Wolf Hunt

by Isabel Reid (Translator) Armand Cabasson

  They were all aware that it was a fearsome object guarding a blade that was the extension not only of a skilled hand but also of a determined will.

  ‘I always knew that I would come back here to settle the affair. It’s only that I have come a little earlier than expected. I would have preferred to wait three or four more years, to perfect my skills, to become a master of arms without peer.’

  Relmyer’s boundless vanity was childish. He passed from adulthood to adolescence to childhood in an instant, as if he were perpetually oscillating between these three stages of his life. ‘However, my premature return is a good thing. Because the man is still here and he’s killed again! Wilhelm was sixteen. Almost the same age as Franz and I when we were kidnapped! We came from the same orphanage and, besides, I knew him: we used to play together sometimes. And most telling of all, there’s that smile!’

  ‘I wonder why the assassin mutilates his victims in that way?’ asked Margont, baffled.

  ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out. I know that I can count on Luise,

  but that's not enough. I had put all my hopes on two of my hussars, Barel and Pagin. I sent them to look for Wilhelm but alas, Barel is lying somewhere between Essling and Aspern. As for Pagin, he’s barely seventeen; he needs guidance. The other troopers in my squadron only care about themselves and the war, which, I do concede, is already a lot to think about. Are you willing to assist me?’

  Margont appeared undecided and Lefine looked at him, willing him to refuse.

  ‘I can help you out for the moment. We’ll have to see for how long.'

  Relmyer leapt to his feet, beaming. Thank you! Let’s go and find my captain and get him to release me so that I can show you the spot where Wilhelm was killed. Pagin will come with us - he managed to find out quite a bit about the crime. Then I’ll take you to where I was imprisoned. Perhaps you will notice something that escaped me.’

  Margont was surprised by Relmyer’s precise, coherent proposal.

  He must have thought endlessly about this investigation. Margont realised that, for reasons he did not fully understand, he had been drawn into a duel between two redoubtable adversaries, for the murderer, who had been able to strike a second time without being caught, was as formidable as Relmyer.

  Overcome with joy, Relmyer embraced Margont, Lefine, then Margont again. ‘Oh, Monsieur! I am so indebted to you! If ever anyone picks a fight with you, tell me and I swear I will have his guts for garters.’

  Even his presents were stained with blood.

  Instead of going to Relmyer’s captain, Margont addressed himself directly to Major Batichut, whom he had heard much about from Piquebois. Batichut, a tough little hussar, did not even reply to Margont’s salute.

  ‘You’re in the 18th of the Line? Do you know Second Lieutenant Piquebois?’

  ‘Yes, of course. He’s one of my best friends.’

  Batichut’s face lit up. Amazing! Here was one of Piquebois’s friends! ‘Why didn’t you say so earlier? When you introduce yourself to the 8th Hussars and you know Piquebois, you should say, “I am a friend of Antoine Piquebois,” not, “Captain Quentin Mar-gont, 18th of the Line, Brigade such and such, Division so and so”.’

  Noticing Relmyer frowning, Margont explained to him that Piquebois was a former hussar of the 8th Regiment.

  ‘No, Monsieur Plodding Infantryman,’ corrected Batichut. ‘Piquebois was not a hussar but the hussar! You would be lucky to find two as good as he in the élite platoon. An example to follow, Relmyer! At least to follow up until 1805, when, alas, he left the hussars after being seriously wounded, and went to become an infantryman. What a shame!’

  It was not clear whether Batichut was bemoaning Piquebois’s injury, or his departure. Best not to ask.

  ‘Please pass on greetings from Major Batichut! I met your friend at a duel when he was fighting some melancholy dolt from the mounted artillery—’

  ‘With all due deference, Major, I’d rather not hear about it,’ cut in Margont. ‘I’m sure that Piquebois remembers you very well.’ Batichut was overcome with surprise and disappointment, like an attentive host whose guest turns up his nose at the main dish. Then he became angry when Margont made his request. ‘You take Piquebois from us and now you want Relmyer! Would you also, by any chance, like my horse and my wife?’

  Reflecting that it was not in the best taste to refer to his wife in this way, Batichut calmed down as suddenly as he had flared up. His outbursts were like storms in a teacup. Except on the battlefield ... ‘It shall not be said that I disappointed the friend of a hussar, even the foot soldier friend of a former hussar. Relmyer, you may go wherever you please, but if you miss a call to arms, you will be sanctioned.’

  As the three men moved away, Batichut shouted, ‘Captain Margont, ask Piquebois when he’s coming back! Because he will come back one day, for sure, mark my words!’

  CHAPTER 6

  RELMYER was accompanied by three of his hussars. Pagin, who had scoured the countryside before finally finding Wilhelm’s body, seemed to have forgotten the mutilated face. His blood, heated by the flame of youth, boiled in his veins and his ardour communicated itself to his mare, which was ready to set off at a gallop at the least provocation. Even the heat that streaked his face with sweat did not calm Pagin.

  ‘How did you hear about the boy’s disappearance?’ queried Mar-gont.

  Relmyer pressed his lips together, annoyed with himself. ‘I’ve been discreetly keeping a watch on the orphanage since we arrived in the Vienna area. It was easy for me to organise.’

  Hussars were in fact always deployed across a wide area, and since they were observant and resourceful they acted as the eyes and ears of the army.

  ‘I didn’t know exactly what I was hoping for. I wanted to have news

  of the orphanage. Was it still there? Who worked there? I had a feeling of latent menace, but I’ve had that for years, ever since my kidnap. When I heard that one of the orphans had disappeared, that it was Wilhelm, I immediately thought, it’s starting all over again. I didn’t have any proof, of course, but it’s what I firmly believed. I always thought that Franz’s murderer would strike again. What was to stop him? I gave the order to search for Wilhelm, to interrogate people ... I tried to persuade myself that he had only run away.’

  ‘Why did he leave the orphanage?’

  ‘He stole out on the night of his death. His friends don’t know where he was headed, but he had taken all his meagre belongings so he had gone for good. It’s an astonishing coincidence: as soon as I return, there’s another murder.’

  ‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ declared Margont.

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘So what’s the link between the two events?’

  ‘I can’t answer that question yet, although I keep asking it myself.’

  ‘We will have to try to find the people who investigated Franz’s death.’

  Relmyer gritted his teeth to prevent himself from letting loose a stream of vituperation. The merest mention of the Viennese police made him want to hit something — the trees, the houses, the world. For a few seconds he was unable to reply. ‘I’d already thought of that. As much as it pained me, I did make the effort to try to see those incompetent imbeciles, but I failed. One died last year of inflammation of the lungs. Two others joined the Viennese Volunteer force and were subsumed by Archduke Charles’s army. The last one fled before the troops arrived. And to top it all off, when the police were evacuated from the capital they took most of their archives with them ...’

  Relmyer raised his chin and looked at Margont with sparkling eyes. He regularly forced himself to appear cheerful and sometimes even felt it. Changing the subject, he added: ‘I like the way you put things. Very clear, very mathematical.’

  ‘Really? “Mathematical”?’ Margont had never heard the word used as a compliment.

  ‘Do you like maths?’ asked Relmyer.

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘That’s a great shame! Mat
hs is at the core of everything, it is the very essence of the world. It enables us to translate the complexity of what surrounds us into a simple, codified language.’

  ‘The essence of the world?’

  ‘The trajectory of a cannonball, the dome of a cathedral, the strength of a bridge, the speed of movement of an army, a series of attacks in a duel ...’

  ‘And that’s what you think the world is? What about love, friendship, literature? Also just maths?’

  ‘Not yet, but one day, certainly.’

  Margont did not agree with this point of view and wanted to respond, but Lefine intervened with the consoling words: ‘Not to worry, Captain, we won’t be around to witness that sad state of affairs. The war will have killed us long before.’

  The little group stopped on the banks of the Danube and the

  horses hastened to drink from the river. Behind them, the French troops and their allies were arriving at their quarters. Large shapeless masses, topped with a forest of muskets, moved slowly across the plains. The noise of their displacement, the muted hammering of thousands of steps and the clanking of arms and other equipment sounded almost ferocious. Messengers went to and fro at the gallop. The march of these titanic centipedes could be halted by three virtually illegible lines scribbled by an aide-de-camp trying desperately to take down orders rapped out by Napoleon. They would then be sent in a different direction.

  ‘Look at all those islands,’ commented Relmyer.

  The majestic course of the Danube was indeed sprinkled with an astonishing number of small wooded marshy islands, covered with tall grasses ... impossible to tell with the naked eye what their topography was like.

  ‘Without even counting the part of the Danube that runs north from Vienna or south from Lobau, which is the largest island, you can see hundreds of them - they look like a labyrinth. The vagaries

  of the current either throw them up or obliterate them. I don’t know why Wilhelm and the man we’re hunting would have come here. But I know one thing: if you knew this area well, you could easily lose yourself in it, even if fifty soldiers were on your trail.’ ‘Which of these islands were they on?’

  Relmyer’s gaze sought Pagin, who was investigating the river, his horse submerged up to the chest. He was imagining himself parading in front of the Emperor, to announce that he, Pagin, of the 1st Squadron of the 8th Hussars, had discovered a ford across the river. No more pain-in-the-neck bridges collapsing! Unfortunately, others before him had searched and failed, and before long he would be swept away by the current, waving his arms in agitation. These days, it was always the Danube that had the last word. Relmyer signalled to him and Pagin came galloping back. The affair distressed him. He would dearly have loved to solve it for the two officers.

  ‘It’s impossible to tell, Lieutenant. I was able to interrogate only second-hand witnesses and they contradicted each other. It was

  somewhere here, not far from Vienna, during the night of 19 May. The patrol was following the river when they heard a noise and saw two silhouettes on the one of the islets. They shouted out and then fired ... In the time it took them to commandeer a boat, the other fellow had disappeared.’

  ‘Was the boy wet?’

  ‘Soaking.’

  Relmyer, pensive, stroked his horse’s neck. They must have wanted to swim across. The bridges have been destroyed in several places by the retreating Austrians, and Archduke Charles has sabotaged most of the boats.’

  Margont let his gaze slide over the surface of the water, seeking out the shimmers that caught the rays of the sun. ‘The Danube’s currents make it dangerous to cross. They must have gone over at night to avoid being seen by the sentries. And our man must have taken care to keep his pistol dry; he probably hid it under his hat. He would have been able to make use of the confused mass of islands to conceal their escape. Would you know how to do that?’

  Relmyer shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘So he knew the lie of the land even better than you. How did he meet Wilhelm? What did he do to persuade him to come as far as this? Where were they going? And for what? There are so many unanswered questions.’

  Relmyer gave a bitter laugh, but it seemed to hide the salty taste of tears. ‘So many unanswered questions? That’s all I have, questions! Who is this man? Why does he mutilate his victims? How long will he go on killing? And how can we stop him?’

  They frittered away several minutes trying to work out the exact spot where Wilhelm had been assassinated. They tried to find a boat first, but all the boats not already swiped by the Austrians had been requisitioned by the French. Pagin insisted on plunging into the water, bolt upright on his horse. The current bore him away and his horse began to turn its head from side to side, searching for firm ground. Finally the animal succeeded in reaching one of the little islands, but it was not the one Pagin had been aiming for. Despite his best efforts the hussar was only able to

  explore half a dozen islands.

  Finally Margont exclaimed in exasperation, ‘It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack!’

  ‘Even an entire regiment wouldn’t be enough to find the island,’ admitted Relmyer.

  Pagin painfully made his way back to the riverbank, exhausted and trembling, and delivered his conclusion: This man knows the area like the back of his hand.'

  Lefine clenched his teeth. ‘We knew that already before wasting three hours here.’

  Margont turned towards Relmyer. ‘Why don’t you show us the cellar you were locked up in?’

  ‘I don’t think we have time, it’s already late ...’

  Late? It was midday! Relmyer wanted to return to the cellar, but at the same time he would have given anything never to have to set foot there again. ‘All right. I’ll take you,’ he conceded with bad grace.

  They followed the banks of the Danube back towards the north-west. Then they skirted round Vienna to the north. Neither Lefine nor Margont had managed to visit that admirable city at the time of the 1805 campaign. All the riders except Relmyer looked towards it, avid to discover the least little detail about it even from afar. They lost time because there were troops in their path. The battalions had become muddled up trying to get round a mass of ammunition wagons. The light horse of the Imperial Guard, arriving in their turn, had decided to take the shortest route and simply galloped through the infantry. Bad idea. The resulting disorder rang with shouts, threats and injunctions. Behind this chaos could be seen the hand of Napoleon.

  Lefine leant towards Margont. The Emperor is deploying his troops in the best way to confront the Austrian army, while still holding on firmly to Vienna. That will give pause to those who want to stir themselves to cause havoc behind us.’

  Like every French soldier, Lefine still remembered the Viennese bells ringing out in celebration of the Austrian semi-victory at Essling.

  Finally their way was clear and they were able to trot rapidly into the forest. It was denser and more massive than Margont could have imagined. Visibility dropped dramatically, as did the heat, which became more bearable. The hussars spread out one behind the other, a few paces apart. They held themselves at the ready, sabres or muskets in hand. Lefine and Margont were ill at ease. They passed a dead tree, suddenly revealing bushes, invisible the moment before. A group of shrubs trembled; was that just the wind? The tree trunks obscured their vision. If there were danger you would definitely not realise it until too late.

  ‘How much further, Lieutenant?’ asked Lefine.

  Relmyer, lost in his memories, did not answer. Margont recalled an old history lesson. What was it now? Shortly after Jesus Christ, the Germanic Armin, chief of the Cherusci, annihilated three Roman legions that had imprudently taken a short cut through the Teutoburg forest. Margont moved up alongside Relmyer.

  ‘I hope we’re not going to linger here.’ ‘No.’ ‘Can you describe the man we’re looking for?’

  The irregular shadows of the foliage flickered slowly across Relmy-er’s tormented features.
>
  ‘I’m tempted to say he was tall, but I was shorter at the time. His clothes were unremarkable, neither rich nor poor. His hair? Brown.’

  ‘And his face?’

  Relmyer grew agitated at that question. ‘His face - I see it, but I can’t describe it! It’s like a splinter perfectly visible beneath the skin, but impossible to pull out. I only saw it briefly; then he made us turn our backs. It was so long ago ... Everything is so vivid but at the same time blurry. He was thirty-five or a bit younger ... with heavy eyebrows. No moustache or beard, blue eyes.’

  ‘Would you recognise him?’

  ‘Most probably. At least I think so ...’

  ‘And would he recognise you? Have you changed much?’

  ‘Yes, I have changed! Today I know how to fight.’

  Actually, the answer to Margont’s question was obvious: Relmyer

  still looked very young.

  ‘Let’s put that to one side for the moment. What can you tell me about his hands?’

  ‘His hands? He had two of them, each with five fingers. Flesh-coloured. Does that get you anywhere?’

  ‘You must have seen his hands, at least the one brandishing the weapon. Was he right-or left-handed?’

  ‘Right-handed, I’m sure about that.’

  ‘He knew this forest well, according to what you’ve told me. Did he have the calloused hands of a woodcutter?’

  Relmyer brightened. ‘No, not at all! His hands were slender with clean nails.’

  ‘Are you certain you’re remembering correctly?’

  ‘I’m not remembering, I’m seeing them.’

  After a while, Relmyer stopped. ‘It’s somewhere near here that he surprised us. But I can’t tell you exactly where.’ He made an effort to overcome his apprehension. ‘We have to go this way, now,’ he added, forcing his way through a curtain of branches.

  They abandoned the path they had followed up to that point. The interplay of greens and shadows became even more pronounced. The horses picked their way painfully through bushes and branches.