HS04 - Unholy Awakening (25 page)

‘He did not say, Monsieur le Colonel.’ His cheeks flushed as he spoke. ‘Sebastien Grangé was always a sly dog. He said that we would all gain if we played along.’

‘But then he was caught,’ Lavedrine put in.

‘We shared a room. The commander came one night, and Grangé’s bed was empty. We refused to admit where he was. The three of us were sent back to Marienburg the following morning. After we got back, he disappeared for good. I don’t know where he went.’

Lavedrine looked at me with an interrogative air, as if he expected me to supply the answers to the questions which continued to puzzle him. I stared back, miming my own state of confusion and ignorance.

‘Was no-one punished?’ Lavedrine asked him.

Lecompte raised his hand to touch his wound. ‘I got this,’ he said. ‘Gaspard got killed. And now, Grangé…’

Lavedrine stared at him for some time in silence.

‘Who attacked you, Lecompte?’ His voice was a low hiss, not unlike the damaged voice of the officer.

Lecompte leant forward, pointing to the drawing I had previously noticed on the wall. ‘You won’t believe me,’ he complained. ‘I’ve told you twice. I tried to draw what I had seen after you spoke to me the first time.’

I took my album from my shoulder-bag, slipped the stick of graphite from its silver tube, and began to make a copy of the drawing which Henri Lecompte had made. He was no artist. For myself, it was the work of but a minute or two. And while I was drawing, I heard the voice of Lavedrine.

‘What
is
it, Lecompte? That’s what I want to know. This
thing
…The person who attacked you has a name. I want to know if it belongs to someone in this regiment.’

Phlegm bubbled in Lecompte’s throat, causing him to cough and spit more blood. ‘The regiment of Hell!’ he spluttered. ‘That fury struck so fast. It was like a canister of chain-shot. It hit me in an instant, going at my throat. I am a trained soldier, Monsieur le Colonel, but it hit me before I knew it.’

‘You’ve told me this before,’ Lavedrine said flatly.

As I rubbed my finger over the figure of the assailant, blurring what must have been a large black cloak and hood into a voluminous black cloud from which a hand emerged, I wondered why Lecompte was insisting on repeating a version of the facts which Lavedrine refused to believe.

I stopped drawing, and I looked from one to the other. Lavedrine was peering at the soldier, while Lecompte’s eyes remained fixed on the image on the wall. What had this to do with Lotingen? What had attacks on a bunch of scheming French soldiers to do with the murders of innocent Prussian civilians? And why, the instant that Lavedrine insisted on naming names, did Prussian demons rise up to complicate everything? Lecompte was French, and probably had no idea what a vampire was, yet he spoke of furies and devils.

In that instant, my sketch-book began to slide from my knee.

I looked up from the page. Lecompte was leaning out of the bed, his hand stretched out, grasping at the album. I glanced questioningly at Lavedrine, but he was watching the witness like a hawk. Lecompte’s fingers just managed to reach the page, though he could not wrest the album from my hands.

‘What is it?’ I asked him.

Lecompte did not reply.

Suddenly, Lavedrine stood up, tore the album from my hands, and passed it to Lecompte. He turned the album around as he did so, showing Lecompte a sketch which I had made some days before. That was what had Lecompte’s attention, not the copy that I was making of his drawing on the wall.

‘Who is she?’ Lavedrine asked me.

‘One of the witnesses,’ I replied.

Lavedrine grunted something, turning back to the soldier. ‘Is this what you wanted to see, Lecompte?’ he asked, glancing from the picture in the man’s hand to the drawing that Lecompte had made upon the wall.

The soldier was staring at my drawing, so absorbed in it that saliva dribbled from the side of his mouth again. With a loud and violent suck, he tried to halt the flow, then pulled on the dressing which covered his wound, using it to wipe the side of his mouth before it dripped onto my picture.

‘If I had been able to draw like you, monsieur, I would have been able to help the colonel. Those eyes remind me of the face I saw that night.’

‘May I see it?’ Lavedrine asked, taking my album from the lieutenant’s hands, studying it attentively for a moment, turning it around, holding the drawing up for me to see.

I stared into the eyes of Emma Rimmele.

‘Don’t say a word, Stiffeniis,’ he warned me.

Minutes later, we left Henri Lecompte.

I stepped into the corridor first, while Lavedrine was closing the door of the room.

As he turned, I raised my left elbow, pushing it hard into his chest, forcing him back against the wall, grasping with my right hand at his throat. I began to squeeze, while he cried out in surprise. I pressed in upon him all the more.

‘What was that supposed to mean?’ I hissed. ‘You are mad, Lavedrine. Do you hope to clear the name of French conspirators at the expense of a Prussian woman? She has been falsely accused in Lotingen, and now you think you can take advantage of the fact. Is this the result of your criminal science? Tales, stories, superstition? Anything, so long as it keeps the French general happy?’

I pressed harder at his throat and felt elation, though I saw no panic in his eyes.

‘God help you, Stiffeniis,’ he seethed. ‘She has pierced your heart, and sucked out your soul.’

I relaxed my grip a fraction.

‘I accuse no-one,’ he said. ‘I simply passed your album to Lecompte. That picture caught his eye. I make nothing of his words, vague as they were. It was a stratagem to make him talk, and nothing more. Better than the vague uncertainties that he has told me up to now.’

I stared into his eyes. ‘Lecompte has seen what you wanted him to see. A woman. Had you shown him a picture of his mother, he’d have sworn that she was his attacker. Don’t make the mistake of passing on that information to Layard. I’ll not forgive it.’

‘You let Emma Rimmele tell you what she wanted,’ he hissed. ‘She left her mark on you, and you are no more than her branded slave. Let go of me, damn you!’

I took my hand away from his throat, but I did not release him.

‘Legend says that vampires hypnotise their victims,’ he went on. ‘Is that what Emma Rimmele has done to you? I told you once that you conceal the abyss within your self. Not even Helena has seen the real you, Hanno Stiffeniis. Do not let your demon out, I warn you. It will be the end of you, and anyone who is close to you.’

We stood face-to-face in open defiance.

‘Next time you try to strangle me,’ he said, ‘I will not hesitate to defend myself.’

I dropped my hands, and took a step back.

‘I do not hide from the dark side of my soul,’ he said, and stepped towards me with a smile, thrusting a small pistol into my face. ‘I will shoot you. It would not trouble me in the least. I could have shot you a moment ago, or at any time since you laid your hands on me. I will do as any Frenchman would, if some fool Prussian dares to assault him.’

He lowered the pistol, then slipped it back into his pocket.

‘Enough of this nonsense, Stiffeniis! We must push hard on the door that Henri Lecompte has partly opened up for us.’

The officers in the fortress had been sent to Kirchenfeld.

The country estate was about ten miles out of Marienburg. A tall gate marked the entrance from the high road. A tree-lined avenue ran through fields which lay fallow, or had been given over to grazing. No cows or sheep were evident, which did not surprise me. The French have eaten everything in Prussia since they invaded it. The countryside is in a miserable state as a result.

Lavedrine jumped down from the carriage, and shaded his eyes from the sun.

‘Every building in this Prussia of yours, be it a cathedral or a pig-sty, looks as if it was made to withstand a full-pitch battle,’ he observed.

I was looking at the house, and did not answer him.

Built originally as a fortified farm house, the moat surrounding it was now dry and lush with long grass. A narrow bridge led across to an entrance gate, above which a coat of arms had been sculpted in stone. Two storeys high, the interior was lit by tall latticed windows on the ground floor, smaller windows on the floor above. The roof slates were green with moss, and swathes of darker ivy climbed over the red-brick façade. At some point in its history, square towers had been added to the four corners of the edifice. The architecture spoke of compromise: a desire to amass the produce of the country on the one hand, the need to defend the contents against marauders on the other. The genteel pretensions of the owners – I assumed that they had been
Junkers
– was expressed in the form of a white clock-tower which stood above the gate. The clock had stopped at five twenty-five. A year ago, perhaps, or a hundred years before that.

It was not yet midday as Lavedrine and I began to cross the bridge.

‘General Layard appreciates our obsession with defence,’ I replied. ‘French is spoken here nowadays, I believe.’

Lavedrine chuckled, though I had meant no joke. ‘The general thought you might be critical,’ he said.

‘He was upset at the idea of a Prussian seeing French troops preparing for their next important campaign,’ I replied.

Lavedrine laughed aloud. ‘He’s more concerned about the fact that
I
am here,’ he said. ‘Two of his men have been murdered. He fears that I’ll create more problems than I am able to resolve.’

As he spoke, I rubbed the lobe of my left ear between my finger and thumb.

‘No earrings today?’ I asked him. ‘Is that to avoid upsetting the troops?’

He nodded. ‘I know how French soldiers think,’ he said. ‘They are the most superstitious men alive. They see omens of disaster in everything. If questioned by an officer sporting the image of St Peter’s church, they would think immediately of the Inquisition, and clam up!’

‘Will the sight of a Prussian make them happier?’

‘They’ll be on their guard in any case, take my word for it.’ He stopped and sniffed the air like a hare. ‘What is this?’

Looking back along the length of the bridge, a troop of men were approaching quickly along the gravel road. They formed a tight formation running four abreast, a column of five rows, twenty men in all, their boots thudding on the pebbles. They were naked from the waist up. No, not quite naked, I saw, as they drew closer. They were wearing cross-belts, each man was hugging a musket to his chest. Bayonets, trench-tools, water-bottles, powder horns clashed and dangled from their waists, and on his back each man was carrying a pack which may have weighed a ton. Their faces were twisted masks of pain. They streamed with sweat as if they had just come out of a river. They sucked in air, and gasped it out again, as if each breath would be their last.

Lavedrine and I stood back to let them charge through.

The last man passed. He carried no pack or musket, and wore a vest and braces. Lavedrine caught him by the arm and spun him around, holding him fast. ‘I am here on the orders of General Layard,’ he said. ‘I need to speak to the commanding officer. Are you the man?’

The officer gasped and gulped for air.

‘I wish…I were, monsieur. You’ll find…him…in the inner court.’

Lavedrine let him go, and the officer ran off, accelerating to catch up with his men.

We followed after them, passing through the gate.

‘Oh no!’ muttered Lavedrine under his breath.

The half-naked men were stacking their muskets, putting aside their bayonets and their equipment, emptying out the rucksacks, which contained large stones. The pile of stones was quickly growing. Each man had been forced to run with a dozen of these heavy weights on his back. In the far corner, a group of men were watching a demonstration which involved two of the soldiers, one of whom was evidently trying to slit his fellow’s throat. It would not take much, I thought, to convert the exercise into a tragedy. On the right, a dozen men had formed up a circle surrounding two of their number, who were wrestling, pushing and pulling, backwards and forwards, as each man tried to gain some advantage over his opponent. Such things seen in a street or at a fair would have caused furore and excitement. Here, instead, everything was solemn, serious. Silent, too, except for the stones crashing down on the cobbles.

‘What’s wrong?’ I murmured.

Lavedrine raised his chin in the direction of a man standing on a covered dais who was watching everything that was going on. Legs apart, arms folded across his chest, he was not in uniform. He wore a jacket of cream-coloured jute, the roughness of the weave contrasting with the elegant cut and closeness of the fit, which adhered to his body like a tight sheath. His shoulders seemed immense, while his chest and abdomen were as narrow as a girl’s at court confined inside a whalebone corset.

A stern, forbidding look was accentuated by a square chin and a prominent nose. His hair was as white as snow, cut short on his head, a forward quiff sitting up as stiff as a brush. His eyes were black and piercing, darting glances here and there as he watched what was happening in the courtyard. Once, he must have been strikingly handsome. Now, his features had hardened into granite. His bony brow and hollow cheeks were a mass of scar tissue and bulging folds where some approximating surgeon on a battle field had stitched him back together.

‘I should have guessed we’d meet again,’ Lavedrine said.

His voice was low and aimed in my direction, yet I would have sworn that the strange fellow’s ears pricked up at the sound of it. His eyes slid round to take us in, though he did not shift his head an inch. His gaze settled on Lavedrine like a cat before it pounces.

‘Colonel Jacques Massur,’ Lavedrine called out loud, pacing forward to meet him. ‘I thought that you’d be lying on a hot rock somewhere, laying clever ambushes for Spanish rebels!’

Jacques Massur opened his mouth in what may have been a smile, or a sneer. His upper lip had been slit in the centre, almost to the base of his nose, exposing too much of his yellow teeth. The wound had healed before it could be decently sewn up.

‘Lavedrine! Still sticking your tongue up criminals’ arses, are you?’

He spoke in staccato bursts, as if the damage done to his lip had been inflicted on his tongue as well, some words poorly formed, some too long, others too short. And as I followed Lavedrine across the courtyard, I saw the reason for the fixity of Massur’s gaze. His upper eyelids had been cut away, and had healed as strips of lumpy gristle which barely managed to hold his eyeballs in place.

Lavedrine jumped onto the dais and held up his hand. There was nothing tender in the gesture. He might have been warning a wild beast not to come any closer.

‘Someone is poking holes in the throats of the officers in Marienburg. It happened shortly after they left here. You’ve heard the news, I suppose?’

Massur’s head jerked in my direction. ‘Who’s your friend?’

Lavedrine told him, and I was subjected to rude scrutiny.

‘Only a heathen such as you would mix with men who’ve killed our comrades,’ was Massur’s acid comment.

Lavedrine nodded. ‘I don’t give a toss,’ he said. ‘I’ll mix with anyone who can help me solve a crime. Even you, Massur.’

Colonel Massur let out a sigh. ‘I hate to think that we are equals, Lavedrine. I’ve been chopped to pieces in the service of my country, while you have never held a sword, I think. You’re as pretty as ever!’

Lavedrine stepped close. ‘I tried my sword at Aboukir,’ he said quietly. ‘Once was enough for me. Since then, I’ve used my brains.’

‘I place my faith in my balls,’ the other replied, taking a step forward.

Standing face to face, I could see that they were equals, and not in height alone. They both wore fashionable clothes, though Lavedrine was the dandy of the pair. The originality of their dress was as much a coded ensign as the uniform that they both chose not to wear. They poked sharp words at each other the way that duellists probed with rapiers.

All around them the wrestling and the throat-slitting went on without interruption, while I stood beneath the dais wondering what to do with myself. Did they hate one an other? Was their rivalry inspired by mutual admiration? Was it a combination of those two things?

I waited for a moment of silence.

‘Who is your friend, Lavedrine?’ I said, trying to ape the disdain which Colonel Massur had directed at me.

Lavedrine turned to me, eyebrows raised in surprise. With a smile, he turned back to Massur. ‘That’s a pair of Prussian balls for you, Jacques! I do not judge a man by his birth or nationality. I count the vital organs that he has, or does not have, as the case may be. Brain, liver, heart, balls. Some Prussians have them in the right place, too.’

‘Jacques Massur is a living legend,’ he said, turning his eyes to me. ‘He has trained more men to survive than you have eaten apples. Equally, he has killed more Frenchmen by his training methods than he has butchered enemies on the battlefield. He has frightened the life out of every man who has ever passed through his hands. With one or two exceptions, anyway. We are here…’

Massur’s shoulder cannoned into Lavedrine’s back as he leapt down from the dais and charged at the soldiers. I don’t believe that he had heard a word of Lavedrine’s panegyric. His gaze had never shifted from the soldiers. He charged across the cobbles, shrugging off his jacket, letting it fall to the ground as he burst through the ring of watchers. One man was on the ground, another leaning over him, holding a bayonet at the first man’s throat.

‘You,’ he growled at the man who was evidently the victor.

The man looked up, eyes bright with anticipation, expecting praise from his commanding officer.

‘Let him go,’ Massur growled. ‘Now, try it on me, and let’s see the colour of your stuffing. Get back,’ he ordered the man at his shoulder, jabbing with his elbow, sending the man coughing and spewing to the ground. ‘Well, rabbit, what are you waiting for?’

The man on the floor scuttled out of the way as Massur began to circle like a crab around the man who was armed with the bayonet. The standard-issue blade is three feet long. While not the most manageable of weapons, it is the most effective in holding an enemy at bay. Massur feinted to the left, took two steps forward, wrapped his fore arm around his opponent’s throat, and had him on the ground in a flash. The blade was ripped from the man’s hand in an instant, and, a moment later, Massur was drawing it slowly across his opponent’s throat. The soldier’s eyes were wide with terror and surprise.

‘What is he expecting?’ Massur asked the watching soldiers. His mouth came close to the ear of the fellow on the ground. ‘He thinks I’m going to slit his gullet. Right?’ He shook his head, looking around slowly, totally in control of all of them. ‘Wrong! It’s a total waste of time. You want to make him scream so much, he terrifies the life out of his mates. Like this,’ he said, moving the blade slowly, pressing the point down into the man’s flesh, scraping it over his chin until it reached his mouth. If Massur’s express ion was any indication, there was a definite possibility that this man was going to end up with a scar. ‘You can open him up from here,’ he said, pressing the point down near the mouth, then moving it up towards the eye, ‘to here. Then again, you can start from the nose…’ the bayonet point was now inside the fellow’s nostril. ‘Just slide it in, the slower the better, and keep on pushing ’til the point tickles his brain. Or you can go from ear,’ he moved the blade again, ‘…to ear. The opportunities are endless.’

Had he been subjected to some similar torture? His face bore all the traces. Then again, I thought, he had survived. And having freed himself, what had he done to the man who had attacked him?

‘You kill one, but you tell the rest what they are in for.’

In a single movement, he was on his feet. He tossed the bayonet to the soldier who had won the tussle, and was now as terrified as the man who had lost it. ‘Five minutes to catch your breath, then we start again,’ he said, dismissing them.

As Massur turned to Lavedrine, I saw that his chest was heaving up and down, in and out, in rapid movements. His pale face was bright red. He may have felt hot, for he pulled at the ribbons on his shirt, which fell open.

I looked once, and could not look away.

The right side of his chest was encaged inside a wicker corset. I could see the straps which held it to his body. He appeared to have lost half of his chest and rib cage. Beneath his shoulder blade, a dark chasm disappeared inside the wicker basket. It was like red wine against his pale skin.

Massur looked at me, and he grimaced. ‘The Spaniards taught me much about the knife and its uses,’ he said. ‘I had to pay for the lesson, though.’ He beat the flat of his hand against the wicker cage. ‘He carried off one of my lungs, that dago did. He won’t be carrying off any more.’

He turned to Lavedrine. ‘What are you two doing here?’

‘Two officers are dead in Marienburg. Their throats were slit. A third man got away with his life. Those three men had been here recently—’

‘Grangé and the others?’

‘You sent them back to Marienburg fortress before their training was over. Why? That’s what I want to know.’

‘Must we talk in front of him?’ Massur had turned his shoulders on me.

‘I’m afraid we must,’ Lavedrine replied. ‘Stiffeniis is investigating the murders with me. General Layard knows, and approves.’