The Nostradamus prophecies

38

Alexi was making up some ground ahead of the eye-man – but not quite as fast as he had hoped. The mare had had ample time to recuperate from that morning’s ten-kilometre ride, but Alexi suspected that Bouboul had neither fed nor watered her, for her tongue was already hanging loose at the side of her mouth. She was clearly on her last legs.

His only comfort lay in the knowledge that the gelding the eye-man was riding would be in a similar condition. The thought of being forced back on foot, however, in such an isolated environment and pursued through the marshes by a madman with a pistol, didn’t bear contemplation.

So far he had stuck to the exact reverse of the path that they had followed that morning, on their way from the house. But Alexi knew that he would soon have to veer off and strike out into the unknown. He couldn’t risk leading the eye-man back to their base – for when Sabir and Yola discovered the two horses gone, they would have no option but to return to the one place they knew he might come back.

His only hope lay in eluding the eye-man completely. To have any chance at all of doing this, Alexi knew that he needed to gather his wits about him. To control his rising sense of panic. To think clearly and constructively and at full gallop.

On his left, beyond the Etang des Launes, was the Le Petit Rhone. Alexi knew it well, having fished there with a succession of male relatives on and off since childhood. To his knowledge, there was only one ferry-crossing nearby – at the Bac du Sauvage. Saving that, you were forced to cross the long way round, by road, maybe ten kilometres further upriver, at the Pont du Sylvereal. There was, quite literally, no other way into the Petite Camargue – unless you flew, of course.

If he could time the ferry exactly right, he might stand an outside chance. But what were the odds? The ferry made the trip every half-hour, on the half-hour. It might already be positioned on the far side of the river, gearing up for the return journey – in which case he was trapped. The river, as he remembered it, was about two hundred metres wide at that point and flowed far too strongly for an exhausted horse to manage. And he didn’t have a watch. Should he throw all his eggs into one basket and try for the ferry? Or was he mad?

The mare stumbled and then caught herself. Alexi knew that if he carried on in this way she would simply burst her heart – he had heard of horses doing this. She would drop like a stone and he would break his neck in a flat-out fall over her shoulders. At least that way the eye-man would be saved the trouble of having to torture him, as he’d obviously done with Babel.

Alexi was two minutes ride from the ferry-crossing. He simply had to chance it. He cast one final, despairing glance over his shoulder. The eye-man was fifty metres behind him and gaining. Perhaps the gelding had snatched a drink of water at Bouboul’s? Perhaps that was why he wasn’t tiring as fast as the mare?

The barriers were down at the ferry-crossing and the ferry was just putting off from the shore. There were four cars and a small van on board. The crossing was so short that no one had bothered to climb out of their cars. Only the ticket collector saw Alexi coming.

The man raised a warning hand and shouted, ‘ Non! Non! ’

Alexi launched the mare at the single-barred barrier. There was a steep slope leading down to it. Perhaps she would be able to get a firm enough grip on the asphalt and launch herself over? Either way, he couldn’t afford to let up his pace.

At the last possible moment the mare lost her nerve and jinked to the left. Her back legs slid out from under her and her hip dropped, exaggerated by the downward slope of the slipway. She slid underneath the barrier, all four legs thrown up into the air, shrieking. Alexi hit it back on. He tried to curl himself into a ball, but failed. He smashed through the barrier, which partially broke his fall. Then he struck the asphalt with his right shoulder and side. Without allowing himself to think or to count the cost in pain, Alexi launched himself after the ferry. If he missed the metal landing plank, he knew that he would drown. Not only had he damaged himself, somewhere, somehow – but he couldn’t swim.

The ticket collector had seen many crazy things in his life – what ferryman hadn’t? – but this took the biscuit. A man on a horse trying to leap the barrier and get on board? He transported horses all the time. The ferry company had even set-up a semi-permanent tether for the summer months – tilted away from the cars so that the horses wouldn’t damage anyone’s paintwork if they kicked out backwards. Perhaps this man was a horse thief? Either way, he’d lost his prize. The horse had shattered her leg in the fall, if he wasn’t mistaken. The man, too, was probably injured.

The ticket collector reached down and unhooked the life ring. ‘It’s tied to the ferry! Grab it and hang on!’

He knew, now the ferry was under way, that it was all but impossible to stop the trawling mechanism. The pull of the river was so strong that the ferry had to be anchored to a guiding chain, which prevented it spinning out of control and down towards the Grau d’Orgon. Once the mechanism was triggered, it became risky to stop it, thereby loading the long loop of the chain with the dead weight of the ferry, backed up by the full driving force of the river. In conditions of heavy rain, the ferry could even burst its stanchions and drift towards the open sea.

Alexi grabbed for the ring and slid it over his head.

‘Turn around! Turn around in the water and let it drag you!’

Alexi turned around and let the ferry drag him along behind it. He was scared of swallowing water and maybe drowning like that. So he curved his neck forwards, until his chin lay fl at on his chest and allowed the water to wash over his shoulders like a bow-wake. As he did so, it belatedly occurred to him to feel around in his shirt for the bamboo tube. It was gone.

He glanced back at the slipway. Had he lost it there, while falling? Or in the water? Would the eye-man see it and realise what it was?

The eye-man sat astride his horse at the barrier. As Alexi watched, the eye-man took out his pistol and shot the mare. Then he turned back towards the Pont de Gau and the Marais and disappeared into the underbrush.