But then, sometimes, seen on his horse (first Curado’s gift then other, finer animals), seen riding into town or inspecting his plantation, Miguel the Frenchman threw doubt into the minds of those who dismissed the rumours, those who laughed and shook their heads, those who said, ‘Senhor, please, he was never a general in any army.’ Straight-backed, head high, hips giving precisely with the motion of the horse beneath him, there was an obvious, natural affinity with the animal, an air and grace and authority, even with bare feet in the stirrups, the long beard and big stomach in the saddle. The Frenchman was an impressive sight and for a moment, as he rode by, those who’d doubted would venture their imaginations to a battlefield in Europe (those, at least, who knew that battlefields and Europe existed) and they’d again consider the possibility that had been shaped by rumours, and yes, undoubtedly, there was a fit, a coming together like jigsaw pieces, an unexpected vision. By God, maybe it was true!

And then Miguel would swing down off the horse, and he was just a short old man again and the world returned to recognisable dimensions.

‘Marta,’ he said, ‘my Marta.’

Six brown children, the youngest of them running naked in the yard of their stone house, surrounded by orange, lemon and lime trees, avocado, guava and banana, chickens pecking in the grass, a red parrot perched in a cage hanging from a post in the shade of an awning, squawking out words in French.

‘Monsieur! Assieds-toi! Mademoiselle! Assieds-toi!’

His eldest children married and they all came to live on the estancia that the général built. Grandchildren, dogs, cats twisting around his ankles, the général lay in his hammock or sat in a rocking chair with a large bowl of sweet, milky cocoa and watched his family, contented. He swam at the beaches and rode his horse on the trails. He made love to his beautiful Pataxó wife, outside on the hot nights, on a blanket beneath the cool stars.

He never saw Curado again. Over time, he thought less and less of Bonaparte.

Sometimes he remembered Elisabeth von Hoffmann.

THE CAT

Each stroke diminished the man, stripped him naked, ripped him raw, exposed and hopeless, dropped him into the pit of his greatest agony.

Every man (except Turner) one hundred lashes: an eternity.

Strapped to a triangle of wood made smooth from the pain-rub of others, John Myer couldn’t turn his head to see behind. Every pause between strokes was loaded with the cruel promise of reprieve. Twenty-two down and counting.

‘Is it stingin’ yet, sweetie?’

The scourger knew his trade and all the tricks. Wet and salt the leather, then let dry in the sun until the knots and the tails are pip hard. Then space the flogging, count slow tens in between. The slower you go, the better you break them.