Empires of Sand

by Empires of Sand (retail) (epub)

  Abruptly the boar stopped its charge, having come to the edge of the ditch. At the bottom lay Paul. The boy looked up and saw the terrible jaw and teeth and tusks. He’d run out of courage. All he could do was curl up in a ball and whimper.

  The boar’s injuries grew steadily worse, yet a formidable animal remained, with deep reserves of strength bolstered by adrenaline. It would not die, not yet. Frustrated by the moat and unable to continue its attack, the boar ran frantically back and forth, its eyes narrow and angry, looking for a way to get into the moat to Paul, or around it, to Moussa.

  On the far side of the tree the pig saw solid ground, a path that led straight to the focus of its rage.

  It lowered its head and began to run.

  * * *

  At that very moment across the lake, Monseigneur Murat, the bishop of Boulogne-Billancourt, was returning to his palace after an audience with Empress Eugénie. He was well pleased. The audience had gone brilliantly. Of all the troubled souls in the Tuileries, hers was the most malleable, the most Catholic and God fearing, the most susceptible to his persuasions. Now his influence with her had reached a new and sublime level. She had entrusted him with an international fund being raised for the reconstruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He could barely contain his glee. She had done it in front of countless observers, whose impressions would elevate his stature in every salon of Paris. Her trust in him would make the sale of influence and the granting of favors all the easier for a man who was already a master at such things. He had left the Tuileries Palace far taller than he had entered it.

  It was a beautiful day, sunny and crisp and blessed of autumn color. To celebrate he instructed his coachman to take the new road through the Bois de Boulogne, the forest-park so cherished by the emperor, who had personally spent hours in its planning and attended to the tiniest details in its execution. The park would not be complete for several years, but already all Paris loved it, and none more than the bishop, whose diocese it bordered.

  His carriage was magnificent. In all France few could match it, and this was only his fair-weather transport. For inclement weather he had another just like it but with a top, and in his carriage houses there were six others. The coach rode on gilded wheels whose spokes were sculpted like the wings of angels. It was pulled by four horses with ostrich plumes dancing from their harnesses and silk pads on their backs. The carriage was made of brass and rosewood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. In the rear was a golden likeness of the bishop’s coat of arms. On the sides above each wheel and well protected under eight layers of burnished lacquer were miniature oil paintings depicting various scenes: the Last Supper, the Sermon on the Mount, St. Anthony being tormented by demons, and St. Peter receiving the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Fourteen of the region’s finest artists and craftsmen had worked more than a year to build it, at a cost to the diocese of a hundred thousand francs. It was rare that any expense was spared for the bishop of Boulogne-Billancourt, whether in his carriages, his vestments, his personal quarters, or the amusements he so lavishly showered upon himself and the more deserving of his guests.

  The carriage was merely a small reflection of the prelate’s appetites, which were as huge as the man himself. He was immense, and wore flowing violet robes that did little to hide his dimensions. Around his neck hung a golden bishop’s cross. His pudgy hands were adorned with fabulous rings: opals and diamonds and rubies.

  On this day the bishop rode alone in the rear, settled deeply into the luxurious crimson velvet cushions built specially for his bulk. He snacked on roast chicken from a wicker hamper and poured himself wine from a bottle riding in a specially made case. He licked his fingers noisily and ignored travelers who sought his eye or some small acknowledgment as he passed.

  The bishop’s coachman pulled abruptly to a stop. He’d seen the boar, and then the boys, as the terrible scene unfolded across the water. At first he couldn’t believe it, thinking he’d seen a mirage. But there it was.

  “What is it?” The bishop was irritated. Wine had spilled on his cloak.

  “It is… it is a boar, Your Grace, a wild boar!” The coachman was agitated. He pointed. With indifference the bishop looked and saw the beast, not fifty meters away.

  “So it is,” he said. “A boar, indeed. Now carry on.”

  The coachman pulled a rifle from its mount on the carriage floorboards. He was always armed, for the bishop’s security could never be taken for granted. The diocese spanned forty-two parishes and fifty-seven curacies in wild hill country where rogues showed no respect for high office or mighty persons.

  “What are you doing?” The bishop saw the man take up the weapon. “I told you to move on.”

  “But Your Grace! Children!” The coachman dropped the reins and moved quickly. He had just enough time to get off a shot, maybe two. He had to try.

  The bishop looked across the lake and saw Paul and Moussa. He recognized them immediately, for Moussa’s clothing was unlike that of other children. Everything about Moussa was unlike other children. Everything about his whole family was unlike every other family. Everything about the deVrieses angered the bishop. Especially the mother, that godless woman who brought his blood to the boil: the she-devil who prayed to false gods and would not convert and whose marriage could not be sanctified so long as she kept to her pagan ways. A bitch was she, a bitch who mocked him, yes, mocked him in his own diocese, mocked him before the priests and the curés and even the sous-curés, mocked him before God with those foreign eyes and that prim smirking mouth, mocked him with her refusal to yield, to repent, to abandon her sinful ways and accept the Lord Jesus Christ. She mocked him with indifference and mocked him with glee. His hands shook and his face flushed every time he saw her, or any of them.

  Yes, thought the bishop. I know that boy well.

  The coachman shouldered his weapon and took aim.

  “Put that gun down.”

  “Your Grace?” He was certain he hadn’t heard correctly. He drew himself straight in his seat and squinted as he found the boar through the sight. It would be a difficult shot, but not impossible.

  “I said put down the gun. Don’t shoot. You’ll frighten the horses.”

  The coachman, his panic growing, thought he must be dreaming. The boar would be on them in a moment.

  “The horses?” He was dumbfounded. “Your Grace, they’ll be killed! There’s no time!”

  “God’s will be done,” said the bishop.

  “But they are children!” The coachman was pleading. His gun was to his shoulder and he could still fire, but his finger eased for he knew the bishop’s tone. Debate had ended.

  “Yes, they are children. The Lord most especially watches out for His children.” The bishop gazed impassively upon the scene unfolding across the lake. His voice dropped to a murmur. “But mistake not, there is only one child of God before you. Only one. God will save that one. The other is a bastard, the half-breed son of sin. And now the devil has come for him.”

  In the distance the boar hit Moussa, who flew through the air like the stuffing from one of the bishop’s cushions. There was no sound, only the sight. The coachman moaned and crossed himself. His gun came down.

  The bishop reached into the hamper for another piece of chicken.

  It was a sign. A boar had come. A big one, with horns and cloven hooves.

  * * *

  The count was at the far end of the lake, storming along the shore and calling out for the boys when he heard a shriek. Instantly he turned and raced forward, drawing his pistol, furious with himself for not having brought a rifle. This was his own land and he knew it well. No one had seen a boar this close to Paris in years. Yet he cursed himself, his lack of preparedness and caution. Paris or not, he knew better. This was still the forest, alive with surprises that could kill the unwary. He’d spent a lifetime learning not to drop his guard and burying people who had. And now it was Moussa who might pay for his stupidity.

  Mon Dieu, not my son!

&n
bsp; Ahead through the trees he saw the clearing and the boar and the great oak, but not the boys. The boar had started to run around the tree. As Henri drew near he made out the still form of Moussa on the ground. The terror rose in his throat as he pushed on, harder, faster, and then a great deep cry welled up from inside as he delivered a hoarse scream to divert the boar, which was again bearing down upon Moussa.

  There was no time to aim the pistol, no time to fire, not one second to spare. Over the ditch soared horse and rider. The pig turned away from Moussa and raised its head to meet the horse; and in a great kaleidoscope of legs and tusks and noise and arms and dust, all three – horse, rider, and boar – came crashing down.

  There was a moment of quiet. The combatants lay stunned. The horse had taken a horn full in the chest and lay dying. The boar had been bowled over backward by the impact and landed flat on its back. It lay dazed, panting heavily. The count barely escaped being crushed under his horse. His right leg had snapped and the wind had been knocked from him. Sheer force of will had kept his fingers wrapped tightly around his pistol. Now, as the dust settled, sheer force of will kept him in the race with the boar for equilibrium and advantage. He tried to pull himself up but his leg was trapped by the horse. He gasped in pain and sat up as far as he could. Through the blur and the shock he sought his target, hidden from view by the side of his horse. He could hear the boar stirring and struggling and saw Moussa’s quiet form not three meters away. Again he desperately tried to free himself. A wave of dizziness and nausea overcame him. His hand went limp. He closed his eyes and slumped to the ground, unconscious.

  The boar struggled up and shook itself. It was no longer the hunted, but the hunter. There was no malice, simply the desire to survive, to destroy that which must be destroyed to permit survival. It heard a noise and turned to face a new threat.

  From point-blank range Serena fired.

  She too had heard a scream, and as she raced across the open field on her horse she watched the dreadful scene unfolding. She had never seen such ferocity, such determination. And now she stood over it, this animal that would not die, and aimed at its head and fired. Its legs buckled and it sagged to its knees. It rested. There was a moment of quiet when it was not clear whether it might fall or try again. Then once more it struggled upward, hooves scrabbling at the dirt, its breath grating, rasping like a storm in a bellows, head swaying from side to side. Its tusks stabbed at nothing, at everything, at the air. It was not ready to quit.

  Serena fired again, and again. Her hand was steady. She was not afraid.

  The animal looked up at her almost quizzically, as if to say, You cannot beat me. I will not let you beat me.

  But at long last the great creature gave out a groan. It closed its eyes and sank to its belly, and died.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon, some of the hunting party fetched a wagon and went off to the field to collect the bodies of the huntsman and the boar. It took six men to get the boar into the wagon. It lay outside the stable where Gascon had to cover it with a tarpaulin to keep the dogs away. A stream of visitors came by, raising the tarp to regard the animal with hushed awe. They measured its tusks and counted its wounds. Afterthey went into the kitchen to inquire after the well-being of the count and his son. Madame LeHavre, the cook, saw to it they all had something to eat and then shooed them away.

  Dr. Fauss arrived late. He was an old man whose age was impossible to discern. He had tended the deVries family for more years than anyone could remember. He’d had a long day. He spent a busy morning in the city treating coughs and vapors and bumps and scrapes, and then came word of the boar. Gascon had come for him in the count’s coach. The doctor disappeared into the house just at twilight.

  The main part of the mansion was two hundred years old. It was two stories, made of stone and brick, and had been added on to a much smaller structure built in 1272 by the Comte Auguste deVries on land granted him by Louis IX. The walls were thick and covered with ivy. It was a comfortable country estate in which both Henri and his brother, Jules, had grown up, and in which both their families now lived. Upon the death of their father, the house, the land, the noble rank, and all the money had passed formally to Henri, the elder brother.

  It was a wonderful house which seemed to have been built solely for the pleasure and entertainment of children. It was filled with corridors and staircases and places to hide. There was a hidden passage on the second floor between the walls and the outside slope of the roof. It ran all the way from one end of the house to the other, connecting the bedchambers with trapdoors hidden behind panels inside massive wardrobes. The count’s father had shown him the passage and the count had shown it to Moussa. Even now Henri took great delight when he heard excited whispers and muffled giggles as someone sneaked from one end of the passage to the other.

  The rooms were large and informal. The kitchen was the center of the house, always comfortable, warmed by an iron cookstove that never went out. Every room had a fireplace. When he was not away, the count spent most of his time in the library, which contained one of the finest collections of books in France. The library had nearly been destroyed during the days of darkness after the Revolution, when angry crowds stormed estates and burned books, and chopped off the heads of those who read them. But while books had been lost, the house and its occupants happily had not. The intervening years had seen the collection grow once again, until under Henri it far surpassed its former glory. Now the shelves were filled with papers and leather-bound volumes and mementos of a lifetime spent traveling in places most people had never heard of. There were carvings and masks and amulets and ivory figurines, and at the center of the room the count’s only extravagance: a large globe, handmade in London by the world’s finest cartographers. It was nearly a meter in diameter, the oceans and continents and poles richly colored. Henri took great pleasure in pointing to spots in Africa and Asia that were ill-defined or entirely blank, and describing exactly what was there., Serena was also knowledgeable, even more so than he where the Sahara was concerned, as it was from the Sahara that she came.

  * * *

  Dr. Fauss emerged from the master bedroom, quietly closing the door behind him. He was ready to leave.

  He rapped lightly on the door to the boys’ room. “Come in,” said the quiet voice.

  There were two beds in the room. Serena sat in a chair next to one, holding Moussa’s small hand. In the next bed lay Paul. Both boys were asleep.

  “Ah, bon, madame la comtesse, I found you.” Serena gave him a wan smile, anxious for news of Henri.

  “Your husband is as lucky as he is strong. I set the leg and splinted it. He’ll have to sit still for a month while it heals. I suppose that will trouble him more than the break itself. I’ll leave you a medication before I go. Give him brandy for the pain.”

  She nodded. “And Moussa?”

  The doctor drew up a chair next to the bed. He felt the boy’s forehead. “Countess, I must confess to amazement.” He pulled back the covers. The boy’s tiny form was a mass of trauma. A long gash just below his rib cage bore rough black stitches. “He should be dead. The horn grazed him there. A miracle it did not penetrate more deeply.” He indicated a bruise that ran from his shoulder to his groin. “Tomorrow that will be worse. It will swell badly. You must keep it cool.” He covered the boy again and sat back in his chair, exhausted by his labors. “His collarbone is broken, and three ribs, and a finger. And he has a skull fracture. A concussion.”

  “A—?” Serena did not know the word.

  The doctor tapped his temple with a finger. “His head. It is broken too.” He smiled to reassure her. “Do not worry, Countess. It is a strong head. A stubborn one, like his father’s.”

  At that moment Paul’s mother, Elisabeth, burst into the room. As always her entry was melodrama in motion, a breathless explosion of curls and color and perfume. She had just returned from the city and heard the news. She was frantic.

  “Paul!” she shouted. �
��What happened to my little Paul?”

  “Calm yourself, madame,” said the doctor, accustomed to her outbursts. “You’ll wake the boys. Paul was not hurt. He is fine. A hero.”

  She rushed to his bed, fussing and cooing and smothering him in kisses. Paul woke up and wriggled away, struggling to maintain his six-year-old dignity. As soon as his mother let up a bit he smiled. “Maman!” He sat up brightly. “Know what happened?”

  “Oui, mon petit, I heard of the boar. You were magnificent!”

  Paul grimaced. Mothers didn’t know anything. That wasn’t it at all.

  “No! We pissed on an ant pile!”

  Elisabeth rolled her eyes.

  * * *

  By the light of a candle Serena sat with Moussa. The house was quiet now, the visitors gone home, everyone asleep. She had checked on Henri and then settled next to her son. She traced a finger on his forehead, touching him in that way only a mother can, a touch of joy for his life and wonder at his luck, a touch of fear for the little body so broken and bruised. She was exhausted, but sleep would not come. Waves of emotion rose within her through a long night of reflection, alternately flooding her with guilt and relief and the dread of what might have been.

  This is my son: her flesh and blood, a small child. Today death had come calling, and death had been denied. How easily it might have been different, she thought. How quickly a son gone, or a husband. Even though he was safe now, the terror kept coming back: terror that rose in a lump in her throat until she wanted to scream; terror that made her chest pound; terror that forced tears from her eyes. Her emotions were wild and physical, sweeping back and forth between nausea and euphoria. How fragile was life! How innocent the boy! How lucky she was!