After Flodden by Rosemary Goring Read Free Book Online

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smiling green eyes. She later learned his name was Gabriel Torrance. He was a minor nobleman, but often at the king’s side.
    ‘You mean the fair man, on the black stallion?’ she asked, spirits lifting at the suggestion. ‘The one who asked for beer, not wine?’
    ‘No, no, he’s nothing. A scribe, at best. No, I mean the older fellow, the tall, lanky one, dressed in black. With the chapeau à plume, who ’ave those chains around his
neck.’
    Louise remembered now. He had stared down his nose at her as if observing a dull-witted child.
    ‘Well, that man may ’ave looked like a schoolmaster who’s never got dirt under his nails, but I have been told that he was in charge of guns at Flodden, and came home in one
piece. Vincent says so.’
    Louise understood now. She sprang to her feet. ‘He must have seen Benoit!’
    ‘Calme-toi, calme-toi!’ cried Mme Brenier. ‘You can do nothing about it tonight. I will ask Vincent where he can be found. We will have an answer by morning, be sure of
it.’
    It was Vincent’s rent that stood between the family being poor and poverty-stricken. A master wright, with his own team of apprentices, he had worked at the Leith yard with Benoit before
Barton promoted him to his works at Newhaven. With added duties now, he left the house at sunrise, and returned after dark. His shift was ten hours, but every spare minute God allowed he spent with
his lips clinging to a tankard. When he sweated, diluted ale gave a sheen to his forehead. When he spoke, his breath was barley.
    His walk home from Newhaven at night took twice as long as the outward trip, each step doubled in a lurching gait that from a distance bore some resemblance to a hornpipe. On those nights when
the alehouse proved more seductive than ever Mme Brenier would leave his dinner under wrap on the cooling gridle. The house was often in bed when he returned, but Madame preferred to wait up for
him and serve him herself. She rose early each morning to lay out his bannocks and cheese, and pour the day’s first draught of ale. ‘The man’s rent should buy him more than just a
room, n’estce pas?’ she would protest, when quizzed.
    Her children were baffled by her affection for Vincent. Benoit knew him to be kind, tolerant and even generous, when drinksilver allowed. But on first acquaintance there was no denying that his
accent was impenetrable, his habits uncouth, and his bald head lumpy as a neep. When Benoit had brought him home as a prospective lodger, he expected to be met by Maman’s famous disdain. They
were not in a position to sneer at anyone’s money, but as he had learned over many years, Mme Brenier could bury commonsense and dance on its grave when her dislike or disgust was
kindled.
    Mme Brenier never explained her fondness, nor did Vincent trade on it. He was a single man and happy with that state. When fire destroyed his lodgings in the centre of Leith some two years
previously, he was concerned only to find another berth for his head and his tools. Home comforts barely featured on his list of requirements. The room need only be pest free and close to the
shipyard. Gradually, though, the family warmth of the tall house on the quay percolated, and the domesticity he had avoided since he had left Prestonpans as a boy slowly posed less of a mortal
threat to his peace of mind. While to the Breniers’ sober eyes he was an incurable ale-fly, had a man of science taken note of his habits, he would have observed that month by month, Vincent
was spending longer in his lodgings with Madame and her offspring and less time supping from the brewer’s tap. Between them, had they known it, the Breniers had achieved something close to a
miracle. Family, for Vincent, was no longer another word for misery. That he continued to feel this even after Marguerite’s love affair and death, when Madame and her son and daughter could
barely talk to each other, was either proof of the harshness of his