Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.
29 September 1018
Bois-de-Bas
Dear Journal,
When I was small, “The Troubles” were a nightmare, a bogeyman that my elders spoke of in angry voices, with words like “But what if the Troubles should come to Yorke,” and “We shall all be murdered in our beds!”, followed by “In the town square, more likely.” But they shut their mouths and waved me out of the room if they noticed I was listening; and my mother would not listen to my questions.
Later, when I was formally apprenticed and began to spend time with the other apprentices at the Guild Hall, I learned from them that the Troubles were something that had happened in Provençe. Their stories were even more lurid than my imaginings—the Provençese had killed their king and queen, and all the nobles, and the streets of Toulouse had run with blood up to one’s ankles, up to one’s knees!
Still later, I learned that my fellow apprentices were largely correct, taking juvenile hyperbole into account, and that the truth was in some ways even more enormous in its hellishness. I also learned, in time, that it was this that had given my beloved Armorica the time to grow strong on her own, for during the Troubles her mother country had no time to spare for her. It is one the reasons I picked Armorica for my new start those years ago, when I could no longer bear living under my father’s roof and sway.
But it was the Troubles that gave the late, unlamented Maréchal the opportunity to rise and lead his fellow citizens so far astray at such great cost for the Old Lands of the Abyss. It was his doing that the Troubles first came and smacked me in the face, as it were, driving me from Mont-Havre to my hiding place and new home here in Bois-de-Bas.
Looking around me now I suppose that I ought to be grateful. It is as though God in his wisdom has produced refreshing cider out of rotten apples.
Now the Troubles have once more made themselves felt in my life—though only, I rejoice to say, at second hand.
Yesterday I received a letter from Jack, telling me that a man claiming to be M. Sabot, my erstwhile companion at Madame Truc’s table in Mont-Havre, had appeared on the doorstep of the Former’s Guild Hall where Jack has been staying. This morning I made haste to Mont-Havre on the Amelie, bringing Madame Truc and Jacques-le-Souris with me. They had not yet made any voyage aboard her, being well content to remain on la terre bénie, as they called it; but at M. Sabot’s name all such qualms disappeared like the morning dew at midday.
Jack’s visitor was indeed Sabot; if I had not recognized him myself, it would still have been clear from the horrified look on Madame Truc’s face when she saw how worn and gaunt he had grown. She rushed to him, followed by Jacques, and to my surprise made a tentative curtsey, a gesture I had never before seen her make to anyone. In her boarding house Madame Truc had always reigned as queen, even while giving M. Sabot an unusual degree of precedence.
Sabot winced, and smiled gently, and I would have said that he waved a disapproving finger save that the gesture was so abbreviated that I saw it more in its effect on its recipient; for Madame Truc drew herself up and did her best to smile.
I handed Jack a basket of bread and pastries prepared by my Amelie, and as he hurried off to make tea I said, “M. Sabot! I am delighted to see you, sir, and that you have come through all of trouble of the past few years. What may I do for you?”
He bowed, and said to me, “M. Tuppenny, you have already done all that I could have asked for. I had heard that my dear Madame Truc had left Mont-Havre in search of you, and I wished to know what had become of her. I see now that she is well, she and Jacques, and that it must be your doing; and so I thank you.”
He turned and made as if to leave; but Madame Truc frowned, as well she might, and so I raised my hand. “I beg of you, do not vanish once again; for your friends have been much concerned for you. My wife has sent many good things to eat; please, come join us.”
He nodded graciously as I waved them all through to the kitchen, where Jack had set the long refectory table and placed the teapot and the basket of baked goods.
We sat down.
“Please, M. Sabot,” said Madame Truc, breaking her silence at last. “We have worried. And if we are well, you are not. What has become of you, monsieur? Where have you been, all this time?”
I was shocked, for it was the first time I had ever heard Madame Truc question M. Sabot; and it seemed to me that Sabot was perplexed as to how to answer. He looked down, and sipped his tea, and toyed with an apple croissant, the latter shedding flakes of nervousness on his plate.
At last he looked up, and said, “In hiding, bien entendu. I was out when Le Maréchal‘s men came to your boarding house; they seized everything that I had, including what little fortune remained to me. I was left with only the things I stood up in, and what few coins I had in my coin purse.” He waved a hand. “I dared not let myself come to Le Maréchal‘s attention. Memories are long in Provençe, and though La Terreur has receded, still, Le Maréchal was her foremost child and heir.”
He saw my surprise, and sighed. “I suppose that it is no longer necessary to hide these things,” he said, looking at me. “Sabot is not my real name, M. Tuppenny. When Madame Truc first knew me, before she came to Armorica, I was the son of the Comte de L—; she was the daughter of the housekeeper at our chateau.” He glanced at Madame Truc, as though asking for permission, she nodded. Her eyes were glistening.
“She married the second son of my father’s gamekeeper,” he continued, “a man named Truc, and they left for Armorica with my father’s blessing.” She nodded. “Later, when wise men could see La Terreur in the offing, my father bid me pack my things, and take what few resources would fit in a traveler’s chest, and sent me after them under an assumed name—though not the name Sabot, which I did not adopt until my arrival here. La Terreur never came to Mont-Havre, grâce à Dieu, but it might have, n’est-ce pas? I thought it better to leave no trail.
“Once here I found Madame Truc, who was then recently widowed; and she gave me shelter for my father’s sake.”
Madame Truc said nothing, but her look was eloquent; and I thought she had give shelter for the son’s sake rather than the fathers, and that perhaps she, perhaps all the young women of the chateau, had been more than half in love with the heir of the Le Comte de L—.
“And your father?” I asked.
“Ma mère sent word,” said Madame Truc, quietly.
Sabot nodded. “I discovered later that my ship was the last to leave Toulouse before La Terreur commenced in earnest.” He shrugged, possibly the most expressive gesture I have yet seen him make. “Since then, I am merely Sabot. No one has any use for le deuxième etat, not here and not in Provençe, and Sabot is as good a name as any other.”
“But how have you lived? What has happened to you?” exclaimed Madame Truc, unable to hold herself in any longer.
“Let us not speak of that. I live; that is all that matters.” He drank the last of his tea, and leaving the fragments of the pastry on his plate, quite uneaten, he rose. “I have learned that you are well,” he said to Madame Truc, and “I thank you for your care,” he said to me. “And now I must leave you; I have presumed on your generosity for too long.”
I begged him to stay, for Madame Truc’s sake, but my remonstrations were futile.
“You are a proud man, M. Sabot,” I said to him at the threshold. “But it pains me to see you in such straits.” I smiled apologetically. “I have risen in the world since we met; my family prospers. If there is any aid you will accept, I beg of you to apply to me in Bois-de-Bas. Failing that, you may speak to my cousin Jack, here; and if he has gone, to M. Suprenant of Suprenant et Fils. He is my good friend; he will see that I receive your message promptly.”
“I shall consider what you say,” said M. Sabot, in his dignified fashion. “And now, I bid you adieu.”
He was soon lost to sight, I fear for the last time.
We did not stay, but returned here to Bois-de-Bas; and Madame Truc shut herself up in one of the cabins for the voyage home. “She will not want me,” said Jacque-le-Souris, “not for a while. She hates for anyone to see her when she is distrait, n’est-ce pas?”
I nodded; and we stood together in silence and watched the road to Bois-de-Bas unwind below us.
____
Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash
Zymurgia House 