Honour and the Sword by A. L. Berridge Page A

fucking dog,’ then turned his face to the wall.
    I don’t know why, but I felt like shit. This was what I’d wanted, I’d found a way of controlling him, but something I liked had sort of oozed out of him, and I was almost sorry it was gone.
    He wasn’t much better next day. He thought he’d do some fencing exercises in the barn, so I got his sword down and he never told me not to. Then he did his exercises and I watched him like in the old days, but it wasn’t the same, his heart wasn’t in it. At last he just stopped and sat hopelessly in the straw, and I looked at how slumped he was, and thought he really did look like one of us now, he could have just been one of us.
    Then I heard this strange droning sound in the distance, which gradually turned into the moaning noise of M. Gauthier singing one of his horrible hymns. He never sang any of the cheery ones, he liked things about the corruption of the body and the worm of sin, he seemed to find them encouraging. I suppose if I’d had a body as nasty as M. Gauthier’s I’d probably have been the same.
    I said brightly ‘That’ll be M. Gauthier coming to see you.’
    The boy sighed, got slowly to his feet, and followed me down the ladder.
    The gamekeeper came striding in with a sack over his shoulder and his horrible dog at his heels. I used to find him quite scary, M. Gauthier. He was very tall, about a hundred years old, and filthy. He had a huge head, enormous ears and terrifying eyebrows which jutted right out from his face and had spiky wispy bits like the antennae on a beetle. The dog was like a kind of smaller version, only even smellier, and as far as I could work out it was just called ‘Dog’.
    M. Gauthier snatched off his hat and bowed, like the boy was receiving him in a salon at the Manor, not dressed in rags in a straw-filled barn.
    The boy said dully ‘Good morning, Martin. What can I do for you?’
    M. Gauthier said there’d been a party went round the Manor the first day to see what could be retrieved after the fire.
    ‘Yes, I know,’ said the boy, his arms clasping themselves round his body like he was cold. ‘The curé told me.’
    ‘The curé!’ said M. Gauthier, and grinned horribly. ‘The curé collected valuables for your future, Sieur. I was looking for things you might like now.’ He lifted his sack and dumped it on the floor with a thud.
    The boy let his arms slide slowly back to his sides and knelt down to open it. I looked over his shoulder while he felt around inside and brought out the contents one by one. It was an odd collection, but the boy was fascinated, he got more alive with every thing he pulled out. First came two blunted swords he said were fencing foils, and then a rapier wrapped in soft linen: his father’s dress sword, the mark of a gentleman and the noblesse d’épée . Then there were books, there was paper and chalk, a quill pen and a bottle of ink. There was a hard little rag ball for a game called tennis, which he used to squeeze to strengthen his fingers for fencing. Then there was a little wooden horse all charred from the fire which he seemed specially pleased to see, he actually touched it to his face. I used to have one like it myself which the Seigneur gave me one day as a present. I called mine ‘Héros’ and played with it a lot till Father threw it at Mother during a row and it broke.
    Next came a flat metal thing with hinges, which had pictures of André’s parents inside, joined together to make like a sort of book. The boy sat staring at it, like if he breathed it might go away. Then he went over and hugged the gamekeeper and just said ‘Thank you, Martin.’ He even kissed his cheek, which I wouldn’t have done, you never knew what might come off.
    There was one last thing in the bottom of the sack, and when the boy dug right down he came up with his father’s scabbard. He turned it solemnly over in his hands, then looked up at M. Gauthier and said ‘I will wear this one day, Martin.