So saying he spat on the ground and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
‘You pay your dues to the Seigneur?’
‘I give him everything. I pay to grind my corn at his mill. I pay to transport it across bridges not once but a hundred times. I pay to press my own grapes for wine. When winter comes we go hungry and we have to feed the children on bran and roots, which swell their bellies up; one of my daughters died last winter—a painful death. My wife is too weak to work. We killed the oxen for food, and the bailiffs come to search my house for salt.’
‘They found some?’
He nodded. ‘They fined me all the money I had left. The taxes are eating us up. We have decided to leave the house and take to the road. We shall leave everything—the furniture, the land—everything. Let them take it. With nothing we can’t be taxed.’
‘I am sorry for you,’ Charles said with deep sincerity. Shoving his hand in his pocket and bringing out a louis, Charles handed it to the man. ‘Here, take this. Buy yourself and your family something to eat.’
The man shook his head, making no attempt to take it. ‘Where would I spend a louis? Have you nothing smaller, monsieur? Were I to present such a large coin at the baker’s or the grocer’s or anywhere else, it would raise suspicion and attract the attention of the bailiffs. They would demand to know where I came by such a coin and my assessment would be increased.’
Charles took back the louis and gave him some small coins, not worth as much, but the man was satisfied and stuffed them into his pocket. They would enable him to feed his family for days, if not weeks, if he and his wife were careful.
‘There are terrible times ahead for France,’ Charles said, hoisting himself back into the saddle. ‘There is a great fear. All over the country, the lines are crumbling.’
The man nodded. ‘Aye, monsieur, you are right,’ he said, his voice hoarse with real emotion. His sunken cheeks already wet with the rain, became more so when the tears that gathered in his eyes spilled over. ‘I doubt I shall live to see it.’ Taking the child’s hand, he nodded his thanks and went on his way.
Charles rode on slowly, unable to shake off his meeting with the man and boy. He had seen much suffering since he had come to France. The peasantry was in debt, increasingly resentful—and suffering from the catastrophic effects of the previous year’s bad harvest. The populace blamed the nobility for the high price of grain and was enraged against them.
Since the recent storming of the Bastille in Paris, revolution had spread to the countryside. Mob violence had broken out in many regions. The whole of France was like a tinder box. One strike and there was no knowing what would follow. He knew the temper of the mob. If they saw blood they became like mad wolves. It was the kind of violence that gave Charles many a qualm about the rightness of their cause, for some of the mobs were made up of villainous, evil-smelling brutes, who, he swore to God, had never been starving peasants or anything else but brigands.
He had seen it all, recording it all in his mind, so that he could set it down when he put up in some inn or other, where he would rest for the night before setting off again on his journey back to England. But before embarking for his home country, he had a slight detour to make. To the Chateau Feroc, here in Alsace.
Coming to the next village, Charles had a feeling of unease. Crowds were gathered in the cobbled square in little knots, having suspended their operations to watch a young woman who, against all reason and judgement, with a large basket on her arm was distributing food to a small group of scrawny, hungry children. A carriage, the one that had passed him on the road, waited across the street, the driver seeming uncomfortable and clearly wishing he were somewhere else.
Charles reined to a canter as he rode slowly into the square. He could feel the pulse and panic of the people swirling about him from the very atmosphere beating down on him. There was an ominous silence as he passed and a menacing mutter that rose at his back, and the faces that watched him were questioning, insolent or uneasy.
His progress became slower as he rode towards the woman, fighting down his apprehension and his fear. There was a danger that he could get himself involved in a riot, and he might have to draw his pistol and shoot, for the mob was like an animal, and like an animal it could sense fear.
The woman was perfectly calm, and quite uninterested, he thought, irrationally swinging from the extremes of fear to the limits of exasperation, in the dangers of the situation. She paused in her work and looked up, frowning a little at the sight of him. Dismounting, holding the reins, he moved closer, the children stuffing bread into their mouths with dirty little hands as they scuttled away.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded, taking her arm and drawing her aside.
‘And who, may I ask, are you?’ the young woman enquired, looking him up and down with icy disdain and shaking off his hand. There was insolence in the way he stood, in the lean, rangy line of his body, that gave the impression of dangerous vitality, and in the firm set line of his well-shaped mouth. Even the slender brown hand that had gripped her arm recalled the talon of a bird of prey, while the look in those pale blue eyes was unnervingly intent. She was very lovely, but she was maddened by his interference in something she considered none of his concern.
‘It doesn’t matter who I am,’ he snapped, deliberately keeping his voice low. ‘Have you no sense? Take a look around you and then maybe you will understand my concern.’
She did as he told her and studied the groups of people. They were watching her, glaring, the men brutish, openly hostile, quiet and threatening. She looked again at the stranger. ‘These people know me—I do not believe they will harm me.’
‘If you believe that, then you are more foolish than I thought. The quality of your clothes and the mere fact that you have access to food represents authority, and that sets you apart.’
She raised her chin, smarting at the rebuke. ‘The children are hungry. I wanted to bring them food. I’m trying to help them.’
‘By putting yourself in danger?’
‘I know the dangers, but they are more likely to harm you than me.’
This was precisely what Charles himself had thought, and his anger against himself for not having had the moral courage to leave her to take her chance kept him silent.
‘It was kind of you to concern yourself. Thank you.’
‘You have nothing to thank me for,’ Charles said brusquely, ‘but what the devil did you think you hoped to achieve? Can’t you see that it was the height of folly for a lady to bring food to the village at a time such as this? It’s small wonder you weren’t mobbed—it’s still not too late.’
Suddenly the young woman couldn’t answer, for she knew he spoke the truth. Having overheard the servants at the chateau talking in subdued tones as they cleared away the remains of the dinner the night before, saying what was left would have fed the people in the village for a month or more, and how everyone went to bed hungry, especially the small children who did not understand the suffering they were forced to endure, on impulse she had instructed cook to fill a basket of food and come to the village to distribute it to the children. Now, looking around at the hungry, hostile faces, with a quiver of fear she saw her mistake.
‘You are right,’ she said, finding it hard to defend herself because she knew she was in the wrong. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have come, but I’ve distributed the food now so I’ll leave.’
They stood face to face.
Charles saw a slender young woman of medium height. Her forehead was wide, her chin slightly pointed, her skin the colour of ivory and she had startling translucent green eyes. They were surrounded by long, thick lashes under delicate black brows that curved like a swallow’s wings. Her skin was flushed at the cheekbones, whether with her indignation or perhaps where the sun had tinted it.
Her raven-black hair was drawn from her face and hidden beneath her bonnet, and yet it still managed to look unconfined. Wisps of soft curls peeked out