Even for Léon it was hard, hard to look at him without pity. Was the companion of his youth still buried somewhere inside that broken body? Léon was seeing no sign of it. Neither André nor Eloïse raised their gaze from the rectangle of raw soil or from the canvas sheet that covered the animal’s ravaged carcass as each well-wisher filed past.

‘André,’ Léon murmured when he drew near.

Again it was like reaching out to a stranger. To someone else whose name just happened to be André too. The eyes that flicked up to his were narrowed to slits, bristling with suspicion, no longer the gleaming amber that had urged Léon as a boy to be far more than he ever thought possible. Now they were the dull mud colour that you find on the soles of your boots after rain.

‘André, they will not get away with it, I promise you.’

André gave an odd cracked sort of smile. He drew breath to say something, but at that moment the shade and the sunlight in the field were torn apart by the shrill and terrified scream of a horse.

*

Dense grey smoke poured up into the sky. Flames leaped from one end of the stable’s thatched roof to the other, sparks spiralling on the wind and catching in hair and clothes. Shouts and cries echoed through the yard.

Somewhere someone was yelling, ‘Quick! More water here, you bastards!’

Lungs were choking. Hooves lashed out. A voice shrieked a warning as a roof-beam burned through and thundered down on those beneath. Bridles were seized, but panic turned tamed animals into wild creatures once more.

The roar of blazing timbers and the reek of scorched horse-hair filled the air as the stables became an inferno. Léon was attempting to prevent people from hurling themselves inside the burning building to rescue the animals, but it was impossible. These were horse people. There were at least twenty horses in there. Probably more. Many of the mourners had arrived in the saddle.

He worked to help the gardians save as many horses as they could. Blinded by smoke, they beat off with bare hands the burning debris that clung to the white hides and though the terrified animals reared and kicked and rolled their huge eyes in panic, they led them out to a paddock where they were safe. But Léon could see neither Eloïse nor Cosette in the paddock. He darted one more time back to the flames.

‘Eloïse,’ he bellowed.

Timbers were crashing down around him.

‘Eloïse!’ He cursed the thick smoke.

A hand seized his sleeve. He whirled round but the roar of flames swallowed any words. Dimly through the wall of smoke he made out two grey shapes. One was a person bent double, the other larger one was a horse stumbling and shuddering and almost on its knees. Both were covered in blood.