CHAPTER 95
‘Mettez le feu!’
Down by the lake, on Constant’s order, the mob – now at the rear of the house – plunged their torches into the woody base of the box hedge. Minutes passed, then the hedge began to burn, first the network of branches, then the trunks, crackling and spitting like the fireworks on the walls of La Cité. The fire rose and swayed and took hold.
Then the cold voice came again. ‘A l’attaque!’
The men came swarming across the lawns, around the water, trampling the borders. They leapt up the steps to the terrace, pushing over the ornamental planters.
Constant followed, limping, at a distance, a cigarette in his hand and leaning heavily on his stick, as if following a parade on the Champs-Elysées.
At four o’clock that afternoon – when he was certain that Léonie Vernier was already on her way to Coustaussa – Constant had had yet another slaughtered child brought home to torment its parents. His man had carried the slashed corpse on an ox-cart to the Place du Pérou where he sat waiting. It had taken little skill, even with his depleted energies, to catch the attention of the crowd. Such terrible injuries could not be inflicted by an animal, but only by something unnatural. A creature being concealed at the Domaine de la Cade. A devil, a demon.
A groom from the Domaine had been in Rennes-les-Bains at the time. The small crowd had turned on the boy, demanding to know how the creature was controlled, where it was kept. Though nothing could make him admit to the absurd tales of sorcery, this only inflamed the crowd.
It was Constant himself who suggested they storm the house to see for themselves. Within moments, the idea had taken hold and become their own. A little later, he allowed them to persuade him to organise the assault on the Domaine de la Cade.
Constant paused at the foot of the terrace, exhausted by the effort of walking. He watched the mob divide into two columns, spreading out to front and side, swarming up the stone stairs on to the terrace at the back of the house.
The striped awning that ran the length of the terrace went up first, sparked by a boy climbing up the ivy and wedging his flaming torch into the folds of material at the end. Although damp from the October air, the material caught and ignited in seconds, and the torch fell through on to the terrace. The smell of oil and canvas and fire filled the night in a cloud of choking black smoke.
Someone called out above the chaos, ‘Les diaboliques!’
The sight of the flames seemed to inflame the passions of the villagers. The first window was broken, the glass shattering at the end of a steel-capped boot. A shard became wedged in the man’s thick winter trousers, and he kicked it away. More windows followed. One by one the elegant rooms were breached by the violence of the crowd, jabbing their torches in to ignite the curtains.
Three others picked up a stone urn and used it as a battering ram on the door. Glass and metal buckled and shattered as the frame gave way. The trio dropped the urn and the mob flooded into the hall and the library. With rags soaked in oil and tar, they set fire to the mahogany shelves. One by one the books ignited, the dry paper and antique leather bindings catching as easily as straw. Crackling and spitting, the flames leapt from one shelf to the next.
The invaders ripped down the curtains. More windows were shattered, from the mounting heat and twisted metal, or smashed by the legs of chairs. With faces distorted by rage and envy, they upturned the table where Léonie had sat and first read Les Tarots and ripped the stepladder from the wall, struggling with the brass fittings. Flames licked around the edge of the rugs, then flared into full-scale fire.
The mob exploded into the chequerboard hallway. Walking slowly, throwing his legs awkwardly out before him, Constant followed them in.
The invaders met the defenders of the house at the foot of the main staircase.
The servants were heavily outnumbered, but they fought bravely. They too had suffered from the calumnies, the rumours, the gossipmongering, and were defending their honour as well as the reputation of the Domaine de la Cade.
A young footman delivered a sharp and glancing blow to a man coming towards him. Taken by surprise, the villager stumbled back, blood pouring from his head.
They all knew one another. Had grown up together, were cousins, friends, neighbours, yet they fought as enemies. Emile was brought down by a vicious kick with a steel-tipped boot from a man who once had carried him on his shoulders to school.
The shouting grew louder.
The gardeners and groundsmen, armed with hunting rifles, shot into the mob, hitting one man in the arm, another in the leg. Blood burst through split skin, arms raised to ward off the blows. But by the sheer force of numbers, the house was overwhelmed. The old gardener fell first, hearing the bone in his leg snap as a foot came down upon it. Emile lasted a little longer, until he was seized by two men and a third drove his fist time and time again into his face, until he collapsed. Men with whose sons Emile had once played. They picked him up and hurled him over the banisters. He seemed to hang in the air for a fraction of a second, then fell, head over heels, to the bottom of the stairs. He landed with his arms and legs splayed at an unnatural angle. Only a single trickle of blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes were dead.
Marieta’s cousin Antoine, a simple boy, but clear enough in his mind to know right from wrong, saw a man he recognised, a belt in his hand. He was the father of one of the children who had been taken. His face was twisted in bitterness and grief.
Without understanding or stopping to think, Antoine threw himself forward, hurling his arms around the man’s neck, trying to wrestle him to the ground. Antoine was heavy and he was strong, but he did not know how to fight. Within seconds he found himself on his back. He threw up his hands, but he was too slow.
The belt struck him across the face, the metal clasp of the buckle driving into his open eye. Antoine’s world turned red.
Constant stood at the foot of the stairs, holding his hand up to shield his face against the heat and soot, waiting as his man ran across the hall to report.
‘They are not here,’ he panted. ‘I have searched everywhere. It seems they left with an old man and the housekeeper some quarter of an hour ago.’
‘On foot?’
He nodded. ‘I found this, Monsieur. In the drawing room.’
Victor Constant took it in his trembling hand. It was a Tarot card, an image of a grotesque devil with two lovers chained at its feet. He tried to focus, the smoke taking his vision from him. As he looked, it seemed that the demon was moving, twisting as if under a burden. The lovers came to resemble Vernier and Isolde.
He rubbed his painful eyes with his gloved fingers, then an idea came to him.
‘When you have settled Gélis, leave this Tarot card with the body. It will confuse matters, if nothing else. The whole of Coustaussa knows the girl was there.’
The manservant nodded. ‘And you, Monsieur?’
‘Help me to the carriage. A child, a woman and an old man? I do not believe they can have gone far. In point of fact, I think it is more likely they will be hiding somewhere within the grounds. The estate is steeply wooded. There is only one place they are likely to be.’
‘And them?’The servant jerked his head in the direction of the mob.
The sounds of screaming were rising in crescendo as the battle reached its zenith. Soon the looting would begin. Even if the boy did escape tonight, there would be nothing for him to come back to. He would be destitute.
‘Leave them to it,’ he said.
