John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

" 'Well, Sophie,' Monsieur demanded (I mean to invent these colloquies for the sake of interest, if the Laureate hath no objection) — 'Well, now, Sophie,' he demanded, 'what do you say of Edouardine?' And Madame Edouard replied, ' "Tis lovely, mon cher.'

" 'Lovely, you say!' (Can't you see him turning red like Papa, and poor Sophie lowering her eyes?) 'Lovely, you say! C'est magnifique! Sans pareil! And my palissade! Why, we are invulnerable!' And then he demanded to know whether Alfred too regarded Edouardine as merely beau.

" 'The house is superb, Monsieur,' I can hear Alfred saying — very calmly, you know. 'It is truly elegant.'

" 'Eh? You think so? That's more to the mark!' "

Ebenezer, Anna, and Mary Mungummory applauded Henrietta's lively mimicking of the Count and his timid valet.

" 'But if Monsieur will observe — '

" 'What's that? Observe what?'

" 'I think of the salvage Indians, Monsieur. .'

" 'Ah, you think of them? Did you hear that, Sophie? He thinks of les sauvages, doth this Alfred! And do you suppose I think of aught besides, idiot? Small chance they have of broaching my palisade!'

" 'None whate'er, Monsieur; but I fear they would not need to broach it.'

" 'And how is that, pray? Do you fancy they have artillery?'

"Whereupon Alfred must have cleared his throat and said politely, 'I have heard, Monsieur, that these salvages make use of flaming arrows in siege. Despite your clearing the trees, they could very well (if they'd a mind to) stand off yonder in the forest and throw such arrows over the palisade onto the house — which then must surely take fire, inasmuch as 'tis made of wood. Monsieur would be obliged to use many men to put out the fire, and thus leave the palisade weakly manned: the salvages would be upon us in short order. Always assuming, of course, that they are hostile.'

" 'Ridiculous!' I daresay Cecile came nigh to striking the valet for having mentioned such a possibility. But next day the carpenters, that were making ready to return to St. Mary's City, found themselves engaged for another three months, for the purpose of rebuilding the house they had just completed. Moreover, their new job involved no carpentry at all, but laying bricks. First Monsieur sent a party to explore the beaches for clay; when they found a good bed he set half his crew to digging, shaping, and firing, and the other half to mixing mortar and laying the finished bricks. What he did, in effect, was erect a new house of brick to encase the wooden one, leaving all the doors and windows in their original locations. It wanted four months instead of three to complete the job, during which period Indians were remarked more frequently than before, in ones and twos. The finished manor even Maman remembers as a formidable affair.

"When the last brick was in place, Monsieur Edouard assembled all his workmen and servants before the house. Some weeks earlier, one of their number — I'll have more to say of him anon: he was an English redemptioner so jealous of his master's favor that he changed his name from James to Jacques - this fellow had found a salvage bow and arrows in the woods nearby, and now Cecile instructed him to secure a resinous pine knot to the shaft of an arrow, down by the head, and set it ablaze, after what was held to be the manner of the Indians.

" 'Now fire,' he ordered Jacques. 'Shoot the arrow at my house, s'il vous plait.' The redemptioner took aim and, being a reasonably good marksman, contrived to hit the great house some thirty feet distant. The arrow glanced off the bricks and fell to the ground.

" 'Voil à!' Cecile shouted in Alfred's ear. 'Can they harm us now?'

" 'I see no likelihood that they will, Monsieur. So long as the salvages have a care to aim only at the walls, we are as secure as the Bastille.'

" 'What new folly is this you've hatched?'

" 'Should they shoot from the woods, Monsieur,' Alfred ventured, 'as they assuredly would do, why then they must needs aim high, the more so since these fire-arrows are so heavy. Reason dictates that a high trajectory would be most likely to bring the arrows down upon the roof, and the roof is still made of wood."

"For some moments Cecile could not find his voice, and the fellow with the bow, who was envious of Alfred's position in the household, offered to put his theory to the test; but Cecile snatched away the bow and dismissed the company, calling them idlers and ne'er-do-wells. On the following day the men found themselves dispatched in search of slate, for the purpose of recovering the roof. .

"Now it happens that there is not a piece of roofing slate in the whole of Dorset; the men combed the countryside and the riverbanks for days and discovered naught but a few hunting Indians here and there. These they joyfully reported to their employer, who grew so frightened that he scarcely durst venture beyond his palissade, and cursed Alfred with every breath. Finally he ordered the workmen to cover the peaked roof with large, flat bricks. Under the additional weight the rafters commenced to buckle; it became necessary to fashion heavy piers from whole logs to support them. The job required another month and immeasurable bother, inasmuch as portions of the floors and partitions had to be removed to accommodate the piers. Upon its completion the house looked secure indeed, if somewhat grotesque: it was during this period that the laborers dubbed it The Castle in jest, and Monsieur Edouard, for once more flattered than annoyed, renamed his property Castlehaven. Again the company was assembled before the main entrance, and obliging Jacques lobbed a new fire-arrow onto the roof. It struck the tiles, rolled down the slope, and came to rest upon a cornice, where it burned out.

" 'Well, sir?' Cecile demanded, and none replied. Alfred looked away.

" 'I command you to say truthfully, on pain of flogging: is my castle invuln érable? My Jacques shall fire where'er you wish!"

" 'I have no love for floggings, Monsieur.'

" 'Then you must command him.'

"Jacques, I imagine, was so pleased that he could scarcely manage to light a new fire-arrow and draw the bow. 'Into a window,' Alfred murmured, 'any window. .' And he indicated with his arm the rows of open window frames on both floors of the house.

" 'Son of a harlot!' Cecile cried, and this time when he snatched the bow he took a cut at Alfred, who'd surely had his skull cracked had he not sprung back. The company dispersed, and Alfred was birched that night for the first time since, on his advice, the m énage Edouard had abandoned Paris. During the next week all the first-floor windows were bricked in, and those on the second floor were reduced to shuttered embrasures like cannon-ports. The absence of light and air made living downstairs intolerable, but so secure was Cecile in his fortress that he was actually smiling when he assembled everyone for the third time to witness his triumph over his servant.

" 'Have I left aught undone?'

" 'Naught, Monsieur, that I can imagine.'

" 'Ha, did you hear, mes amis? Monsieur Alfred hath assured me I am safe. I think he will detain you no longer. Make ready to depart.'

" 'Ah, Monsieur, I shouldn't dismiss them.'

"Cecile squeezed the valet's arm. 'Oh, you shouldn't, shouldn't you? And may your poor master hear the reason?'

" 'When the workmen are gone, Monsieur, you will have only your servants and yourself to defend the house: four men to a door. But the salvage, if he hath a fancy to attack us, will attack from every side — '

" 'Flog this man!' Cecile cried, and the fellow was dragged off by Jacques and the others. Then the overseer of the workmen enquired whether his men were free to go. 'Idiot!' Cecile thundered. 'Close up the doorways, all save one, and fix two stout crossbars to that!'