Читать книгу The Last Banquet - Jonathan Grimwood - Страница 16

The larger of the two cadets is Jerome, round-faced and pock-marked and as red-cheeked as a washerwoman who spends her days by the river. He introduces himself in a thick accent that his friend mocks, whereupon he clenches his fist and his friend raises his hands placatingly. There’s an element of ritual about the exchange.

‘He’s Norman,’ Jerome’s friend says, as if talking about a dumb beast. ‘He still has black mud on his boots.’

‘Good mud,’ Jerome says. ‘Rich mud. Acres of the bloody stuff. Better than that sticky red shit Charlot owns . . .’ They insult each other some more and then their gaze slides to Emile behind me and they wait for me to introduce him.

‘Emile Duras,’ I say. ‘He has brains.’

They look at each other and what they’re thinking goes unsaid. He might have brains but his name lacks the particule that says he’s noble.

‘A friend of yours?’ Jerome asks.

I nod. Emile is here because I am here. His father, or perhaps his mother, decided I was a good influence on their son, or perhaps a good connection, and so Emile has come with me. I have no idea how much money changed hands to make this happen. ‘We were in the same class.’

‘And will be again,’ Charlot says lightly. ‘You’re in my house, my year.’ He’s still looking at Emile, who is the smallest and obviously weakest of the four of us. Charlot nods as if this is how it should be. ‘Duras?’ he says. ‘From where?’

Emile names his town and Charlot considers his answer.

‘Protestant?’ he asks finally.

Emile hesitates a second too long. ‘A good Catholic,’ he says, ‘like my father.’

‘But your grandfather . . . ?’

As Emile admits the truth of it, I remember Marcus’s whisper – Marcus, our form leader, now left behind – that Emile’s grandfather was Protestant, true enough, but before this was Jewish. He converted so that he could change cities and convert again.

‘I had a Protestant great-aunt,’ Charlot says graciously. ‘Strange woman . . . Of course, she was a duchess.’

‘Of course,’ Jerome says.

Our new friends go back to insulting each other.

The academy is recently built, in the baroque style and with stucco mostly unstained. Time will blend it into the hill it commands, but for the moment it looks down on Brienne le Chateau, with the River Aube in the distance, still starkly white and obvious as our destination since we first turned onto the road out of Troyes.

‘Where’s your luggage?’ Charlot demands suddenly.

Emile points to a leather trunk with wide straps and brass buckles. I see amusement flicker on Charlot’s face, and maybe Emile sees it too, because he blushes slightly. The trunk is too new, too obviously bought for this occasion. I have no doubt that Charlot’s case is old and battered, probably belonged to his grandfather, and has an earlier version of his arms embossed into the lid.

‘And you?’ he asks.

I turn a circle, displaying my pristine uniform, a long grey coat, lined red and faced at the cuffs in red with gilt buttons. ‘This is my baggage.’

‘A philosopher.’ Charlot grins. ‘Hear that, his body is his baggage.’ He turns to Jerome. ‘We have ourselves a philosopher.’

‘Better than a saint, I suppose.’

‘Can you fight?’ Charlot asks.

I look at him and remember my first day at the previous school, my fight with Emile that ended with us both black-eyed and bloody-nosed. Maybe this is how it works. Every school you go to you have to start with a fight. ‘Why?’

‘The philosopher’s question,’ Charlot says.

‘Can you?’ Jerome asks.

‘If necessary.’

Jerome smiles and nods. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Tonight our dormitory will be attacked by the class above. We have to defend ourselves well.’

‘But not too well.’ Charlot looks serious. ‘We must lose but bravely.’

‘How do you know we’ll be attacked?’ Emile asks.

‘My father told me.’ Charlot looks at us and decides he’d better introduce himself properly. ‘I’m Charles, marquis de Saulx, my father is the duke. This is Vicomte Jerome de Caussard, second son of the comte de Caussard. We’ll be attacked because that’s what happens. We’ll lose bravely because that’s common sense.’

‘If we win they’ll come back tomorrow night?’

‘And bring the class above with them,’ Jerome says.

A master is at the stone steps gesturing us inside. We have this afternoon and tonight to settle in. Lessons start tomorrow after breakfast, which is after chapel, which is at 7.30. Waking bell is 6.30, no one will be late for chapel, breakfast or lessons. We nod to say we understand and take his words seriously. The man grunts and then sees Emile’s trunk.

‘Mine,’ Emile says.

‘Carry it yourself. You don’t have servants here.’

I wonder if he thinks we had servants at our last school and realise he knows almost nothing about Emile and me. It’s a strange feeling. Our form room is through the main hall, left into a darkened corridor and right at a door that looks like half a dozen others before and after it. A handful of boys who arrived before us look up and Charlot makes introductions. All nod and I realise Charlot’s amused approval is enough to ensure we belong. There are desks, tables, old chairs missing half their stuffing. A suit of armour rots quietly in one corner. Since it’s far older than the school someone obviously brought it here. A deer’s skull with a spread of impressive antlers looks down from one wall. A boar’s skull, missing one tusk, sits on a desk I realise Charlot has claimed when he drops languidly into a wooden chair and leans back to examine the ceiling. ‘Killed it myself,’ he says, seeing my gaze.

‘With the help of a dozen huntsman, his father’s hounds and a musketeer on hand to shoot the beast in case little Charlot misplants his spear.’

Charlot blushes and then laughs. ‘I was eleven,’ he protests. ‘My mother was anxious.’

‘Your mother is always anxious.’

For a second I think Charlot is offended by Jerome’s comment, but he shrugs at its fairness. ‘Mothers usually are.’ He turns to me. ‘Let’s ask our philosopher. Wouldn’t you say that, in the general run of things, mothers are anxious?’

‘In the general run of things, perhaps.’

‘Yours is not?’

‘Mine is dead,’ I say. ‘My father also.’

I could have added that the only mother I’d met – apart from Madame Faure, who didn’t count – was Emile’s, and she was stubborn, ambitious, built like a brick wall, and told her husband what to do, for all she was unfailingly kind to me. To say that would have been unfair to Emile, however.

‘Your parents are dead?’

I nodded, and the room waited to see how far Charlot would push this. Already he was our leader; taller, blonder, unquestionably grander. But it was more than that. We were newly arrived at a strange school, mostly strangers to each other, and we would be required to fight to order in the dorms that night. But Charlot behaved as if he’d been here for ever. As if the coming fight were a minor inconvenience to be dealt with when it arose. His utter confidence calmed us. ‘How?’ he asked.

‘The philosopher’s question.’

Charlot’s grin was approving. ‘And when?’ he said.

‘I was five, maybe six . . .’ I was too ashamed to say they’d starved to death in the ruins of a house they’d mortgaged deep into debt. ‘My brother died in the Lowlands. They’d bought him a commission in the cavalry. It was his first battle. They never recovered.’

‘They died of grief ?’

I shrugged. It was better than hunger.

Charlot looked at Jerome, who shrugged in his turn.

‘And your home?’ Charlot persisted.

‘Ransacked,’ I said. It was a grand word for a slow procession of shuffling jacques who wouldn’t meet my gaze, if they bothered to look in my direction at all. They’d arrived like ants, in a line, carrying away whatever they could on their backs. The house, the stables and the outbuildings had been stripped bare by the time le Régent arrived. I had no idea why they didn’t take the horse. Looking up, I realised I still had the room’s attention whether I wanted it or not. ‘By peasants. The duc d’Orléans hanged them.’

‘Le Régent?’

‘He found my mother and father dead.’

‘And you?’ Jerome asks. ‘You were where?’

‘Eating beetles.’ Seeing his surprise, I say, ‘I was hungry. I was five.’

They nod, the boys in that room. They nod and mutter comments from the corner of their mouths, and someone offers me a slice of cake, as if I might be hungry still. The talk turns to what they’ve brought from home – cakes and cheeses, fresh bread, dried dates, a sweetmeat made from egg white and candied fruit – and I realise this school, this college, has proper holidays and pupils who have real homes. Emile no longer seems so exotic.

‘I didn’t know we were allowed to bring food,’ he whispers.

‘You will next time.’

The fight that night is fierce and ritualised.

The bigger boys face off against each other, the smaller boys match themselves – those, like Emile, who don’t really want to fight at all, find others who feel the same and pretend. We let them creep into our dorm an hour after lights out and then throw ourselves from our beds before the attack can properly begin. It is a night campaign and we fight in furious silence by the light of the moon through three long windows along one wall. A thickset boy punches me and flinches as I punch back. He hesitates and I punch again, seeing him clasp his hand to his mouth and look for an easier target. My stomach is a knot and my legs are shaking. I feel no excitement at the fight. I want to hide.

It is over in a handful of minutes.

Charlot stands, unbloodied. Jerome stands beside him with a swollen lip and a ferocious look on his face, his hands clenched into huge fists. He has the build of a cart horse. I stand slightly behind them, not ferocious and not unbloodied, but standing and ready. The rest crowd behind us and wait to see what happens next.

A boy with curls to his shoulders steps forward. ‘You,’ he says, looking at Charlot. ‘What’s your name?’

‘De Saulx,’ Charlot says. ‘This is de Caussard, and this d’Aumout . . .’

The boy scowls as if wanting to match our names to our faces. ‘This is Richelieu,’ he says, naming the house to which we’ve been assigned. ‘We win. We win at everything. You let us down and we’ll be back.’

‘And we’ll be waiting,’ Jerome says heavily.

‘We won’t let the house down,’ Charlot says. The boy takes it that Charlot speaks for all of us and that’s fine because he does. The older boys file out in silence and we hear them on the stairs. Common sense makes us wait to see if it’s a feint and they plan to return to finish what they’ve started but that’s it, the battle is done. None of the masters ask about our bruised lips and black eyes but I see the colonel at a distance in a corridor and he smiles.

Unlike my last school the masters change according to subject. They are severe, mostly military, and leave us alone if we do our work and give the right answers. I follow Charlot’s example and read the books I’m told to read, work out what is likely to be asked and read enough to answer those questions only. My marks are good. My horsemanship, almost as bad as Emile’s when we start, improves week by week. I enjoy sword work – the clash of steel, the noise of our practise, the chatter of the sluice rooms and the lazy exhaustion that takes us afterwards. They work us hard. They work us hard at everything.

That Christmas I spend with Emile and his family. A quiet week filled with questions about the academy and our new friends. Madame Duras seems content with our answers and impressed with the casual way Emile talks about the marquis de Saulx and the vicomte de Caussard and a few of the others, as if they’re the closest of friends. Just occasionally I feel him watching me as if worried I’ll contradict and say they’re my friends really, but he grows more confident as the week progresses, and why shouldn’t he claim their friendship? We go around in a group of four and if occasionally I find Charlot regarding Emile as if examining an interesting specimen . . . Well, he uses that expression often, sometimes on me. I am the dung-hill philosopher, without family or home, and to the best of his belief content with that.

Charlot lives in a huge chateau, obviously. One of several belonging to his family. His mother is beautiful, his father is brave, his family are rich beyond belief. In someone less cavalier the idle boasting would grate. Somehow Charlot carries it off. He takes our homage and protects us lazily. If a Richelieu boy in our year is in trouble with an older boy, Charlot deals with it. He treats everyone as his equal: those younger than him, those older than him, even masters. It takes me two terms to realise he barely sees servants. Another term to realise no one else in my year sees them either. Even Emile learns to look through them. I stop to talk to a red-haired laundry maid and she’s so shocked she turns scarlet and rushes away. She’s young, probably no older than me. The next time she sees me she turns on her heels and hurries back the way she came.

‘Jean-Marie . . .’ Charlot and Jerome are in the corridor behind me. ‘You can’t make friends with loons,’ Charlot scolds. It’s the name we use for servants.

‘He doesn’t want to make friends,’ Jerome says.

I blush. ‘She’s a person.’

Charlot rolls his eyes. Jerome smirks. The next time we see her, both of them are exaggeratedly polite and she retreats with tears in her eyes. ‘She only likes philosophers,’ Jerome says. But that’s it. She refuses to come near me again.

Emile goes to stay with an aunt the next summer and I stay at school, somehow happier to be free of his family and have time for myself. I prepare my own food in the kitchens, which amuses the cooks until they realise I know what I’m doing. In between, to keep the colonel happy, I make mixtures that smoke, flash and explode. Filling a paper tube with three kinds of gunpowder I nearly lose my fingers when all three ignite at once before I’m ready. My next tube has cardboard spaces between the powders and a series of linked but separate fuses. The colonel comes to see what I am doing.

‘Add colour,’ he says.

To the flash, the smoke or the explosion? I wonder. In the end I add them to all three and produce something between a flare and a firework that flashes red, smokes a ruddy pink and then explodes in an impressive blast of vermillion. By the time Charlot, Jerome and Emile return from their holidays I have created tubes that will flare, smoke and explode in reds, greens and blues. The colonel is more convinced than ever that I have a fine future in one of the artillery regiments. ‘Show-off,’ Charlot says.

Jerome laughs. ‘Ignore him,’ he says, his Normandy accent thicker than ever from a summer spent at home. ‘He’s just jealous.’

‘I was bored,’ I say. As close to an apology as I can manage.

‘Next summer you must come home with me,’ Charlot says carelessly. ‘You’ll amuse my sisters.’

A year passes and summer comes round. Charlot has forgotten or never meant it. He spends the summer at Jerome’s chateau. I spend it at the school. With the others gone, the red-haired laundry maid no longer hurries away at the sight of me and lets me inside her petticoats. The taste on my fingers is acrid, stronger. Roquefort to Jeanne-Marie’s new Brie. I note both their tastes in my book, with the dates, and resolve to find a girl with fair hair to see if she tastes different again. The laundry maid disappears as summer ends and I discover she’s newly married. By then the others are back, talking about the cold faces turned to them by the girls they love. Except for Charlot, who remains as languid as ever, slouched in his battered chair in the bigger study we’ve been given this year. He tells us nothing, I realise. His tales are of hunts and parties and could be pretty stories from a book.

His friendship with Jerome has grown watchful. Jerome’s stomach has shrunk as his shoulders have strengthened. Our Norman bear looks dangerous now. Dangerous and amused and somehow stepped back from the bustle around him. The maids stare after him, looking away when they’re noticed. Some of the boys too. He’s the dark shadow to Charlot’s lazy sunlight. On the afternoon of the first day back talk turns to our ambitions. Charlot tosses off some bon mot about maids deflowered and boars killed and Jerome rounds on him. ‘That’s it? The limit of your ambition?’

‘And to be a good duke when the time comes.’

While I’m still marvelling that Charlot is prepared to admit that much, Jerome turns away peevishly. The rest of us shift uncomfortably.

‘What do you want?’ I ask Jerome.

‘What does any man want? To make my mark. I should have been born when my grandfather was. A man could be great then.’

‘Today is better,’ Emile protests. ‘We have science. We have thinkers. Superstition is vanishing. We are building better roads. New canals.’

‘To carry what?’ Jerome asks. ‘Apples to places that have apples? Stones to places that have stone? Superstition will never vanish. It taints peasant blood like ditchwater.’

Emile blushes and turns away. I wonder how many generations he’s removed from that insult – his grandfather, the religious turncoat? I know how far I’m removed. One generation. Jerome would consider my mother a peasant. If he made an exception for her, he’d include her father without thinking about it. One of the villagers hanged by the duc d’Orléans for stealing was my mother’s cousin.

My salvation where Jerome is concerned is that my father was noblesse d’épée, descended from knights. At least half our class are noblesse de robe, from newer families granted titles for civil work. Jerome lists what France needs: a strong king, which we have in Louis le bien-aimé, now twenty, and already tired of the ugly Polish woman they’d married him to and beginning to bed good French mistresses. A strong king, a strong treasury, a strong army. France must be the most feared state in Europe.

‘It is,’ Charlot says mildly.

‘We must make her stronger.’

Boys around him are nodding and I wonder what it is like to have that degree of belief in anything, even as part of me is mocking his fervour and noticing Charlot’s amusement. Emile turns, blurts out, ‘We have a choice.’

‘Between what?’ Jerome demands.

Emile puts his hands behind his back, rises onto tiptoe and rocks back. It looks like something he’s seen his father do. ‘Between reason and ritual. Between what we can still discover and what we’ve been told to believe. Between the modern and the old.’

‘And if I want both? Jerome asks.

‘You can’t have them. They contradict each other.’

Charlot laughs and around him boys smile. ‘Enough seriousness,’ he says. ‘Let’s open our hampers.’ He pats Emile on the shoulder as he passes, a move both comforting and dismissive, as if petting a dog. As always, knowing my strange obsession with taste, my friends let me try whatever they’ve brought from home. A wind-dried ham from Navarre that cuts so finely the slices look like soiled paper and melt on the tongue like snow. A waxy cheese devoid of taste from the Lowlands. Anchovies pickled in oil and dressed with capers. All of the boys bring bread. Two days old, three days, five – depending on how long they’ve had to travel. It must be what they miss most. The loaf Emile brings is pure white. Jerome’s is solid as rock. He swears his cook doesn’t knead the dough so much as punch it, pick it up and slam it on the table like a washerwoman beating clothes on rock. It can take an hour before she decides it’s ready.

They watch me take their offerings. Occasionally I’ll open my eyes after I’ve tasted something particularly fine and catch them looking at each other and smiling. I don’t mind; at least I don’t mind that much. Some of them, I suspect, barely taste what they eat.

‘Try this, philosopher,’ Charlot says. The pot he holds is small and sealed with clarified butter. He hands me a knife and tears off a chunk of oily bread and indicates I should dig through the butter to what lies beneath. The taste I know – goose liver. But this is rich beyond description. Parfait de foie gras. ‘Now clear your palate with this.’

He hands me a second pot and a tiny spoon. This pot is sealed with cork and the darkness beneath has mould that he tells me to scrape away. The sourness of the puréed cherries cuts through the richness of foie gras. He laughs at my expression and I think no more about it until a year passes and summer comes round again and Charlot stops me in a corridor to say, ‘You must see our cherry trees.’ I look at him, remembering that earlier invitation.

‘The colonel agrees,’ Charlot says. ‘My father has already talked to him.’