Citizeness Poitier nodded, nibbling on a dirty fingernail as she looked up at her lawyer. “And haven’t we waited right long enough, sir?”
Jean-Luc reached behind him and pushed the nearby window ajar, allowing in the hint of a breeze. “If you could, citizeness, please be so kind as to take me through the circumstances of your husband’s death, and the subsequent removal of you and your children from your home.”
The widow lifted her shoulders, as if fortifying herself to recall those odious events. When she spoke, her words were marked with the accent of the working class, but she gave her testimony in a direct and authoritative manner.
“Jacques and my two eldest boys worked the land of the Marquis de Montnoir. My Jacques was a tenant farmer for the lord, like his father ’fore him. We had a cottage on our bit of land. It were nothing fancy-like, but it were ours. Had been in my husband’s family for ages and ages.”
Jean-Luc scribbled furiously as he transcribed the interview. “Go on, please, madame. I mean, citizeness.”
“One day three years ago, my eldest boy comes running through the door, screamin’ like he seen the ghost of St. Paul resurrected. He’s hollerin’ ’bout Pa being trampled. So, not having the faintest idea of what he was goin’ on about, I handed my babies over to one of my daughters and I took off down the fields. I couldn’t run awful fast, you see, because I was pregnant with this one ’ere.” The widow gestured at the little child squirming in her lap. “But when I get there, I find my Ole Jacques…” Now the widow paused, bringing the handkerchief once more to her eyes. “There he lay, flat on his back on the ground, dead from a horse’s hoof to the heart.” The widow paused, making a sign of the cross. Jean-Luc did not find it necessary to tell her that such Catholic gestures were now very dangerous.
“Citizeness, I am so sorry to hear it.” Jean-Luc sighed, his voice quiet. “But how did it happen?”
“My boys saw it happen, not me. They been down the fields, the three of ’em. It was April, so they had just set about with the sowing. Down from the house in a great hurry come the marquis and a number of his lackeys. The marquis were always riding by, snooping about on his way to the hunt or into town, so my Jacques don’t think much on it, and he tell the boys to keep working. Strong lads they were. But then the marquis halted his horse right before them and started bothering my Jacques, going on about rent, claiming we was late on our payments. That was a bald-faced lie, you see. My Jacques never missed a payment in his life. We was honest folk who paid our dues, and the marquis knew it!”
Jean-Luc nodded slowly. “Understood. Please continue—what happened next?”
“So, my husband gets to defending himself before the marquis and his ruffians. He weren’t one for getting harassed by a good-for-nothing nobleman who toys with his tenant farmers for sport. So, the way my sons tell it, the marquis gets to shouting, and so my husband starts shouting back. Only defending hisself, mind you. Next thing they knew, the marquis has his whip flying, begins beating my husband and my husband’s poor farm horse. My sons tried to stop the seigneur, but his guards held ’em back.” The widow again paused, collecting herself.
“The marquis must have hit the farm horse one too many times, because next thing they know, the old cob is rising up, hooves in the air like he’s just been visited by the devil himself. Pretty close to the devil, that marquis, if you ask me. My husband tried to calm the beast, before he took off across the fields and caused some real trouble for him. But you see…when the horse landed…” Her voice trailed off. Jean-Luc gave her a moment, but he needed to hear it, for the legal record.
“The horse trampled your husband, Citizeness Poitier?”
“Aye.” The woman nodded, her voice feeble as Jean-Luc recorded the exchange.
After a pause, the widow looked up, her eyes steeped with moisture but fierce, as if inflamed by a growing thirst for vengeance. “But you see, the whole business were made up—the charges that we was late on payments.”
“Yes, you mentioned that your husband had never been late on his payments. Can you please explain that matter a bit further? Why do you believe that the Marquis de Montnoir would have leveled those false charges against your husband?”
“I know exactly why he done it.” She nodded. “The Marquis de Montnoir were a cruel man by nature. Always had been, to hear my husband tell it. But his meanness aside, the lord was angry at us that spring season. Ask anyone on the land; he had it out for my poor husband.”