Then she had disappeared, and he’d never seen her again. He did not know who she was, and made no attempt to find out. What would be the point? He was left with three strange, magical memories, as if he’d been transported like a knight in a romance, into another world.

He stayed there some time. Then he said he wanted to go home.

The cart had just started up when he turned to his grandson and remarked: “Look at that.”

“What?”

“Over there.” Hercule pointed to a spot just in front of the arcades, about fifty paces away, where a figure was standing.

“I don’t see anything.”

“The small man, the old one, dressed in red.”

“There’s no one there, Granddad.”

And then Hercule understood.

“You’re right,” he said. “Trick of the light.” But he gazed down at the little red man as they passed him, and the red man stared back.

So that was him, Hercule thought. Usually it was kings and great men who saw the red man, just before some terrible event—often their own death. But he’d heard stories of ordinary people seeing him.

What did the red man’s presence mean this time? The death of the king, like as not. Perhaps his own as well.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said aloud.

“What?” asked his grandson.

“Nothing.” If he was about to die, Hercule thought, he was glad he’d come to this place of memories today. “The best three fucks I ever had in my life,” he said aloud.

“What?”

“I don’t think the king’s going to live much longer.”

“Well, he’ll die knowing he left his mark on history,” the younger man remarked.

Hercule Le Sourd nodded thoughtfully. No doubt that was true, so far as it went. But what that mark on history would be was still hidden behind the dark clouds.

“No man ever knows his legacy,” he said.

Chapter Eighteen

•  1914  •

On the seventh day of September, 1914, one of the strangest sights ever seen in the history of warfare took place in the city of Paris. Thomas Gascon, his younger son Pierre, and Luc were standing at the top of the Champs-Élysées to witness it, at almost exactly the place where, a quarter century ago, Thomas had watched the funeral cortege of Victor Hugo. But the procession today was of a very different kind. And it was not the figure of Édith that he was straining to see, but that of his son Robert.

For the French army was going to war.

In taxis.