. After a good laugh with him, I blew out the lamp and fell asleep like a sack, without the least apprehension, but full of pride to be accompanying my father in such a hazardous journey and excited by the prospect of seeing and learning new things which bore on my future estate.