The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles by John Jakes Read Free Book Online Page B

propriety of laws written by a king’s own ministers, and take the part of a king’s defiant subjects—well, I shall only observe again that there are strong winds blowing. Who knows what they may sweep away? Or whom?”
    Phillipe asked, “In a contest like that, Girard, which side would you be on?”
    “Isn’t it obvious? The side to which I was born. My father was a farmer in Brittany. He was stabbed to death by the saber of a French hussar when the hussar ‘requisitioned’ our only milk cow for his troops. In the name, and by the authority, of King Louis. My father refused, so he was killed. If it were in my power, I would forever shatter the contract with a king who would permit that kind of murder.”
    Girard’s expression had grown melancholy. What he had just revealed was the first—and last—bit of autobiography Phillipe Charboneau ever heard from the tutor. Now Girard went on:
    “Yes, gentlemen such as Monsieur Rousseau are subtly nudging common folk to the realization that, together, they can simply say, ‘We are finished with you!’ to any monarch who serves them ill.”
    “But I still can’t imagine a thing like that would really happen.”
    “Why? Because you don’t want to? Because it might spoil your splendid future?”
    Irritated, Phillipe shot back, “Yes! Here, I’ve finished with your books.”
    Girard took the other two volumes, said quietly, “The point is, Phillipe, they haven’t finished with you. Whether it pleases you or not.” He sighed. “Ah, but let’s not quarrel over words. When I started giving you these books months ago, I only meant to shed a little more light into a bright young mind—”
    “And instead, you’ve got me thinking the world’s going to be blown apart.”
    “Well, it’s true. There are whispers of it—no, much more than whispers—from those same British colonies I mentioned. And the Commoner—and others in King George’s own government—applaud! Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
    Phillipe overcame his annoyance, grinned. “It tells me I’m lucky I’m going to be rich. I’ll have money enough to build a big house with safe, thick walls.”
    But Girard did not smile back.
    “Since I am fond of you, Phillipe, let us devoutly hope there are walls wealth can build thick enough to withstand the winds that may rise to a gale before you’re very much older.”

CHAPTER III
Blood in the Snow
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    A T NOVEMBER’S END, WORD circulated in the neighborhood that old du Pleis the goatherd had died. His son, Auguste, disappeared. The hovel up the track was abandoned. And Phillipe was spared further encounters with his now-vanished enemy.
    Since the beating, he hadn’t gone back to the hillside terrace, walking instead the full three kilometers to Chavaniac to replenish the inn’s supply of cheese. But each time, as he passed the point where the track turned upward from the road, he still felt an echo of the humiliation—and regret that he hadn’t found a means to settle his score with the goatherd’s boy.
    He walked into the village with considerably more confidence now. His mother’s revelations had given him that. He was even able to pass by the tiny Church of Saint-Roch without experiencing more than a touch of the old boyhood fear that the priest would suddenly appear and recognize him as the unredeemed child of the unredeemable actress.
    He set out on one such trip to the village on an afternoon a couple of weeks before Christmas. The first furious snowstorm of winter was howling out of the north, driving white crystals into his eyes above the woolen scarf he’d tied over his nose and mouth. He had wrapped rags around his hands and boots. But even so, he quickly grew numb as he trudged through the already-drifted snow.
    Yet in a curious way, he relished the unremitting fury of the wind. It reminded him of the winds of which Girard had spoken. And of other, more fortuitous gales: the winds of luck, of changing circumstance, that had suddenly