I could hear men’s voices, a deep rumble, low and respectful. I found Papa outside the barn handing out large purposeful shovels to five of his gardians, each one of whom wore a black neckerchief around his throat in memory of the butchered bull. All of the gardians had known Goliath like an old cantankerous friend and at some time each of them had been one of the local razeteurs who had risked the animal’s wrath by snatching cockades from his horns in the ring.

A string of crows sat on the barn ridge and watched us in the thin morning light. The day was just beginning to heat up and the sky now stretched white as a shroud over us and the flat landscape shimmered silver instead of green. All colour had drained from my father’s manade, the way it does from a corpse. I too was dressed in a black sheath dress, my dark hair tied back from my face by a black silk ribbon, sleek as a seal. In Paris it would look chic. Here it looked like I was treading in the footsteps of death.

‘Eloïse,’ my father called out.

Everyone turned to watch me approach, even the crows. In the past I had ridden many times with these men, herding the bulls to new pastures on my father’s farm, swatting at the dense clouds of black flies, each of us with a guiding pole in one hand, reins in the other, a black felt-brimmed hat on our head to keep off the sun. Yet now, I looked at their eyes, and I could see that I was a stranger to them in my Rue Saint-Honoré dress. Worse. I was a stranger who had crippled their patron’s eldest son.

I smiled broadly at them. ‘Bonjour, mes amis.’

Only Louis smiled back, the one who had been in the stable last night. A wide smile crossed his leathery cheeks and he touched the brim of his hat. ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle Eloïse.’

The others said nothing. My father was wearing his brown work cords and a grey collarless shirt. His white beard was in need of a trim, a task I used to perform every fourth Sunday when I lived at home, and his dark eyes were in need of comfort. Neither job was I fit for now.

‘Here,’ my father said, and held out a spare shovel to me. The sinews under the skin of his arm were thick as serpents, muscles that could bring down a bull by the horns.

I looked at the proffered shovel and I knew what it was intended for. Goliath would be granted an honourable resting place; he deserved such respect.

‘No, Papa, you and Goliath don’t need me for that. I am driving into town to do my own kind of digging.’

CHAPTER TWELVE