The Jester

“Hugh is right,” Odo’s deep voice cut in. “ Baldwin will make us pay, just like the bailiff promised. It’s too late to back down.”

“He will surely take my lands anyway,” Jean moaned, “after what’s happened here.”

“H-Hugh has the lance,” Alphonse said. “It is a greater weapon than all the arrows in Treille.”

Shouts and murmurs rose around the church. Some stood in agreement, but most were afraid. I could see it in their [303] faces. Am I a soldier? Am I fit to fight? If we march, will others follow?

Suddenly a pounding was heard from the church steps outside. People froze. Everyone in town was already inside.

Then three men stepped into the doorway. They were dressed in working hides and tunics. They knelt, made the sign of the cross. “We seek Hugh,” a large one said, taking off his hat. “The one with the lance.”

“I am Hugh,” I said from the front.

The man gri

Morrisaey? Morrisaey was halfway between here and Treille.

“We heard about your fight,” one of the others said. “Farmers, bondsmen fighting like devils. Against our liege. We wanted to know if it was true.”

“Look around. These are your devils,” I said. Then I showed him the lance. “Here is their pitchfork.”

Alois’s eyes grew wide. “The holy lance. Word is that it changes things for us. That it’s a sign. We couldn’t just sit by and twiddle our thumbs if there was going to be a fight.”

My chest expanded. “This is good news, Alois. How many men do you have?” I was hoping it was more than these three.

“Sixty-two,” the woodsman shouted proudly. “Sixty-six if the fucking Freemasons don’t back down.”

I looked around the church. “Go back and tell your townsmen you are now one hundred and ten. A hundred fourteen if the fucking Masons take part.”

The man from Morrisaey gri

He swung the church doors open wide. I saw a crowd in the square. Everyone rushed out of their seats to look and saw woodsmen carrying axes, farmers with hoes and spades, ragged-looking peasants carting hens and geese. Alois smiled. “Already brought ’em.”

Chapter 102

THAT WAS HOW IT BEGAN, that first day.

Barely a hundred of us, farmers, tailors, and shepherds, makeshift weapons in hand, food and other supplies carted behind. We started on the road toward Treille.

But by the next town we were two hundred, people kneeling before the lance, grabbing their belongings. By Sur le Gavre we were three hundred, and at the crossroad between north and south, a hundred more were waiting, clubs and hoes and wooden shields in hand.

I marched at the front, carrying the lance. I could not believe these folk had come to follow me, in a fool’s suit, yet at every corner, more joined us.

They knelt-husbands, wives-kissing the lance, and Christ’s blood, singing praise and vowing the nobles would crush them no longer. Ba

It was like the hermit’s march all over again. The hope and promise that had captured my soul more than two years before. Simple men-farmers and serfs and bondmen-banded together to raise up their lives. Believing that the time had finally come. That if we stood up with the might of numbers, no matter how long the odds, we could be free.

[305] “Are you tired of being shat on?” went the refrain as we wound past a watching goatherd.

“Aye,” came the reply. “I’ve been tired my whole life.”

“And what would you risk,” another would shout, “to gain your freedom?”

“All I have. Which is nothing. Why do you think I’m here?”

The ranks swelled with people from all corners of the forest. “Follow the lance” was the cri de coeur. “The lance held by the fool.”

By St. Felix, we had grown to seven hundred strong. By Montres, we had lost count. We could no longer feed them; we had no more stocks or provisions. I knew we could not stand a drawn-out siege, yet people continually joined.

Near Moulin Vieux, Odo edged his way up to the front. Behind us was a column of peasants at least a thousand strong.

The big smith gri

“Of course I have a plan. You think I brought all these folks along for a picnic in the woods?”

“Good.” He sighed. He dropped back into the ranks. “Never doubted…”

“Of course Hugh has a plan,” I heard him whisper to Georges the miller, a row behind.

From Moulin Vieux, Treille was two days’ march away. That night, I curled up at our fire with Emilie. Behind us, the glow from hundreds of others lit up the night. I stroked her hair. She nestled close. “I told you this was no accident,” she said. “I told you if you stood up to lead they would follow.”

“You did.” I held her. “Yet the real miracle is not them, but you. That you have followed.”

“For me there was no choice.” She rolled her tongue and toyed with my jester’s tassel. “I always had a thing for a man in uniform.”

I laughed. “But now comes the real miracle. Treille is two days away. I have a thousand men and only fifty swords.”

[306] “I overheard you had a plan,” Emilie said.

“The outline of one,” I admitted. “Father Leo says we should draw up our demands: that taxes must be reduced immediately, that all fiefs should apply toward purchase of a parcel of land, that any nobles who take part in raids must be brought before the court.”

“Look at the numbers.” Emilie nodded optimistically “Baldwin will have to sue for peace. He ca

“He won’t fight us.” I shook my head. “At least not right away. He knows we ca

“You have known this from the start, haven’t you? That the duke would never comply. It was what was troubling you back at Veille du Père.”

I nodded.

“So if you know this, Hugh, what then? All these people, they’ve given you their hope, their very lives.”

“What it means…” I tucked my head onto her lap, begging to drift off to sleep. “… is that we must take him.”

Emilie raised herself up. “Take him? In order to take Baldwin you must seize his castle too.”

“Yes.” I yawned. “That is usually the case.”

Emilie shook me. “Do not jest with me, Hugh. This requires weapons and provisions. For this you have a plan?”

“The outline of one, I told you. It lacks but one thing.” I curled myself into her warmth. “Fortunately, it is the thing you are best at.”

“And what is that, Hugh?” She pounded my shoulder.

“A pretext, my lady.” I glanced up and winked.