Armand Cabasson - Wolf Hunt

‘Can I ask a stupid question, Captain?’

Margont did not answer.

‘Is Relmyer our friend or our future assassin?’

Margont’s fury was evident from his clenched jaw, jerky gestures and pursed lips.

‘That madman stabbed Piquebois!’ he raged suddenly. ‘As for Antoine, it serves him right if he didn’t like being taught a lesson! He’s as much to blame as Relmyer for what happened. Relmyer is like someone trying to climb out of an abyss. By helping him we increase his chances of success, but he might stumble and pull us

into the void with him! We already have the Austrians to confront, and the partisans at our back, and somewhere out there there’s a murderer who’s as elusive as a ghost. And now to top it all off Relmyer has started wounding the people who’re trying to help him!’

‘His sabre is double-edged ...’

‘Did you see the duel?’

‘No. I was too drunk to see anything except the buffet and the girls.’

‘To think that Piquebois has floored I don’t know how many opponents in his time. And against Relmyer, he didn’t hold back, believe me!’

Lefine nodded. ‘When Antoine draws his sword, he loses his head. It’s as if his sabre starts to think for him.’

‘Well, Relmyer dominated throughout the duel.’

Lefine drummed his fingers lightly on his palm in applause and this questionable joke irritated Margont even more.

‘He’ll live,’ he went on, but Lefine paled, suddenly realising that

his friend really could have died, that it wasn’t just a macabre piece of foolishness resulting from his irrepressible personality. ‘I went to see Jean-Quenin early this morning. He went on about a damaged scapulohumeral joint and severed tendons or something or other... Why can doctors never just give you a straight answer?’ ‘What else do you expect from people who study Latin?’

‘Let’s not exaggerate, only part of their books and anatomy treatises are in Latin. Although that’s already too much for my taste. Anyway, I didn’t understand what he said about the wound except that it’s not fatal and Antoine will soon regain the use of his arm.’ ‘Great! More duels in prospect,’ said Lefine with bitter sarcasm. ‘That’s out of the question!’

Relmyer had still not arrived. To take his mind off things Margont began to study the Pestsäule, several feet of High Baroque. In 1679 the plague had decimated Vienna; there had been a hundred thousand victims. When it was over Emperor Leopold I had had the column built to thank God for eradicating the epidemic. The Holy Trinity in gold metal sat atop a cascade of angels and humans.

Leopold knelt praying, and beneath him a woman holding a cross symbolised Faith triumphing over the plague, embodied by an old woman naked on the ground, her skin loose and wrinkled. Mar-gont thought of the column of the Grande Armée in Place Vendome, which was not yet finished. How ironic in this time of war to have these two works celebrating the triumph of life (the Grande Armée column was made with the bronze of one thousand two hundred cannon captured at Austerlitz and in Vienna in 1805, because it was thought that the peace would endure).

Lefine let his gaze slide over the edifice, looking at each face in turn.

After the great battle with the Austrians, they’ll build a column like that,’ he declared to Margont. ‘But much, much higher and with even more people. It will be a huge pile of corpses that will touch the sky. At the top the Emperor will sit in splendour, pointing to Moscow or London, the site of the next column.’

Margont was getting more and more perplexed.

‘Each war, instead of bringing peace, sets off new ones ... We’ve

gone astray somewhere and well never find our equilibrium again.’

Relmyer arrived. His rolling gait, his assurance and his dazzling uniform attracted glances from passing women and jealousy from husbands. His boots echoed on the paving stones just in case there were some who had not yet noticed him. He came to a halt in front of the two men and extended his hand. Margont shook it briefly and immediately launched into what he had to say.

‘Do I really have to go on helping you? I don’t want to find that by associating with you, I end up with your blade through my stomach.’

That would never happen!’ Relmyer spoke with the utmost sincerity. But was that sufficient guarantee? ‘I swear that I would not have killed your friend,’ he added.

He had that arrogance of masters of arms who believe they can wield their blade with the precision of a surgeon manipulating his scalpel. Margont spoke in clipped tones. ‘If you take your sabre out again - even once! - on a whim, I will end our co-operation for ever. Well investigate separately and too bad if that slows us down and plays into the hands of the man we’re hunting.’

This threat plunged Relmyer into gloom.

Ashen-faced, he solemnly declared: ‘I swear on my honour that I will never initiate any other duel until this business is resolved. However, I don’t think you understand exactly what that fight represented for me. As soon as I hear people extolling the merits of a swordsman, I am riven with worry. I do my best not to think about it, to concentrate on my work, but I can’t get it out of my mind and the fear grows. Only fighting a duel and winning brings me any relief. Well, relative relief, at least. I want to be sure - no, I need to be sure - that no one will ever be able to defeat me. I have to become invincible, more than invincible. I have to become untouchable!’

Relmyer looked strained. He had revealed the very core of his being: ‘to become untouchable’.

‘If you continue down that route,’ Margont replied, ‘perhaps you will be safe but you will also be alone, because everyone will be

frightened of you. You will become untouchable in more ways than one.’

Relmyer did not respond. Margont was obviously still irritated.

‘And another thing: do you expect me to believe that you want to deliver the murderer up to justice when you would happily run a stranger through? Do you take me for an idiot?’

‘Of course not. I really do want to take him alive. Because it’s not only him I want vengeance on, it’s society’s silence too. If I capture him there will be a trial, statements, witnesses, everything will be recorded. Finally people will take notice! We will finally be able to challenge that silence, justifiably ...’

After a brief hesitation, he gestured towards the avenue. ‘So are you coming with me?’

Margont acquiesced and fell into step beside him. They melted into the crowd of strollers, street-traders and prostitutes, ‘the nymphs of Graben’.

‘I’ve organised Pagin and Telet, another of my hussars, to find out about all the boys “killed in action”,’ Relmyer told him. ‘They’re going to go to all the orphanages, except Lesdorf, of course. I’m not going to get involved personally with that part of the investigation because I fear we will not get very far with it. The man we’re hunting is too good at concealing his tracks. On the other hand, I can’t stop thinking about the military records! We’ll have to track them down so that we can find out who fills them in and therefore who could have allowed them to be altered.’

‘Unfortunately I fear that we won’t be able to,’ declared Margont. ‘Unless the Austrians have lost their minds. You would never let exact details of your troops fall into enemy hands: the size of your regiments, battalion by battalion, the identity of your officers and which regiments ... Maybe the records have been removed by the Austrian army, or maybe well find what’s left of them in a fireplace.’

Margont’s arguments made absolute sense. But not to Relmyer. The young hussar swept them aside with an expansive gesture.