It was absurd, but true. Margont tried everything in his power to reason with them but the two lieutenants were no longer listening. ‘In the 8th Hussars, everyone’s always saying how unbeatable you are,’ said Relmyer enviously.
Piquebois was exultant. ‘They’re exaggerating. And I’ve heard that you yourself are without peer. We absolutely have to fight.’
As they talked, they were sizing each other up, flexing their
muscles and moving slowly and fluidly over to a lamp just behind the garden gate. They were engaged in a ritual of seduction and death, a dance that led gracefully to the tomb.
‘Whoever touches, wins?’ suggested Piquebois.
‘Nothing better! Since it’s purely intellectual, we should stop at first blood. In any case I don’t want to slay you. The friends of my friends are my friends ...’
‘Of course you’re not going to kill me, because once I’m finished with you, you’ll need a stretcher.’
The sentry came to attention in front of Margont.
‘Go and fetch a doctor. Ask for Medical Officer Brémond.’
‘Ready?’ demanded Piquebois.
‘Always!’
Piquebois attacked with a sweeping stroke to his opponent’s left side. The circular movement of one of his lunges could shatter an opponent’s head like an eggshell. Relmyer dodged. Piquebois launched spiritedly into his favourite repertoire: attacks with arms not extended, beats, false attacks, feints, attempts to disarm, compound attacks, ripostes, parries, feint parries, aggressive sequences, unexpected retreats and many other moves as well, all punctuated by constant changes of rhythm. This staggering multiplicity of moves made him unreadable. Fighting Piquebois you never knew which foot you should be on. You were swamped by the calculated cacophony before submitting to the final blow, which was always completely baffling. His attacks were precise and difficult to parry, which is why Relmyer concentrated harder and harder on dodging nimbly or deflecting Piquebois’s blade. Piquebois displayed a force that no one would ever have imagined from looking at him. When his sabre clashed noisily against Relmyer’s, sparks flew and the Austrian grimaced in pain. The hussars were moving all the time to avoid being struck.
They both rapidly adjusted their techniques. Piquebois attacked less violently because Relmyer was not overwhelmed by his force, and instead became more precise. Relmyer stopped trying to tire Piquebois out, now that he had the measure of the Frenchman’s endurance. The latter fought like a demon without either getting
out of breath or tiring. Piquebois beat Relmyer back towards the corner between the concierge’s lodge and the gate in the wall. With less room, Relmyer could not dodge as well. He tried to land a blow with the point of his sabre on Piquebois’s face. He was aiming at the chin, but his offensive meant he had to reveal himself, and Piquebois parried and lunged in order to launch an immediate attack in the direction of Relmyer’s flank. Relmyer, who had made his move to encourage this reaction from Piquebois, deflected his opponent’s blade, whose trajectory he had anticipated, and his blade - just the point - went into his opponent’s left shoulder. Piquebois blinked. A dark stain spread across his shirt. He looked at the wound with the same astonishment as if he were seeing a field of blue grass beneath a green sky. He collapsed and found himself sitting down with his legs apart and his sabre still in his hand.
Jean-Quenin Brémond hurried to his aid. The music from the ball in the background grew louder as the guests opened the windows to see what was happening. Piquebois ignored the medical officer.
‘You’re mad, Relmyer ... Launching a false attack to make your opponent react is one thing. But launching a real attack for the same reason, knowing your opponent is of a very high standard ...
I almost killed you ...’
Relmyer agreed. He was breathing quickly. He knew that he had diced with death.
‘If I had feinted, you wouldn’t have been taken in. I took a risk, yes. But it’s you who’s on the ground.’
Margont was choking with rage.
‘Great, Antoine, bravo! Happy now?’
‘Yes,’ murmured Piquebois.
And the worst of it was, he really was happy.
CHAPTER 11
THE next day Margont and Lefine crossed the Graben, the avenue adored by the Viennese built on the filled-in trenches of medieval fortifications. Their eyes were red from lack of sleep, or perhaps they were splashed with Piquebois’s blood. They stopped at the foot of the Pestsäule, the plague column, where they were to meet Relmyer.
‘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.’