The Brethren (6 page)

My half-brother Samson’s mother was a shepherdess named Jehanne Masure, a beautiful and good girl, according to our nurse Barberine, but whose parents were dreadfully poor, if I am to judge by the many loans of grain, hay, salt pork and money that were sent their way by Jean de Siorac. These gifts coincide exactly with the entry in the
Book of Reason
in which Jean de Sauveterre first began to pray for his brother. As I flip through the pages of the book, this largesse seems to multiply—especially in lean years—and I find Sauveterre’s pointed questions next to each notation of these loans: “To be repaid when?” To which my father invariably responded: “When it pleases me to ask.” But it never pleased him to do so, for the loans continued over the months and years and were never repaid.

A few pages further, opposite the notation of a particularly generous sum, Sauveterre wrote: “Is this not shameful?” To which Siorac impatiently replied: “Jacob knew Leah, and then he knew Rachel and the servingwomen of his wives, and from these came forth the strongest and most beautiful tribe of the Hebrews ever to serve the Lord. Would it not be a greater shame to allow my son Samson to run barefoot, ill clad and hungry like a wolf? Rest assured that when the time is ripe for his education, Samson will live at Mespech with his brothers.”

But Samson moved to Mespech sooner than anticipated, for in November of 1554—when we were both three years old—the plague broke out in Taniès, and, hearing this, my father had his horse saddled within the hour, galloped to Jehanne’s house, bringing her enough nourishment for a month since the village would soon be quarantined for the duration of the epidemic. Jehanne begged my father to take Samson with him, which he did, burning all of the boy’s clothes upon his return to Mespech and washing the child in hot water after rubbing him with ashes and cutting his hair.

A great commotion among our servants ensued, doubtless fomented by my mother’s mercurial nature, against this intruder who was “bringing the contagion”. But my father put a quick end to it by isolating himself with the boy in the west tower, nourishing him by his own hand for forty days, never once stepping beyond the threshold of the tower, where eating and reading matter were left each day according to his orders.

When Jean de Siorac finally emerged from his seclusion, it was only to learn that Jehanne Masure had died along with her entire family, the plague having carried off half the village. Among the victims was my uncle, Raymond Siorac, but his two sons were spared—the same who, on the eve of the purchase of Mespech, had helped Cabusse to exterminate the rascals from Fontenac down in les Beunes.

Samson emerged from the tower a strong and beautiful lad, with thick, curly hair, whose reddish-blond tint recalled his great-grandfather Charles’s.

I was his age and size and I loved him from the minute I set eyes on him. The only thing I resented, though it surely wasn’t his fault, was that Samson enjoyed from the outset the privilege of going to “hear Mass” with the Brethren upstairs in Sauveterre’s study whereas I had to remain downstairs in the chapel with François, listening to the Latin verses, hanging on to Barberine’s skirts. I had no other recourse than to make faces at little seven-year-old Hélix, who, hidden from her mother’s view, returned grimace for grimace, a practice we laughingly continued through the years, for she was a little scoundrel, as the rest of my story will bear out.

The lovable shepherdess was no more, but the fruit of her womb lived on within the walls of Mespech, more handsome and shining with his milky complexion and red hair than any illegitimate child who ever lived. Every God-given day (doubtless the work of the Devil, as well, as a punishment for my father) Jean Siorac was assailed by a flood of marital discomforts. On one occasion he entered a melancholy quote from the Bible in his
Book of Reason
: “A querulous woman is like a rainy day.” And added a bit further on: “A woman’s hair is long, but longer still her tongue.” And two pages later Isabelle’s Catholicism sticks in his craw: “Oh the hard-headedness of woman! This terrible abscess in her will, which nothing has ever been able to pierce! And her fatal attachment to error!” To which Sauveterre adds in the margin, substituting for his usual ceremonial “
vous
” a fraternal “
tu
”: “Would it not have been wiser to marry a woman of your own faith? Though her breast lay underneath her medallion, it nevertheless hid her Catholic icon from your sight.” This old complaint resurfacing on such an occasion blindsided my
father from the left, while he was heavily besieged on the right. It was not a very wounding comment for all that, since one can just as well imagine an equally intractable Huguenot wife.

Good things don’t always come easily, yet despite all the groans and opposition Samson was now among us, good looks and all, bringing to three the number of sons Siorac could count at his table. As streams flow into rivers, prosperity grows fat, sometimes even at others’ expense. The plague, by carrying off half the families in Taniès, had left much property untended, which the Brethren were able to purchase at greatly advantageous prices.

What heir would have wanted to live in a village where sickness could flare up any day out of the infected soil or the evil vapours emanating from it? For less than 3,000 livres, Mespech grew piece by piece to half its size again in the hillsides of Taniès, including a wood of beautiful chestnut trees, now fully grown and ready for cutting, suitable for heavy beams or woodworking and easily worth double the price paid for the property. But the Brethren, always on the lookout for any providential occurrence that might add to its “basket and store” conceived by chance or by inspiration a project that was more profitable yet.

One Saturday, Sauveterre was doing his marketing at Sarlat, when he spied before him on the church square a little dark man limping along carrying a box on his back. “Greetings, friend,” said Sauveterre, in a military but cordial way, “where did you catch that limp?” The dark little fellow turned in his tracks, looked long and hard at Sauveterre, placed his box on the ground and removed his cap. “I didn’t catch it,” he replied, “it caught me, and it was moving right smartly, the bullet that gave it to me at Ceresole.”

“At Ceresole? So you were a soldier!”

“Ay, an armourer in the legion of Guyenne.”

“And who was the commanding officer at Ceresole?”

This question was, of course, a trap, but the soldier replied evasively by naming the field general.

“D’Enghien.”

“And did your captain give you honorary discharge?”

“That he did! The paper is in my box. Would you read it?”

“Soldier,” replied Sauveterre, “you should not be so quick to show your papers. Someone might take them from you.”

“Monsieur, you do not appear to be ‘someone’, or a thief.”

“I am Captain de Sauveterre of the Norman legion. And I caught my limp in the same place and on the same day as yourself.”

The soldier gaped in disbelief and then immediately in joy, so clearly did this meeting augur well for him.

“And what are you doing here, soldier?” continued Sauveterre.

“I am seeking a job as a cooper. They call me Faujanet and I’m twenty-nine years old.” And opening his toolbox, he brought out a tiny barrel merely three inches high, but in every respect similar to a wine cask, with its casings and sluice hole. Handing it to Sauveterre, he announced, “Here is my work, Captain. And what I have done in miniature here, I can do full-size as well.”

Sauveterre, fully enjoying the feel of it, turned the little cask in his hand. “Faujanet,” he said (pronouncing it “Faujanette” in our Périgordian way), “this is good work and finely cut and it speaks well of you. But it’s made of chestnut and not oak.”

“No one makes casks of oak any more,” replied Faujanet. “The wine growers won’t have ’em. They claim oak gives the wine a bad taste.”

Sauveterre stood for a long while contemplating Faujanet, who held his breath and swallowed hard given the gravity of the moment. He had been out of work for two months and had had nothing to eat since the night before, and only a bowl of oily soup and a fistful of beans the night before that, thanks to the charity of the town.
But he had been told that this was an act of generosity that would not be repeated, and that his entry permit to Sarlat would expire the next day, Sunday, at noon.

Slowly, carefully, Sauveterre examined the cooper, his build, his arms, his face, his robust neck and his honest expression. “Let me see your discharge,” he requested. Faujanet fumbled through his box and held out the paper with a trembling hand. Sauveterre unfolded it and read it, one eyebrow registering his concentration. “Faujanet, have you received any aid from the Sarlat consuls?”

“To be sure, my captain, the day before yesterday when I showed them my discharge slip.”

“And from the diocese?”

“Not a crumb.”

“Well, you know the proverb,” replied Sauveterre, lowering his voice somewhat, “monks and lice are never satisfied. To them everything tastes good, even crumbs.”

“Right you are,” agreed Faujanet. “Those people do more damage with their mouths than with their swords.”

Sauveterre, laughing, handed Faujanet his paper and Faujanet began to feel that things might just be going his way. As his heart leapt, it brought with it the reminder of acute hunger.

“My chestnut trees are still standing, Faujanet,” cautioned Sauveterre. “Can you play both lumberjack and sawmiller?”

“With help, yes I can.”

“We’ll give you a try for three months with room and board. After that, three sols a day. Agreed?”

“Agreed, Captain!”

“Cabusse!” called Sauveterre, and Cabusse came running, tall and brawny, his ruddy face barred with a formidable moustache. “Cabusse, this is Faujanet, a veteran of the legion of Guyenne. He’s to be our cooper. Take him over to our wagon and wait for me there.”

Cabusse, who stood a head taller than Faujanet, watched him limp along at his side pushing through the market-day crowds.

“That will make two with a limp at Mespech,” he remarked. “Two peg legs and an iron arm.”

“An iron arm?”

“Coulondre. He has a hook in place of his left hand. It’s Siorac who had it made for him.”

He relieved Faujanet of his box and had him clamber up beside him on the wagon. Once seated, Cabusse took from his sack a piece of bread and an onion and, knife in hand, began to eat deliberately, mute, his eyes glued to the horses’ ears. Faujanet tried to keep from drooling. After a moment of feeling Faujanet’s eyes on him, Cabusse turned to look at his companion. “Are you hungry?”

“Lord, yes!”

“The Lord gave you a tongue, soldier! You should have said so!”

Cabusse cut his bread and his onion and held out half of each to Faujanet. This latter took them so avidly that he neglected to thank his new friend.

“Don’t gorge on an empty stomach,” warned Cabusse, “lest it swell and burst your liver.”

“You’re right!” agreed Faujanet, but could scarce slow his pace or reduce the size of his mouthfuls. When he had finished, Cabusse offered him a gourd.

“You’ve stoked up too fast. Now you need to let the bottle keep you from your feed or you’ll die from the blockage of your bowels.”

Faujanet drank as fast as he had eaten, then sat up straight, squared his shoulders, threw out his chest and, from his perch atop the wagon, surveyed the market crowds below, like a swimmer who has just been pulled from the sea where he was drowning. Opening his big eyes wide, he took in the horse, his robust croup, Cabusse and his hefty trunk, the solid, new, handsome wagon on which he
sat, and then looked proudly around him. He now belonged to the world of happy people: those who eat.

“How is the master?” he asked Cabusse in hushed tones.

“We have no master,” replied Cabusse. “We have two captains. We: that’s Coulondre, called Iron-arm, Cockeyed Marsal and me. We’re all veterans of the Norman legion.”

“So how are the captains?” repeated Faujanet. Cabusse gave a quick glance around.

“They don’t pay better than the going wage,” he said. “And as for the work, they’re hard on themselves and hard on their people. But it’s not a house in which the master eats good wheat bread and the servants eat rotten, pasty barley bread. We eat the same food and at the same table as the captains.”

“This is a good thing,” said Faujanet licking his lips.

“It’s good for the paunch,” rejoined Cabusse, “but not so good for your freedoms. You can’t say anything you want at the captains’ table, nor can you do anything you please. The captains have no truck with lechery.”

“Oh well, as for that, you can taste beauty but you can’t eat it,” said Faujanet.

“Hunger doesn’t just strike your stomach,” replied Cabusse. “There’s the other kind. And the poor beast can have too much bridle. Not so much as a gallant word to the chambermaid, nor a pinch either, and if you stumble on the wet nurse you’ll be out of a job! Yet you surely wouldn’t hurt yourself falling on her. Alas, they may well say ‘A mouse without hole is soon caught,’ but at Mespech it’s not so,” he smiled.

“And how is the other captain?” asked Faujanet, abstaining from any comment and not even daring to smile in response to this proverb.

“One is as good as the other when it comes to work. But as to the other matter, the second one would be more easy-going. He is
married and has three children. No, four,” he said, correcting himself with a smile and a wink.

So well made were Faujanet’s barrels that five years later you could find his work throughout the Sarlat region and as far away as Périgueux. To their noble friends, who raised an eyebrow over this commerce, the Brethren pointed out that it was better to grow rich by selling casks and cut stone than by thievery and highway robbery as some barons did. Moreover, the captains avoided frequenting the expensive festivities given at the other chateaux, using Sauveterre’s injury as their excuse, but, in reality, with an eye to the expense that would inevitably come from reciprocating such invitations. They did invite their friends, but always in small groups and for dinner only—no dancing, singing, games or wasted candles, a parsimony which annoyed my mother no little bit since she would have preferred more pomp and gaiety.