1001 Nights Cast

‘Ah! There you are Jacques! Have you had your breakfast? I see that you have not yet shaved.’

‘Not yet master. The stubble of my beard is ten times stronger than the bristles on a boar!’

Jacques reached across the bushes to take up his dry shirt. He stretched it over his head and pushed his arms through the sleeves, pulled on his breeches and sat heavily on the grass bank to put on his boots.

‘Where are we going today, master? Will we get beyond Marqueyssac?’

‘That is my intention Jacques. Marqueyssac is just a mile or so along the river and I have some business to account for with Monsieur de Cerval. I wish to see his new garden made in the Italian style. I have heard that it is superb and that his botanical research has been prodigious. After that, we may have to take a boat or a barge down stream at Beynac. Never mind that for the moment, I have a surprise for you. My bed has been cold for some time. I have been busy while you were swimming the horse. Stir your stumps now.’

The master led Jacques across the road and into the stables. The ostler was brushing the flanks of a sharp looking black horse.

‘Voila! Jacques! Your days of walking are over. You have been a faithful servant and saved me from many a dark day. Besides, we will need to make haste if we meet the bandits who are reported to be nearby.’

Jacques held the horse’s bridle with both hands and looked it in the eye. He lifted its lips with his thumbs to check its teeth. He ran a hand down its shoulder, felt its leg and lifted its hoof to check underneath. Keeping a hand on its coat he walked around its rump and along the other side.

‘He’s a fine horse and sound, master. You have done well and we will do well, just as it is written.’

Jacques kept the bright light of his joy in check while they both smiled in satisfaction.

‘Come now Jacques it’s time to eat a hearty breakfast.’

The innkeeper had laid out a fine selection of confitures and the baguettes were golden and crisp. The coffee smelt strong and the aroma so rich that while I was writing this, I was compelled to make myself a cup so that I could sip it while I enjoyed watching Jacques and his master hoe into their food. The innkeeper himself was also so affected that he poured himself a large mug. A spirit of generosity filled the air. The innkeeper’s wife took a steaming tankard out to the ostler. The Dordogne was awash with the scent of coffee, so much so that a bargeman several kilometres down stream lifted his nose to the breeze and sighed. At first I thought that all I had heard was the wind wafting through the willows as his exhalation pushed its way up stream.

Jacques and his master felt the coffee course through their veins. The sugar from the confiture followed fast behind. As one, they pushed back their chairs and stood up. The ostler led both of their horses, one strawberry roan and the other black, to the front of the Inn.

By the time they had ridden a few metres along the road, Jacques found his new horse to be more than a little skittish. He was hard-pressed to keep its head pointed in the right direction. I felt a little concerned because I did not yet know how skilled Jacques was as a rider. He had handled his master’s horse well in the river so I should not have worried.

‘Well master, there’s no doubt that this horse has spirit, but I think he is a little short-sighted. He shies at the drop of a hat and more. I will have to keep my wits about me.’

His master replied, ‘In my opinion, Jacques, he has an excess of energy. These Dordogne pastures are rich and he’s eaten well. I can’t see his ribs. Take him for a short sprint down the road and see if that settles him down.’

The master held his horse in check while Jacques leaned forward and applied his heels to the black gelding’s sides. With a flick of its docked tail and an enormous fart, the horse bounded forward straight into a gallop. Jacques was a little shocked. He recovered his neck from its mild whiplash and leaned forward into the stirrups. They galloped away round a bend in the road.

The master could hear the drum of its hooves fading off into the distance. The silence settled down onto and around him. The cicadas had just begun their daily orchestrations. He heard a cow tearing at the grass in the meadow to his right and he was not sure that he liked to be alone. His thoughts drifted and he considered how he had come to depend on his servant, how he enjoyed the man’s common sense that was spiced by his intelligence and wit. The big man sighed.

Just at that moment, in the seconds before he might have begun to worry, to wonder if he should hasten himself down the road to look for Jacques, he heard the black horse returning still at the gallop. When they hove into sight, he could see Jacques standing in the stirrups and waving his hat. The horse’s shoulders were flecked with white foam.

‘Master! Master!’

His sense of urgency was contagious and the master’s horse caught the spirit of it and began to dance in tight circles.

‘It’s Reynard! He has turned Sabbatarian! He is standing on a tree stump and accosting all who dare travel on the Sabbath. He has renamed the Dordogne the Sabbat and says that if we don’t turn back it will dry up!’

He drew his horse up expertly and with a sly expression enquired, ‘Do I have your permission to give him a flogging master?’