Wolf Hunt

CHAPTER 16

IT was hard to persuade Relmyer to come to Schonbrunn. The Hofburg Palace was the official home of the Court, but it was decaying and rather impractical because of its dispersed buildings. Emperor Francis I preferred the Chateau de Schonbrunn. So did Napoleon, and he had installed his headquarters there. To show the Viennese that the little setback at Essling had in no way dented his determination, he regularly reviewed his troops at Schonbrunn, that symbol of Austrian power. Today, as frequently happened, an assorted crowd of people hurried into the gardens to watch the spectacle.

An immense park had been decked out in the French style with flowerbeds, shaped hedges, lines of trees ... Symmetry was the golden rule. A fountain of Neptune, statues and fake Roman ruins paid homage to the fashion for antiquities. Right at the end, on a little hill, a pavilion with columns presided in splendour, an invitation to gaze at the view. This park was not of its time.

Schonbrunn was like a little version of Versailles. The ochre facade suggested appeasement. It was governed by subtle mathematical and architectural rules. The result, harmonious, elegant and aesthetic, was a pleasure to behold. In front of the chateau, several regiments waited. Their white gaiters, breeches and tunics shone in the sun, contrasting with the dark blue of their coats. As the Emperor was not yet there, there was complete stillness.

Lefine was overcome with a fit of the giggles.

‘You would think that time had stopped down there.'

The crowd pressed against the sentries charged with keeping it at a distance. Soldiers mingled with the Austrians, some curious and some sympathetic to the republican or imperial cause. Several women had secured places at the front to charm Napoleon. Were they being seductive? Defiant? Greedy? Did they harbour ambitions? Was it love or fascination? Some were so exquisitely beautiful that the Emperor could not fail to notice them if he were to pass close by.

Margont noticed that Relmyer had a sort of tick. His eyes were moving all the time. They ricocheted from face to face, rarely lingering, never finding repose. He had acted the same way in the streets, but here the mass of people accentuated his behaviour, making it more obvious. He’s looking for him, thought Margont. If Relmyer suddenly saw him here - or thought he saw him, because his memory of his gaoler had altered over the years - how would he react?

A clamour arose. There were shouts, and cries of ‘Long live the Emperor!’ A black berlin arrived, escorted by the chasseurs of the Imperial Guard in their green uniforms, their red pelisses thrown over their shoulders, their sabres unsheathed. There followed an interminable, sumptuous procession of officers of the general staff, the gold embroidery on their blue coats sparkling. The cavalry were distinguished by the originality of their uniform. One of them, a dragoon, wore a dark blue coat and a crested copper helmet in the style of Minerva, decorated with a black plume and banded with sealskin; another, the Mameluke Roustan, wore babouches, red baggy trousers, a short blue jacket and a white turban (his ostentatious presence was a reminder that Napoleon, when he was still Bonaparte, had conquered Egypt, albeit briefly). This river of prancing colour and the frenetic excitement of the public contrasted with the immobile, impassive infantry of the line. The crowd tried to draw nearer, but could not get past the sentries barring its way.

Lefine sounded a sour note: ‘That’s right, long live the Emperor! We won’t be saying that when we receive our pay late.’

Napoleon stepped out of the berlin. Emaciated at the time of the Consulate, he had now become stout. His neck was so short that his round head seemed to perch directly on his torso. In spite of the heat he wore a long grey greatcoat and his black bicorn. He was strikingly short, but radiated energy and an intimidating authority. This contradiction was unsettling. Many Viennese hated him. They had come to gaze at ‘the monster’. Many times they had imagined how they would sneer at the Emperor, taunting him as a dwarf, a bloody tyrant, a jumped-up nobody, an ogre ... but now they were struck dumb. They had counted on seeing ‘the vanquished man of Essling’ and instead they were faced with a leader bubbling over with self-assurance. It had been said that during the battle everything had gone wrong for him. Yet the Emperor smiled, joking with an aide-de-camp. He was behaving like ... like a conqueror! In reality Napoleon was projecting an image and he imbued it with astonishing realism.

A general shouted an order and the soldiers briskly presented arms. Moving stiffly, Napoleon began to walk along the line, his hands behind his back, accompanied by two officers of his general staff and two colonels. Sometimes he would pause in front of an infantryman long enough to pose a question, or to repeat one of his sayings, which the army took up in an endless echo: ‘Soldiers,

I am pleased with you’ (the evening after Austerlitz), ‘War between Europeans is civil war’, ‘Action and speed!’, ‘That can’t be allowed: that’s not French!’ ... Margont could not understand how Napoleon could appear so serene while his world was at risk of collapsing any day now. Such self-control inspired confidence.

Now I’m falling under his spell, he reproached himself.

Napoleon speeded up, hurrying, hurrying. The crowd groaned, put out. Was he leaving? So soon? Was he not going to approach before he left? The Emperor questioned two other colonels, turned about and hurried off towards his escort. Some soldiers shouted again, ‘Long live the Emperor,’ while the beautiful girls made eyes at the sentries to try to get them to bow. An imperceptible eddy ran through the crowd in response to Napoleon’s slightest gesture. Margont watched the little grey figure go back up the white and blue line of soldiers.

Suddenly two boys escaped from the throng, pursued by a corporal. Other sentries came from behind to bar their route. The two young men had underestimated the speed of reaction of the infantrymen and were taken unawares. They took stones from their pockets and hurled them in the Emperor’s direction, yelling, ‘Long live Austria!’ Their stones landed in the flowerbeds as Napoleon, who had noticed the incident, disappeared into his berlin. A grenadier grabbed the outstretched arm of one of the boys and yanked it upwards, forcing the boy to let his missile go, like a giant disarming a midget.

‘Little beasts! I’ll tan your hide!’

There were protests from the public. How old were these two daring lads? Fourteen? The commander in charge of the cordon let them go, saying, ‘We only hunt the big game.’

‘We’ll get them when they’re big then,’ retorted the grenadier bitterly. ‘And then it won’t be the belt, it’ll be the firing squad.’ Margont caught Relmyer by the arm. He was unaware that he was pinching him.

‘That’s how our man operates! That’s how he was able to drag Wilhelm with him. Wilhelm wanted to join the Austrian army and his murderer led him to believe that he was going to help him cross the border and then to enlist.’

The crowd broke up around them but Margont was not paying attention to that.

‘It’s impossible to cross a river while threatening someone with a pistol. And you can’t pass through enemy lines with someone who wants to be noticed and is trying to escape from you. That doesn’t

make sense. If the murderer had regularly run risks like that he would have been caught long ago. He must have discovered that Wilhelm was hostile to the French.’

‘But how?’ Relmyer immediately asked.

‘He must sometimes go to the area around Vienna. He has already done that at least once, when he was taken by surprise with Wilhelm on the road back.’

These words reinforced Relmyer’s feeling of an invisible threat that he had had now for so many years. A latent, formless, malleable danger, a sort of thickness in the air, which was both variable and oppressive.

‘He looks for boys who are critical of the French,’ went on Mar-gont. ‘He could very well be here now, in the crowd, and have noticed the demonstration made by those two young boys. See how easy it would be. And it would be easy for him to elicit confidences, since he is Austrian. He’s worked on his technique. Now instead of forcing, he convinces. He doesn’t threaten any more, he seduces. That way he can easily lead his victim where he wants him; the victim willingly co-operates. He has adapted to circumstances and uses them to his own advantage. He chooses someone in French territory and takes them over to the Austrian side before taking advantage of them. He does admittedly run risks crossing lines, but with his exceptional knowledge of the woods and marshes of the area, the risks are limited. Moreover, riding between the two zones confuses things and helps him cover his tracks. Anyone who disappears in the French zone will only be looked for in that zone. Our man therefore puts his victims out of reach of anyone who might help them.’

Spelling out his deductions, Margont was cocooned in a universe of concepts, theories and speculation, spun out of ideas. This protected him, keeping at bay emotions, which Relmyer, on the other hand, felt the full brunt of. Wild-eyed and sweating, he appeared ready to succumb to rage, or exhaustion, or perhaps illness ... ‘Wherever he goes,’ he said, ‘he will never be out of my reach.’

‘Now he’s choosing people whose name their nearest and dearest would not be surprised to find on a list of men killed in action.

He’s covering his tracks even better than previously.’

Margont looked again at the long line of regiments a general was addressing. The scene was exactly the same as earlier but, to him, it now meant something different. Now it seemed menacing. It was no longer reassuring; on the contrary, it had become the involuntary ally of peril. The soldiers broke rank, as the grains of a wall of sand rapidly disperse.

The more troops arrive, the closer we are to the moment of battle. We can almost say with certainty that the man we’re seeking will try to get hold of another boy before the next confrontation. Whatever the outcome, the war will move on far from here, either following the retreating army, or it will be suspended. So the murderer has an incentive to act quickly.’

Relmyer’s torment was without end. ‘Perhaps it’s already too late.’

‘I don’t think so. It would be very risky to kidnap another young man from Lesdorf. Two disappearances so close together would attract attention.’

‘Several of my hussars are keeping a watch on the orphanages in the area and will spot him if he approaches.’

‘No, he’ll go looking elsewhere. But he will still need several days to pick out a potential victim and to gain his confidence. However, time is against us.’