Wolf Hunt (21 page)

He got up immediately, put his hand to his head and looked at his bloody palm.

‘It’s nothing! What a relief! I thought for a moment I was bleeding.’

Fury made his cut inaccurate. Relmyer dodged and plunged his sabre into Cauchoit’s thigh, pitching him for a second time to the ground.

‘You can see it better now, Monsieur?’

The trumpeter Sibot looked at his friend writhing in pain but the sight made no sense to him. He persisted in thinking that even though he could see Cauchoit on the ground, in reality it was Relmyer who had been defeated. He took several seconds to take in the true situation. And then hesitation gave way to raw violence. Sibot thrust the point of his sword in the direction of Relmyer’s face, bounding forward like a cat. Had he hit his target, the first blood would have been Relmyer’s, flowing from his burst eye, and at the same time from his brain. But Relmyer had been sharpening his reflexes for a long time and he was able to parry the blow even when his adversary’s blade had already almost completely obscured his vision. He counterattacked immediately, thrusting his sabre into the musician’s shoulder. The bone cracked, blood spurted, the man collapsed and Relmyer found himself

motionless, bespattered and dazed, alarmed by his uncontrollable capacity to trigger violence all around him.

Stretcher-bearers hastily gathered up the two élite troopers. Margont noticed the agitated throng pass in front of him and disappear into the little room where he himself had been sewn up. The floor was roughly flagged. After a few operations and one or two amputations, the accumulated blood was sluiced away with large bucketfuls of water.

Margont and Lefine were silent a moment, amazed at what had happened.

‘When Relmyer is not chasing after death, it’s death that comes to him,’ concluded Lefine, finally.

Shortly afterwards the figure of Antoine Piquebois appeared framed in the entrance. Four hussars of the 8th Regiment accompanied him. They were friends from his old regiment with only one desire: to convince him to become a hussar again. To them, their friend’s invalidity was because he was not thinking straight, not for any physical reason. They surrounded Margont and Lefine.

‘Don’t tell me that you all want to fight a duel with Relmyer!’ said Margont, irritated.

‘Not at all. We’re not at his level, alas,’ Piquebois reassured him. ‘Dear friend, I’ve heard all about your chase and your wound ... You know how I love horses. No beast understands man better! Between man and horse a harmony can be established that ...’ Words failed him. There was a gap in his discourse right there where he would have liked to express the heart of it. A tic played at his lips.

‘All right, if no one understood what I was trying to say, let him learn to ride a horse. But there is one particular case - just one! -where an event transcends our love of horses.’

‘One particular case, just one!’ echoed the hussars.

‘It’s when the first horse is killed under you in combat! In Cod’s name, that’s a baptism! It’s like the first girl one beds!’

Piquebois and his companions produced goblets they had been hiding behind their backs. A warrant officer held one out to Margont.

Piquebois, joyously excited, shouted: ‘In honour of the first horse killed under my friend Captain Margont!’

Everyone emptied their goblets, the warrant officer clinking for two people since Margont refused his glass.

‘You’re all stupid!’ exclaimed Margont. ‘I was almost killed, I ... Oh, get out! Go on!’

Piquebois and his companions went on their way, laughing. They were young and there was a war on: life was sweet. That was the way they saw the world ... In spite of the shooting pains travelling through his battered body, Margont turned to Lefine.

‘Why am I surrounded by idiots?’

‘It’s because you attract them, damn it!’

‘Listen to me: Jean-Quenin thinks I will be able to leave hospital the day after tomorrow, so I’ll leave this evening. That will be good enough; he is always too cautious. Go and see our major and tell him from me to make sure Antoine doesn’t leave our regiment; he can tell him that he’s putting him on guard or that there’s going to be an inspection of the company, or anything at all that will keep him there ... Because otherwise the malady of our friend Antoine, the “hussar manque”, will recur and we will have two Relmyers for the price of one. Can you also find me a new horse and keep me informed about the prisoners? If one of them finally decides to talk ...’

Lefine sniggered. ‘Isn’t it enough for you, all that’s already happened?’

‘No!’ persisted Margont. ‘It would take a great deal more than that to make me give up.’

‘For heaven’s sake! At the rate things are going, you’ll soon have your “great deal more”!’

But Margont was no longer listening. Luise had just arrived in the company of a hussar that Relmyer had sent to inform her what had happened. She was in tears and the man had to point out Margont before she spotted him. She crossed the room, lifting her pale blue dress slightly, but the bloodstains had still accumulated at the bottom and were gradually creeping up the azure material. She stopped in front of him.

‘Is it serious?’

‘No, it’s nothing.’

‘Why did you let yourself get wounded?’

She leant over him. Margont thought she was going to kiss him, but she slapped him hard.

‘Idiot!’

She immediately left as the wounded soldiers guffawed. Lefine shrugged his shoulders philosophically.

‘There are some days when everything goes badly and others when things go even worse ...’ 

BY 11 June Margont had recovered. Lefine was regularly absent pursuing his research, and Relmyer was still spending all his time ferreting through the archives of the Kriegsministerium. They were all to meet up in a cafe on the Graben to take stock.

Margont, the first to arrive, already had three empty cups in front of him when Lefine joined him, accompanied by Relmyer, whom he had gone to uproot from his world of papers. Pagin was not far behind, of course; he followed Relmyer like a shadow. Relmyer was his mentor, the ideal older brother he had never had.

They all ordered coffee while they waited for Luise, who was also to join them. The ambience was noisy and smoky. The 
Kajfeehaus 
was always full. Soldiers gathered there in spite of the high prices. Prostitutes sat on their laps and hung round their necks wearing daringly low-cut dresses, which they lifted to show off their legs. They roared with laughter when the men fought over them. Some drunken infantrymen came in, loudly calling for wine, and went angrily off again when they discovered there was none left. The owner and his sons hardly knew which way to turn.

‘Before we begin, I’d like to give you something,’ Relmyer announced.

Give them something? Lefine looked expectant. He still remembered the cascade of gold that had fallen from Relmyer’s hand onto the desk of the clerk at the Ministry of War. Relmyer lined up three tin soldiers on the table. The figurines, horsemen painted in three colours, seemed to challenge the coffee cups.

To me they are much, much more than toys. They represent our “soldiers’ oath”. After the inquiry into Franz’s death was abandoned, Luise, some friends from Lesdorf and I swore never to renounce the hunt for Franz’s assassin. I organised the ceremony -a secret meeting in the dead of night, in one of our bedrooms. To seal our pact I had the idea of using tin soldiers. Seven of us swore the oath.’

‘Where are the five others?’ asked Lefine.

Relmyer’s voice became halting and bitter.

‘I lost track of two of them. One of the others serves as an NCO in the Austrian army. The two remaining ones are here in Vienna. I went to find them. They told me they considered that the saga no longer concerns them. One of them even said that our “soldiers’ oath” was the fantasy of a handful of angry boys. He added, “Today we are adults.” Well? What do you think? Am I just a child who hasn’t managed to grow up?’

His explanation lent new meaning to the figurines.

‘That’s why I chose the tin soldiers to signal my presence - so that our man would notice me. They are testimony to my determination never to give up.’

Pagin picked one up and brandished it in front of his face. Mar-gont took one as well. The object was heavy, and weighed down by the oath associated with it. Lefine took the last one, although to him it was all a kind of game rather than a real pledge.

‘I bought them for you,’ continued Relmyer. ‘I wanted to retrieve the ones from my former friends but they had lost them or thrown them away. Only Luise kept hers, in her drawing room.’

‘She even added some of her own, perhaps to compensate for those she felt had disappeared with the other conspirators.' hazarded Margont.

To think that as soon as I came back I went to find them and not Luise! Now that that has been sorted out, let’s see where we are. Luise is late, but I can’t wait any more.’

Margont related his discussion with Lefine in the hospital. Relmy-er said that so far he had not obtained any results, either at the Kriegsministerium or following his interrogation of the man who had stolen the archive material. Although military documents had been found at his house and the general staff were studying those, large sums of money earned from his illicit trade had also been found. As for Johann Crich of Mazenau, he most certainly did not exist, nor had Pagin been able to find out anything about the disappearance of the young boys supposedly killed in battle.

‘I have news!’ Lefine announced proudly. ‘Our man serves in the Viennese Volunteer regiment. One of the prisoners finally talked! He revealed that it was an officer of the Viennese Volunteers who planned that attack. But he does not know his name or his battalion.’

‘What do you mean, someone talked?’ Relmyer was annoyed. ‘I ask every day and I’m always told there’s no news!’

‘That’s because the men who interrogate the prisoners will never reveal what they learn to you,’ replied Lefine. ‘They suspect you of being a traitor. You are of Austrian origin, and it’s you who led that expedition that was almost annihilated. If Major Batichut and your colonel had not sprung to your defence, in this current climate, you would have been interrogated yourself by the officers charged with the struggle against the partisans.’

Once more, Relmyer felt betrayed. There were so few people ready to help him that they could all be gathered together round a cafe table, a derisory fragment of the world.

‘If our man really serves in the Viennese Volunteers and not in the Landwehr,’ continued Lefine, ‘that gives us several clues about him. The Landwehr is a militia created by Archduke Charles when the Austrian army, like so many others, began to be puffed with

pride. Service in the Landwehr is obligatory between eighteen and forty-five, with a great many exceptions stipulated in the regulations: invalids, students, people indispensable to the smooth functioning of society - teachers, different kinds of merchants, policemen, administrative employees, doctors ... The principle of volunteer regiments is to incorporate at the last moment the largest possible number of those exempt from service in the Landwehr.’

Margont rejoiced. ‘Conclusion: there is every chance that our man has a job that exempts him from serving in the militia. But whatever he does is not enough to excuse him from the Volunteers. He’s an officer and we know that he is probably not a military man by training. So why does he have such a high rank? Because he’s a personality: a big landowner, a noble, a high-ranking administrative official ...’

Margont’s face lit up as he spoke. He was pursuing this inquiry with tenacity, refusing to become discouraged, and he was jubilant at every step forward.

‘Perhaps he works at the Ministry of War? That way he would personally have access to the military registers. If not, if he is a high-ranking administrator he will have contacts: his position must have helped him ensure that someone manipulated the lists of regimental losses. Fernand, we must find out the exact causes for exemption from service in the Landwehr.’

‘Alas, that’s impossible. The Austrians have not left us such a document.’

‘How many Viennese Volunteer regiments are there?’

‘There are six battalions of six to nine hundred men. The sixth, so nine hundred soldiers, participated in the defence of Vienna and was finished off when the city fell, so forget them. In the three thousand five hundred Volunteers that remain, there must be a good one hundred subaltern officers.

‘Why did he volunteer?’ wondered Margont aloud.

‘To defend his country ...’ Relmyer suggested.

‘No, he doesn’t care about his country. Look at the considerable efforts he’s taken to commit his crimes. He devotes a large part of

his time to preparing his kidnappings and afterwards, covering his tracks. I think his crimes are the only thing that really interests him in life.’

‘So, it’s to be able to attract his prey better to where he wants them. Like he tried to do with Wilhelm.’

‘No. There’s no need to be a soldier in order to pretend to be one. In my opinion, he was forced into the Volunteers. Or he joined up loudly declaring his “patriotism”, or he would have had to seek new employment. So I think he’s an important functionary.’

‘That’s speculation,’ objected Relmyer.

‘True. But we can state with certainty that he was not very patriotic during the ambush. He abandoned his men just after firing on you. Seeing the officer who had organised the ambush flee contributed to triggering the collapse of the Austrians. His action was solely personal, he couldn’t give a fig about that battle.’

And neither could you, Lukas, Margont added to himself.

Everyone had delivered the information they had gathered and conversation petered out. Their investigation was stalling again and still Luise had not arrived. The war had, though. Everywhere soldiers were strolling: Bavarians who felt more affinity with the French than the Prussians, whose desire to take over the whole Germanic world was growing; Saxon infantrymen who joked with the French dragoons who had sabred them a few years earlier at the Battle of lena; officers striding with determination, avid to bound to the top of the hierarchy; artillerymen who talked too loudly because their cannon had gradually rendered them deaf... Margont could not believe how much the army had changed since 1805. Between 1805 and 1809 was but a short time, yet 1805 seemed to belong to a whole different era. At the time of Auster-litz, the French army had been made up of volunteer troops and hardened combatants. Now the allies - Italians, Saxons, Wurttem-bergers, Hessians, Bavarians, Polish ... constituted an increasingly important part. And they had often previously been enemies. As for the number of French conscripts, they had become dangerously elevated in number. These soldiers, inexperienced and more or less motivated, replaced the veterans killed on the battlefield or mobilised for guerrilla warfare in Spain. The Empire depended on its army. Now Margont detected little fissures ... and this reawakened his fear of dying. That fear inhabited every soldier. You grew accustomed to it as best you could, but regularly, without warning, it overcame you. Margont reacted. He needed more life, immediately, even here!