The Horseman on the Roof (42 page)

“They came right over here. They maneuvered as if on parade and, since you're an officer, I can tell you they were in anti-cavalry formation. And there was a voice that came from the ground and gave them orders. That's not the end of it. I crossed the slope with my sheep and hid behind the crest. ‘Halt and report,' said the voice. They came down. They settled. ‘Who's eaten Christians?' said the voice. ‘Me! Me! Me!' they answered. ‘By the right, form fours,' it said; ‘come get your medals.' They went in fours up to the big beech that stands all alone, and there, under its shade, there was somebody who spoke, out of sight, and said: ‘I'm pleased with you. They'll learn what stuff I'm made of.' There's been great injustices, monsieur, with all these kings playing leapfrog over each other. Well, he sent his armies back to their posts. ‘You to Vaumeilh.' And you should have seen that one set off at the head of his squadrons as fast as his wings could carry him, trumpets sounding. ‘You to Montauban, you to Beaumont,' and there went the battalions on the move, drums rolling. Their runners came over to reconnoiter me, where I was hiding on my slope. But he just wasn't interested. He drew up his plan of battle as usual. And when I came back, when the crows were all gone, and looked under the beech, first from a distance, then going up step by step till I could touch the trunk itself, well, monsieur, there wasn't anyone, of course. Flies! They say it's flies! They make me laugh with their flies!”

With a certain Italian gravity, Angelo replied that they too had seen a lot of crows.

“It'll be ten or twelve years, monsieur,” said the man, “that my wife has not pronounced a word. I don't complain; the work gets done, but this and all the other things show that cholera's nothing new. We've had to pay for things ever since there's been a world. They're not going to cover up with the cholera now, to do me out of the money they owe me. If they do, there's no answer but your liberty.”

In the morning the sky was clear. The day promised to be brilliant. There was already an apricot glow upon all the mountains.

“You still look a bit pale,” said Angelo. “Yesterday's journey tired you out, body and soul. Would you like to rest today? This man obviously hasn't got cholera.”

“I feel strong as a Turk,” she said. “I simply didn't get much sleep last night. If the Emperor Napoleon's crows haven't stolen our porridge, let's eat and have some tea, and then I'll be ready.”

On the repeated assurance that there were no soldiers in the valley, they set out for the village. They rode for about two hours through landscapes similar to those of the previous day, before catching sight of a ravine full of willows and the roofs of about twenty houses clustered in the middle of the meadows.

A hundred yards from the entrance to the village, the track joined a little, very well-kept road along which Angelo and the young woman, in morning high spirits, started at a brisk trot.

They were moving at this pace, one behind the other, into a narrow alleyway between two barns, when they heard disturbing sounds ahead of them. But they were moving headlong, and before they could turn, emerged into a sort of small square full of soldiers and turned into a trap by means of carts upended across every outlet.

The young woman was already surrounded by five or six dragoons, who hemmed her in and hid her completely.

Angelo's one thought was to get near his companion. All he could see of her now was the little hat.

“Admit it's neatly set, boss,” said the corporal holding Angelo's stirrup. “Make the best of a bad job. It's not poison. We mean well.”

“Tell your men to get away from that young woman,” replied Angelo in his best colonel's manner. “We have no intention of running away.”

“You'd find it a job, Your Excellency,” said the corporal. “We shan't eat your little lady. We're not hungry.”

A tall lieutenant, thin and pale, who appeared to be shivering in his heavy cloak, was taking command of the situation. The soldiers stepped back and Angelo was able to move up close to his friend. She had not lost her presence of mind and was backing her horse with flicks of the wrist so as to place it back to the wall. Angelo did the same. Now they could face their opponents.

There were about twenty dragoons, six of them already mounted and drawing their swords. The others had seized arms and were holding their musketoons.

“Let's not touch our pistols now,” muttered Angelo.

“Let's wait for a chance,” said she.

The lieutenant was obviously ill. Around his mouth, with its black mustache, he was pale to greenness. His cheeks were hollow; his eyes glittering, widely dilated with that astonished look which Angelo knew well. He approached, huddling into his boots and mantle.

“Don't try any tricks,” he said.

“We don't understand what's happening, monsieur,” said Angelo politely.

“Where have you come from and where are you going?”

“We are from Gap,” said the young woman, “and we are going home.”

The lieutenant stared at her for a long time. He appeared to be studying her from head to foot, but in reality one felt that he was on the watch for things taking place inside him. He was puffing like a horse over dirty water.

“He won't last an hour,” thought Angelo.

“There's no going home, madame,” said the lieutenant. “All traveling is forbidden. Those on the roads must go into quarantine.”

“It would be better to let us go home,” said the young woman softly but very gently.

“It is not for me to know what would be better,” said the lieutenant; “I don't question orders.”

He wanted to make an impeccable about-turn, but he suddenly clutched his hand to his side.

“Eight men,” he said to the corporal, without turning his head. “Dupuis in charge. Two groups of four; one for the woman, one for the man, five paces apart. Take them to Vaumeilh. It is not for me to know what would be better,” he repeated, looking at Angelo.

He went back to a bed of straw that the soldiers had made for him in the doorway of a barn.

“Keep calm, messieurs-dames,” said Dupuis, a huge sergeant-major, redder than his dolman. “Don't make things difficult for me. I admired your performance just now. Congratulations, little lady, you know how to place a nag ready to charge. You're no young recruit and neither am I. All the more reason for us to see eye to eye. An hour from now the lieutenant'll be far away and this place'll be full of flies. Come along with Papa Dupuis. I'll take you to the Hôtel du Roi d'Angleterre.”

He began to draw up his men.

“Try nothing without being sure,” said Angelo under his breath. “If you get a chance to escape alone, take it. I'll keep them busy. Hide your pistols.”

“I could only hide one, they're too big. But it's done.”

A cart was turned round to make way for them and they left the rustic redoubt with their escort.

Angelo rode ahead, flanked by four dragoons. When the little troop began to trot, he felt a great pleasure at seeing the uniforms dancing by his side. They were trotting over a plain of lean fields on which all the crops had turned black, but the morning was gay, drenched in yellow sunlight, and clouds of larks could be heard even above the hammering of hoofs upon the road. This peaceful bird-song, these soldiers, these broad expanses over which the light rebounded, this trotting rhythm to whose cadence he had so often listened before giving an order—Angelo exulted in them all.

Dupuis shouted that they were going too fast in front.

“Got to keep going,” he said through his white mustaches, “but not going like this, my dear sir. And you four,” he added to the soldiers, “haven't you seen that he's the kind who can tie you in knots whenever he wants to? Can't you see the way he sits his nag? In five minutes he'll have you charging, if he goes on with it. Why was I saddled with these f—g fools?”

The road was approaching a hill, in any case. They dropped to a walk. They climbed through yellow heath land, wholly barren, dotted only, at wide intervals, with tall leafless poplars, so white that the light made them invisible, substituting for them sheaves of sparks. Against the mild sky the mountains enclosing the horizon on every side raised their crests, iridescent in the sun.

Angelo was astonished to see multitudes of butterflies dancing. The road was bordered with centaury and those yellow honey-scented flowers that curdle milk. Swarms of little blue butterflies, which normally only fly near pools of water, were whirling above the flowers, together with others, yellow, red and black, white ones spotted with red, and huge ones, almost as big as sparrows, with wings like the leaves of the ash tree. He saw that, on the heath, what he had taken until now for the shimmering of the morning air was the fluttering of a vast throng of butterflies over the ground.

He used the excuse of pointing this out to the young woman to see how she was doing, five or six paces behind him. He felt sure she wouldn't try to escape in this open country, where anyone could pursue her or bring her down like a rabbit.

She was getting on very well and had started a conversation with her guards, who were playing the half-gallant.

“Amazing, eh, those filthy things?” said Dupuis. “You'll see a lot more of them. There's as many of those devils as there are flies. They eat human meat, pretty as they are. I wouldn't advise you to lie down in the grass, even if it was allowed. You'd soon have them even in your mouth. And what they like best, the dirty bastards, is the eyes, as usual. What the hell have we got in our eyes that makes animals so greedy for them?”

At length, round a bend, they saw the five or six zigzags of road that still lay ahead of them, and the town of Vaumeilh itself. This crowned the whole summit of the high, yellow hill, facing them on this side with windowless ramparts of gray stone. It bore no more trace of foliage or trees than the eminence on which it stood. It was surmounted by an enormous square tower, flanked by two thinner and taller ones, all three battlemented.

As they approached, they came upon more and more butterflies. They had invaded and covered the road; they floated between the horses' legs. Their colors, endlessly darting, tired the eyes, induced a kind of vertigo. They were soon mingled with swarms of blue flies and wasps, whose heavy humming urged sleep in spite of the morning.

The ramparts of Vaumeilh plunged down to wide moats, which the little troop crossed by an earth causeway. On each side, in the depths warmed by the sun, the butterflies and flies were so numerous that their flight rose and fell like the flames of a vast brazier. Angelo saw that these whirlwinds were rising from piles of jackets, dresses, sheets, eiderdowns, blankets, quilts, pillows, pallets, and mattresses thrown down at the foot of the walls.

They entered the town through a gate that breathed out a fearful stench. The cavalcade immediately set up a loud clatter on the cobbles, but the street remained deserted. All the houses were hermetically shut; some of them had their shutters barred with nailed-up planks.

After riding down a narrow street, crossing a square on which wide stairways converged, passing through alleys where the smell was abominable, and circling around a solitary fountain in a street of old and noble houses, they entered upon a ramp rising under arched vaults.

Through the openings pierced at long intervals to light this covered way, Angelo saw that they were mounting above the roofs of this treeless town, built all of stone (even the roofs of the houses were made of flat stones); without smoke, without a sound, except that of the horses' hoofs.

They came out onto a vast esplanade of dazzling whiteness, before the gate of a fortress. It was the square tower they had seen from the road. From here they looked out over the vast undulating circle of the mountains.

“You'll be in fresh air,” said Dupuis.

They all dismounted in an inner courtyard of extraordinary bareness.

Angelo managed to approach the young woman and say: “Patience, I'm not asleep. We shan't stay here long.”

The gate was shut behind them; the four walls rose to more than ninety feet and had no windows except at a level with the eaves.

“You've been angels,” said Dupuis. “There are those who put on airs, or cry, or offer money (which I accept) for a drink. By the way, you'd make yourself popular if you stood a few liters of wine to these good soldiers. They lead a dog's life.”

“I'm not seeking to make myself popular,” said Angelo. “We've followed you here without any fuss. Now you'll have to justify your way of proceeding. I am waiting.”

“Well, my dear sir, you'll wait for quite a time. Exactly forty days, if all goes well. That's the ruling. This way out.”

He took them through a low doorway. They went down a long, somber corridor. The sergeant-major knocked at a window.

“Two, sir,” he said.

“Hand them over to the sisters with the rest,” said a voice.

“In file, right turn.”

They turned into another corridor as long as the first, but lit by barred windows giving onto a courtyard down below. This courtyard stood on a terrace, for beyond and over the wall scarcely three feet high could be seen the stone roofs of the little deserted town.

“I suppose,” said Angelo carelessly, “they haven't already ransacked our baggage.”

“It's within the bounds of possibility.”

“Because I'm prepared to give a silver crown to the man who could get this lady's case and my own restored to me.”

“With the saddlebags?”

“Let's say that, with the saddlebags, which contain only cooking utensils, I'll go up to eight francs.”

“I knew you were a good fellow,” said Dupuis. “I've got one vice: I can't bring myself to steal. I have too weak a stomach. I get a lot of legacies, certainly, but stealing's not in my nature. That won't stop me from being your sole heir if things take the usual turn. Go up to ten francs and wait a couple of minutes, for I think I shall have to look sharp.”