“But . . . my lord —” The secretary gasps, then lowers his eyes and wisely says no more. The captain of the guard accepts his commission with a nod. His expectant gaze fastens onto Treville as the secretary collects his papers and goes meekly out of the room with his escort.
It’s unheard of, a gentleman in the stocks. Apart from the humiliation, he would be the target for offal and refuse, even stones, hurled by every malcontent with a grudge against the nobility — and there are many. Even poor folk are often stoned to death in the stocks by vagabonds and outcasts who have no better target for their rage. What poor man’s liberty and pride will Treville sacrifice to save his own? What a terrible choice to have to make.
I thought myself proof against any further shock at the chevalier’s cruelty, but I feel a sudden revulsion in my stomach. I turn and flee through this chamber and the next until I gain the kitchen and spill my breakfast into the slops pail.
How foolish I was to think I could bear no more. As if wishing alone could put a limit on my suffering. But there is always more to be borne; that’s what living is.
I can scarcely eat. The sight of food turns my stomach. Everything turns my stomach: the gurgle of onions boiling in a pot, the bitter stench of damp ashes swept from the hearth. When it finally comes to me, I don’t want to believe it. I struggle desperately not to believe it. But I’ve seen it often enough, in my own mother with every one of the little ones. First the sickness, then the belly. Then the child.
I can’t have his child inside me! I’ll go mad. I’ll claw it out with my bare hands! Now I am truly ruined. How long before my belly shows, before I am mocked and denounced and turned out? Without a coin to my name, with no hope of maintenance or support, growing bigger with his burden, my shame made visible for all to see. Sleeping under bushes, starving in the road. A part of me might almost welcome it, but I’ve seen starvation in the lean times in my village, and I know how slow and painful it can be.
If I were clever, I would find a way to end it more quickly. God’s punishments are severe for taking a life, even one’s own, but hell can be no worse than the endless torment I now suffer every day. Yet how is it to be done? I can’t throw myself from the chateau tower; I’d be chased off before I ever got upstairs. I should not be able to keep a poison in my stomach long enough for it to act, even if I knew which kind to take, and as to raising a weapon against myself — no, I can’t bear it. I’m too cowardly.
At last, I remember the river. I am river born, of river blood. As grey and muddy as it is, the river sustains the village I grew up in. It must flow green and clear near Chateau Beaumont; everything looks so beautiful here. I will give myself to the river, and the river must decide my fate. That way, it can’t be murder, can it?
They say God can see into your true heart and knows your deepest secrets despite the lies you tell, even to yourself. But if God can read what’s in my heart, He must see that I have no other choice. If God is truly just, He’ll forgive me for what I must do.
Chateau Beaumont is chiselled out of the crest of a hill overlooking acres of vineyards and wheat fields. A great forested park carpets the rear of the plateau, where the Beaumonts do their hunting, but the park gradually gives way to dense, dark wood as it slopes down into the river valley.
I finish my chores early but make my appearance at table for midday dinner so my absence will not be noticed. When the meal is done and all the others are bustling over the dining things, I return to my chamber. When I am certain no one is about, I dart across the grand entry hall and into the rear vestibule behind the staircase. Its door gives onto the little back bridge over the moat, which leads out to the stable yard and the park. I hurry over the bridge, sucking in the fresh air. It seems like centuries since I’ve tasted the freedom of outdoors. It makes me bold.
I once climbed this hill in a single morning, so long ago now it seems like a different lifetime. I was a different person then. It should not take me longer than an afternoon to find my way down the other way, into the wood. It doesn’t matter if they miss me at supper tonight. By then, I’ll be past caring.
It’s one of those chill, crisp, sunny days, the prime of autumn before cold winter rises from his frozen bed. Some of the park is planted in greenwood, some not, and the trees shimmer with leaves of gold and scarlet, chattering in the breeze. But it’s all greenwood deeper into the wood; the trunks grow closer together, and their foliage makes a canopy that shuts out the sun. It might be day or night in the wood, winter or spring. It’s all one in the heart of the wood.
How green the river runs here! When I finally glimpse the curving ribbon of it, down in the valley, I make my way toward it with more eagerness. Even in this dark wood where the sun can scarcely penetrate, it doesn’t look cold, as I had feared, but soft and inviting, like pale velvet the color of sage leaves. It flows so gently, hardly a ripple, even up close, as I scramble down at last to the bank.
I find a purchase on a flat corner of rock protruding from the bank and gaze into the green water, transfixed. It’s so soothing, so inviting. I’ll give myself to the river, and I’ll be clean and whole again. Such a small price to pay, a life.
“I hope you’re not thinking of fouling my river, girl.”
It’s as if the wood itself has spoken! I jump inside my skin at the words, and as I half turn, I see a figure standing on the bank beside me, only an arm span away, an old woman, bent under a grey hooded cloak. I jump again at the shock, and my foot slips on the mossy rock; the wood somersaults all around me, and then I plunge backside-first into the water, the surface closing over my head, sealing me up. It’s cold after all, and dark, and rushing so fast I can’t get my bearings. Water floods into my nose and ears, sharp edges of rock scrape my body and tear at the skin of my hands as they claw for any support, and I’m tumbled through rushing blackness in utter terror. The blackness covers my eyes and weighs on my chest, bearing me down. One of my grasping hands breaks the surface to feel the tingle of cold, dry air for the last time before the river sweeps me away.
But my hand closes suddenly on warm flesh. The river sucks mightily to keep me, but a greater force tugs at my hand. My arm, my shoulder, and my head emerge, and I gulp air into my lungs, choking on the water already there, hacking and rasping. My body is limp in my sodden clothing as I’m dragged up the bank, and I roll over at last onto solid earth, spitting and coughing.
When I have emptied my lungs of water and the world has stopped spinning, I look up. But no one is there, besides the old woman in the grey cloak peering at me, leaning on a stick that looks like an immense tree root upside down, her two hands clasped over the gnarled root ball at its top. From what I can see of them, her arms look as frail and withered as the limbs of a long-dead tree, and her sleeves are dry. Surely she cannot have pulled me from the river.
“Life is a stubborn thing,” she croaks at me. “Not so easy to throw away.”
And it comes flooding back to me, with the force of the river itself, the reason I am here. I have failed again. I had only to lie still and breathe deep under the water, and my ordeal would be over. Now I’m worse off than I was, and even more humiliated.
“Well, come inside and get warm,” clucks the old gnome. She turns on her stick and shuffles off into the gloom. Beyond her, just a few trees away, I see a small hut with a thatched roof. I’m certain it wasn’t there before, or I would have chosen a more solitary place.
But how did it get here?