Memory of Flames

CHAPTER 10

THE man who had interrogated Margont must have been about forty-five. He looked as commanding as he sounded. He held himself proudly, he was clearly impassioned and he seemed poised to fling himself into battle. There was an impressive energy about him. Had he chosen to serve the Empire he would certainly have been high up in the hierarchy, either civil or military. But he had decided to support the King, and his ‘Grande Armée’ was merely a group of perhaps thirty, and instead of gliding through the enemy palaces he had seized, he was hiding from cellar to cellar. He was a sort of fallen angel precipitated into limbo alongside royalty. Although he was an idealist, he must have suffered from not occupying a rank commensurate with his talents. Margont’s argument about the need to be recognised had shocked him because it had hit the nail on the head ... The emblem of the Swords of the King was pinned to his jacket over his heart. Margont looked at it briefly, as if he were seeing it for the first time, and noted that it corresponded in every particular with the one he had seen on Colonel Berle’s body.

'I'm Vicomte Louis de Leaume.’

‘Delighted to meet you!’ said Margont, massaging his throat. ‘Baron Honoré de Nolant.’

Nolant was overcome with embarrassment. It is not every day you are introduced to the person you almost murdered a few minutes earlier. He was a little younger than Louis de Leaume, and thin, but Margont was not taken in by his fragile appearance, knowing how easily he had been overpowered by him. Nolant did not look directly at Margont and appeared distracted, lost in his own thoughts.

Varencourt looked pale. He did not dare move, as if he had not yet realised that the ordeal was over.

He turned to Margont and said, ‘Incredible! You’re even more of a gambler than I am!’

He laughed, bringing colour to his cheeks, but the rest of his face was still as pale as porcelain.

A third man, who had been silent up until then, introduced himself: ‘Jean-Baptiste de Chatel.’ He was posted just inside the door, as if to intercept Margont should he try to flee. He was a little older, but not yet fifty, with a bony face and searching, narrowed eyes. He was so emaciated he looked ill, or as if he had endured many years of deprivation.

Margont realised he had been put in front of a sort of tribunal. Everyone had been listening to him and when Louis de Leaume had proposed lighting a candle, any one of them could have sentenced him to death by replying ‘no’. In the meantime Jean-Baptiste de Chatel did not look happy. He had contemplated refusing the light!

‘Monsieur de Langes, perhaps you would like to suggest a suitable quotation from the Holy Bible. What do you know of the word of God?’

‘Thou shalt not kill,’ replied Margont, looking at Honoré de Nolant.

‘That’s a bit short.’

Margont now felt trapped in the persona he had just projected. It would not do to appear merely as a pushy trouble-maker. He would have to temper the showy opportunism he had displayed with a demonstration of faith to win over the idealists present. Jean-Baptiste de Chatel looked as if he might be susceptible to this. So Margont pressed on.

“‘Seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, when, lo, he had given his hand, and hath done all these things, he shall not escape. Therefore thus saith the Lord Cod; As I live, surely mine oath that he hath despised, and my covenant that he hath broken, even it will I recompense upon his own head.” Ezekiel, Chapter 17, verses 18 and 19. He who breaks a covenant offends God and breaks away from him.’

Jean-Baptiste de Chatel s expression was transformed, like a block of ice turned suddenly to vapour. He seemed about to take Margont in his arms. ‘Good, very good!’

Margont had spent four years in the Abbey of Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert studying the Bible under the iron yoke of the monks. He had almost become a monk himself, against his will. So it would be hard to trip him up in his knowledge of theology. To lie effectively was it not best to lead your adversary onto territory that you were sure of?

‘What do you know about the Antichrist?’ Chatel demanded. Margont thought he was trying to trip him up by asking him about an unfamiliar subject. “‘And he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws.” Daniel ... I can’t remember which chapter...’

Jean-Baptiste de Chatel was jubilant. ‘Magnificent! A real believer! So, Quentin — I may call you that? - as you know the Holy Scriptures so well, do you not agree that Napoleon is the Antichrist?’ Margont was dumbfounded and wondered if Jean-Baptiste was making fun of him. His reaction caused Jean-Baptiste’s joyous demeanour to falter somewhat.

‘But it goes without saying, Monsieur de Langes!’

Margont was taken aback by such an extreme theory. Jean-Baptiste

de Chatel took immediate offence and did not address another word to him. Their alliance had lasted all of the time it took to recite a couple of verses of the Bible, and Margont’s clever tactic had been turned against him: far from making a friend of Jean-Baptiste, he had turned him into an enemy.

‘Has our zealot finished his sermon?’ demanded Louis de Leaume with such irony that his words were like a slap.

Clearly it was not permitted for a mere member of the group to monopolise the conversation at the expense of the leader. The Vicomte’s words had been designed to reassert his authority. But far from being called to order, Jean-Baptiste de Chatel gave Leaume a sardonic smile, provoking him even further. He was openly delighted at having roused Leaume’s temper, and his attitude made everyone else ill at ease. Leaume chose to ignore him. Margont wondered if the cause of the animosity between the two men was just rivalry, or if there was not more to it. Jean-Baptiste had a strange way of staring at the Vicomte in an insistent manner. Leaume turned to Margont.

‘What do you want in exchange for your help?’

‘I want everything. I want to be on the committee of the Swords of the King.’

‘To be on the committee, you have to have been a member for more than two months, and have done something to prove your loyalty.’

‘Nearly getting my throat cut in order to meet you - doesn’t that prove my loyalty! As for your two months, I don’t have the patience to wait, and in any case, we don’t have two months. The outcome of the war will be decided in the next few weeks. If my offer doesn’t interest you, no matter. There are many other royalist organisations: the Congregation, the Knights of the Faith, the Friends of Order ... The King will reward the men who help him the most and I’m going to become one of those men, with you or without you.’

‘We have our regulations, Monsieur.’

‘I’m sure you do. But you’re not the kind of man to let regulations stand in your way.’

Louis de Leaume looked at him with a new eye. ‘How perceptive you are ... Perceptive people are dangerous, because they won’t be appeased by the lies that would satisfy others. Why do you wish to become part of our group? The Knights of the Faith, for example, are better known; why not go to them first?’

There are too many of them. I would be lost in the mass. I would scarcely be heard and I would be nothing but a second-rate pawn, and I absolutely won’t have that! If you admit me to the top of your organisation, to your committee, my printing press can be heavily influential in your success. It’s up to you. Now it’s time to see if you really are the man of action you claim to be.’

‘I accept you as one of us, in effect as a member of our committee. I take full responsibility for the decision.’

Leaume had not asked the opinion of any of the others before deciding, thus demonstrating that he was in charge. Varencourt and Honoré de Nolant were delighted and shook Margont’s hand in a show of brotherhood. Jean-Baptiste de Chatel merely nodded coldly at him, keeping his distance.

‘Now that you are one of us, there is one more person you should meet,’ said Louis de Leaume. ‘All the members of the committee should know one another. Well have to go upstairs.’

Margont almost stumbled on the stairs. He was pale as he regained his balance. He had just guessed why the other conspirator had waited upstairs while they interrogated him. It was because that person had not wanted to be present at his execution.