Chapter 62
LXII
The doors boomed again, but they held. The voices outside swelled and then, ominously, fell silent.
“War?!” demanded Antoine. “What war?!”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly very dry.
“In the simplest terms: the people of Gévaudan are coming to kill you, Antoine—you and the bishop who has bankrupted and fleeced them. They have been planning this for some time. If I had to guess, I would say that your ruthless punishment of the people in Saint-Julien today was the final affront.”
“Kill me?” Antoine gaped. He seemed unable to comprehend what I was saying.
The bishop was much faster to grasp what was happening. “Rebellion!” he said incredulously. He was flushed and panting, the burned side of his face livid and waxy.
“Father, I warned you of this!” snapped Jacques. “How many concessions did you refuse? How many petitions?”
“Do you not see how we live? Did you think we would allow you to steal the food from our plates forever?” demanded Lorette. “Did you believe we would work your fields and raise your flocks and want nothing for ourselves?”
“Our own people?” demanded Antoine. “This is not war—this is treason! Jacques, my son, please tell me you are not involved in this! These people are traitors to France. They are criminals!”
“They are hungry, Father! They cannot feed their families, and now they are here for yours,” Jacques fumed, wiping gelatinous sweat from his brow. He motioned to the soldiers now barricading the doors. “How did you let it get to this?”
Antoine turned to Lorette, the Archangel’s bladed plumes quivering about him. “You did this!” he accused. “You have been a crow on the eaves of this house your entire life!”
“Me?” scoffed Lorette. “I struck the spark, but the tinder is all yours, my lord. You will lay the blame anywhere but at your own feet.”
“Be quiet, everyone! Lady Ocerne is correct: we are trapped in here,” I said.
“They are going to break through the main doors and slaughter us like weasels in a burrow—or burn us alive, more likely. We have as long as it takes them to find gunpowder.” I held up the manacles of the Choking Braid.
“Antoine, I can save you—say the words and release me, please.”
“No! Do not be tempted, Lord Ocerne,” admonished Bishop Fontaine. “You know the price of my intervention. The professor will be brought to justice, or there will be no salvation for you and yours.”
“Look at me, Antoine.” I reached up and took his face in my hands, ignoring the protests of his wife. “Do you really want me to die here? The truth.”
He did not open his eyes. But nor could he hide the tears on his face.
“No, God help me, I cannot say I want you to die. But nor can I forgive you for what you did. I remember what . . . what you are . . . and that is why I cannot release you, no matter what you promise. I must keep faith with my Lord, though it may cost me my life,” he said, his hand still wrapped tightly around the pectoral cross.
“Then so it will—and not your life alone, I fear!” I answered angrily. “Think of your wife and your son, who are about to die thanks to your pride!”
Antoine seemed to waver, though he said nothing. He opened his eyes and looked to his family, standing fearfully behind the bishop.
“Stay true, Lord Ocerne. Do not be deceived. He is in league with the Beast himself; every word is an invitation to corruption,” warned the bishop.
“Antoine, believe me when I tell you this can all be set to rights, but we must get out of here right now. The Beast’s curse has spread through every living thing in your lands—it is in the very water you drink, thanks to Dayane—and now it will bear fruit.
This uprising—this war—is his lifeblood and his ultimate gift, and you have all helped him bring it about.
And now this massacre will be his victory feast, unless you do something to stop it.
” I held up my manacles once again. “Say the words, please.”
The doors shook again. Time was very nearly up for us all.
“Your tongue is knotted with your lies! Do you think to accuse us of these depravities? Would you lay the work of the Beast at our feet?” demanded Fontaine.
I met the bishop’s eyes and he flinched as though I had slapped him.
“Tell me, Monseigneur—when the animals turned to savagery, was it the Beast who razed the farms and brought the families of Gévaudan to the brink of starvation? Was it the Beast who then bought their land for a handful of chaff? And what of you, Lord Ocerne?” I asked, turning to the man I had loved.
“What exquisite hospitality I have enjoyed in your home—to eat at your table is truly to experience the riches of Ocerne. Shall we pretend it was the Beast, then, who claimed the cream of Gévaudan’s harvest and sent the rest to Versailles and Mende? No. That was your doing.”
“Mine?” protested Antoine. “These were the edicts of king and Church—was I to betray France herself? Should I have reneged on my duty as baron and committed treason on their behalf?”
This time, it was Lorette who answered. “Look at you! You are beyond absurdity—pigs, all of you! Can you even imagine that the people about to kill you all might have their reasons? Duty, Lord Ocerne? Duty? Do you believe the Gévaudanais will see duty when they find Lady Ocerne in her satin and the bishop in his jewels? Will they understand that you were forced to fill the chateau with marble and stained glass? Will they?” She challenged them with her upthrust chin.
“I think not. I think they have had enough of being told who and what to believe, and of the ‘edicts of king and Church.’”
“Antoine, you know she is right,” I said.
“I think that, in their extremity, your people have looked at their lot and reasoned for themselves on its merits. I would say—in the words of a young man I once admired—that they have dared to know. And they are less than delighted with the knowledge they have gained.”
It was too much for the bishop. Gone was the placid, understanding smile. He drew himself up, full of fury, and leveled the crosier at me like a sword.
But he never voiced his final condemnation.
A loud metallic thud from the main doors startled us all. I recognized the sound immediately.
“Petard!”1 I yelled, dropping to the floor.
The explosion was devastating in the confines of the parlor.
The armored soldiers were at least partially protected, kneeling as they were behind their barricades. But over their heads, metal fragments and yard-long splinters flew in a deadly fusillade.
The bishop was strafed where he stood, his expression of righteous rage forever obliterated by the twisted remains of the door handle.
Père Arnaud and the bailiff fell alongside him, punctured in a dozen places.
The Archangel’s wings flashed, and the dead men were immediately engulfed by the white corona of the Almighty’s radiance.
And Antoine . . .
Antoine was standing over me, facing away from the doors.
Antoine dropped to his knees in front of me, his face white with shock.
The shrapnel had hit him in the back like grapeshot. His vest was soaked with crimson in seconds.
“Antoine!” Lady Ocerne screamed.
“Professor, take him, quickly—Ah!” said Jacques, clutching at his head.
Dust and smoke billowed through the room and engulfed us.
The soldiers of Mende had taken some losses, but they were better armed and returned righteous fire of their own to the mob of villagers outside the door.
I scrambled to drag Antoine behind the bailiff’s enormous upturned bureau—no easy task, manacled as I was.
Lady Ocerne did her best to help, but she was shaking so badly she could barely grip his shirt.
We cowered behind the surface of the stout desk. We sat Antoine upright between us, provoking a cry of pain as we leaned him back against the wood. We had left a wide wet trail of his blood on the floor.
“I am sorry,” Antoine rasped. “Sebastian—the girl . . . don’t . . .”
“No, stop,” said Lady Ocerne, placing her hand over his mouth and shaking her head. Her eyes were wide and her trembling fingers pressed hard into his lips. “Stop. Stop.” It seemed to be the only thing she could say.
“Lorette!” called Jacques. Crawling low to the floor, he risked the cross fire to retrieve his father’s dueling sword where it had fallen. He used it to slice through Lorette’s bonds and pulled her back to relative safety behind the bureau with us.
“Stay down. Are you hurt?” he asked, taking her face in his hands. She stiffened, her mouth twisting as he rested his fingertips on the swell of her belly. “Why didn’t you tell me? How long have you known?”
Lorette gave a cold shrug. “Some months now.”
“Some months? Did you know before I—before we spoke?”
“Before you tried to buy me off with an expensive bauble? Does it matter, Jacques? You made it clear where your future lies,” she said. Her voice was calm, but there was terrible pain in her eyes.
“My wife—”
“I have not forgotten.”
“Jacques,” I interrupted, my chains rattling as I gripped his shoulder. “We must find a way out or Antoine is going to—”
I do not know if I finished the sentence; the air was suddenly full of fire and thunder.
The second explosion blasted through the barricades completely. The majestic windows behind us shattered outward in a cascade of glittering shards. The soldiers of Mende were scattered—many of them in pieces—and the rebels were finally inside.
“It is time, Jacques,” said Lorette, as the air once again filled with smoke. She had taken Antoine’s sword for herself. She stood over us in her chemise, pointing the blade directly at her former lover. “Time to choose. Come with me now. Or die with them.”
“Jacques, she cannot leave!” I snapped, tugging impotently against my chains. “The child—your child—will bear the same curse you do. That’s why your father brought her here!”
“Lorette, please! You must reason with them!” Jacques begged, his hands raised in surrender. He was shaking noticeably, his face drawn in terrible concentration. The smell of the blood all around him must have been maddening. “Please! You owe me at least that much!”
Lorette was incensed. “I owe you nothing!” she snarled, lunging at him with the sword.
The blow was weak and clumsy; the tip snagged in Jacques’s waistcoat and she nearly jarred the weapon out of her hand.
But it was enough to scratch him, and what poured out of the young lord’s wound was not blood but thick yellow plasma.
“Wait!” I called.
But Lorette was gone, running toward the barricades without a backward glance. She knew where her true safety lay.
Jacques straightened slowly, his skin beginning to steam. His eyes were full of fear.
“No . . . no! Get away! I cannot stop it!”
The rebellion had brought scores of people to the chateau.
They were all there; young and old, men and women. The common people of Gévaudan had nothing to lose, and nobody was denied their chance to fight.
They beat down the remains of the barricade with triumphant savagery. They surged into the parlor, their hands filled with iron and fire.
“Justice!” chorused the mob. “Equality!” they called, and “Freedom!”
The Gévaudanais were no longer colorless; their dun attire and gray skin were splashed liberally with red.
Their thin, dirty faces were transformed in the passion of their uprising.
Bodies weak with hunger were suddenly galvanized with rage.
Eyes once flat with despair now shone with terrible hope.
Where once all had been bleak, there was now a chance for freedom and glory.
It was a desperate chance, bought with violence and blood, but it held more promise than their lives had known for twenty years. They were so very alive.
This, then, was the Warfather’s promise and his gift.
But they were not greeted by the cowering noble family they had come to murder.
Instead, a young man thrashed in agony there on the marble floor, his skin dripping yellow ichor as he tore at his own clothing.
Even the ringleaders balked at the sight, faltering in their brave song.
His mother knelt at his side, screaming as she tried to calm him, fouling her exquisite gown with dirt, plasma and blood as she cried, Jacques! Jacques! Jacques!
The change took only moments, and then she said no more.
1. A ridiculously dangerous explosive device used to break through defenses during a siege.
It was essentially a bell-shaped chamber full of gunpowder, with the open end placed against the obstructing door/wall by means of a brace.
It is remembered for two reasons. First, the name “petard” is derived from the Latin verb for “flatulate”; and second, the role of petardier was often a once-only appointment, for obvious reasons.