‘All right, if no one understood what I was trying to say, let him learn to ride a horse. But there is one particular case - just one! -where an event transcends our love of horses.’

‘One particular case, just one!’ echoed the hussars.

‘It’s when the first horse is killed under you in combat! In Cod’s name, that’s a baptism! It’s like the first girl one beds!’

Piquebois and his companions produced goblets they had been hiding behind their backs. A warrant officer held one out to Margont.

Piquebois, joyously excited, shouted: ‘In honour of the first horse killed under my friend Captain Margont!’

Everyone emptied their goblets, the warrant officer clinking for two people since Margont refused his glass.

‘You’re all stupid!’ exclaimed Margont. ‘I was almost killed, I ... Oh, get out! Go on!’

Piquebois and his companions went on their way, laughing. They were young and there was a war on: life was sweet. That was the way they saw the world ... In spite of the shooting pains travelling through his battered body, Margont turned to Lefine.

‘Why am I surrounded by idiots?’

‘It’s because you attract them, damn it!’

‘Listen to me: Jean-Quenin thinks I will be able to leave hospital the day after tomorrow, so I’ll leave this evening. That will be good enough; he is always too cautious. Go and see our major and tell him from me to make sure Antoine doesn’t leave our regiment; he can tell him that he’s putting him on guard or that there’s going to be an inspection of the company, or anything at all that will keep him there ... Because otherwise the malady of our friend Antoine, the “hussar manque”, will recur and we will have two Relmyers for the price of one. Can you also find me a new horse and keep me informed about the prisoners? If one of them finally decides to talk ...’

Lefine sniggered. ‘Isn’t it enough for you, all that’s already happened?’

‘No!’ persisted Margont. ‘It would take a great deal more than that to make me give up.’

‘For heaven’s sake! At the rate things are going, you’ll soon have your “great deal more”!’

But Margont was no longer listening. Luise had just arrived in the company of a hussar that Relmyer had sent to inform her what had happened. She was in tears and the man had to point out Margont before she spotted him. She crossed the room, lifting her pale blue dress slightly, but the bloodstains had still accumulated at the bottom and were gradually creeping up the azure material. She stopped in front of him.

‘Is it serious?’

‘No, it’s nothing.’

‘Why did you let yourself get wounded?’

She leant over him. Margont thought she was going to kiss him, but she slapped him hard.

‘Idiot!’

She immediately left as the wounded soldiers guffawed. Lefine shrugged his shoulders philosophically.

‘There are some days when everything goes badly and others when things go even worse ...’

CHAPTER 22

BY 11 June Margont had recovered. Lefine was regularly absent pursuing his research, and Relmyer was still spending all his time ferreting through the archives of the Kriegsministerium. They were all to meet up in a cafe on the Graben to take stock.

Margont, the first to arrive, already had three empty cups in front of him when Lefine joined him, accompanied by Relmyer, whom he had gone to uproot from his world of papers. Pagin was not far behind, of course; he followed Relmyer like a shadow. Relmyer was his mentor, the ideal older brother he had never had.

They all ordered coffee while they waited for Luise, who was also to join them. The ambience was noisy and smoky. The Kajfeehaus was always full. Soldiers gathered there in spite of the high prices. Prostitutes sat on their laps and hung round their necks wearing daringly low-cut dresses, which they lifted to show off their legs. They roared with laughter when the men fought over them. Some drunken infantrymen came in, loudly calling for wine, and went angrily off again when they discovered there was none left. The owner and his sons hardly knew which way to turn.

‘Before we begin, I’d like to give you something,’ Relmyer announced.

Give them something? Lefine looked expectant. He still remembered the cascade of gold that had fallen from Relmyer’s hand onto the desk of the clerk at the Ministry of War. Relmyer lined up three tin soldiers on the table. The figurines, horsemen painted in three colours, seemed to challenge the coffee cups.

To me they are much, much more than toys. They represent our “soldiers’ oath”. After the inquiry into Franz’s death was abandoned, Luise, some friends from Lesdorf and I swore never to renounce the hunt for Franz’s assassin. I organised the ceremony -a secret meeting in the dead of night, in one of our bedrooms. To seal our pact I had the idea of using tin soldiers. Seven of us swore the oath.’

‘Where are the five others?’ asked Lefine.

Relmyer’s voice became halting and bitter.

‘I lost track of two of them. One of the others serves as an NCO in the Austrian army. The two remaining ones are here in Vienna. I went to find them. They told me they considered that the saga no longer concerns them. One of them even said that our “soldiers’ oath” was the fantasy of a handful of angry boys. He added, “Today we are adults.” Well? What do you think? Am I just a child who hasn’t managed to grow up?’

His explanation lent new meaning to the figurines.

‘That’s why I chose the tin soldiers to signal my presence - so that our man would notice me. They are testimony to my determination never to give up.’

Pagin picked one up and brandished it in front of his face. Mar-gont took one as well. The object was heavy, and weighed down by the oath associated with it. Lefine took the last one, although to him it was all a kind of game rather than a real pledge.

‘I bought them for you,’ continued Relmyer. ‘I wanted to retrieve the ones from my former friends but they had lost them or thrown them away. Only Luise kept hers, in her drawing room.’

‘She even added some of her own, perhaps to compensate for those she felt had disappeared with the other conspirators.' hazarded Margont.

To think that as soon as I came back I went to find them and not Luise! Now that that has been sorted out, let’s see where we are. Luise is late, but I can’t wait any more.’

Margont related his discussion with Lefine in the hospital. Relmy-er said that so far he had not obtained any results, either at the Kriegsministerium or following his interrogation of the man who had stolen the archive material. Although military documents had been found at his house and the general staff were studying those, large sums of money earned from his illicit trade had also been found. As for Johann Crich of Mazenau, he most certainly did not exist, nor had Pagin been able to find out anything about the disappearance of the young boys supposedly killed in battle.

‘I have news!’ Lefine announced proudly. ‘Our man serves in the Viennese Volunteer regiment. One of the prisoners finally talked! He revealed that it was an officer of the Viennese Volunteers who planned that attack. But he does not know his name or his battalion.’

‘What do you mean, someone talked?’ Relmyer was annoyed. ‘I ask every day and I’m always told there’s no news!’

‘That’s because the men who interrogate the prisoners will never reveal what they learn to you,’ replied Lefine. ‘They suspect you of being a traitor. You are of Austrian origin, and it’s you who led that expedition that was almost annihilated. If Major Batichut and your colonel had not sprung to your defence, in this current climate, you would have been interrogated yourself by the officers charged with the struggle against the partisans.’

Once more, Relmyer felt betrayed. There were so few people ready to help him that they could all be gathered together round a cafe table, a derisory fragment of the world.