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 possession 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.’