Book One
Chapter One
When Fox Was Five
Jean-Renard
De la Tour started life with two big problems, possibly three depending on how
you count his Grand’Mere. The first was the time in which he was born: 1873.
The second was the place: a blighted little backwater village in France called
Val des Mines.
Of
course to be born in Val des Mines was a handicap even for its most fortunate
sons (which were not many), but Fox’s circumstances were particularly grim. Regarding
Grand’Mere, more in a minute.
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| Fox at Five |
Those
Val des Minians who bothered to speculate about Fox’s father said that Coco De
la Tour was surely the guilty party.
However, since Coco was the youngest son of the Royal Prosecutor in the
district they didn’t say this too loudly. Naturally, the De la Tour family had not dignified
these rumors with any acknowledgement. Neither had they bothered with a denial.
There really wasn’t any need as everybody in Val des Mines quite properly (as
they thought), blamed the situation entirely on Jeanne, Fox’s young mother.
In
any case, even if Coco had been willing to admit his part in producing little Fox,
even if he claimed him outright, the boy would never be recognized as a true De la Tour. This is because Jeanne
and Coco had never been married. The very idea of such a union was ridiculous. Jeanne was a barefoot girl who sold geese and
things that could be made of geese in the market. Coco was a De la Tour.
It’s
almost impossible to imagine today what a calamity this husbandless status was for
Jeanne and this fatherless status was for Fox. Grand’Mere said frequently - and
loudly - that both would have been better off dead. The people of Val des Mines did not like Grand’Mere,
but they generally agreed with her on this point. Like every other rural
village the world over, then and since, there were many mouths in Val des Mines
to talk, and very few heads to think.
You
might be thinking, however, that at least poor Fox had Jeanne and vice versa –
and you’d be right - but also wrong.
When
Fox was five, Jeanne stepped on a wooden board that had been dislodged from
above the doorframe of the stable of their little farm. The board had a nail in
it that had been hammered into place in the year 1528. Jeanne was barefoot. She had spent her whole
life, short as it was, trailing along barefoot after the geese. This had made
her feet hard as leather, but that rusty iron nail - with its load of bacteria
from more than three hundred and fifty years of farmyard existence - punctured
soft spot on the arch of her right foot.
It poisoned her blood. It locked her jaw. In three weeks she was dead.
So,
having started life as a despised, illegitimate child, poor little Fox managed
to drop another rung down the ladder of misfortune to being an orphaned, despised, illegitimate child. Worse, he was then left in the sole care of
Grand’Mere.
Fox
had no real notion of what he had lost by not having a father, never having
laid eyes on Coco himself. (Coco had married a wealthy Italian widow a few
weeks before Fox’s arrival and had promptly moved to her home in Venice). The
boy understood, however, or at least he felt, the full, crushing disaster of
his mother’s death. Fox spent the first days after Jeanne’s bewildering
disappearance hiding in her bed – seeking her lost warmth, breathing the smell
of her on the pillows.
You
will not be surprised to hear that Fox soon became ill himself, deathly ill.
There are germs that know how to exploit bewilderment, that can creep in via a
broken heart. On the third night of his illness his fever was so high it seemed
to Grand’Mere that the bedclothes might burst into flame. On that night she was
afraid. Not so much for Fox, but for herself. There might be trouble, she
thought, if she didn’t fetch a doctor and the boy, you know, died.
She
held her nerve, however. The thought of the Doctors high fees put some starch
in her spine. Also, she thought, truth be told, it would be a blessing for her and,
really, for Fox as well, if he were to exit the scene at this point. So many
problems would be solved! A plan she had been hatching for years, many years,
was coming close to execution and Fox was wrinkle in that plan. It would be
fair, given the disappointments she’d known and the fate she had suffered, to
be given a clean slate. She could do what she wanted with what sliver of life
remained to her now, without a brat in tow, bleeding her dry.
And
then, leaving herself aside, she would be doing him a favor to let him slip
away. What future was there for such a one? She would be blameless - nature
taking its course and all. She could tell the doctor his illness had been
sudden, which was not altogether untrue... She got back to sleep that night by
mentally rehearsing the story she would tell the doctor the next day.
When
the next morning broke Grand’Mere rose quietly and crept across the room of
their cottage. Was he breathing? She pulled the tangled covers back from his
little body with a trembling hand. She nearly jumped out of her skin when he
rolled over. He sat up. He blinked at her, wordlessly. It was as though a bony
finger had tapped her heart and turned it to stone. She gasped. She stared at
him. He stared back.
She
saw that he was changed. He had a new, peculiar beauty in his baby face. She
could not read his expression and this unsettled her. His continued existence
was going to be a problem, an expensive one, no doubt. This made her angry.
Anger brought the pulse back to her temples. She shouted at him to get up and
fetch the water.
He
did not stir. It was as though he had not heard. He only stared at her some
more, blinking. She grabbed the bucket from the table and shoved the rope
handle into his little hand. He tried to grasp it but he couldn’t get his
swollen fingers to close. His hands looked just like two balloons. She clouted
the side of his head. He opened his mouth as if to say something. Only a
strangled grunt emerged.
Grand’Mere
shouted at him again to fetch the water, but he did not react. She stepped back and considered.
He
had gone deaf with the fever, she reasoned. He had gone mute. She had heard of
such things. At five years of age, it seemed Fox’s catalog of misfortune was
complete.
Grand’Mere
picked up the bucket again and forcibly closed Fox’s stiff fingers around the
handle. He managed, only just, to keep hold of it. She mimed pumping. Fox understood. Water fetching had been his job since his
mother’s death. Barefoot and in his nightshirt he took the bucket to the pump
in front of the stable from which the fatal board had dropped. He set it down
beneath the spigot and pumped the handle. When the water started flowing he
marveled at its soundless fall into the wooden bucket. He pumped and pumped
until the bucket overflowed and pooled around his feet. He ran the cold water
over his swollen hands, which seemed to deflate a little with the exercise and
cold water. He might have gone on like this all day but as the water neared his
ankles he heard a raspy voice say, “You’re getting your feet wet. That can’t be
good for you, in your condition.”
Fox
looked up. There was no one near. He scanned the farmyard. Nothing. He was
about to return to pumping, when he caught a movement at the edge of his
vision. There, in an old oak tree on the far side of the cottage, on long leafless
branch, low down on the tree, stood a large crow. It was not unusual to see
crows in that oak. They were always there. In fact, the “crow oak” had given the cottage
an evil reputation in the neighborhood. This Crow, however, was very odd. It
was quite large for one thing, and unusually ragged. It was also paying close
attention to Fox. The boy and the bird locked eyes. The crow flapped its wings.
“So
it has transpired. Mon Dieu,” the
bird said, though there was no motion of its beak.
Fox
rubbed his eyes and looked again.
“Yes.
It’s me!” the bird said in the same mysterious fashion. It spoke in the voice
of an old man with a strange accent. It’s unreadable, birdy expression did not
change. Fox tried to say, “But you’re a bird. Birds don’t speak.” He opened his
mouth, but again no intelligible sound came out. Nevertheless, the bird answered
him.
“Of
course we speak! It’s true we don’t usually speak to people, but you, little
Fox, are a special case. Mon Dieu, it has come to pass. I suppose
we must begin. Where to begin. Why don’t you step out of that puddle, Fox.”
Fox
tried to say, “But crows don’t speak words – you just say, “Crôa Crôa Crôa” (which is French for,
‘caw caw caw’). Just as he formed this thought, one to which he found he could
not give voice, the bird swooped down off the branch and landed on the ground
at Fox’s feet.
“Just because that’s all you’ve ever heard
crows say doesn’t mean that’s all we can
say.” The bird shook his black head. “Humans. Always going wrong in the same
way.”
“Pardon
me, Monsieur Crow,” Fox tried to say, more politely this time.
“Never
mind that,” the bird said. “It’s of no consequence. Just try to remember. You
don’t need to bother with that kind of vulgar throat talking now. I can hear
your thoughts, at least when they are directed at me. If you go around mumming
like that people will avoid you more than they already do.”
“Yes,
Monsieur Crow,” Fox thought.
“Very
good” said the Crow. “Now, let me say that I am pleased to meet you and allow
me introduce myself. I am Doctor Davies.”
“Pleased
to meet you Monsieur le Docteur.” Fox
said, remembering not to try to say it aloud.
“Excellent.
You catch on quickly. That will be helpful. We have work to do and not so much
time to do it.” The Crow hopped a little closer. “We are going to help you, Fox. We are going
to help you turn things around. At least that is our plan. Well, strictly
speaking it is my plan but the others will come along.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Fox said,
looking around, “who are you talking about? There is only me and Grand’Mere
here.”
“No, you are most definitely not the only ones here. Now, take that
bucket into the Spider - that is how we call the old woman. You don’t mind do
you?”
“Carrying
the bucket in or calling Grand’Mere, ‘Spider?’”
“Both
I suppose.”
Fox
shook his head “no.”
“Good.
Now take the bucket inside and get something to eat from the Spider if you can.
Then get a blanket and come meet me in the stable. I shall introduce you,
properly at last, to your friends, and you shall find out from whence you came
and where, I hope, you are going.”
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