‘My work is for the human race,’ he said. ‘I am an explorer of the ultimate unknown frontier, on a perilous search for the bridge, for the window into the next world. Who can say what we might glimpse and discover?’ Dr Antoine Girodet was sure it would make him famous.

Christophe nodded, intrigued. Elisabeth stared down at her plate.

‘Have you heard of the eminent surgeon and philosopher Jacques de Dieu?’ Girodet said to the young man. ‘You must read his Observations and Conclusions on the Post-decapitatory State of the Brain. It was written in 1793, a magnificent enquiry into fibrillary contractions, corneal reflexes, the effects of severing the fourth cervical vertebrae and so on. He argued that it was indeed plausible there was a lingering of perception, of the eyes seeing and the brain comprehending, after the blade had done its work. And so, a moment of vision, quite possibly between life and death, no?’

‘Or a moment of horror,’ Elisabeth said.

Girodet smiled. ‘We must find out! Can’t you see?’

‘And now you have your own blade.’ She put down her knife and fork, pushed the plate away.

‘I do indeed,’ Girodet said. ‘The blade of the Revolution!’ He turned back to Christophe. ‘Tell me, Monsieur Bergerard, are you squeamish about such things? I am in need of an assistant for my research.’

OH, HE’S DONE FOR NOW

Lieutenant Schneppen’s main purpose in life was to action the use of his cane in the training and disciplining of his men—and right now, most particularly, his preoccupation was the exercising and disciplining of Johannes Meyer.

Schneppen had disliked the boy on sight (a deserter, a coward, tall) and the fact that he could barely hold a rifle correctly, took an eternity to reload and couldn’t shoot a building if it was right there in front of him, drove Schneppen to near insanity. Johannes Meyer was a damning reflection on Prussia, whose defeat at the hands of the French still burned with bright shame in Lieutenant Schneppen’s burly chest, a veteran of the lost Battle of Jena.

‘A fucking disgrace!’ he said.

The man’s breath was hot with the pickled stench of an empty stomach. Johannes Meyer stood stock-still, sweating from the endless drills that morning, up and down the parade ground, up and down, up and down, his collarbone aching, and still it hadn’t stopped. He was a thousand miles from everywhere. All the days since he’d arrived had been miserable, intolerable. The grey sky never clearing, the constant drizzle, the dull, penetrating cold that seemed to come up from deep in the ground. And Lieutenant Schneppen, his fellow Prussian, relentless and at his throat.

‘Imbecile,’ Schneppen said, this time in German. He struck Johannes with the cane. As the boy stumbled from the blow, Schneppen struck him again, right across his back.