I saw the first peasant’s hut and while I hesitated whether to look for shelter there, I saw another farther on, and then another; and I decided I could try to make a bit more headway. No smoke came from the huts and when I passed one close by I saw that it was uninhabited.
I walked along the foot of a rather steep hillside which faced south, and here the slope was planted with vines. They looked sickly but they were growing in rows. Someone was establishing order, some human being was near. From the corner of my eye I saw a shadow move and I turned: an old man was crouching between the vines. In his left hand he held a bunch of weeds he must have been pulling out, his right hand rested on a stone. He ducked low and peered at me with a frown.
“I’m alone,” I shouted at him, “unarmed!” I held my hands out and he scrambled to his feet and came toward me.
“Have you money?” he murmured.
“What have you got for sale?”
“I’ve wine, I’ve wine,” he said.
“No food?”
“No.”
“Is there a house anywhere near?”
He pointed east, where the ground fell away slightly from his hill. Far away in the plain a row of beeches was just barely visible, catching the sunrays.
“Is it empty?” I asked.
He grinned.
“Well?”
He didn’t answer, but shuffled away. I sat down on a bench, and he came back with a dirty jug which he handed to me.
I wiped the edge and drank; it was without doubt the foulest wine I’d ever tasted. But I drank it all. I gave him back the jug and a coin.
“A captain lives in the house,” he then said quite loudly.
“What kind of captain?”
He shrugged.
“Is it safe?”
“You must pay,” he said. “But you’ll pay on every road—” he moved his hand up and down and let it circle around as if the horizon were a cake he was dividing up. “His men are over there, everywhere.”
My progress toward that house was fast; I think I ran part of the way. But I’m not certain, for with no food and the wine sloshing around in me, the world became a dreamlike place. The air grew cold, the low light of the late afternoon made everything sparkle, and I flew along.
In the great silence I heard several times the sound of horses without seeing them, and then I let myself fall flat on the ground and did not stir. I thought, no matter what that captain may be, it’s a good idea to walk into his establishment as a guest and not as a prisoner of one of his patrols. But it was much more a game with me than deliberation. I lay down and put my mouth against the icy chunks of the earth which had been plowed but not sown. I decided earth tasted good and laughed a bit about that. And I thought, sleeping is like being in a tree, dreaming an animal, being awake a man, and exaltation is being like God. Perhaps not such a very striking thought, but striking enough to get kicked out of the university for, as I know.
I liked that hour, I liked my fast journey with a hard evening wind and the setting sun pushing in my back. And then I was at the row of beeches and my exaltation ebbed away although I tried to hold on to it. I was no longer alone, there was a house, voices, steps. I so tired now that I could hardly draw breath. Opposite me the thin slice of the new moon was visible in the sky. It would be a dark night.
I brushed the earth off my clothes and then marched out from behind the trees and toward the door without looking sideways where I heard men talking.
The captain or what looked like a captain was sitting behind a table, leaning on it with his elbows; a heavy-set soldier, eating and drinking with both hands. He could be an army officer or the headman of a Free Company, which is a euphemism for a gang of bandits. He could be fighting for the English, for Navarre, or just for himself, he could be from anywhere and for anyone; perhaps he didn’t even know any more. It didn’t make much difference.
I bowed and waited.
“Who are you?” he said.
“A student from Paris, traveling to Oxford in England, asking shelter for the night and a safe-conduct through your territory.”
‘‘How did you get here?”
“On foot.”
He cursed softly, probably because his men had not been more efficient. “What’s your name?” he said and picked up his meat again.
“Heron of Foix.”
He puckered his mouth. “From the family of the Count of Foix?”
I wasn’t at all of that family but it seemed sensible not to say so.
“I wouldn’t dream of taking less than fifty francs from a gentleman like you,” the captain stated.
“All I have in the world is twenty francs.”
“I’ll take those.”
“I have a long way ahead of me.”
“That’s what you think,” the captain said, laughing very hard.
I began to laugh too, heaven knows why. That pleased him. “Sit down,” he said, “and eat something. I’ll take five. You’re lucky.”
That night, he let me sleep on a bench in his room where there was a big fire. We were awakened at dawn by some of his men bringing in the old winegrower.
“Captain, we found one,” they cried. “But he says he has nothing.”
“Then cut his throat,” the captain grumbled.
“No, don’t do that,” I said. “I know this man. He has nothing.”
The captain sat on the edge of his bed, unbuttoned his shirt, and started scratching his chest. “They all say that, Foix. They’ve all got a pot of gold somewhere.”
“Not me,” the old man cried.
“Then cut his throat,” the captain repeated.
“Captain,” I said, “this man is the only human being I’ve found between here and Paris. You can’t kill him. Don’t you see? He’s a link; if you kill him, you no longer control a province of France, you just run around in empty space. You must spare him for your own sake.”
The men began to laugh at the word “province.” The captain was obviously only a little captain. The old man gaped at me. The captain lay down and went back to sleep without saying another word.
I left shortly after, my pockets full of bread I’d stolen from his kitchen. He had never asked for the five francs, but I had no safe-conduct from him. I didn’t
