‘Let’s start by finding him.’

‘I’m doing everything to find the information he wants. Only, it’s so complicated ... and, is it really what’s best for him? He’s already escaped from the man once. Trying to meet him again, he’s pushing his luck, playing with fire.’

Luise took Margont’s arm; he slowed down.

‘I lost my parents, then Franz. I don’t want anything to happen to Lukas. I couldn’t stand it.’

When they arrived at the Kriegsministerium the duty officer received them with the smile of a salesman welcoming his best clients.

They found the room in an even worse state of devastation than the last time. Relmyer just dropped the documents that were no use to him, drowning the disorder in his own chaos. Perched on his ladder, as though he had not come down from it since his last meeting with Margont, he let go of an enormous bundle that crashed onto a mound of papers with an explosive sound. Luise had to call him three times before he would consent to come and greet them. Although he had emptied an astonishing number of shelves he had undertaken only a tiny part of the Herculean task he had set himself. He looked dreadful. He regarded them with a deranged intensity through swollen, hollow eyes that were reddened as if rubbed by sandpaper. He had bad breath and appeared to be starving. His crumpled uniform stank of sweat, reflecting his inner turmoil.

‘Have you come to help me?’ he asked, with an exhausted smile.

Luise’s demeanour changed completely. The minute before she had had tears in her eyes. She lifted her chin and spoke in clipped tones.

‘We’re taking you for a walk in Vienna. Well also go to the gardens of the Chateau de Schonbrunn. They’re so pretty ... do you remember them? We used to go there ...’

‘Go for a walk?’ repeated Relmyer.

He did not appear to understand. Anything not related to his obsession made no sense to him.

‘Yes, go for a walk.’

‘To Schonbrunn?’

Luise raised her voice. ‘We’re going for a stroll around Vienna and in Schonbrunn! Do you think I’m going to let you kill yourself with these papers? I demand that you leave here!’

Her voice reverberated, bouncing off the walls of the Kriegsministerium as it did off Relmyer’s closed mind.

Without really agreeing the young hussar let himself be dragged off. Luise decided that first of all her brother must eat. Margont proposed that they go to Cafe Milano so that they could see Saber.

CHAPTER 15

THE Milano’s sign was an enormous copper coffee pot held by a little black boy. Margont took an instant dislike to the crowded noisy cafe and wondered how Saber could possibly spend entire days here. Lefine, who was having all the same thoughts, indicated the billiard table as a possible reason, but Margont was not totally convinced. Saber was installed in a corner of the room. As was his way, he had taken the place over. His table was buried under maps, books, gazettes, and letters. His very bearing, sitting with an air of complete confidence and concentration, gave the impression that he was at home, and that he had graciously agreed to have his office turned into a cafe. He was in discussion with two other lieutenants. None of the numerous customers who were having to stand dared to ask for one of the empty chairs, which were piled with a jumble of letters.

Margont joined them and introductions were made. One of the lieutenants, Valle, bestowed an exquisite smile on Luise, who

signalled her lack of interest by turning to order coffee and bread before ‘forgetting’ to listen to the slew of compliments that the officer was giving her. She liked to keep her distance. Saber, who was cold towards Relmyer, annoyed with him for having wounded Piquebois, brusquely made space on the empty chairs by throwing their contents onto the ground and reorganising his documents. Like Margont, Saber loved both coffee and the effect it had on him. He drank it with exaggerated, mannered gestures. A waiter brought a tray with myriad cups, an immense coffee pot, a pitcher of milk and another of cream. Vienna was a paradise for lovers of coffee. Saber turned his into honey with dollops of sugar. Luise filled Relmyer’s up with cream, not because that was the way he liked it, but to give him some nourishment. Margont liked his pure, strong and bitter. As for Lefine, he chose to ‘sweeten it’ with schnapps, having swiped a bottle off the counter. Luise only started her drink when Relmyer had already drunk two cups. Margont had to press the servant accompanying Luise to dare to accept a cup. The man was astonished to be treated as an equal, and this little incident was to sow the seeds of republican ideas in his deepest thoughts.

The very fact of being served coffee, of doctoring it according to one’s taste, was a delicious pleasure and one that was enhanced by the company of friends. It was a very agreeable moment ... Margont temporarily forgot the war. Unfortunately Saber hastened to remind him of it.

This is Europe.’

Lefine stared, realising that Saber was indicating the maps. Maps! All the general staff were looking for those. They changed hands for extraordinary prices, as though they were valuable pictures! Or gold! And there they were, right in front of his eyes!

These are the Austrians,’ announced Saber, knocking over the sugar bowl.

The Austrian troops had possession of part of the world - a little mound of sugar represented Archduke Charles’s army. Saber also placed sugar in the Tyrol, in Italy and in Poland. Then he used breadcrumbs for the French forces and their allies.

‘Now the Russians: sugar or crumbs?’ he joked.

He opted for crumbs, even though the Russians were not proving reliable allies. In 1805, they had fought with the Austrians against the French. Four years later, new political alliances had redrawn the map, but Tsar Alexander I played a double game. As for the stubborn Russian soldiers and generals, they were loath to support the French and the Polish (especially the Polish, whom they hated). So, when Archduke Ferdinand’s forty thousand troops invaded the Grand Duchy of Varsovia, a state that was allied to France and defended by only six thousand Poles, Gallitzin’s Russian army, which was supposed to help the Poles, did not exactly hasten. And as the Russian army was already very slow when it was trying to go quickly, to say that they were slow in this instance was to understate things; it would be more accurate to say they were fossilised. As a result, Napoleon ran the risk of having to deploy thousands of soldiers just to shore up the Grand Duchy of Varsovia and to protect himself to the north.

But, Saber exulted: ‘Poniatowski, the general in charge of the

Polish, had them well and truly. When he understood that he would not be able to resist the Austrians head on, he decided to bite them in the tail/

As he said this, Saber placed the Polish crumbs in Galicia, to the south of the Austrians. He placed the bread as reinforcements, because that Austrian province had previously been Polish and welcomed Poniatowski as liberator. Archduke Ferdinand’s sugar troops retired precipitately into Austria so as not to find themselves dangerously isolated. Not only did this manoeuvre not succeed in weakening Napoleon, but it was actually detrimental to the Austrians, preventing Ferdinand’s troops from joining those of Archduke Charles, which had to continue to fend off the impetuous Poles.

That Poniatowski, what a genius!’

Saber beamed. Now he was Poniatowski. He wanted to manoeuvre the Polish troops, to continue the fight. Why had they stopped when they were doing so well? Saber had taken part in numerous battles, he had found himself soaked in blood - his own and that

of his friends shattered by round shot - yet he persisted in considering war like a game of high-level chess. His dreams of grandeur were impregnated with blood. For a long time Margont had been annoyed with him, considering him to be insensitive. But today, he was less certain. Saber was protecting himself by burying his head in the sand. The day he opened his eyes, he would be overwhelmed and destroyed.