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The following week the dragons left the town. The heretics had been reduced in number from one hundred and seventy-six to eight. There were always the obstinate ones, but experience had shown that when they were greatly outnumbered they had little influence and ended their lives in bitterness and despair. The dragons were to move south and start their work in a new place.

The eight obstinate ones were burdened by the tallage of those who had converted, with the cost of educating their own children as Catholics, and with numerous additional imposts. By ordinance they were forbidden from practising their trade or from hiring out their labour to members of the King’s religion. They were also forbidden from abandoning their homes and seeking the promised land elsewhere.

Two nights after the dragons left, Pierre Chaigne, carpenter, widower, returned to his workshed. He took down the lantern he had made and slid out three of its glass panels. From the pile of discarded lumber too contemptible even to be burnt by the soldiers he uncovered the three oblongs of thin beechwood. He pushed them gently between the runners sticky with mutton-fat. Then he lit the candle and set
the hood back in place. Lacking three-quarters of its glass, the instrument did not illuminate universally. But it gave a brighter, purer light for the direction in which it was pointed. Pierre Chaigne, carpenter, widower, would follow that light to the end of its journey. He walked to the door of his shed, lifted the latch, and set off into the cold night. The yellow beam of his lamp reached tremblingly towards the forest, where the other obstinate ones waited for him to join them in prayer.

B
RAMBILLA

T
ELL YOU HOW
I learned to descend. Mr Douglas, back then, kept telling me I rode like a postman. He had this old machine as well as his racer, stand-up handlebars, almost a shopping-basket on the front, and sometimes he’d go out on it with me. I thought he was just doing it to put me down, but he was a canny fellow, he was showing me how far I had to go. I mean, he wouldn’t keep up with me all day, but he’d do it for a stretch, then send me off over the hills by myself. Uphill, downhill, story of my life.

So one day I thought training was over and he started towing me up Mount Moran. Just kept pedalling, mouth shut, setting the pace, with me in behind. We’d been out seven, eight hours already and the sun was turning all orange over the flats and I really didn’t see the point because he wasn’t hurting me, I was sitting on his back wheel and no problem. We’d gone up this whole load of big loops and he stops at the side of the road and we’re looking into the sun and he says, ‘Right, Andy, I’m going to teach you how to descend.’ And - this is the scary bit - he takes out this little spanner and unscrews his brake blocks and just hands them to me. ‘All you have to do is keep up,’ he says, ‘and I’ll buy the drinks.’ So he pushes off while I’m stowing his blocks, and I had to follow him, and at first I thought well if he isn’t using brakes I won’t
either, except by the second or third bend I was cramming them on and here’s this little old geezer, this flying fucking postman, speeding down ahead of me, just using his body to slow himself down, sitting up in the saddle and then going into a crouch and using every inch of the road and sometimes I’d do a bend like him without the brakes and I’d let out a yell but he’d have his mouth shut all the way, Mr Douglas.

Once or twice I caught up with him but I always lost it on the bends and I was shit-scared to think about having this old Raleigh and no brakes. And at the same time I could see that if you could do it, if you could really do it, it would be like having a jump or whatever. The most exciting thing there was. And each time we went up Mount Moran he’d do the same, except he’d say I could use the brakes six times, and then five, and then four, and then in the end no brakes at all. And I’d follow that lovely old bastard on his granny bike and he’d always beat me but less and less each time. Then I’d buy the drinks, and he’d tell me how to live my life. One day he told me about Brambilla. And that’s how I learned to descend.

I ran away from home. No, the truth is, I was gone already, in my head, anyway. Of course they blamed Andy but that’s ridiculous. Andy was the first boy who always brought me home sharp at eight-thirty. He said from the beginning he had to be in bed by nine because nine was when Sean Kelly went to bed. You’d think they’d approve of that but they didn’t. My dad thought there was something wrong about it. I said Dad it makes a change from you waiting up after midnight with a shotgun. But he didn’t think that was funny. He didn’t get the point.

Yes, I suppose I did run away with Andy in their eyes. One day he said I’m off to pedal my way round France for a living, want to come? I said what? He said, take the brakes off and just go whoosh. I said, whoosh? And he winked, and that was it. But I was never staying. It’s not Andy’s fault I don’t live down the street with two kids, backache and afternoons in a shop if I’m lucky. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to listen to the seagulls over the bowling-green for the rest of my life. If they wanted that for me, they shouldn’t have let me go to ballet. Home sweet home. My dad even suggested I should try bowls, the club could do with some new blood. I said, you mean like Dracula? They kept asking what Andy and I had in common. I said, well, legs for a start.

We sat on the boat and looked out of the big back window. There was the usual flock of gulls but I somehow got the idea they were the ones from the bowling-green. I kept expecting them to turn back, but they didn’t. There were probably other reasons as well but I started crying. Poor Andy didn’t know what was happening. I said, they should have had enough by now. When he saw I was serious he went out on to the deck and I could see him swearing at the gulls and waving his fists. Of course they didn’t take any notice, but it was very sweet. I dried my tears and gave him a kiss. I said something like, Who’s my hero, and he said something like, I’m a hard man, doll. He’s putting it on when he talks like that. Mostly. Then we both tried to ignore the fact that the gulls stayed with us, all the way to Calais. Never turned back.

They respect us, you know. The anglophones, they call us. They know we’re hard men, we haven’t come all this way to throw in the towel. They still remember Tom Simpson as if it was yesterday. Did you know when he died on the Ventoux it was the thirteenth day of the month and the thirteenth stage of the race? Makes you think, doesn’t it? He’s still a hero out here, the one who paid the ultimate price. Next day, they let Barry Hoban take the stage as a mark of respect. An Englishman winning on the
quatorze juillet
. Barry Hoban married Tom Simpson’s widow, did you know that?

Sean Kelly, he’s the iron man. He eats nails for breakfast. Did you hear about Sean Kelly in the Tour of Spain? He had … there’s a medical name for it but I’ve forgotten, but basically it’s a sort of ingrowing hair in your arse. They used to get it in the war, called it Jeep Arse, you got it from riding round on the hard seat of a jeep all day. It’s the most painful thing there is, and it’s only, you know, one of the hairs in your arse deciding to grow in rather than out. That’s all it is, but you get this boil which hurts like hell, and the worst thing you can do if you’ve got it is ride a bike. You have to get it surgically treated and then you’re sitting in a salt bath for a few weeks. Anyway, Sean Kelly’s in this good position in the Tour of Spain, so naturally he doesn’t want any hassle. If he goes to the tour doctor he’ll be ordered out of the race. So he gets this local surgeon or doctor or maybe vet to come to his hotel room and says Go ahead, do it. And the guy does it, and stitches his arse up and Sean Kelly carries on with the Tour of Spain. That’s why they respect us. We’re tough. Sean Kelly, he’s the iron man.

We were having a meal with Betty and Jean-Luc. Betty’s from Falmouth - she was on the cruise-ship with me. In fact, she got me the job out here; the audition anyway. It was our day off and we’d gone out to dinner. We always eat early because of Andy. I don’t call it dinner any more, I call it
steak and a salad at seven says Sean
. Not that I’m allowed to call him Sean. Andy always says the name in full, as if it was a saint’s name or something. It’s Sean Kelly this and Sean Kelly that and I do the same. Mostly. So Andy was talking about how riders prepare for a race, and he told a story about a press conference where someone asked Sean Kelly about what he did about … you-know-what. I mean, obviously they don’t do it during a race, but do they stop beforehand to conserve their energy. If I’d been Sean Kelly I’d have been tempted to wrap a bicycle pump round the fellow’s head, but he didn’t. He just answered the question. He said his policy was to abstain for a week before a big one-day race, and for six weeks before a major tour. Whereupon one fellow in the audience said in a loud voice, ‘By my reckoning that makes Linda still a virgin.’ Linda is Sean Kelly’s wife. Wouldn’t you have just died? Betty and Jean-Luc were looking at me as if to say, Is it like that for you too? I didn’t know where to put myself. Most men I’ve been with would have been boasting about doing it more than we did. But here was Andy doing almost the opposite. I tried to explain afterwards but he said I was oversensitive. He just thought it was a funny story.