Soldier No More

child, young girl, young woman, wife, mother, old woman—old witch, as Alexandra would say. So the spells here are my spells, not yours—not David Audley's, not the Jewess's, not any stranger's, but mine. You are a hunter, Captain, but now you are hunting in my territory. You are not the first of your kind, remember?' Roche remembered the rose garden, and the young German. 'But I do not know everything any more—

there was a time when I did, but times change—'

And on whose side was Madame Peyrony, for God's sake?

'—yet I still feel the pulse—I know when there is something there in the dark which should not be there, that something is loose out there.' She pointed towards the window.

The light in the room turned the late evening outside into inky blackness. But that 'something loose' was nothing so innocent as any sabre-toothed tiger or cave bear out of the original hunter's deepest memory: it was the modern horror of man stalking man, the unknown enemy which Wimpy would have identified as negotium perambulans in tenebris—

something wicked, to make the thumbs prick . . . something hunting out of human conviction, not out of honest hunger . . .

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Christ! If he continued along this road he would reduce himself to a quivering jelly of fear, out of pure imagination!

There were only men and women out there, like himself; and Madame Peyrony was only a frightened old woman, by herself in a frightening old house in the dark; and she was only on her side, and he was only on his side; and all each of them wanted to do was to survive, and not go into the dark.

He wanted to ask her how she knew all this, but there wasn't time, and probably she wouldn't tell him, and it didn't matter because he believed her anyway, because what she had said fitted in with what he already knew.

Much more to the point, she had something to give him—she would know things about Audley and all the rest of them, but most of all about Etienne d'Auberon du Cingle d'Enfer, about whom neither the British nor the Russians appeared to know. For now he had something to offer her in return, to bargain with, and he only had to make the offer, that was all.

'Very well, Madame—I will hunt the thing for you—right?'

She had expected him to say that. 'And in return, Captain?'

In return, you will make hunting-magic for me. You will make pictures for me.'

XII

NEITHER OF THE girls objected very strongly when Roche told them that he was going to Neuville to make his phone dummy5

call.

'You could have phoned from the chateau, you know,' said Jilly, demurring more for form's sake than from genuine irritation, judging by the kindness of her tone. 'La Peyrony lets us phone.'

'But she also listens in on the extension,' said Lexy. 'I distinctly heard the click when she did it last time—I jolly nearly asked her if she minded me speaking English on her line, just to let her know I was on to her. But then I thought

'what the hell', and I got my own back by referring to her throughout as 'that old witch'. . . no, I don't blame you one bit, David darling. The only thing is, we're late already and it's a quarter of an hour there if you step on the gas, and quarter of an hour back, so we'll be even later still—'

'Since when did you ever worry about being late?'

murmured Jilly. 'You'll be late for your wedding, always supposing you get the day right.'

'Chance would be a fine thing—if I should be so lucky!' Lexy tossed her head, and then grinned at Roche. 'But she's right—

and Steffy's still absent without leave, so we can always blame her. . . and it'll give them time to get tanked up and good-tempered before we arrive—so what the hell!'

'It'll also give you time to bone up on Galla Placidia and the hairy Visigoths, Lexy dear,' said Jilly, rummaging among a pile of books on the chair beside her. 'A bit of last minute swotting among the footnotes in the back is what you need—I bet you haven't read them.'

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'Oh— eff Galla- bloody-Placidia!' exclaimed Lexy.

'That's undoubtedly what they did—or King Ataulf certainly did—but there's no need to put it so crudely—' Jilly continued to rummage '— ah!! Here we are!'

'But I'm on holiday!' protested Lexy. 'And I have a broken heart to mend!'

'Broken fiddlesticks! You have a job to do, and I intend to see that you do it— here!' Jilly tossed a book at Lexy.

Lexy made a clumsy attempt to catch the book, succeeding only in deflecting it onwards across the room to strike Roche painfully on the shin. 'Oops! Sorry, David!'

Roche bent down to retrieve the book, which had become separated from its dust-jacket. As he reassembled the two his eye was caught by the jacket's design, which was dominated by the face and bare shoulders of a beautiful woman who appeared to be wearing only jewellery, and by two men, one heavily-bearded and blond and the other dark-haired and clean-shaven. All three were drawn in a mosaic background in which the title of the book itself was picked out in purple and gold— Princess in the Sunset by Antonia Palfrey. The whole effect was striking and yet somehow vulgar, oddly contrasting with the blurred