Hello everyone! Here's a new chapter! I don't know why, but I had a hard time writing it. Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy it!
Thank you Mium, Porthos10, AlexZero12, paffnytij, Divine_Cheese, Galan05, Dekol347, Ponnu_Sammy_2279, ALC4, Shingle_Top and dodolmantab for the support!
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Adam and François were no longer two separate beings, but one and the same person.
For a long time already, their memories had become so intertwined that they formed a single, unified soul.
The boy who had once left Corbie and the officer who now returned carried within him old images, sharp and intact, as if they had always belonged to his own life.
When the hired carriage neared the little town, nothing about it struck him as strange: Corbie appeared to him just as he remembered it.
Twelve long years had passed since his enlistment in Colonel de Bréhant's Picardy regiment, and yet the small town seemed hardly to have changed.
Corbie could be seen from afar, even amid the meandering rivers that broke up the landscape.Its church towers rose into the sky as if striving to touch it.
The tallest structure was undoubtedly the abbey church of Saint-Pierre, with its great lantern-tower reaching nearly ninety meters high.
That building, as imposing as it was magnificent, its façade adorned with twin towers in the style of Notre-Dame de Paris, dominated the vast monastic complex of Corbie Abbey.
The rest of the town remained modest: a provincial settlement of some three thousand souls—four thousand at most—with a lively market, its abbey, and its fortifications.
Slowly, François's carriage approached along a long, muddy road flanked by trees, beneath a radiant sun.
The rampart encircling Corbie looked more decrepit than he remembered.
Even without going back as far as the Middle Ages, it still bore the marks of time.
The stone had blackened as though from a great fire; ivy had climbed in places; moss covered whole stretches of wall; and wide cracks had opened where roots and the cycle of frost and thaw had forced the masonry apart.
To look at it now, one would never believe the walls had any military purpose left.
Yet a century earlier, they had mattered.
That had been during the terrible Thirty Years' War, when war was waged differently and nearly all of Europe was in flames.
Corbie had been one of the key strongholds on the frontier with the Spanish Netherlands, which then held Artois.
The enemy had eventually captured the town but endured a six-week siege there.
In the end, King Louis XIII and his brother, Gaston of Orléans, retook it.
The traitors who had collaborated with the enemy were punished, and Artois was incorporated into the kingdom of France.
That period had been especially harsh for the town and its people.
Without the generosity of the king and his minister, Cardinal Richelieu—who chose to restore the fiscal privileges they had previously stripped away—Corbie would have been reduced to a vast ruin, a ghost town.
Now its walls were little more than an obstacle to the town's growth.
In places, the old ditches had already been filled in.
Crack!
The coachman—a stocky man with a thick beard, wrapped in a long brown coat—snapped his whip and drove the team onward into the small town, surrounded by ponds and marshes.
The sunlight made the puddles of mud, the cobblestones, and the slate rooftops glisten, so that one might have thought it had snowed only moments before.
The wooden wheels creaked and carved deep ruts into the wet ground, sending great splashes flying in all directions.
Pedestrians quickly stepped aside, muttering complaints, doing their best to stay on the planks laid over the damp ground like lifelines.
From time to time the wheels struck a stone, and François was jolted about as though locked inside a barrel and rolled down a hill.
Thoughtful, he watched the street through the window on his right.
It's been so long. Funny… I truly feel as though I've always lived here. I remember everything. Every house, every lane.
A faint smile touched his lips.
I suppose… I think of Corbie as my former home. As much as I do Lille.
That was the city where he had grown up in the twenty-first century.
Now it meant little to him except as a place laden with memories.
Of course, he could clearly distinguish between the Lille he had known and that of the eighteenth century.
The latter did not truly interest him.
At best, he was mildly curious.
Would he even be able to recognize his native city across the centuries?
Probably not.
Thus he had not bothered to visit it during his last stay in France, nor did he intend to now.
At last, the carriage slowed and came to a halt on a large, roughly square cobbled square lined with stone and timber-framed houses.
One of them, built of pale, almost white stone, solid and well kept, was crowned by a large painted wooden sign depicting an ox.
It was scarcely necessary, for beneath the broad arch opening onto the street, the shop displayed its goods on hooks and across a counter.
There hung sausages and black puddings, smoked hams, ribs and legs of mutton, goose and duck legs, quarters of veal, and even whole rabbits dangling by their hind legs.
There was even a freshly slaughtered ox's head, a testament to the quality of the meat—its eyes, round as ping-pong balls, still glistening.
All this, however, drew swarms of flies.
In front of the wooden-and-stone counter, women in caps and a few local men haggled over the price of a shoulder or a piece of lard.
The stall offered a surprising variety for a provincial town, and there was something for every purse.
Naturally, the town authorities and the guild kept a watchful eye to ensure that prices remained within the proper bounds.
Yann Madec leapt down from his very uncomfortable seat, stretched his back with a crack, then went around the carriage to open the door.
Major Boucher de Montrouge exchanged a brief glance with him and stepped down as well, carefully avoiding a wide puddle that looked deceptively deep. Fortunately, the square was paved; otherwise, his fine uniform would have been soiled in an instant.
He lifted his gaze to the familiar façade.
The shop stood between the cobbler's—whose presence had terrified him as a child—and the bakery, whose owner had always been known for his sharp temper.
On his last visit, he had learned that the old cobbler had passed away, leaving his trade to his nephew, a most respectable and kindly gentleman; the baker's temper, however, had not mellowed in the least over the years.
His steps were unhurried, his expression calm. He truly felt as though he were coming home.
Like an ordinary customer, he took his place in the line and waited in silence for his turn. Naturally, a man so well dressed—especially in the white of the regular infantry—did not go unnoticed.
A smile came to his lips when he saw his mother's face suddenly light up with joy at the sight of him. Marie Boucher raised a trembling hand to her mouth.
"François… my son!" she exclaimed, her voice breaking with emotion.
Abandoning her customer, she rushed forward to embrace her beloved child. Though she mainly handled the selling, her apron was as soiled as her hands. Realizing this, she made as if to draw back, but François held the fifty-eight-year-old woman gently in his arms and embraced her tenderly.
"Hello, Mother. It's been a long time. I'm sorry I couldn't come back sooner."
Overcome by emotion, her cheek pressed against her son's broad chest—he was a head and a half taller than she—she broke into tears. In a choked voice she murmured:
"It doesn't matter, my boy."
They had, in fact, seen each other only three years before, but to her that span had felt like an eternity.
In 1766, when she had first laid eyes on him again after that terrible day when he signed the papers to enlist in the Picardy Regiment, she had wept with equal parts joy and sorrow.
Her baby, her dear child, the only one still alive, had changed so much.
He had once been so handsome, so young, so fresh… Seeing him again, marked by war, aged before his time, hardened by trials she could scarcely imagine, had shaken her deeply.
But he was alive, and that was what truly mattered. She could hold him in her arms, kiss him, speak to him.
She had often thought of other mothers, like the one who had borne Hippolyte Berlotin—"P'tit Pol," as everyone had called him. That poor woman would never again have that chance, for her boy had fallen in 1758.
His mother, stricken with grief, had passed away in 1767, leaving behind a broken husband. Two years later, he still breathed, still ate, but it was only half a life.
That poor man seemed to be waiting merely for his own hour to come.
"I'm so happy to see you again! Oh, how I've missed you!"
At last, Marie Boucher reluctantly lifted her face. Her damp cheek brushed against the fine medal that hung on François's thick coat, right over his heart.
She raised to him her wide blue eyes—the same shade as his—where love and pride shone.
With her worn but gentle hand, she stroked his cheek.
"How tall you seem to me…"
François chuckled.
"I stopped growing a long time ago, you know."
"I know, kuku. It's your poor old mother who's shrinking with age."
Marie Boucher had indeed grown shorter over the years, yet she retained a surprising vitality.
Out of the corner of his eye, François caught sight, in the dim light of the shop, of a man wearing a broad white-and-red butcher's apron. He had broad shoulders, salt-and-pepper hair, and a bald patch just beginning to appear at the crown of his head.
His steady gaze rested on the young officer, and the shadow of a smile passed over his weathered lips.
Long ago, Charles Boucher had forgiven his son for joining the army without asking his permission. He himself had once been drawn to the call of adventure, impressed by those brave men in their white uniforms.
He also knew his son had never wanted the simple life of a butcher or a tradesman.
Under the curious eyes of the customers, he too stepped out of the shop and moved toward the young man. No one could have doubted their kinship: François had inherited his father's nose, his eyebrows, his lips, and his strong jaw.
The resemblance was even more striking now that fine lines had begun to appear on the young man's battle-hardened face.
François had rarely seen his father show affection, to the point where he had often doubted whether the man truly loved him.
Before enlisting, he had been convinced his father regarded him only as a tool—everything he had ever received from him seemed to be given as though it were an investment.
What had especially led him to think so was the burning issue of his proposed marriage to Agathe Desmoulins.
He had been wrong. Charles Boucher had loved him; he had simply not known how to show it, having grown up himself without a good example to follow.
That marriage had been meant as an opportunity for François to build a better life than his father's own.
Throughout all those years, as war raged across Europe and beyond, he had worried deeply for his son. François's long silences had caused him great pain.
He had never sent a letter to ask for news, for in his mind it was the son's duty to write to his family, not the other way around.
Thus, even though François had chosen to remain in the New World and his letter had arrived rather late, Charles had been truly pleased to receive it at last—the one in which his son apologized for his long silence and his choices, and announced that he had become a man with a respectable position and had found love.
"Well, you certainly took your time coming home," said Charles Boucher in his gruff way, though the corner of his mouth curved faintly upward. "I was beginning to wonder whether you would ever find your way back."
"Always, Father."
Despite the merging of his own identity with that of Adam—who would have called his father Papa without hesitation—François still could not bring himself to address this man as anything other than Father. It came naturally as a mark of respect.
They embraced silently and remained so for a long while, locked in each other's arms.
"We have missed you," the old man murmured, tightening his grip as though he feared his son might slip away again.
"I missed you as well," François replied, feeling his emotions growing more difficult to keep in check.
He noticed several customers, moved by the reunion, exchanging quiet remarks and smiling.
At last, father and son drew apart.
"Did you come alone?" Charles asked, glancing toward the carriage that stood in front of the house, a glint of hope in his eyes.
"As last time," François admitted with regret. "My wife might have managed the journey, but not the children. They are still too young."
Marie Boucher rolled her eyes and set her hands on her hips.
"When will we finally meet our grandchildren? Are you waiting until we are too old and frail to hold them in our arms?"
Father and son smiled at the same time—and so similarly that Marie was momentarily taken aback.
"Come now, Marie," said Charles in an unusually gentle tone. "It is a very long journey, you know. There is nothing to be done."
"Yes. Just a little more patience," François added.
Marie heaved a deep sigh. Ever since she had learned of the children's birth, she had dreamed of nothing but holding them at last in her arms, kissing them, and spoiling them.
It had been so long since she had held a baby. In truth, not since the birth of Xavier, François's younger brother—fourteen years ago.
That late pregnancy had surprised her as much as it had her husband, but their joy had been short-lived. The delivery had gone badly, and the child had not survived.
They had barely had time to baptize him and give him the last rites.
That tragedy—far too common in that century—had caused her great sorrow. Even after all these years, she still bore the ache of it.
"Hmm?"
The elderly couple only now noticed the presence of Yann Madec, laboring to unload his employer's heavy trunks.
"And who is he?" the father asked, pointing to the young man in the broad-brimmed hat.
"Yann Madec. I hired him in Brest to help me carry my belongings and assist me."
The Breton straightened, removed his hat, and gave a somewhat awkward bow to François's parents.
"Sir, madam… a pleasure to meet you."
Charles and Marie inclined their heads slightly, without lowering their guard. One could never be too cautious.
"Come inside," said Marie in a voice that was almost commanding. "You too, Monsieur Madec. Naturally, you will stay here during your visit. We will not have you sleeping elsewhere."
Charles nodded, his expression grave.
"It may not be the dwelling of a nobleman, but our home is the equal of any inn. And this way, you will not waste your pay on lodging."
As a veteran of the War of the Austrian Succession, he knew how hard life could be even for officers, especially in financial matters.
François smiled.
"This is where I wanted to be."
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While Charles Boucher returned to his work, serving the waiting customers with the help of an apprentice, his wife led François and his man—acting as porter and valet—upstairs.
They climbed to the upper floor, where the pungent smell of blood and raw meat was less oppressive. The worst of it lingered around the outbuilding behind the shop, known simply as the killing-shed.
As its name implied, it was there that Charles slaughtered the animals he bought, so that he could sell the cuts of meat.
Yann set down the cumbersome trunks in a corner, and François hung his long coat on a hook near the stairs.
The moment he had stepped inside, a powerful wave of nostalgia had swept over him. The floor, the walls, the cuts of meat hanging in the street-facing shopfront, the smells—all of it reminded him of his childhood.
He saw again the little boy he had once been, bursting into the house like a whirlwind to tell his mother about his day's adventures at play, or sneaking a spoonful of still-warm jam.
At present, a delicious aroma filled the upper floor. Someone was preparing apple compote.
Mmm! It smells so good! And the apples here are so delicious, too!
They were not the large, glossy apples one might find in a modern marketplace. They were often dented, sometimes half-pecked by magpies—yet they were excellent. The best of all. Perfect for compotes and tarts.
Marie turned toward him with a warm smile, a smile that had not aged.
"You've arrived at just the right time, François."
"I can smell that, yes," the young man replied, stepping closer to the pot from which a gentle steam was rising.
"I'm making a compote to fill my tart. The crust is ready, and I've sliced thin pieces to lay on top."
Just from the aroma alone, François felt his cheeks tighten as his mouth watered. All he wanted at that moment was a heaping spoonful.
His mother had no need of any special intuition to read his thoughts—she handed him a wooden spoon.
"Here, taste it and tell me what you think."
She smiled with quiet confidence. She had not the slightest doubt in her cooking skills—after all, she had decades of experience behind her.
The compote was tender, naturally sweet, with a light tang. It tasted exactly as he remembered.
Afterward, François wandered through the few rooms that made up the upper floor. Almost nothing had changed since he had left more than a decade earlier.
At the far end, to the right, lay his old bedroom. Small, plain, dimly lit, but well kept. The furnishings consisted only of a firm bed, an ordinary wardrobe that had belonged to his paternal grandfather, a simple table, and a chair.
Everything he had needed in his youth.
The sheets were clean, and the air smelled neither dusty nor stale. His mother had not neglected the room despite its long disuse.
Nor had his father cluttered it with anything else.
The room was like a pigeon's nesting box—left empty, but always ready for the bird's return.
"I'll prepare some extra sheets and blankets for your companion," Marie said from the doorway, moved by the sight of her son standing in the middle of his old room.
"Thank you. Are you sure it's not a bother?" François asked politely.
But the gray-haired woman brushed aside his concern with a wave of her hand.
"Not at all! He came here with you, so he is our guest. But he will have to sleep on the floor."
François sat down on the bed and tested the mattress. It was as firm as ever, though he had known far worse.
That hasn't changed either, he thought with a faint, nostalgic smile.
"How is the business doing?" François finally asked as he stood again.
"Rather well. We were fortunate to find a good apprentice. The previous one couldn't manage."
"It's hard work," François acknowledged with a nod, recalling his own experience. "Physically exhausting."
But Marie shook her head.
"It wasn't the work itself, but the smell and the sight of blood. He nearly fainted every time an animal had to be slaughtered. In the end, just holding a knife made him sick."
I can understand that.
The memories he had of those days, when he had helped his father, were not pleasant ones.
Old recollections resurfaced, some blurred, others stark.
He remembered himself as a boy, assisting his father, who showed him how to bleed a pig before cutting it into pieces. As Charles often said, "Every part of the pig is good for something." Almost nothing went to waste—not even the feet or the ears.
His mind drifted then, for a brief moment—to misty fields somewhere in Saxony, or perhaps in Hanover. He recalled the first men he had killed.
The feel of warm blood on his hands, the sound a punctured lung made, the sight of a final breath.
Back then, he had been shocked by how easily the blade of his bayonet had slipped into a man's body—and by how simple it was to take another human life.
"Oh, by the way… do you remember Hugues?" Marie asked suddenly, pulling François back to the present.
"Hmm? Hugues?" François repeated with a slight start.
"Yes! Hugues Fouchon! Imagine—he was married last year! And do you know to whom? Catherine Romain! Who would have thought it?"
François burst into laughter.
"With Catherine?! Ha! I would never have guessed! They were always bickering when we were children. Though… perhaps that was already a sign."
Unlike François and his old friends—Jean, Charles, Jules, Louis, and little Pol—Hugues had never joined the army. He had not had the courage for it.
In François's memory, he was a frail, timid boy with perpetually tousled brown hair, easily led but always stopping at the limits set by his fear of his father… and even more so of his mother, who wielded a harsher belt.
Catherine Romain, by contrast, had been a spirited girl, fond of adventure and mischief. She loved spending time with the boys and took a perverse delight in teasing the young Hugues.
She had once said herself, not long before they departed: if she had been born a boy, she would have enlisted with them.
François had seen her again three years earlier—she had changed a great deal. He had to admit she had become a very pretty woman, yet she had lost none of her sharp-edged spirit.
He had not been particularly surprised to learn that, at twenty-five, she was still unmarried.
So they ended up marrying… he thought with a smile. I must be sure to congratulate them!
"And the others? How are they?" he asked.
Marie shrugged with an amused smile.
"You'll be able to ask them yourself soon enough. News travels fast. I'm sure that before the day is over, one of them—or all of them—will be knocking at our door."
She was not wrong.
A few hours later, as the sun began to sink and the shadows in the street grew long, Jean, Charles, Jules, and Louis appeared at the butcher's doorstep, their faces lit with the same broad, cheerful smile.