Armand Cabasson - Wolf Hunt

and opened one of the other windows. He could not repress a cry. In the salon thus revealed hung the portrait of the man for whom he had been searching for so long. The painting, which was small, decorated one of the walls, in the midst of some landscapes.

The picture brought back the memory of his kidnapping. He allowed himself to believe that the man was standing in front of him. An abyss opened up inside him, but Relmyer refused to look away. It was another ordeal that he inflicted on himself, yet more training to reassure himself that he was ready. He walked up to the portrait, and stared at those motionless blue eyes, holding the gaze that seemed so lifelike.

The soldiers went through the house and its surroundings from top to bottom. But they found nothing. The absence of feminine clothes indicated that Teyhern was a bachelor. He owned two rifles displayed on a rack. The rooms were tastefully furnished: pictures, French furniture, marquetry chests, Turkish carpets, porcelain or crystal vases ... Relmyer went four times to the cellar, obsessed with the idea that a young boy was dying there, in a recess that they had not noticed. He tapped the walls to see if they concealed a hiding place, looked for a trap door leading to a second cellar, opened a barrel that contained only wine ...

Then he returned to the salon, on the way moodily knocking into Pagin, who had not seen him. He let himself drop into a Louis XV armchair, just opposite the portrait, his legs stretched straight out in front of him.

‘I’m going to wait for him here,’ he announced. ‘For five more years, if necessary.’

Margont was keen to think through all the hypotheses and rank them, as an entomologist would classify insects into species and subspecies.

‘This could be the man’s house, but it might not be. If—’

Relmyer, leaning his elbows on the arms of the chair, gesticulated. ‘We’ve got his portrait and the business with the registers! A portrait is personal; you don’t go giving them to your friends!’

‘Well, quite. I’ve also verified that there’s no indication of any break-in other than ours. So the assassin did not come in here secretly and put that picture on the wall.’

Relmyer looked at him in fury. They were almost there! Why bother with all this speculation? Margont lifted the portrait and the other pictures, trying to see whether the parts of the wall underneath, protected from the light and dust, corresponded exactly to the outlines of the pictures. This examination was inconclusive and only succeeded in enraging Relmyer further. The artist had not signed the painting. It must have been done by a little-known artist who would be impossible to find.

Margont proposed something else: ‘I’m going to show this portrait to the neighbours to confirm that it really is Teyhern.’

‘No!’ said Relmyer. ‘I’m going to wait here to ambush him. If we question the neighbours, well be noticed. Someone will warn him that the French are after him and know where he lives. It’s imperative that Teyhern does not know that we have identified him.’ Lefine was of the same opinion.

He added: ‘In any case, we have already seen with Sowsky and his wife how difficult it is for us to learn anything at all from the

Austrians. The villagers will say that they don’t know Teyhern, whether it’s him or not

For the first time for five years, Relmyer felt a real sense of tranquillity take hold of him.

‘I’m in his lair! He will come back here, perhaps before the great battle, perhaps afterwards. And if he dies in combat, I will hunt out his body, even if I have to dig up a hundred thousand Austrians in public graves!’

‘Wait here?’ ventured Pagin. ‘But, Lieutenant, you can’t abandon your regiment. You’ll be accused of desertion ...’

‘Exactly. That’s why I’m going to stay on my own.’

Pagin was on the verge of tears. His role model was collapsing in front of his eyes! Relmyer was a lieutenant at twenty, and already famous thanks to his prowess with a sabre. General Lasalle, that mythical hero, had come to seek him out to cross blades with him in friendly fashion. Lasalle had applauded when Relmyer had hit him - without hurting him - for the third consecutive time. His colonel, Laborde, expected him to be promoted to the rank of captain of the élite force at the end of the campaign. And Relmyer was abandoning everything! For something that happened so long ago! Pagin could not understand it at all. He wanted to run at the portrait, to brandish it and smash it on the floor. In a sudden flash of intuition he realised that Relmyer was sitting rigidly to prevent himself from dashing at the portrait.

So he exclaimed: ‘I’ll stay with you, Lieutenant! I’ll kill him! I won’t miss, I swear it. By Christ, I’ll skewer him and disembowel his body just to be sure!’

Relmyer shook his head, imperturbable.

‘You can’t sacrifice everything!’ Margont told him, annoyed. ‘What’s more, if you’re taken, you’ll be shot. After all’s said and done, the man we’re looking for will well and truly have assassinated you, but indirectly!’

Relmyer smiled, deaf to all other logic than his own, and swiftly held out his hand.

‘Thank you, Quentin! Without you I would never have identified him. There are no words for me to express my gratitude.’

Relmyer shook his hand, pressing too hard.

‘Good luck, Lukas,’ said Margont.

‘Luck does not exist. There are only consequences.’

‘We will go back and tell Luise the situation. Would you like us to give her a message?’

‘Tell her that she is my adored sister and that I entrust her to you, should events prevent me from seeing her again one day.’

Everyone resolved to depart, abandoning Relmyer, his eyes riveted to the face of his enemy, installed like a king in his throne.

CHAPTER 26

ON 1 July, Napoleon set up his new headquarters on the Isle of Lobau, by this time generally known as Napoleon Isle. The general staff installed themselves there with great pomp. The Imperial Guard, ten thousand seven hundred strong, was set up around the Emperor’s tent. General Oudinot’s II Army Corps accompanied the Emperor. IV Corps received the order to leave Lobau to join the other corps, which were massing near the village of Ebersdorf. Only VIII Corps commanded by General Vandamme would not participate in the battle. The Emperor had decided to leave it behind in Vienna, in order to prevent any attempt at an uprising. The actions of the Austrian partisans had proved successful, mobilising at the back several thousand French and Westphalian soldiers.

Napoleon was living up to his reputation as a great tactician. He had a bridge built, named Baillot bridge, linking the Isle of Lobau with the east bank. That bridge was situated to the north of the island and was facing in the direction of the village of Essling, seeming to indicate that the French army was going to try to force a passage in the same place as a month and a half earlier. They placed cannon there to protect the bridge, and the next day, the Isle of Moulin was taken from the few Austrians who guarded it. The island was a wooded ridge near the Baillot bridge, between Lobau and the east bank. The French installed a battery on the Isle of Moulin, they built two bridges, one to link that island with Lobau and one to link it with the east bank, and then they built a redoubt to protect the head of that bridge.

The Austrians were perplexed. Was this a diversion or was the French army really going to move in the direction of Essling? Archduke Charles redeployed his soldiers. The vanguard commanded by Nordmann, and VI Corps under Klenau, positioned themselves in the north, to hold the villages of Aspern and Essling. The body of the army - made up of Bellegarde’s I Corps, Hohenzollern’s II Corps, Rosenberg’s IV Corps and the Reserve Corps under the Prince of Liechtenstein — gathered in the north-east, six miles from