Salamander (2 page)

One can tell these things, mademoiselle, he says. You are very self-possessed, it seems to me, for such a young woman. And alone, as you are here, amid all this destruction:

Do you think the siege will end soon, Colonel?

Alas, not even my barber, sagacious as he is, can answer that question
.

The people I’ve talked to lately are very disheartened. They think it’s only a matter of time before the English make a successful assault
.

This is not a subject he wished to have brought up. Especially by a girl who doubtless knows nothing of the art of war
.

Time, he says with a soft huff of derision. Yes, well, time is one thing the gallant Major-General Wolfe has very little of any more. His chances of turning this siege into a conquest are withering with the autumn leaves. Soon it will be winter, and if he doesn’t withdraw his ships they’ll be frozen and crushed in the river ice. The cliffs are his last hope, but as the Marquis said to me the other day, we need not suppose the enemy have wings. In the few places where we have not posted sentries, the heights are unassailable — even the farmers who live along them say so. They cannot be scaled, especially by troops hauling artillery
.

Her eyes hold his for a long moment
.

Not everyone believes that, she says. Some say that the English will take Quebec, and when they do the world will surely end
.

And what do you reply to such superstitious nonsense?

I tell them that whatever happens a world will end. And another one will begin
.

You’re wise beyond your years, I see
.

I’ve had good teachers
.

From the darkening street outside drifts the far-off frantic barking of a dog. Bougainville remains still, not wishing to betray himself, but when the sound dies away at last he sees that his hand has reached for his sword hilt
.

It’s so quiet this evening, the young woman says. Isn’t this just the kind of night they would make an assault?

Is she taunting me? he wonders, and decides that a jest would be the best response
.

What irony that would be. I see, mademoiselle, that you have read a few novels. Or you did, until today
.

There’s one book the bombs didn’t touch, she says
.

Volume seven?

No, another book. One I haven’t read yet. A book I’d like to read
.

I’m intrigued, he says, feeling the chill night air on the back of his neck. He shivers, leans closer to the warm glow of the candles. Why don’t you tell me about it, then, this ideal book. I’m curious to know what sort of a book you would like to read
.

It could take all night, Colonel. I’m sure you have duties…
.

Well, let us call this an interrogation, then, since I have found you here, a young woman, alone in what looks like an abandoned shop. With no proof that you are who you say you are
.

She smiles
.

Who did I say I was?

Bougainville takes a deep breath, eases back in his chair. This is getting better by the moment. The little ballet of swordpoints before the duel begins in earnest
.

Come now. I doubt any book could take an entire night to describe
.

The girl looks down, examines the palms of her hands
.

It’s not that simple. I would also have to tell you about the books that this book might be. And the books that it is not. It could go on forever, really
.

The colonel draws his chair closer
.

Begin, please, and let’s see where we end up
.

She closes her eyes
.

Well, I think every reader imagines this book a different way. Mine is slightly larger than pocket-size. Narrower
.

Her pale hands trace a shape in the gloom
.

The cover is sealskin, dyed dark green, and the pages …

She brings her hands together until her palms and the tips of her fingers touch. Her eyes open
.

The pages are very thin. Almost sheer, weightless. When I close the book it’s like a beetle’s wings folding back under its wingcase
.

You do know some science. Pardon me. Go on. Tell me what happens when you open the book
.

I can’t read the words at first. The text is like a slender black door. This could be any book
.

A treatise, Bougainville suggests. A history
.

Or a novel, the girl says. I can open it anywhere, even to the last page, and find myself at the beginning of a story
.

And where will you start this time?

The girl gazes slowly around the ruin of the shop
.

This time … this time the book opens out into a marvellous castle, with paper walls and ceilings and floors that fold and collapse and slide at the touch of a finger. There are cardpaper wheels that revolve and change what you see. And panels that slide open to reveal hidden passageways to other pages. You can get lost there…
.

And does this wondrous castle have a name?

It does. But you see? Already it is happening
.

What is?

In order to tell you about the book, I have to tell you about the castle. But to tell you about the castle, I have to begin somewhere else
.

And where would that be?

With a siege, like this one. And a battle
.

B
y nine-thirty the guns have been firing for over three hours, churning black smoke into a sky of pristine blue. The sun shines with a glassy, distant brilliance that heralds the turn towards autumn.

The year is 1717. The Christian armies, united under the leadership of Prince Eugene of Savoy, have met the Ottoman Turks outside the walls of Belgrade. An early-morning fog gave the besieging force the opportunity for a surprise attack.

Now the world is a crystal of perfect clarity, and on a hillock above the battlefield Prince Eugene paces, scribbles orders to be sent to his marshals in the field, peers through his spyglass, nods approvingly and writes another missive. He is a small, clerkish man whose first great struggle was to win over his own officers. At first they were scandalized by his unorthodox ideas about making war.

Precision is the key
, he often reminds them.
The most important weapon you take into the field is your pocketwatch
.

He is the only commander to spurn the privileges of his exalted rank and pitch his tent with the common soldiers, sharing with them the noise and stench and bad food of an army encampment. The men love him and call him Papa.

At nine-thirty the faintest trace of a smile appears at the corners of the prince’s mouth. He permits his valet to pour him a thumbnail measure of brandy in celebration of what has become a certainty. The Turks, routed at almost every point along the battle line, are going to lose. It may take a few more days to convince the inhabitants, still cowering behind the walls, of that fact. But the cross will once again rise above the minarets of Belgrade. Scarcely a single green-and-silver banner still flutters over what is fast becoming a field of slaughter.

Prince Eugene crosses himself and dispatches the waiting messengers with his final orders to the marshals now scattered far and wide across the battle line. A few more moves on the chessboard, and this engagement, as well as the crusade he has led for the past three years into Ottoman territory, should be over, praise be to God. With the taking back of Belgrade from the Turk the centuries of warring back and forth over the same rivers, forests, and mountains will at long last cease. Today the clock stops.

This was a war of time
, Prince Eugene announces to his aides-de-camp.
Our clocks against their musty lunar almanacs. You can’t run an efficient military engine by the phases of the moon
.

The aides-de-camp nod and murmur agreement. They have heard these phrases many times. Among them is a young man named Ludwig, the only son of Count Konstantin Ostrov, one of the Prince’s veteran commanders.

Ludwig is seventeen. He has stayed all morning by the Prince’s side, held in reserve while the senior adjutants are chosen for the honour of relaying Papa’s orders. Ludwig has been fidgeting, barely reining in his desire to do something, anything, other than wait here with the Prince and his retinue on this distant knoll, which only a scattering of enemy cannonfire has reached all morning. When his turn at last arrives and the orders are signed, sealed, and tucked into the leather pouch at his side, he is off, galloping his sleek black mount down the hillside, over the trampled yellow grass, past the blood-spattered tents where doctors are sawing limbs off the shrieking wounded, between the slow columns of sullen reserve troops brought forward to fill the gaps in the dishevelled lines. He rides as if this is the whole world, the roar of the wind, the lunging flanks of the horse beneath him, the intoxication of his body’s youth and animal vigour. He surprises himself with the thought that this feeling surging up in him is an absolute joy.

I am happy
, he thinks, and laughs out loud.

He remembers the letter that arrived in camp a month ago, informing him and his father of the death of the Countess, his mother, in childbirth. For the first time since that day the cold ashes in his heart have stirred to life.

I
have a sister
, Ludwig reminds himself.
Someday, when she is old enough to understand, I will tell her about this moment
.

He was sent to find his father, but it is his father who finds him. Led here by the captain who saw the boy fall, the Count at first does not recognize his son. Ludwig is stretched out on the grass, hat missing, his head propped against the wheel of a
smouldering gun carriage. His hands are resting loosely, palms upward, in his lap. This is how beggars slump against walls. Ludwig’s head lolls to one side and his jaw hangs like an old man’s, as if in a single morning he has aged thirty years.

The Count dismounts and kneels beside his son. Ludwig’s eyes are closed, his face chalk-white. He sighs like a gently roused sleeper about to awaken.

The Count turns to the captain.

What happened?

The man sputters. He does not know. He saw the boy fall from his horse, he rushed over and carried him to the gun carriage. The Count searches his son’s uniform for traces of blood, gently opens the wings of his gold-embroidered coat. The white shirt beneath is spotless. At the Count’s touch, Ludwig opens his eyes.

Let’s go home, Father
, he says in the tone of a bored guest at a card party.

He draws in a long, drowsy breath, as though about to yawn. His head falls softly sideways against the axle of the carriage. The Count moves closer and looks into Ludwig’s eyes.

Peace to his soul
, the captain says, doffing his hat.

After a moment the Count draws his blood-crusted sabre and cuts the braided topknot, the Ostrov badge of warrior ancestry, from the head of his son. He rises shakily to his feet.

What killed him?
he asks the captain, who lifts his blackened hands helplessly and lets them drop.
He just fell from his horse?

Yes, Excellency. I saw him coming down the hill, then he slowed up and began searching this way and that, shading his eyes with his hand. Looking for you, I suppose. He was riding towards me when just like that he slid off the saddle and fell to the ground
.

When?

I had scarcely rushed to his side and carried him here when I saw you riding by, Excellency
.

The Count tucks the topknot into his belt. He gazes over the trampled ground, as if he might find the past few moments lying among the other litter of war.

Others are pausing now on their way back from the last expiring groans of the battle, to gawk, crane their necks, find out who has fallen here. There being a nobleman on hand, it must be somebody of importance. The Count glares around, his naked sabre held before him like an accusation, as if someone here knows the answer to this riddle and refuses to tell him. Young men do not just die.

Two officers on horseback canter past, pausing in their conversation to take in the scene with impassive faces. A grenadier follows soon after, leading another whose eyes are hidden by a dirty bandage, his outstretched hands shakily patting the air before him. In the distance three infantrymen have upended a gunpowder cask and are already playing cards.

The world will not stop.

The Count tosses his sabre to the earth. Tomorrow perhaps, or the next day, the Prince’s army will breach the walls and take its vengeance for the deaths of comrades, family, ancestors. He will not be among them. He will honour his son’s dying request and return home. He will mourn his wife. See his infant daughter. And devote himself at last to his long-abandoned dream.