Stories Thread

[TinCow]

1060 AD

The baby was trying to cry, but the sound came out as little more than a wet gurgling. With his nose and upper lip broken, he could barely breathe.

Hugues de Perronne looked down at the infant. He knew he should feel anger, sadness, or some other emotion of sympathy or outrage, but all he really felt was relief.

“Which one of my sons did this?”

The midwife was dipping a cloth into a pail of hot water, constantly cleaning off the blood that continued to spill forth from the baby’s face. “It was Gervais, my Lord.”

Gervais. It was to be expected; he had the most to lose from the child’s birth. Five sons were too many for the Perronne estate. He had not married Marie to bear him more children. Hugues was nearly 60 and with four living sons, he had no more need of heirs. Marie was simply an amusement, a luxury, for his final years. He had not even bothered courting a noble family for a daughter; he could offer little to sustain a marriage of significance. Instead, he had taken the teenage daughter of an old squire as his third wife.

She had gained a better lifestyle than any other suitor she was likely to have received, and her father was given a modest stipend for his final years. In return, the old Lord of Perronne had a pretty young thing to amuse him in the evenings... on the few occasions when he found himself still capable of amusement.

The baby had spoiled the bargain. Marie was pretty and served her purpose well, but she had not been built for childbirth. It was a slow and painful affair, and she had not long survived it. Now Hugues was again without a wife, and in her place had a fifth son to consider.

Perronne was not a wealthy fief, far from it. The land was small, barely enough to fit the several peasant farms needed to feed the estate. The majority of the income came from ferry tolls imposed on merchants to cross the Somme River. Even that income was uncertain though. Wealthier nobles were building bridges, which were much more attractive to the merchants and would steal most of the ferry work that kept Perronne a going concern. One bridge was already under construction at a narrower crossing several miles to the south, at Béthencourt, and another was being planned to the west, at Bray.

The river was too wide at Perronne to hold a bridge, and Hugues could not have afforded the cost to construct one even if it had been possible. In any case, it was a situation for his eldest son, also named Hugues, to deal with. He would inherit the lands whole, as there was no point in splitting something that could barely sustain a single noble family as it was. Nearly 30 years old, born to Hugues’ first wife, he was doing his best to unite the Perronne lands with one of the neighboring Lords with a marriage of his own daughter, but it was difficult work. Guy, the second son, was serving as a Knight in the King’s army. With a bit of luck and skill, perhaps he could earn a fiefdom of his own. Thibaut, the first of Hugues’ sons born by his second wife, was already serving the local Abbot, and with sufficient work could achieve that position for himself some day.

That left Gervais. Gervais had little to look forward to. No inheritance, no position with the Church, and there was no longer enough money left to outfit him for service with the King. If he was lucky, he would be taken on as a squire to another local Lord, but Gervais was not lucky. He was the runt, and he knew it… at least until the new baby had arrived. Whatever little there was left for Gervais, he now faced losing half of that as well. At 10 years old, he was a demon of a child; stubborn, angry, and violent. He would make a good soldier if he could just find someone to employ him.

The midwife wiped more blood off the infant’s face. Gervais would have to be punished, but Hugues could not help but think that the boy had done them all a favor. With luck, the baby would die from the wound and that would be the end of it. Better for the Perronne family, and better for the baby as well. “Did Marie name the child before she expired?”

“Aye, m’lord” the midwife replied. “She held him for a few moments and called him Christophe.”

Christophe. At least Hugues knew what name to have inscribed on the grave stone.