Then another memory. It was hot. Something was burning. Everythingwas burning. Moscow was in flames. Margont found himself running through the streets, dressed any old how, and still only half awake. Lefine, Saber and Piquebois were dragging him in their wake. Buildings were falling down, spitting out millions of burning fragments, which filled the night, twirling in the wind like swarms of fireflies, then falling to the ground further away. It was like being caught in the rain, but the drops were incandescent. The very night seemed to be turning red as if it were about to burst into flames itself. Then somewhere on the road back to France, snow began to fall. Flakes swirled in a thick fog. Margont shivered inside his many layers of clothing, walking on a carpet of white, seeing nothing but white, swallowing it, even. White on white. The world seemed to have been erased. During the last hours of the Grande Armée’s retreat from Moscow, Margont felt he was the last person alive. The snowflakes were covering him over little by little, obliterating him too. And then a fissure appeared in the ground, growing wider. No, not a fissure, it was the river whose black waters were carrying along blocks of ice and corpses. The Berezina. Margont went over to the riverbank. He was so tired. The retreat had been going on for weeks. Marching, always marching under attack from the Cossacks, the partisans or the regular army. He was so desperate he thought of submerging himself in the water. Yes, how tempting to sink into an inky sleep ... A point of light appeared in the depths of the current. It was a little gold object apparently rising to the surface. The button ... Its feeble golden glimmer was shining in his palm ...
Margont came back to reality. He was here in his officers room in his barracks. He was in Paris, Moscow was over. He repeated that obvious truth to himself.
He closed his hand around the button, willing it to disappear. But it was too late, he could not now close the Pandora’s box. A second flood of memories washed over him and he sank again into chaotic reminiscences of snowstorms and massacres.
CHAPTER 37
‘Attention!’
Lefine froze. Unluckily a captain had spotted him in a corridor and ordered him into uniform to rejoin his company. His protestations and explanations had proved fruitless. He therefore found himself on Place Vendome, the mustering place of the 2nd Legion - one thousand three hundred soldiers, two four-pound cannons and two eight-pound cannons.
The National Guard were at the end of their tether. Some were swaying gently back and forth. Two had already collapsed in exhaustion. No one dared look up for fear of catching the eye of the colonel. So instead, everyone was staring at his horse, Beau Coureur, or Beelzebub, as he was commonly known. Saber was mad with rage.
‘I appear to be commanding a legion of scarecrows. Unfortunately our opponents are not sparrows!’
Beelzebub came spontaneously over to stand by Lefine, putting his muzzle close to Lefine’s face. The horse was said to have supernatural powers, like thinking up insults for his master to use. ‘At ease!’ thundered Saber. ‘Sergeant Lefine! Now you are an experienced combatant! How do you explain the lamentable state of your soldiers’ uniforms?’
Lefine was despairing. To think they had once been friends! Saber had certainly changed. Was that what was meant by power corrupting?
‘The men are exhausted, Colonel!’ he cried.
‘When we are tired, so are the enemy! It’s the first side to yield that loses! On my command: in attack columns!’
The result was pathetic. The National Guard were staggering; they no longer knew left from right. Watching them was like seeing mosquitoes swarming about, attracted by pools of light.
Margont, who had seen that the barracks were almost empty of soldiers, had guessed what had happened when he had discovered that Lefine was nowhere to be found. To make things easier he had had two horses saddled. He rode one and led the other beast by the bridle. Beelzebub immediately turned his head in their direction. Margont spotted Lefine and waved him over. Was he so absorbed in the investigation that he did not notice all the men exercising? Or was he openly rebelling against his colonel? Lefine felt like a piece of meat being fought over by two furious dogs.
‘I’ve discovered something new. We have to act immediately!’ insisted Margont.
Lefine saluted his colonel, gave his rifle to a guardsman who didn’t have one - there weren’t enough to go round - and joined Margont. Saber watched them leaving. He pointed at Margont with his sword.
‘Thank heavens there’s someone other than me in this legion who’s doing something! Continue with your manoeuvre!’
He waited until the attack column was finally formed. He saw the men struggling, knocking into each other, jostling to get into the correct positions. They didn’t look happy. Well then, how would they look when he gave the order to move from attack line to battle line?
Margont and Lefine hurried off into the freezing streets.
It was almost midnight, but Paris was still very busy. In the rich quarters conversations and music escaped from the lighted houses. The rich were going to eat, talk, dance and gamble until two in the morning, when tea would be served - not English, of course, lapsang souchong! - and green tea punch and sweet-meats. As incredible as it might seem, many Parisians still did not believe that Paris was threatened. They assumed that Napoleon would sort it all out. In the poorer areas too, people were still about, making merry in the cabarets. In winter cabarets were supposed to close at ten o’clock in the evening, but regulars paid no heed to that and continued to have fun. The commissioner of each arrondissement was supposed to go round enforcing the closing hours, accompanied by an officer of the peace, three inspectors and half a dozen soldiers from the municipal guard, but this inevitably deteriorated into fisticuffs.
Lefine besieged Margont with questions, but did not receive much response. Lefine was accustomed to his friend’s ways and knew he had to wait for him to order his thoughts.
Margont handed their horses to a sentry and Joseph’s men admitted them to the Temple prison.
A warder led them through dark corridors running with humidity. They ended up in a room dimly lit by a single malodorous oil lamp that did not give out much light.
‘I’ll let Monsieur Palenier know you’re here,’ said the warder as he withdrew.
Margont knew next to nothing about Palenier. But he was annoyed with him and the feeling was mutual. Palenier considered that it was Margont’s fault that the arrest of the committee members of the Swords of the King had failed, and he was trying to persuade Joseph of that fact.
‘I would like to know where we stand,’ Lefine stated for the fourth time.
Finally Margont was listening. ‘Yes, of course. Everything is brutally clear now.’
'I'm not sure about clear, but I can certainly believe the brutally part!’
Taking everything in the right order ... It’s when they stole Joseph’s letter from me that I realised that Leaume and his colleagues were going to try to assassinate the Emperor. Then there’s the curare and the fact that we know the man who used it is definitely a member of the Swords of the King. They must have gone to a lot of trouble to obtain such a rare substance. If you want to poison someone in France there are lots of other types of poison available. What was to stop them using arsenic? Or cyanide? Then I realised that imperial bigwigs all have tasters and trusted servants to oversee the preparation of their food. I also understood that the Swords of the King must be aiming at someone extremely important or else the Allies wouldn’t have agreed to help them procure the curare. Even though it’s possible that it was merely a business transaction, and the Swords of the King paid intermediaries, our royalists must have had the co-operation of the Portuguese and perhaps also the English, who have had special links with Portugal ever since they transferred their court to Brazil.’