“See, Raoul, I am treating you as a man. I am trusting you. Does that mean something to you?”
Raoul nodded. “Yes, Master Shepherd, I like you. I would serve you,” he answered simply.
“Then listen well. I would ask you to take a letter to Champar, the cross-eyed coach driver on the Amiens road. The crossroad where he turns toward Melon is only a few miles from your master’s farm. You are simply to hand him the letter and say nothing.” Dian looked down earnestly at Raoul’s simple, round face.
“You may trust me right well, Shepherd,” Raoul said. “I’ll see that Champar gets the letter safe enough.”
They had reached the gates, and they stood for a while watching the carts go through. Suddenly they saw Vivi. She carried a tray from which dangled a row of tin cups, and on the top of which was balanced a tall pewter jug.
“Licorice water, licorice water! Who’s thirsty?” she called out at intervals, and she did quite a thriving trade as she went about among the people.
“Hi there, girl, another cup for me. Sacré, it’s a poor drink, but I don’t see any wine kegs about, and it’s thirsty work seeing that no aristocrats get through the gates,” said a soldier coming up to her.
Vivi grinned at him from under her straggling black locks as she poured some of the sweet grey mixture into one of the cups. She liked to have adventures so that she could tell Rosanne about them at night. She meant to stop at a little shop she knew on the rue Saint Antoine and buy a bit of sweet cake as a treat for Rosanne’s supper. Now that she had a few pennies to spend she liked to buy some little thing to cheer her friend, for whom the days dragged slowly.
“Let me go through the gates, Georges Fardou, just for fun,” she pleaded.
The soldier in charge gave a good-natured laugh and looked down at her.