The Brethren by Robert Merle Read Free Book Online

2,000 écus, a beautiful forest of hardwood, a field large enough to graze two or three cattle along the road to Ayzies, and, just three leagues beyond it, an excellent and accessible sandstone quarry.
    The Brethren always turned everything to good use, selling off surplus grain, hay, wool, honey, walnut oil, pork or horseflesh, and thus hoped to make a good profit from this quarry at a time when many burghers were starting to build chateaux outside the towns, as much for show as for convenience.
    On the Sunday following the wedding, the captains had the town crier in Sarlat announce with great fanfare that any stonemason living in the town or its environs should present himself to the captains on the next Sunday before the church. But, the very next day, a bearded fellow appeared at our outer drawbridge, as tall in stature as he was broad of shoulder. His heavy linen shirt, tied at the waist, revealed a chest thickly matted with black hair and his sandals were laced to ankles and knees with leather thongs. He was heavily laden, wearing slung across his back an English longbow, and at his belt a large bowl, an impressive cutlass and a quiver full of arrows. In addition, a large wooden box was slung on a strap over his right shoulder. His large feet, bare except for the sandals, were covered with dust, but his head was covered by a pointed felt hat which he doffed the minute the captains appeared in the tower window above the drawbridge.
    “Messieurs,” he cried, “I am the stonecutter you’re looking for. My name is Jonas.”
    “But you are to meet us in front of the church at Sarlat next Sunday,” replied Sauveterre. “Couldn’t you wait?”
    “I could wait well enough!” cried Jonas. “It’s my body that needs bread.”
    “What are you doing with an English longbow?”
    “I hunt with it when townships and barons give me leave to do so.”
    “You wouldn’t be a bit of a poacher, now, would you?”
    “Surely not!” protested Jonas. “That’s a capital crime! Never would I do such a thing! I’ve only got one throat and that’s to drink with, to eat with and to breathe God’s air with.”
    Siorac burst out laughing: “And what is this great box you carry on your back?”
    With a dip of his shoulder, Jonas eased the chest to the ground and opened it. “My stonecutter’s tools.”
    Standing, dark-skinned, black of beard, his large hands trembling slightly at the end of his brawny arms, he waited, gazing fixedly at the captains.
    “Where are you from, Jonas?” asked Sauveterre, and, because the captain had addressed him by name, Jonas threw him a grateful look.
    “From the mountains of Auvergne. My village is called Marcolès. The quarry I worked is all used up.”
    “Jonas,” said Siorac, “are you a good marksman with that bow?”
    “At your service, my good captains.”
    “Can you hit that crow who’s just occupied the top of our walnut tree?”
    Turning in search of the insolent crow, Jonas tested the air and replied, “’Tis as good as done, if the wind’s not against me!” Seizing his weapon, he fit an arrow, steadied himself, bent the bow until the string touched the point of his nose and the tip of his chin, and, without seeming to aim, let fly his shaft. The arrow whistled through the air and the crow, pierced through, dropped through the branches with a great flutter of wings and leaves.
    “Well done!” cried Siorac.
    “The English,” Sauveterre noted, “still maintain their companies of archers. Perhaps they’re right. Jean, we’ve seen more than one battle lost because the rain has dampened the fuses of the arquebuses. So, my good Jonas,” he continued, turning to this worthy, “are you as good a stonecutter as you are an archer?”
    “Indeed so!” replied Jonas with pride. “I know my trade as well as any man alive, and I take pleasure in it. I can not only cut stonefrom the quarry, I know how to split it into roofing tiles. I can shape blocks for your walls and can