On that day, the 84th had just been given permission to make a halt. The soldiers lay down so quickly that the regiment looked like a house of cards blown over by the wind. Two corporals dragged the sick horses to one side. Because of the shortage of fodder, the animals grazed on wet grass, unripe rye and even straw from the roofs of the isbas, which gave them serious bouts of dysentery, which weakened them even more.
Margont lit a fire and boiled some water, into which he dropped a handful of rice. Saber and Piquebois did likewise. As he waited for the rice to cook, Margont stretched out on the grass and began to munch a biscuit, his only pleasure of the day. Lieutenants Saber and Piquebois were Margont’s other two close friends. Irénée Saber was a very self-assured man and too full of himself. His handsome face could look surprisingly arrogant when it broke into a sardonic smile. Though generous by nature, he was consumed with overwhelming ambition. In his youth, Julius Caesar had wept before the statue of Alexander the Great who, in his youth, had already conquered an empire. Saber, at thirty, inwardly broke down in tears before both Caesar and Alexander. He was only a lieutenant! Not even a major! When would he have a colonel’s epaulettes? Why had he not been decorated on the evening of the battle of Wagram? Had no one noticed that, without him, all would have been lost? Saber was jealous of Margont because of his higher rank but he also looked down on him because there was no doubt that by the age of thirty-two he, Saber, would be at least a colonel, perhaps higher … much higher.
Poor Saber. Rather than his military career, it was his lack of sincerity and narrow-mindedness that had become legendary (and then only in the small world of the 84th). So, when a soldier was too obstinate, it had become customary in the regiment to call him ‘as pig-headed as Saber’. Yet Irénée Saber had a brilliant mind. He had a real tactical sense and was able to grasp the deployment of troops and to work out the movements generals expected of them. He had an eye for all this on the battlefield, where all that most people could see was smoke, blood and indistinct masses of troops. In short, he could read pattern in chaos. But as he refused to question his own judgement, he was equally capable of displaying the clear-sightedness of a marshal and of raving like a madman claiming to be Napoleon. A little more flexibility would have turned his intelligence into genius. Margont was convinced that his friend would go very far. But what was very far for Margont was only halfway for Saber.
Lieutenant Piquebois had been very similar, before becoming very different. Aged thirty-three, he behaved as if he were fifty, with the result that he was often taken for a young-looking fifty-year-old. He had fallen madly in love with the daughter of a rich cloth merchant from Uzès. Étienne Marcelin, the young woman’s father, had not approved of this match. Piquebois had been studying medicine in Montpellier but for some strange reason he was to be seen every day in the taverns of Uzès. He had sailed the seas during his ‘I shall be a ship’s captain’ period and he had lived in Africa for two years during his ‘I shall make a fortune out of cocoa’ period. On his return, he declared that he was going to emigrate to South America. His journey to Peru never got any further than the Peyrou Gardens in the heart of Montpellier … Marcelin had therefore said no, categorically. His daughter, Anne-Lise, had become distraught, with the result that the veto was qualified: ‘No, unless you acquire a respectable social position.’ ‘But I’m studying to become a Protestant minister,’ Piquebois had explained, though no one seemed aware of this new calling. ‘“Minister” is not a social position, it’s a theological position,’ Marcelin had retorted. Piquebois guessed that this subtle distinction had something to do with income. He therefore gave up his religious studies before they had started, together with his interminable medical studies, naval studies and chocolate studies in order to enlist in the army. Nothing can compare with the army in wartime as a way of climbing the social ladder. For a long time Uzès had mocked ‘Piquebois the chocolate soldier’. In the cafés bordering the superb main square, all the inhabitants of Uzès had drunk to his health: ‘Heaven forbid that anything should happen to him! But let’s not worry too much. The sound of cannon fire isn’t often to be heard in Montpellier.’ Everyone had assumed that Piquebois was still there, dead drunk, snoring under the table like his fellow medical students, a young Rabelais without the inspiration.
To general surprise, Piquebois reappeared in full hussar’s uniform, his hair braided into elegant little plaits, sporting a bushy moustache and a smile on his face. In every house people exclaimed: ‘Has our chocolate soldier changed into a hussar? Let’s drink some of this magic cocoa straight away.’ Marcelin, thoughtful father that he was, had found plenty of better matches (better in his eyes, at least, and weren’t they the only ones that counted?). However, Anne-Lise, who was as stubborn as her father, had turned them all down. He eventually accepted the marriage, which was celebrated in the cathedral of the former duchy of Uzès.
Piquebois had not chosen the hussars by accident. Turbulent, fun-loving young men who lived their lives at a frantic pace were attracted to the hussars because everything they did was fast and furious. Instead of talking, they yelled; instead of drinking they got slewed; and they picked quarrels with anyone who wasn’t a hussar (while also getting into arguments with hussars from other regiments). Piquebois performed heroically on the battlefield but took even more risks away from it. He had nearly broken his neck by jumping out of the window of an inn in which he had thrashed a cuirassier. He was frequently picked up by the police ‘more dead than drunk’. He had also wounded two men in duels: one because of the accidental clash between two sabre scabbards – he let his own drag along the ground because he enjoyed the sound of it scraping over the cobbles – and the other because of a look he judged ‘full of innuendoes’, though what the innuendoes were, no one ever knew, not even the man on the receiving end.
Despite this tendency to play with fire (or perhaps because of it) Piquebois had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant. Everything changed on the day of the battle of Austerlitz. On 2 December 1805, Napoleon broke through the centre of the Austro-Russian army. In a final attempt to avoid catastrophe, the Russian Imperial Horse Guard launched a furious counterattack. Napoleon himself considered the charge admirable. Piquebois mingled with the cavalry of the French Imperial Guard (he already considered himself one of their number) who were racing towards the Russians. He did not see the triumphant conclusion to the battle because a bullet struck him full in the chest. He swore it was fired by Grand Duke Constantine himself, and when a man had undergone such suffering, he was allowed one final boast.
It took him a whole year to recover. But his fellow medical students and hussars were in the habit of saying that he never fully recovered. He did indeed change completely. No more heavy drinking sessions, duels, bragging or student pranks. Piquebois began to enjoy the quiet pleasures of an afternoon spent listening to his wife playing the piano, or chatting with friends while smoking a pipe. Considered unfit to serve in the hussars, he was transferred to the infantry and was very happy there. From then on Piquebois determined to become a serious-minded officer. ‘Serious-minded’ – a word that had never before existed in his vocabulary. His wife, delighted by this change, said to him one day: ‘It took a bullet to kill the eternal student in you. Now I have a man for my husband.’ Those who had formerly accompanied him on his escapades ruefully came to the same conclusion, and his squadron organised a funeral for ‘Hussar Piquebois’. They solemnly buried his saddle and cavalry sabre before going to get drunk to celebrate his resurrection in the vast world of spoilsports.
The aftereffects, his world-weary look, his air of moderation and the wrinkles etched into his forehead by the months of suffering, had prematurely aged him. But despite his settled existence and his old man’s ways – such as when he complained about the weather while mentioning his rheumatism – his former squadron swore that the old Piquebois wasn’t completely dead and that his ghost would rise up again from the charnel house of Austerlitz and fly back to his earthly frame to take possess
ion of it once more. Then they would go and dig up his saddle and sabre – which they had buried in a field near Uzès in the hope that that would have a healing effect on the patient – and they would drink themselves senseless to celebrate the event. Because when a hussar fell on the battlefield he didn’t finish up like Piquebois. Certainly not. The Valkyries appeared from the heavens and carried him back to Valhalla singing of his exploits, a Valhalla that inevitably resembled an enormous tavern in which you got drunk with pretty girls on your knee before galloping off into the plains to mow down the enemy hordes.
Saber was polishing his shoes but they never shone enough for his liking. He was thoroughly annoyed. The Russians kept falling back but he couldn’t run after them indefinitely. How could he finish this campaign with the rank of colonel if the enemy didn’t play its part? Glory was awaiting him; he had a schedule to keep to. Piquebois stuffed his pipe calmly. Smoking eased his hunger. Lucky man. Saber was now furiously rubbing his shoes as if the whole Russian army had launched an attack on his feet.
‘Let’s smash their faces in again like at Austerlitz and then all go back home in triumph. An army that retreats without fighting!’ he exclaimed like a judge speaking to a person who has committed the most heinous of crimes.
He did not even notice the nervous twitch affecting Piquebois’s face at the mention of Austerlitz.
‘I think the Russians will fight like fanatics,’ said Margont.
‘Have you been reading that sort of nonsense in books?’ replied Saber immediately. ‘When we catch up with them they’ll be sorry not to have kept us on the go even longer.’
The atmosphere was gloomy as they ate their meagre meal. Margont kept seeing Maria’s martyred body. These images haunted him frequently and he tried to keep busy at all costs, to combat not only the boredom but also the memories that filled the void in his mind when he was insufficiently active. The atrocities had shaken his conception of humanity.
Margont smiled, thinking that he was conducting the investigation so tenaciously not so much to obey Prince Eugène as to fight for his principles. He thought back to Maroveski’s question that had made him so uneasy: why should a captain be interested in the murder of ‘a girl of no importance’? For Margont everyone had their value. However, the prince was likely to think of Maria as the equivalent of a speck of dust. An officer guilty of a crime, political stakes … yes, but why had Prince Eugène seemed so hesitant at the end of the meeting? Margont felt there was an element missing; the prince had concealed something from him. A link between the victim and him? It seemed absurd – even if absurd things did occur constantly on this earth. Doubts about the murderer’s identity? A hidden clue? But which and why?
Margont decided to write a letter to request a new meeting with the prince on the pretext of evaluating the situation. Never mind if it did not result in anything. Since the beginning of this campaign Margont had invented a new motto for himself: ‘Better to do something futile than nothing at all.’
Just when the order was given to march on, Margont spotted Lefine catching up with the regiment. He was on foot and so tired and covered in dust that he looked like a ghost. Margont’s heart began to race. Was there something new? Was there at last something else going on other than an endless march?
CHAPTER 10
MARGONT took Lefine to one side, into the remains of an isba, its blackened walls still smoking. Lefine patted his uniform half-heartedly to remove the dust.
‘I wonder why the Russians build their houses out of ash. Whatever … My horse is dead.’
‘Come off it. Who did you sell it to? A trooper? A canteen-keeper?’
‘It shivered night and day. It was going to die anyway so selling it didn’t make any difference except that I made a bit of profit as well.’
‘I gave it to you to make you faster, not richer. But never mind that, what do you have to report?’
‘Four suspects.’
Four. It was few but still too many.
‘Are we definitely right to eliminate the rest?’
Lefine took several sheets of paper out of his pocket and carefully unfolded them.
‘Here’s the list …’
Margont took the document from the sergeant’s hands.
‘… of all the colonels in IV Corps. The names struck off are in the clear and written next to them is the reason and the name of the person who gave it.’
‘Excellent work. So who do we have left?’
‘Colonel Étienne Delarse. We know him by sight …’
Margont’s face clouded over. ‘What bad luck! Still, as he’s part of our brigade it will be easier to keep an eye on him.’
‘Colonel Maximilien Barguelot, commanding the 9th of the Line, 1st Brigade, 14th Division.’
‘I don’t know him.’
‘Colonel Robert Pirgnon, 35th of the Line, 2nd Brigade, 14th Division.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘And Colonel Alessandro Fidassio, 3rd Italian of the Line, 3rd Brigade, 15th Division.’
Margont looked up from the list. ‘General Pino’s Italian Division? An Italian?’
‘Precisely. The men who got this information cost me a fortune. The rascals were holding out their grubby paws every day, keeping on about all the harm this investigation was doing them, and I often had to—’
Margont interrupted him by giving him a purse. ‘That’s for the rascals holding out their grubby paws.’
Lefine spread out the coins in the palm of his hand. ‘That’ll barely cover the costs. And that’s being optimistic.’
‘Are you sure a name hasn’t been struck off by mistake?’
‘We know when the victim died. It took some time to do but we managed to reconstruct the movements of quite a few of the suspects at around midnight. Only the remaining four were away from their regiment that night without us knowing where.’
‘So it’s very likely that the murderer is one of these men. Perfect. I want to know everything about them: their lives, their careers, their friends, their interests, their plans, their temperaments …’
Lefine shook his head to indicate he was throwing in the towel.
‘No, Fernand. You’re going to continue helping me. I still haven’t forgiven you for betraying me and, in any case, it’s an order.’
‘It’s an abuse of power.’
‘Prince Eugène promised me a handsome reward, remember. I’m offering you half. Yes, I know, that’ll barely cover your expenses. Count yourself lucky that I’ll share the money in the event of success but not the punishment in the event of failure. You’re going to find me eight men as resourceful as you – two per suspect – but less grasping, otherwise your expenses really will be out of control.’
Lefine had the worried look of a card player watching the stakes increase too quickly for his liking.
‘It’s too much work! Anyway, I don’t know any of the sort of men you want.’
Margont nodded in encouragement. ‘No, but you do know darned well how to spot them and convince them to do what you expect of them. And find me men who are discreet and reliable! Otherwise, instead of gold, all you’ll have is the lead pumped into me by the firing squad, and then you’d need to invent the philosopher’s stone to turn it into gold.’
Lefine was furious. He often took advantage of his friends’ generosity but was of course outraged when he was repaid in kind. He puckered his lips and sweat left dirty streaks on his dusty face.
‘It’s an abuse of power!’
‘Go and complain to Colonel Delarse. There’s only a one-in-four chance that he’ll slit your throat.’
Margont mounted his horse. At last he was going to break free of the tedium oppressing his mind.
‘I want the people you choose to keep watch over the suspects day and night. Meanwhile, I’ll try to put faces to the names.’
With that he galloped away. Lefine aimed a big kick at one of the walls of the isba, which almost collapsed on top of him.
Margont deci
ded to begin with Colonel Barguelot of the 9th of the Line. He galloped up to the columns of regiments and squadrons, and the convoys of guns, caissons and wagons. The numbers were still not complete. Many troopers were on foot, carrying their saddles on their shoulders. All around lay the corpses of horses that had been pushed to the side of the road. Margont wondered how his horse could bear such a sight.
He would need two hours to obtain a good cover. He rode up to Chief Physician Gras, who directed the physicians of IV Corps and handed him a letter written by Jean-Quenin Brémond. The medical officer claimed he was carrying out a study into the risks of the spread of typhus in the army and requested that the bearer of his message be allowed to question physicians and senior officers about this matter. Chief Physician Gras gave his consent on condition that the general staff of IV Corps were also in agreement. Margont decided to use the document signed by Triaire to avoid this procedure but he still had to explain the reasons for his visit to one of the aides-de-camp of General Broussier, commanding the 14th Division. The request was passed on to the general, who in turn gave his consent … providing that every brigadier-general was informed of the information gathered.
Unfortunately, General Bertrand de Sivray, commanding the 1st Brigade of the 14th Division, was a great friend of Colonel Pégot’s, from the 84th, and he bombarded Margont with questions. Yes, Colonel Pégot was well. Yes, he too was very worried about the shortage of supplies and the number of deserters. Yes, he had authorised the formation of detachments to go foraging for food. No, he did not think that a clash with the Russian army was imminent. Yes, the general’s best wishes would be passed on to him. When Margont was eventually able to leave, he still had to question Colonel Gaussard from the 18th Light Infantry as well as the physician for that regiment before going on to the 9th of the Line.
Colonel Barguelot was riding at the head of his regiment, surrounded by three captains and three majors to whom he was talking merrily. He had light, somewhat curly auburn hair, a large, almost massive, face and a nose that was long but flattened at the end as if permanently pressed up against an invisible window. Carefully trimmed whiskers accentuated his sticking-out ears. When he stopped speaking, his lips automatically reverted to a complacent smile. Margont stopped his horse, saluted, introduced himself and handed over the letter from Medical Officer Brémond. Colonel Barguelot glanced through it perfunctorily.
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