Alaric Longward - Cantiniére Tales) Read online

  Then I saw father.

  Guillemin was seated next to a table full of bottles, and surrounded by drunken, dangerous people. He was leaning forward in agitation and stress, throwing yellowed dice, his other hand grasping a dark green wine bottle, sloshing the liquid inside as he retired to witness the results. The fickle dice rolled, then stopped. I noticed a woman seated next to him, a blonde girl with a dirty face who cursed profusely, clapping father’s back to console him. The crowd shrieked, or groaned, and father put his face in his palms, fucked by Fortuna, it seems. ‘Ten sous!’ yelled a man I recognized as a mason from a nearby business. ‘Ten sous, you ass rutted fake! You have it?’

  Guillemin was obviously miserable, but tried to look quarrelsome in front of the raucous mason. ‘I will have it tomorrow.’

  ‘Today!’ the mason said forcefully, and the faked anger faded, as he looked down, not able to defend himself.

  ‘I will do some work on the side, and have even…’

  ‘Fine! Tomorrow you pay,’ the man agreed mercifully, hefting a dirty finger at father, who nodded, dejected and looking sick.

  A small, ill-kempt man next to the mason grinned. ‘The work on the side? I hear the bastard of a police is looking for you. Perhaps your work is shoddy and few will have use of your deplorable skills?’

  ‘I am going to be a master in the Paris Book Guild. My skills…’ father started uncertainly, but they laughed in derision.

  The mason tipped his head. ‘On the other hand, I am feeling lucky. You care to roll again? All or nothing?’ The woman was whispering in father’s ear, Guillemin paled as men around him edged him on to his doom. He was drunk, very drunk, so drunk he could not think straight, his pride hurt, desperation demanding he try to fix the terrible situation and it was all up to a simple roll of the dice, and luck owed him, after all. I edged closer as he grasped the stained dice. He was about to throw, when I reached forward, and grasped his hand. I will always remember his moist eyes, his shamed face. He looked surprised to the bone, shaking in anger and desire, knowing he should get up, pick me up and leave, but unable to. His jaw opened, and closed, as men around him mocked him. ‘Father, please. They say mother has not eaten and you just gave them a bread’s worth of…’ I started. The mason was mimicking a womanly saunter around the table, and father licked his dry lips. He got up, threw the dice, the sudden action pushing me down, and by the look on his face, I saw he had lost. He trembled, and even the woman got up and walked off. The mason did not even cheer, but shrugged, cracking his knuckles.

  ‘Tomorrow, and the day after, all you owe, and let the wife choose who starves!’ Said the mason, drunk and vicious, his dirty face and rotten teeth making me shiver with fear. Yet, something snapped in me. I feared Gilbert’s moods, was cautious in the streets, and usually avoided trouble. However, this man was abominable, foul to the bone, and I saw him as the epitome of all the things suddenly wrong in our lives. He insulted us, threatened us with starvation and shame and I could not help myself. I got up, took a bottle from the table, and threw it with all the force I could muster at the mason. He howled as his jaw was bloodied, a tooth missing after the glass shattered with a jingle on the floor. He turned in shock, pushed past equally shocked father, and kicked the rickety table over. He was spitting blood in gouts as he grasped me. ‘You little bitch, eh? Here, let me teach you a lesson.’

  He grabbed my braid and pulled me down on the filthy floor, and I cried, as he used his belt to beat my back and rear red and raw. Father stood there like a simpleton, his eyes smoldering with anger, then shame and regret. He did nothing but look away, finishing the drink. The mason glanced at him, spat at his feet, and held me down fiercely, and blood was trickling down my back as the belt came down again. The animals looking on smiled and edged the mason on, but to my surprise, Florian ran up, shrieking, holding a piece of wood, afraid but somehow mad enough to charge the horrible man. He swung it weakly at the mason, whose bloodshot eyes promised swift pain to the boy, but we fought, I clawed at the man, Florian tried to whack him again but yelped as the mason grasped him. We would suffer both.

  Then a man stepped up.

  He was a tall soldier, though not of the French Guard, but a member of some regular army unit, dressed in faded white and green. A corporal by his stripes, he punched the mason so hard the man yelped, fell down, and lay there, breathing shallowly, his eyes unfocused and I hoped he was dead, for then we would not have to pay him. The soldier helped me up gently, eyeing the silent mob around him, his hand on a sheathed bayonet. He had an olive skin and green eyes, much like mine, and a face with very long moustaches. A fairly young man, he lifted me effortlessly, grunted at Florian to follow, and pushed through the sulking crowd, growling warnings. Outside, he checked me out, grunting with a voice I took to mean I would be all right. I had blood on my back from a shallow wound, but I swooned from all the exertion and Florian grabbed me, holding me as we walked. The soldier helped us home, carrying me the last hundred yards. He said nothing, he smelled of pipe tobacco, and I felt safe. He set me down on the doorway, tousled my hair, and waved his hand in regret as he grinned at us. ‘You both need to know when you are overmatched, but a brave play. I am sorry for your troubles.’ He left with an encouraging smile, whistling and I turned to Florian.

  ‘Thank you. If we ever laughed at your dreams of bravery before, now I at least will not. Never again.’

  ‘We are friends, Jeanette, and I will stand with you against most anything,’ he told me and we hugged. I pecked a kiss on his cheek, he smiled happily, and I sent him home. I crept up the stairs, painfully, beaten and heartbroken, and slept on the cold floor. Mother was sound asleep, the twins snoring and snarling. Father came in after me, lumbering around drunk, and went to bed in silence. I sat up, staring at him, trying to fathom whom he was, and he saw it. He looked back at me, briefly, and then turned his back. Never had a gesture hurt me as much as that did.

  Next morning, mother asked him frantic questions, especially about my whipped condition, but he did not deign to answer. Instead, he accosted her over her precious treasure. ‘The watch, woman. I need it. We have debts.’ He was flushed with determination and shame.

  ‘Gambling debts? It is mine,’ she said, standing up to him. ‘I will not give it over, husband. There will be other debts, no doubt. You should work harder. Perhaps at evenings, instead of going to lose all we have, and things we do not yet have.’

  ‘Work at evenings? Are you utterly mad?’ he asked, silently, running his hand across his tired face.

  ‘Your brother does, and see where it is putting him. In your proper place,’ mother said with spite.

  He shook in anger, his arm raised, ready to strike mother. We all stared at him until he licked his nervous lips. ‘I never wanted this, Henriette, you know? I wanted many things, but not a lice ridden room with screaming children, and a wife that does not make me happy.’ He pushed Julie aside roughly, left, and mother said nothing, her face ashen from deep anger, deeper betrayal, and deepest hate for the man who had hurt a child, as she cradled crying Julie.

  That day, we learned father stole money from Colbert, and disappeared. In the evening, Colbert told us father had been arrested, and taken to Bastille Saint-Antoine for creating false documents, forgeries, which were substandard enough to dissolve any suspicion from Colbert and Adam. For that, he told me, we should be happy, and he told us father was not coming back. Colbert took the watch, and told mother he would call her after he made some arrangements.

  She would work for Madame Fourier and so would I, when I grew older. It did not make me happy, and I wondered what she did for living. Surely there was no need to help her perform illegal aborts, but I worried and stayed up long into the night.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was the beginning of the world shaking Estates General, the start of May 1789, few days after our perfidious father had been arrested. The concerned king would meet the elected members of Estates and the mighty work to heal the broken count
ry would begin. We needed the same favor from Colbert, and he gave us some coin, enough to feed us, but I knew he had strange plans for us. Mother took the money stoically, yet no doubt in dismay. Sometimes, she eyed us, with an animal-like fear, for she was no longer the mistress of her own fate, and we were the weighty anchor holding her down. I often wonder if she thought of running away as well, leaving us to our own devices, however, she did not. She took care of us, smiled dutifully, sang to the twins and went to bed to wake again to do it again, like nothing had happened.

  Yet, I was thinking about the unsavory Fourier and finally, one morning I turned mother around. ‘We could go? Mother? Leave this place? We have family elsewhere, no?’

  ‘I have no money to travel, love,’ she said, miserable. ‘I have to hear what Colbert says, or get a proper job. Your father owe them money, lots of money, so I cannot just leave, and we cannot fall on the lap of my unsuspecting sister, out of the blue! They have a small home as it is, with just enough to support them. My father’s business is gone, and a farm is not as profitable without him. They struggle in Lyons, the do.’

  ‘But I am sure they would welcome us. Could your family send some money so we could travel? Surely it cannot be so costly?’ I asked her, but she shook her head dejectedly and gestured tiredly for me to comb her hair. Outside, the city was full of rumors and smoldering anger. She told me rumors and news to divert me from my incessant ideas of leaving, and told me how the arrogant paste-faced king had treated the fawning nobles and the corpulent, greedy clergy like small gods, shaking their hands in royal person, but the third estate had been brusquely thrust aside. She told me how the unwanted estate, dressed in black resented their king, even more than they had previously.

  I nodded. I had been out with Florian and Gilbert that morning and disappointment was thick in the Parisian air, the discussions around Cordeliers section were getting increasingly critical of the royals. We knew that in the other parts of the city, where plain workers abounded, many bourgeoisie and artists lived, like faubourg St-Antoine, hate and resentment was even more acutely felt and increasingly heard. The Estates General was thought to be useless hoax, and the king a bastard of the royal magnitude and we would still starve.

  Gilbert had led us to the old convent in the Cordeliers. We had sneaked to the courtyard, and heard raucous crowd shouting inside the formerly glorious chapel, and if God was still listening to the person in the pulpit there, he would have blushed, for the talk was not a message of calm peace and sweet love, but a nearly a crusading call of war against the oppressors. God had little to do with the men running this show. We dared not go closer, but Gilbert told us that there were clubs being born all around France, like the Cordeliers Club that was raucously applauding a man who was screaming, apparently banging his fist on the poor pulpit, full of unholy power. It was a radical club, Gilbert, told us, his face mysterious, one that wanted to depose the king altogether, one that accepted anyone to take part in its meetings.

  We noticed the French Guard kept an eye on the old convent, and brusquely interrogated people who came to talk about equality and brotherhood under the once holy roof. We ran out, walked home, and I saw Gilbert was burning to tell me something, as we neared our street. He sent Florian ahead and turned me around. ‘I will have more chores soon, Jeanette. I will be an apprentice to my father. I think our childhood is about to end. We will see each other, but you will have to come to terms with my new position, and show me respect. I will be an influential man, I think. You will have a different path.’ He spoke uncertainly as he said it, and I was sure those were Adam’s words, all boding ill for me.

  ‘We all grow up, one day. I hope both our ways will bring us joy, and we remain friends,’ I told him.

  He nodded uncertainly, hesitating, reached forward and hugged me, and I hugged him. He held me for a long time; finally pushing me to arm’s length. ‘I hope it is so, Jeanette. Adam does not, but I do. I have had few others to speak with; only you and Florian, but I tell you I have lacked only some few unattainable things with you two in my life. Now, I will know my father better, and perhaps he will be proud of me. I have a secret I have to share with him, and hope he will accept it.’

  ‘What secret is this? Does Florian know it?’ I asked him, concerned, for he looked like a boy about to drown.

  ‘Florian does know, yes, but I will not tell you yet. Keep strong, cousin.’ He disappeared and I felt sorry for him, sure Adam would not take well to any secrets Gilbert might harbor.

  I was right.

  I combed Henriette’s hair, cursed Gilbert’s secret aloud, for I had heard Adam scream and beat him after Gilbert parted from. I remember hearing Adam’s words. ‘It is as I suspected then! You will not! You will not shame us!’ I cursed again as I thought of Adam and mother jerked to look up at me, astonished, but I laughed to calm her.

  A sudden, ominous knock was heard on the door and we found ourselves on our feet. For a second, I hoped it was father returning, repentant and sorry, but it was Madame Fourier, dressed in green, faded dress, smiling patiently. ‘Come Henriette. We must discuss your future.’ She gestured languidly at the stairs and mother went as instructed, her head held high, expecting life to change. She stayed away for a long time, and when she came back, she did not say much. She sat there, staring at the twins who were playing at my feet, and I was growing afraid. Finally, the twins hesitated, became restless, sensing something was horribly amiss.

  ‘Mother?’ I asked her. ‘Mother, what is wrong?’

  She was startled, looking like a hare spotting a plummeting eagle, but then she took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Do not worry child. We have a roof on top of our heads. I will work, for Colbert and for her, and you will watch after the poor twins. I am sorry, that is the way it must be, and it will take your evenings, or days, one or the other, for I need your help.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  She shook her head uncertainly. ‘Manual work, child, very manual work. Our Madame Fourier runs a business for Colbert, and she will… help me.’

  ‘Mother…

  ‘Shush. Enough.’ She put the tired twins to bed and so our lives changed.

  I was unhappy, but I took good care of Julie and Jean. Both were uncannily happy with me as their surrogate mother, though hungry and upset after meals, but so was much of France. I would get some willing help from Florian, especially when I had to fetch food with the little monsters. We were exchanging them around when one was becoming way too much for the other to handle and Jean especially seemed to have something primal against Florian, and would make life difficult for us. We were shamed many times when Jean cried for an hour on baker’s line, throwing a hellish tantrum. Gilbert was not seen often, apparently being lifted higher in life by his father, and we missed him, no matter his many issues. I hesitated to ask Florian about Gilbert’s secret, and decided not to, in the end.

  Mother worked, and where and what she did, I still did not know, but I know she trembled each day or evening she left, always before work, and she was like a leaf in the autumn wind, fragile and weak and while I asked her why, sometimes begging, she would not tell me anything.

  May rushed by, and the word on the street spoke of increasingly angry third estate. King was still making life hard for the least liked estate, and the queen hated Mirabeau, a disappointed noble gone commoner and so the royals ignored the estate entirely, blithely concentrated on the issues nobles put forth, and the constant needs of the corpulent church.

  Florian had been helping Gilbert one day, and when he saw me in the evening, he paused, his face troubled. ‘What is it?’ I asked him, concerned.

  ‘Nothing. Your mother, I am so very sorry,’ he told me, blushing fiercely, looking away and clearly hoping he had not said anything.

  I walked to him, grabbed his shirt, and shook him more roughly I had intended. ‘What do you mean? What has Gilbert told you? They tell me nothing!’

  He was gulping, trying to step away and form words, but I did not l
et him turn away. He caved in. ‘Gilbert told me she was washing laundry at the Seine, thumping all day long at the dirty clothes with a baton. She is a washerwoman, Jeanette. A hard life, and I pity her. She was so high, and now…’ He turned away, sour with shame.

  I spat and walked away from him, angry at his pity. Yes, it was a horrible life. I could imagine how Adam had mocked her downfall to Gilbert and I tried to hold my head high. I had looked down at the unfortunate women in that profession, but now, mother toiled to pay our upkeep. Madame Fourier ran such a business; a cleaning house and I supposed I should be happy with my mother’s bravery and modesty. Then I remembered they expected me to join her, when I was older. I swore to God I would not, forgetting to be proud for mother.

  Mother came home, and kissed my forehead, caressed my face, and I accosted her. ‘You are a washerwoman? Really?’

  She hesitated, and sat down, giggling a bit, strangely mulling over my words. Then she visibly collected herself. ‘They told you that? Yes, I am. I wash, grind and weep, Jeanette.’

  ‘Will this ever make us coin enough to leave?’ I asked her, hopelessly, and knew the answer by the look on her face, sad, beaten. ‘You know, they want me to join you in the filthy job, when I grow up,’ I told her.

  Her face went gray as she stammered. She was smoothing her dress and then she pulled me to her. ‘Never. We will never have you join me in this work, Jeanette. You tell me if they try, and we deal with things, and we will fight and suffer, rather than have that.’ I fiercely hugged her and spoke of other things, happy for a while and then we went to bed. She fell asleep, I held her hands, and so, I could not sleep for her hands were not raw, as those in the sad profession of washers, whose rough hands were rudely calloused and often bloodily scabbed by the heavy work and I thought she had lied to me, or Florian had.

  Weeks rolled by and prices went up.

  One rainy day, I was fidgeting at the local baker’s, counting tarnished coins while persistent Jean was trying a desperate escape, when I heard from an old, overly excited grandmother that the Third Estate had denounced the Estates General, and claimed to be the one, the true body whom the whole stubborn government should revolve around. They called themselves the Commons.