Текст книги "Memory of Flames"

Автор книги: Armand Cabasson

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

CHAPTER 35

MARGONT recounted the happenings to Palenier, who in turn relayed them to Joseph. When the latter heard that the Swords of the King had been planning to assassinate his brother, he flew into a terrible rage. But it was obvious that his shouting and recriminations were partly to camouflage his fear. He immediately mobilised all available forces but to little avail.

His personal police burst into various houses where they thought members of the Swords of the King were hiding and arrested some suspects. They went back to the ‘treasure-trove’ and picked up the man Margont had wounded. But as Leaume, with his mania for secrecy, had not told him anything, he could provide no new information. The man Lefine had shot had escaped with the others. There were drops of blood on the stairs, but the telltale trail ended abruptly in the courtyard – he must have taken care to stem the bleeding with a handkerchief. Lefine thought they would find him not far from Charles de Varencourt’s body, but that was not the case. Margont voiced the theory that it had taken so long for Joseph’s agents to surround the house – because Lefine had had trouble finding the building again – that Charles de Varencout had been able to prove his innocence to the others. Or else he had profited from the general panic and had managed to escape.

The only committee member they arrested was Catherine de Saltonges, and that was perfectly straightforward. She had gone home, thinking she had several hours before Margont and Lefine’s bosses realised they were missing, and was gathering her belongings, preparing to leave Paris, when Joseph’s police burst in. So it was the least culpable member, the one who had not wanted to be present at a double murder, that was arrested. She had been taken to Temple prison where Palenier interrogated her, but did not mistreat her, Margont having made him swear on his honour not to. Margont was also going to question her. But first, exhausted by the events of the past few days, he returned with Lefine to their barracks, to calm his rage and fears, and work out a tactic to make Catherine de Saltonges talk. For he was absolutely certain that she would give nothing away to Joseph’s agents.

CHAPTER 36

THE companies of the 2nd Legion were training in the courtyard, sullying the night with the din of their orders and discordant rhythmical steps. The voice of Colonel Saber could be heard at regular intervals bellowing a command, ‘In column formation!’ Then there would be the clatter of running steps, whisperings, the metallic clanking of a bayonet dropping to the ground, confused noises, hesitations, exasperated reprimands from the NCOs. Nothing ever went quite right and Saber would make them start all over again from the beginning. There he was, sitting straight up on his black horse, in full regalia, the Legion d’Honneur on his chest, pointing at wrongdoers with his sabre, for all the world like the god Odin trying to resurrect the Wild Hunt. But the heroic soldiers killed in battle would never get up again to defend Paris ...

Margont was recuperating his strength, stretched out on his bed -a real bed, not a louse-ridden palliasse. He was turning the button in his fingers and it gleamed in the moonlight. The distortions and the patterns caught the light in various ways, creating a changing mosaic of shadows and golden points. He felt as if he were handling a box of secrets that he would only be able to open once he had worked out the subtle mechanism. He applied his usual method of approaching the problem from several different angles, hoping that inspiration would strike, allowing him to see the button in a new way. And it did! To such an extent that he wondered if it was the same button ... Those symbols ... There was a sort of A, or a sort of 'A, or n ... An A with a strange accent, horizontal, and attached to the letter and rolled back on itself... A bizarre A’ surmounted by something ... Margont sat up suddenly. So suddenly that the button dropped from his fingers and fell on the floor. He could not quite take in the implications of what he had realised. His heart was thumping as if he were in danger; his muscles tensed – he was ready to attack; cold sweat trickled down his back ... His body seemed to have understood before his mind ... Margont wondered why he had not leapt up already to retrieve the button and examine it again. He rose and picked it up cautiously, as if it were one of those old hand grenades, which no army ever used any more because of their tendency to explode in the hands of the grenadiers supposed to toss them at the enemy. He held it in front of his eyes, closer and closer, to try to see it more clearly.

The strange consecutive marks he had mistaken for damage to the button were in fact the astonishing outline of symbols. It was not that the letter was very badly worn away, it was actually only a little damaged. What had misled him was that it was represented in a very unusual way. An A’ styled in the Cyrillic way and topped by a cross with triangular arms: the monogram of Tsar Alexander and the cross of the Opolchenie, the Russian militia. The button came from a Russian army uniform. Margont’s mind was immediately filled with unwelcome memories. How vivid they were! An expanse of grass spread itself rapidly across the floor: the immense Moscow plain unfurled in front of him, pushing back the walls of the bedroom as if they were mere straw. Lines and lines of French soldiers advanced elbow to elbow; Margont was marching with them, Lefine at his side. Cannonballs rained on them, mowing men down, dismembering them, throwing up unbelievable sprays of blood. ‘Close ranks! Close ranks!’ yelled Margont. The Russians were converging on them, dark-green multitudes slicing through the vivid green of the hills. They were shouting ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ seemingly contemptuous of the missiles raining down on them as well. They were everywhere, on all sides, terrible hordes hurtling down the slopes towards them. Margont was covered in blood, but it wasn’t his, or perhaps it was and he was well and truly injured; he no longer knew ... The lines collided, skewering themselves on the thousands of bayonets. A Russian infantryman charged Margont, his eyes blazing, his mouth stretched wide in a yell of rage, like one of the three Furies. A French soldier intercepted him, brandishing a bayonet, and the Russian, carried away in a trance by his ardour, was impaled on the point. He used his last seconds of life to fire point-blank at his adversary’s stomach. The two soldiers collapsed at Margont’s feet. They seemed to be arm in arm, their lips touching in a bloody parody of a kiss. Margont was wreathed in gun smoke. All around him, figures were massacring each other, making an absurd Chinese shadow theatre. The plain was gradually filling with a reddish light.

Then another memory. It was hot. Something was burning. Everythingwas burning. Moscow was in flames. Margont found himself running through the streets, dressed any old how, and still only half awake. Lefine, Saber and Piquebois were dragging him in their wake. Buildings were falling down, spitting out millions of burning fragments, which filled the night, twirling in the wind like swarms of fireflies, then falling to the ground further away. It was like being caught in the rain, but the drops were incandescent. The very night seemed to be turning red as if it were about to burst into flames itself. Then somewhere on the road back to France, snow began to fall. Flakes swirled in a thick fog. Margont shivered inside his many layers of clothing, walking on a carpet of white, seeing nothing but white, swallowing it, even. White on white. The world seemed to have been erased. During the last hours of the Grande Armée’s retreat from Moscow, Margont felt he was the last person alive. The snowflakes were covering him over little by little, obliterating him too. And then a fissure appeared in the ground, growing wider. No, not a fissure, it was the river whose black waters were carrying along blocks of ice and corpses. The Berezina. Margont went over to the riverbank. He was so tired. The retreat had been going on for weeks. Marching, always marching under attack from the Cossacks, the partisans or the regular army. He was so desperate he thought of submerging himself in the water. Yes, how tempting to sink into an inky sleep ... A point of light appeared in the depths of the current. It was a little gold object apparently rising to the surface. The button ... Its feeble golden glimmer was shining in his palm ...

Margont came back to reality. He was here in his officers room in his barracks. He was in Paris, Moscow was over. He repeated that obvious truth to himself.

He closed his hand around the button, willing it to disappear. But it was too late, he could not now close the Pandora’s box. A second flood of memories washed over him and he sank again into chaotic reminiscences of snowstorms and massacres.

CHAPTER 37

‘Attention!’

Lefine froze. Unluckily a captain had spotted him in a corridor and ordered him into uniform to rejoin his company. His protestations and explanations had proved fruitless. He therefore found himself on Place Vendome, the mustering place of the 2nd Legion – one thousand three hundred soldiers, two four-pound cannons and two eight-pound cannons.

The National Guard were at the end of their tether. Some were swaying gently back and forth. Two had already collapsed in exhaustion. No one dared look up for fear of catching the eye of the colonel. So instead, everyone was staring at his horse, Beau Coureur, or Beelzebub, as he was commonly known. Saber was mad with rage.

‘I appear to be commanding a legion of scarecrows. Unfortunately our opponents are not sparrows!’

Beelzebub came spontaneously over to stand by Lefine, putting his muzzle close to Lefine’s face. The horse was said to have supernatural powers, like thinking up insults for his master to use. ‘At ease!’ thundered Saber. ‘Sergeant Lefine! Now you are an experienced combatant! How do you explain the lamentable state of your soldiers’ uniforms?’

Lefine was despairing. To think they had once been friends! Saber had certainly changed. Was that what was meant by power corrupting?

‘The men are exhausted, Colonel!’ he cried.

‘When we are tired, so are the enemy! It’s the first side to yield that loses! On my command: in attack columns!’

The result was pathetic. The National Guard were staggering; they no longer knew left from right. Watching them was like seeing mosquitoes swarming about, attracted by pools of light.

Margont, who had seen that the barracks were almost empty of soldiers, had guessed what had happened when he had discovered that Lefine was nowhere to be found. To make things easier he had had two horses saddled. He rode one and led the other beast by the bridle. Beelzebub immediately turned his head in their direction. Margont spotted Lefine and waved him over. Was he so absorbed in the investigation that he did not notice all the men exercising? Or was he openly rebelling against his colonel? Lefine felt like a piece of meat being fought over by two furious dogs.

‘I’ve discovered something new. We have to act immediately!’ insisted Margont.

Lefine saluted his colonel, gave his rifle to a guardsman who didn’t have one – there weren’t enough to go round – and joined Margont. Saber watched them leaving. He pointed at Margont with his sword.

‘Thank heavens there’s someone other than me in this legion who’s doing something! Continue with your manoeuvre!’

He waited until the attack column was finally formed. He saw the men struggling, knocking into each other, jostling to get into the correct positions. They didn’t look happy. Well then, how would they look when he gave the order to move from attack line to battle line?

Margont and Lefine hurried off into the freezing streets.

It was almost midnight, but Paris was still very busy. In the rich quarters conversations and music escaped from the lighted houses. The rich were going to eat, talk, dance and gamble until two in the morning, when tea would be served – not English, of course, lapsang souchong! – and green tea punch and sweet-meats. As incredible as it might seem, many Parisians still did not believe that Paris was threatened. They assumed that Napoleon would sort it all out. In the poorer areas too, people were still about, making merry in the cabarets. In winter cabarets were supposed to close at ten o’clock in the evening, but regulars paid no heed to that and continued to have fun. The commissioner of each arrondissement was supposed to go round enforcing the closing hours, accompanied by an officer of the peace, three inspectors and half a dozen soldiers from the municipal guard, but this inevitably deteriorated into fisticuffs.

Lefine besieged Margont with questions, but did not receive much response. Lefine was accustomed to his friend’s ways and knew he had to wait for him to order his thoughts.

Margont handed their horses to a sentry and Joseph’s men admitted them to the Temple prison.

A warder led them through dark corridors running with humidity. They ended up in a room dimly lit by a single malodorous oil lamp that did not give out much light.

‘I’ll let Monsieur Palenier know you’re here,’ said the warder as he withdrew.

Margont knew next to nothing about Palenier. But he was annoyed with him and the feeling was mutual. Palenier considered that it was Margont’s fault that the arrest of the committee members of the Swords of the King had failed, and he was trying to persuade Joseph of that fact.

‘I would like to know where we stand,’ Lefine stated for the fourth time.

Finally Margont was listening. ‘Yes, of course. Everything is brutally clear now.’

'I'm not sure about clear, but I can certainly believe the brutally part!’

Taking everything in the right order ... It’s when they stole Joseph’s letter from me that I realised that Leaume and his colleagues were going to try to assassinate the Emperor. Then there’s the curare and the fact that we know the man who used it is definitely a member of the Swords of the King. They must have gone to a lot of trouble to obtain such a rare substance. If you want to poison someone in France there are lots of other types of poison available. What was to stop them using arsenic? Or cyanide? Then I realised that imperial bigwigs all have tasters and trusted servants to oversee the preparation of their food. I also understood that the Swords of the King must be aiming at someone extremely important or else the Allies wouldn’t have agreed to help them procure the curare. Even though it’s possible that it was merely a business transaction, and the Swords of the King paid intermediaries, our royalists must have had the co-operation of the Portuguese and perhaps also the English, who have had special links with Portugal ever since they transferred their court to Brazil.’

He passed his hands through his hair, a familiar mannerism of his.

‘Here’s what I think. First, Charles de Varencourt becomes a police informer, but he’s playing a double game, and acting with the knowledge of the committee members. Secondly, one of them, I don’t know which yet, murders Colonel Berle and leaves the group’s emblem on the body. Their aim is to trigger an inquiry, which they hope will be led by a secret police agent, as is often the case when a murder has political and military implications. Varencourt will, of course, be questioned by the investigator. They hadn’t envisaged that I would insist that Varencourt should arrange for me to become a committee member, but they adapt their plan accordingly. They agree to take risks to allay my suspicions: they meet me – all the committee members are obliged to introduce themselves to me, since I had forced them to admit me to the heart of their committee – they go to my printing press ... At our next meeting Varencourt has to try to assess whether I am

going to advise Joseph to try to arrest everyone or not. He’s forced to give me accurate information about the main committee members because if he feeds me nonsense Joseph’s agents will notice that his information does not tally with what they already know. And the aim of all that was just to get their hands on the letter Joseph had given me! It’s not easy to get close to Napoleon. But if someone passes themselves off as one of Joseph’s secret police, if he obviously has detailed knowledge of the investigation he is talking about and if he presents a letter signed by Joseph I, the Emperor’s own brother, then he would be allowed to speak to Napoleon after being searched. And what guard would notice a needle slipped into a pocket? Jean-Quenin assures me that one simple injection of curare is fatal in a few seconds.’

Lefine was gradually grasping the idea.

‘So one of them really was going to try to assassinate the Emperor »

‘No! I was going to try to assassinate the Emperor! It’s my name written on that letter: Lieutenant-Colonel Quentin Margont!’

He was so furious he seemed on the point of tearing up everything around him, since he could not tear up the damned letter. Lefine was not yet convinced, like a St Thomas demanding further proof. ‘But why the burns? Why kill the Tsar’s envoy?’

Margont brandished the damaged button.

‘The answers are all here! Come with me. I’m going to question Catherine de Saltonges. I’m going to force her to tell me who her lover is. And that, my friend, is our killer.'

CHAPTER 38

PALENIER appeared, with one of his men. They were both scarlet with rage.

'The whore! She’s given us nothing!’ Palenier fumed.

‘Do I have to go on interrogating her, Monsieur?’ asked his subordinate.

Margont noted that the man had not said ‘inspector’ or ‘superintendent’. In the civilian police there were many subdivisions, and there was sometimes rivalry between them. There was the general police division, then each of the Foreign, Business, Finance and War Ministries had their own police; Fouche had run his own police force, as Savary and Joseph did now, and Napoleon himself had several police forces that reported only to him. Almost all the great figures of the Empire had set up their own police, so as not to have to depend on the informers of their rivals and to ensure their rapid rise through the imperial hierarchy by trying to be the best informed. And of course there were countless double and triple agents and it was impossible to tell who was obeying whom and why.

‘I will go and interrogate her,’ announced Margont.

He fully expected Palenier to refuse, but the latter merely gestured graciously for him to go ahead. ‘By all means ... We will wait outside. But no violence! Some interrogators employ violence, but we do not subscribe to such practices.’

‘Nor do I.’

Margont set off down a different corridor, barred by an iron door, which the warder opened for him. Lefine, Palenier and his subordinate followed him. They stopped in front of a heavy door with a spyhole. Margont drew back the bolts and went into the cell alone. Catherine de Saltonges gave a shriek when she saw him come in. She put her fist in her mouth and bit down on it to calm herself. She had thought he was dead.

‘Good evening, Mademoiselle,’ said Margont ironically. ‘Are you being well treated?’

She pulled herself together, took a breath and replied acidly, ‘Of course! Who would be foolish enough to mistreat a royalist three days before the return of the King?’

Margont was hurt by that remark. He saw the interview as a duel. He had barely saluted her with his blade, and she had already delivered a blow and scored a direct hit!

‘Yes, I have even been served chicken,’ she added. ‘It was delicious!’

‘I’m not here to discuss chicken. We have more important things to talk about.’

‘I won’t tell you anything!’

‘But, Mademoiselle, you don’t have to tell me anything; I know all there is to know.’

Catherine de Saltonges frowned at that. She did not believe him, of course. Nevertheless, having just endured almost an hour of questions from Palenier and his subaltern, she was thrown by Margont’s appearance.

‘So what was it you thought you might be able to tell me, Mademoiselle?’ asked Margont, smiling. ‘That you planned to assassinate the Emperor? By poisoning him with a needle soaked in curare? That the murderer is going to pass himself off as me -Lieutenant-Colonel Quentin Margont, to give you my real name -thanks to the intrepid Charles de Varencourt, the fake traitor?’ Catherine de Saltonges was finding it hard to breathe. The ‘secrets’ she had been prepared to defend unto death – that she had easily hidden from that halfwit Palenier – were now being thrown in her face by Margont like so many empty oyster shells.

Margont burst out laughing. ‘Do you think there is a single thing you know that I don’t, Mademoiselle? In fact you’re the one who should be asking me questions!’

‘How long have you known?’

‘That’s not important. Several of your committee members have been arrested.’

He was marching to and fro in the cell. She followed him with her eyes. ‘Several’, so some were still free ...

‘You’re wondering which we have in custody and which are free, aren’t you?’

She almost asked a question, but held herself back, and smiled in her turn.

‘No. And you can’t know everything. There must be something missing, or you wouldn’t be going to all this trouble.'

It must have required astonishing self-control to continue to reason clearly when her world had just collapsed around her ears. She counterattacked immediately.

‘You speak with a great deal of assurance, Monsieur. But beware! I am less a prisoner than you are! In three days, at the very latest, the Allies will free me from this cell, but they will lock you up for thirty years!’

The idea of being locked up was unbearable to Margont. And the fear of it was enough to blow his thoughts off course, like a gust of wind blowing through a game of patience about to be brilliantly completed.

‘If I were you, Monsieur, I would be exerting all my energy in wiping clean some of my debts. You have harmed us. But there’s still time to convince me to speak in your favour when you appear before the King’s court.’

Margont was saying furiously to himself, she’s the one in prison, I should have the upper hand here.

Catherine de Saltonges went on with her attack. ‘It would still be possible to say that you were forced into accepting the mission!’ ‘Which is actually the case ...’ Margont could not prevent himself from saying.

‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not; it just has to be believable! I will testify for you, and I’ll say that you treated me well. In victory, one can afford to be lenient. But no more of your questions now. If you go on tormenting me, you will be treated like an imperialist! And you will pay dearly for that!’

Questions! Margont seized on the word. ‘My questions? But I have no questions. I know everything. It’s the other way round. I’m amazed that you don’t want to know what happened to your friend? I’m talking, of course, about the friend you’re so close to. You know what I mean, don’t you?’

She reddened. ‘No, I don’t know what you mean ...’

‘I mean your lover, the father of that child you were not able to keep ...’

Catherine de Saltonges’s eyes filled with tears and she could not look at Margont so did not see how disgusted he was with himself for having stirred up her grief and intruded into her private life. But this investigation had become personal for him. He had almost been murdered, and because of him, so had Lefine. The royalists had tried to steal his name. And a murderer was preparing to kill using his identity – when he, Quentin Margont, had so often struggled to prevent crimes.

‘I do understand why you decided it was better that the child should not be born ... What sort of life could it have had? With a father consumed by fire ...’

She looked at him as if he were a supernatural, an angel who could read her thoughts. And since he could not be an angel of Cod, he must be an angel of the devil, a fallen angel, evil ... Margont continued. ‘Yes, the fire that burns in him day and night, which eats him from the inside; the inferno that was ignited by the Russian campaign and was never extinguished. Even your love is not enough to put out the flames.’

Had it really been a duel she would have laid down her sword at that point. But Margont had to follow through the sequence he had started. He had not completed his moves, and the killer blow would come at the end.

She murmured: ‘How do you know this? He spoke to you about Moscow? How is that possible? I took a year to find out, but you know already?’ Her voice was barely audible.

‘Of course, it’s all completely understandable,’ continued Margont. ‘He’s already lost so many of his family ...’

Margont was replaying Catherine de Saltonges’s own words to her. She could hardly tell the difference now between her own thoughts and what Margont was saying.

She sat down on the floor for fear of falling. She started hitting the ground with her fist as hard as she could and the pain blotted out her thoughts. She was taking refuge in physical suffering. Margont caught her fist to force her to stop.

'The assassination plan is suicidal, and you know that full well. Whether it succeeds or fails, the perpetrator is bound to be killed by one of the Emperor’s guards or captured, tried and sentenced to death. And since the plan is common knowledge now, it has almost no chance of succeeding. But you know him even better than I do. If he’s free, he will still try, against all odds and even though it’s pure madness. On the other hand, if we have arrested him, he’ll be safe. Ask me the question and I’ll tell you which it is.’

'Is...?'

She was seeing his face again. Even in their most intimate moments, even as she was dressing again, still feeling the warmth of his body against hers, he was pensive, mentally checking for the nth time whether his plan was properly thought through.

'Is Charles still alive? Have you arrested him?’ she whispered.

‘He’s at liberty. He’s going to try to carry through his plan.’