Christophe Bergerard had been given Rolt’s name by his father, who’d heard it from a London taxidermist and dealer in rare species. Now, in Berlin with Général Fourés, Bergerard had sought the Prussian out. He was a young man with a tendency to live beyond his means, a tendency often requiring redress.

‘I do not part with it lightly,’ he said, frowning at Claus von Rolt. ‘And even now question myself.’

The cloth in its special box had been a gift from his father, a good luck charm. The blood of the guillotined queen, Marie Antoinette, soaked up in a fishmonger’s apron, right off the cobblestones of the place de la Révolution, moments after her head had rolled into the basket and the blood had surged from her severed neck. Not having enjoyed much luck since it had come into his possession, Christophe Bergerard thought it was about time for Queen Marie to deliver.

‘My father was there,’ Bergerard said. ‘He saw the sun glint off the poised blade, he saw the Queen’s elegant neck placed in the choke, and then the blade’s sudden, swift descent. Pffft! He heard the roar of the crowd as her head fell into the basket and saw the blood flow in torrents, down off the boards and over the ground. And then the filthy peasants all ran up with their aprons and dresses and shirts and sheets, fought each other and wrestled in the blood, kneeled and sopped it all up in a frenzy, like animals.’

Rolt wondered how many times the boy had told his father’s story.

‘The filthy rabble,’ Christophe Bergerard said. He opened the box again, allowed Rolt a second look at the cloth. It was all true, every detail. His father had been among the crowd and then followed one of the women who’d brought her linen bundles with her for the soaking up. They’d been at it all week with the lesser aristocrats, but the Queen’s blood was the prize that day and the rush to the foot of the guillotine was as intense as any charge of dragoons.

‘Her name was Madame Sulzer and she was a fishmonger’s wife,’ Bergerard said. ‘She refused to sell my father the whole apron. Only this one portion.’

‘A shrewd businesswoman,’ Rolt said.

‘You need not doubt its authenticity.’

What I don’t doubt, Claus von Rolt thought to himself, is the power of the idea. He might even keep the piece for himself.

He made a generous offer and the happy young French aide-de-camp accepted.

DRUM

Training.