The Marquis of Bolibar (7 page)

Brockendorf, leaning back in his chair with his port wine in front of him, was bellowing for a bottle "of the best" as if he were in a tavern. Günther stood over the table, glaring down at him with baleful, narrowed eyes.

"You insist on the respect due to your rank," he hissed angrily, "yet you guzzle like a Moor and swill like an ox!"

"Vivat
amicitia,
comrade," Brockendorf replied in a drowsy voice and raised his glass, for all he wanted was to go on drinking his wine in peace.

"You swill like an ox and wear linen fit for a waggoner," Günther said, louder still, "yet you claim to be an officer. From what Jew, buffoon or chimney-sweep did you buy that shirt of yours?"

"Either be silent or speak French," warned Eglofstein, who had sent for two dragoons to sweep the floor clean of melted snow.

"Shall I anoint my hair with
eau de lavande
into the bargain, M'sieur Popinjay?" sneered Brockendorf. "Shall I attend balls and routs and slaver over women's paws as you do?"

"You?" said Donop, turning on him. "You prefer to sit all day in village inns and have the peasants ply you with ale. "

"And he claims to be an officer!" Günther chimed in.

"Not so loud!" said Eglofstein. He glanced uneasily at the dragoons who were sweeping the room. "Do you want your squabbles bandied about and brought to the colonel's ears?"

"They understand no French," Günther replied, and turned again to Brockendorf. "What of that fracas at the 'Hairy Jew' in Darmstadt? Didn't you duel there with fist and cudgel, like any guttersnipe? You're a disgrace to the regiment!"

"For all that, my lad," said Brockendorf, hugely pleased with himself, "like it or not, I enjoyed myself in the arms of your beloved. Scowl as much as you please, it makes no odds: I was lying beside her on Candlemas Eve while you stood below in the snow, tossing pebbles at her window."

"You've lain with tavern trollops and street-walkers," Günther bellowed in a fury, "but never with her!"

"Candlemas Eve?" Captain Eglofstein exclaimed, knitting his brow. "Damn you, Brockendorf! I think it was I that stood beneath her window that night, not Günther."

But Brockendorf was too far gone to heed him.

" Yes," he said, "you threw pebbles at her window, we heard you. And I climbed back into her bed and said, 'Hark, that's Günther below.' And she rested her head on her hands and laughed. 'The poor boy,' she said, still laughing, 'he's so clumsy, he never knows where to put his arms and legs when he's with me.'"

Brockendorf's voice was as raucous as a waggon wheel creaking across a bridge, but our anger waned as we listened. We looked at him, and all we heard issuing from his drunken lips was the distant sound of Françoise-Marie's merry laughter.

"I thought the colonel was at home when I saw the shadow on the windowpane," said Eglofstein, hanging his head. "Had I known it was you, Brockendorf, I would have gone upstairs and thrown you out of the window into the snow, hanged if I wouldn't. Still, that's water under the bridge, and love passes like a fever."

Brockendorf, however, was not yet done with Günther.

"Many's the time she laughed," he bellowed. "Many's the time she said, 'He wants me to go up to his room with him, the silly boy, and do you know where he lodges? Behind some farmyard. Over a chicken-coop and below a pigeon-loft - that's the love-nest he has in mind for me!'"

Although the mocking words he hurled at us were Françoise-Marie's, none of us felt angry. We stood there listening, and it was as if our dead beloved were speaking to us once more through the lips of a drunken sot.

Donop always waxed melancholy and philosophical in his cups. "Comrades," he said quietly, "it fills me with remorse that we stole the colonel's wife."

Brockendorf guffawed. "I know, comrade, I know. You wrote her Ciceronian love letters aplenty - I had to translate them for her while we lay in bed together."

"Hush, not so loud!" Donop said fearfully. "If the colonel gets to hear, we'll all be done for."

"So you're afflicted with
stridor dentium,
are you, comrade?" roared Brockendorf. "A fell disease, that - it causes a man to wet his breeches. Myself, I don't give a fig for all the colonels and generals in the world."

"I regret what I did," Donop said sadly. "Here we sit, the five of us, with nothing left to us of that time save disgust, jealousy and hatred."

He put his head in his hands, and the wine in him proceeded to philosophize.

"Right and wrong, comrades, are an ill-matched team. Each has a different gait, but there are times when I seem to discern the hand that holds them both on the rein and ploughs the world's tilth. What name should I give it, the mysterious force that has made us all so wretched and foolish? Should I call it fate, or chance, or the everlasting law of the stars?"

"We Spaniards call it God," said an unfamiliar voice from the corner of the room.

Startled, we looked round. The two dragoons had gone — their brooms stood propped against the wall - but the Spanish muleteer who had brought Captain Salignac's baggage was squatting in the corner, wrapped in a brown, homespun cloak and saying his rosary. The torchlight fell on his broad, red, exceedingly ugly face, and his thick lips were shaping an endless prayer. He had spread a coarse woollen cloth on the floor, and on it lay some bread and garlic.

We were more surprised than dismayed, I think, when first we perceived that it was the Spaniard whose simple words had intruded on our conversation, but we quickly grasped what had happened.

The man had overheard our secret. It had taken only minutes to betray the thing that each of us had so carefully concealed for a twelvemonth: that Françoise-Marie, our colonel's wife, had been the mistress of us all. We were at a stranger's mercy. I seemed to see the colonel's bearded face close to mine, convulsed with murderous rage. My knees trembled and an icy torrent coursed down my spine. This was the moment we had been dreading for a full year: the hour of doom had struck.

We stood there in silence, appalled and nonplussed. One long minute limped by. Befuddled no longer, I was suddenly as sober as if no drop of wine had ever touched my lips, but my head ached and my heart was heavy with fear. I could hear a dog howling outside in the yard. The muffled, plaintive sound seemed to issue from my own throat, almost as if I myself, wild with terror, were moaning and lamenting in the snow.

Eglofstein recovered his composure at last. He squared his shoulders and walked over to the Spaniard with a menacing air, riding crop in hand. "What, not gone yet? Why are you sitting there eavesdropping?"

"I am waiting as instructed, Señor Militär."

"You speak French?"

"A few words only, señor," the Spaniard mumbled, looking frightened and confused. "My wife came to these parts from the town of Bayonne - I learned them from her.
Sacré chien,
she taught me, and
sacré
matin
and
gaillard,
petit
gaillard,
and
bon garçon,
and
vive
la nation.
That's all I know."

"Enough of your litany!" Günther shouted. "You're a spy. You stole in here to glean what intelligence you could."

"I'm no spy!" the muleteer protested. "Holy Mother of God, I did no more than show that strange officer the way and carry his baggage. Ask Brother Francisco of the Barnabite Fraternity about me - ask the reverend chaplain of the Eremita de Nuestra Señora. They both know old Perico - ask them, Señor Militär!"

"To hell with your priests and your poetry!" cried Brockendorf. "Speak when you're spoken to, spy. Till then, hold your tongue!"

The Spaniard fell silent. He spat a morsel of bread and garlic on the floor and looked uneasily from one to another, but all he saw were grim and merciless faces devoid of compassion.

We put our heads together over the table and held a whispered council of war. The howling of the dog grew louder. It was now quite close at hand.

"He must go," said Donop. "He must quit this town at once. If he blabs we're lost - all of us."

"Impossible," I said. "The sentries are under orders to let no one past the gate."

"I'll never rest while that fellow's at liberty to tell what he overheard here," Donop whispered.

"He must die," Günther said softly. "Protest and lament as he may, he must die, or by tomorrow our every word will be common knowledge throughout the regiment."

"He must," said Brockendorf, "or this business will ruin us."

"We have no grounds for a court martial," I said. "The man's no spy. All he did was carry Salignac's baggage."

"What are we to do?" Donop groaned. "I see disaster looming, comrades. What are we to do?"

"I don't know," said Eglofstein. He shrugged his shoulders. "I only know we're lost, comrades, one and all."

While we were standing there, utterly perplexed, the door sprang open and Sergeant Urban of the Nassau Grenadiers came bustling in. He was holding a big black dog by the collar.

"Captain!" he panted, for it was all he could do to restrain the beast, which was struggling like a mad thing. "Captain, this dog was roaming around outside and wouldn't be driven away. It scratched at the door and wanted to be let in."

No sooner had he caught sight of the muleteer than he let go the collar, put his hands on his hips, and burst out laughing.

"If it isn't Perico!" he exclaimed, almost doubled up with mirth. "Back so soon, Perico? That was no lengthy pilgrimage of yours!"

The dog had reached the muleteer in a single bound. It jumped up at him again and again, barking, whining, and manifesting every sign of pleasure.

"What about this man, Sergeant?" asked Eglofstein. "Do you know him?"

"Indeed he does, se
ñ
or," the Spaniard cried joyfully. "You heard him call me Perico: Perico, that's me. God and the Holy Virgin be praised! I'm no spy, you can see that for yourself." The dog pressed against him, whimpering and licking his hands, but he thrust it away and shooed it into a corner.

"You're no spy, true, but you're a thief!" exclaimed the sergeant. "Give that money back, you vile, dirty, ragged scoundrel! If the Emperor raised a regiment of rogues, you'd be its colour-bearer!"

The Spaniard blenched and stared at him in alarm.

"Captain," the sergeant reported, "this fellow is one of the waggoners we took into our employ. This morning, while we were resting outside the inn near the town gate, he stole a purse containing twelve thalers from Dragoon Kümmel of Sergeant Brendel's troop. We gave chase, but we failed to catch him. Now he has returned of his own accord."

The muleteer paled and began to tremble all over.

"You scum!" yelled the sergeant. "Give that money back. You've no further need of it in any case — you'll be hanged or gaoled for life!"

Eglofstein stood up, a wild and exultant gleam in his eye. His heart was heavy no longer, now that this Spanish eavesdropper had been caught stealing and was doomed to die. He exchanged a meaningful glance with Günther and Donop.

"Were you not paid your wage every day?" he asked the Spaniard sternly. "Had you any reason to steal?"

"I stole nothing," the man stammered, beside himself with terror. "I know nothing of any wage - I never was a waggoner in your service."

"Lies by the cartload!" the sergeant said angrily. "You say you never drove a waggon for the regiment?" He ran to the stairs and shouted up them at the loft above. "Kümmel! Are you still awake, Kümmel? Come down here at the double — your thalers have trotted home again."

Dragoon Kümmel came stumbling down the stairs a moment later, torpid and unkempt as a carter's nag, with a horse blanket draped around his shoulders in lieu of a cloak. He brightened at once when he saw the muleteer.

"So you're back!" he cried. "You shit-bucket! You pig- swill! You devil's privy! Who caught you? Where's my money?"

"What do you want with me?" the muleteer groaned, more terrified than ever. "I don't know you — I never saw you before in my life, I swear it by the blood of Christ!"

"Speak Christian!" yelled Kümmel, meaning that the Spaniard should speak German, not Spanish. "Devil take the buffoon who invented your barbarous gibberish in the Tower of Babel!"

"Do you recognize him?" Eglofstein asked the dragoon impatiently. "Is he the fellow that stole your purse this morning?

"Do I recognize him!" Kümmel retorted. "A cap like a stork's nest, a face like a pumpkin and a mouth like a ladle - there isn't another like him in the whole of the army. Come here, my lad, let's take a look at you."

He reached for the torch and looked the Spaniard up and down.

"Captain," he exclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief, "this isn't the man!" He turned to the Spaniard. "May the Devil saddle and ride you: this morning you had only four thieving fingers on your right hand, and now, all of a sudden, you have five."

"Are you sure?" said Eglofstein, barely able to disguise his vexation and disappointment. "Search him — see if he has the money on him."

Dragoon Kümmel felt in the pockets of the muleteer's brown cloak and pulled out a big leather pouch.

"That's it! That's my purse! Do you still deny it, you thieving magpie?"

He looked in the pouch but found nothing. All it contained was some garlic and a piece of bread.

"My money's gone!" he bellowed in a rage. "Why should I always be plucked like a goose? Where are my thalers, pray? Did you pour them all down your gullet in a single day?"

The Spaniard stared helplessly at the floor and said nothing.

"Where's my money?" yelled the dragoon. "What did you do, bury it or drink it? If you have a tongue in your head, speak!"

"God has made a scourge for my back," said the Spaniard. "It is His will. What must be, must be."

"Captain," said Sergeant Urban, "this must surely be the same thief that stole one of the colonel's trunks five days ago - the one in which his late wife's silken gowns and chemises were packed."

"Enough, enough!" Eglofstein said hastily. He was alarmed that the sergeant should begin to speak of the colonel and his wife, being afraid that the muleteer might now come out with what he had overheard of our conversation. "Enough! This Spaniard is found guilty of theft. Muster half a dozen men with loaded muskets, Sergeant. Then march him out into the yard and make an end of him."