“Your word, monsieur, never to act counter to the orders I give you, never to try to thwart any surprises I might attempt.”
“I am too curious about what you’ll be doing for that. You have my word, General.”
“Even when things happen before your very eyes?” asked Cadoudal insistently.
“Even if things take place before my very eyes, I renounce my role as an actor and will remain a spectator. I want to be able to say to the First Consul, ‘I saw.’”
Cadoudal smiled. “Well, you will see,” he said.
At that moment the door opened, and two peasants carried in a table already completely set. Steam was rising up from a crock of cabbage soup and a slab of bacon. An enormous jug of cider, newly drawn, foaming up and overflowing, stood between two glasses. There were two place settings: obviously an invitation to the colonel to sup with Cadoudal.
“You see, Monsieur de Montrevel,” said Cadoudal, “my men hope you will do me the honor of supping with me.”
“And it’s good they do,” answered Roland, “for I am starving, and if you didn’t invite me, I would try to take what I could by force.” The young colonel sat across from the Chouan general.
“Please excuse me for the meal I’m serving you,” said Cadoudal. “I do not receive hardship bonuses like your generals, and you have somewhat cut off my food supply by sending my poor bankers to the scaffold. I could pick a quarrel with you on that score, but I know that you used neither trickery nor lies and that everything happened loyally among soldiers. So I have nothing to complain about. And what’s more, I need to thank you for the money you managed to send to me.”
“One of the conditions Mademoiselle de Fargas set when she identified her brother’s murderers was that the sum she received was to be sent to you. We—that is, the First Consul and myself—have kept our promise, that is all.”
Cadoudal bowed slightly; with his own insistence upon loyalty, he found all that perfectly natural. Then, speaking to one of the Bretons who had borne the table, he said, “What can you give us along with this, Brise-Bleu?”
“A chicken fricassee, General.”
“That’s the menu for your meal, Monsieur de Montrevel.”
“It’s a real feast. There’s only one thing I fear.”
“What is that?”
“As long as we’re eating, things will be fine. But when we need to drink.…”
“Ah, you don’t like cider,” said Cadoudal. “Damn! This is embarrassing. Cider and water. I have to admit that my wine cellar has nothing else.”
“That is not the problem. To whose health will we be drinking?”
“So that’s what troubling you, Monsieur de Montrevel,” said Cadoudal in a dignified tone. “We shall drink to the health of our common mother, to the health of France! We serve France with different minds, but, I hope, with the same love.
“To France, good sir!” said Cadoudal, filling his glass.
“To France, General!” replied Roland, clinking his glass against the general’s.
Their consciences clear, they both sat down gaily, and with good appetites they dug into the cabbage soup. The elder of the two was not yet thirty years old.
A BELL WAS RINGING vibrantly, playing “Ave Maria.” Cadoudal pulled out his watch. “Eleven o’clock,” he announced.
“You know that I am at your orders,” Roland answered.
“We have an expedition to complete six leagues away. Do you need some rest?”
“Me?”
“Yes. If so, you may sleep for an hour.”
“Thanks, but that is unnecessary.”
“In that case,” said Cadoudal, “we shall leave when you are ready.”
“And your men?”
“Oh, my men! My men are ready.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
“I’ll be damned. I’d like to see them!”
“You’ll see them.”
“But when?”
“Whenever you want. My men are quite discreet. They show themselves only when I give the signal.”
“So that if I wanted to see them.…”
“You have only to tell me; I shall give the signal and they will appear.”
Roland began to laugh. “Do you doubt it?” asked Cadoudal.
“Not in the slightest. Only… Let’s go, General.”
“Let’s go.”
The two young men wrapped themselves in their coats and stepped outside.
“Let’s get on our horses,” said Cadoudal.
“Which horse shall I take?” asked Roland.
“I thought you would be pleased to find your own horse well rested, so I chose two of my horses for our expedition. Take your pick. They are both equally good, and each has in its saddle holsters a pair of English-made pistols.”
“Already loaded?” Roland asked.
“And loaded with great care, Colonel. That’s a job I never entrust to anyone else.”
“Well, then, let’s mount,” said Roland.
Cadoudal and his companion climbed up onto their saddles and started down the road toward Vannes. Cadoudal rode beside Roland, while Branche-d’Or, the major general of Cadoudal’s army, rode twenty paces behind them.
As for the army itself, it remained invisible. The road, so straight it seemed to have been drawn by a tight rope, appeared to be totally deserted.
When they had ridden approximately a half league, Roland grew impatient: “Where in the devil are your men?”
“My men? … On our right, on our left, in front of us, behind us; everywhere.”
“That’s a good one,” said Roland.
“I’m not joking, Colonel. Do you think me so imprudent as to venture out without scouts in the midst of men so experienced and vigilant as your Republicans?”
Roland kept silent for a moment; and then, with a doubtful gesture, he said, “You told me, General, that if I wished to see your men, all I needed to do was say so. Well, I’d like to see them now.”
“All of them or just a part?”
“How many did you say would be with you?”
“Three hundred.”
“Well, then, I’d like to see one hundred and fifty.”
“Halt!” Cadoudal ordered.
Bringing his hands to his mouth, he imitated the call first of a screech owl, then of a barn owl. For the first call, he turned to the right, and for the second, to the left. The last plaintive notes had barely died away when suddenly on both sides of the road shadowy human shapes appeared. Crossing the ditch that separated them from the road, they began lining up on both sides of the horsemen.
“Who is in command on the right?”