“Then there’s nothing to be done?” Helen was crying now.
“Yes, there is. Mr. Jahn says we mustn’t give up hope. He says things are moving.”
“Things are moving?”
“Yes. The network’s been in turmoil for some months now. I’m supposed to keep it a secret. I shouldn’t tell you, but the hell with that.”
“What do you mean? Is there going to be an uprising? When? Before the winter fights? Tell me, Bart! Tell me!”
“I know almost nothing, Helen. They give me a few scraps of information because my name is Casal and I’m my father’s son, but I’m only seventeen, not sixty, like Jahn! If I learn anything at all, I’ll tell you. Promise!”
“Promise!” He had fired the word at her, like Milos had, without meaning to. Helen leaned her forehead into the hollow of his shoulder. He was so tall. He gently stroked her head.
“We mustn’t give up hope, Helen. I’m told that when things were going very badly, my father used to comfort everyone by saying, ‘Never fear: the river’s on our side.’ ”
They turned and looked at the dark, quiet waters, the sparkling eddies glinting here and there. Far away, on Royal Bridge, cars glided through the silence as night fell.
When he heard three quiet knocks at his door, Bartolomeo thought at first that it was Milena. They often met at night; that was no secret. He put out his arm for his watch and was surprised to see that it was five in the morning. What brought her to his room at this early hour? Usually it was more like the time when she went back to her own! He got up, yawning, and opened the door. Mr. Jahn, hands in the pockets of his heavy overcoat and a fur cap on his head, saw his surprise and smiled.
“Get some warm clothes on and come with me. Don’t switch the corridor light on. I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”
Bart didn’t even think of asking questions. He nodded and closed the door again. Then he put on his coat and boots and flung his long scarf around his shoulders.
Jahn was waiting in the dim light at the back of the restaurant. “Come on, we’ll go out through the kitchens.”
They took the service stairs down to avoid waking everyone in the place by using the elevator, and once in the basement went along a corridor that Bart had never found before. They left through an emergency exit that opened into an alleyway behind the building and walked a hundred or so yards through the night. Then Jahn stopped outside the double door of a garage. He unlocked it with a large key.
“Where are we going?” asked Bart, seeing the car inside.
“For a little drive. I’ll bet you don’t even know the place. Give me a hand, will you?”
The two of them pushed the heavy four-door car out of the garage and then all along the road. At the corner they jumped in and coasted down the slope to the avenue that ran beside the river. Only then did Jahn turn the ignition key to start the engine. They drove for about a mile before turning off to cross Royal Bridge. The yellow light of the street lamps cast living shadows on the ten bronze horsemen, and the last, a gigantic statue, seemed threatening, about to bring his raised sword down on them. As they passed through the sleeping suburbs, Bartolomeo’s fingers caressed the supple leather of the seats and the chrome dashboard.
“First time you’ve been in a Panhard?” asked Jahn.
“First time I’ve been in a car at all,” replied Bart.
Jahn glanced at him in astonishment.
“I arrived at the boarding school in a bus when I was fourteen, and I got on another bus when I was seventeen, running away with Milena in the middle of the night,” he explained. “But that’s all. Well, maybe I was driven around in a car when I was really small, but if so, I don’t remember.”
“You’re right. Forgive me,” Jahn apologized.
Day was just beginning to dawn when they reached the country. Mist hung low over the fields. Soon the horizon ahead of them grew wider. Jahn looked in his rearview mirror several times and steadily slowed down. Bart turned to look behind them. In the distance, a black car was slowing down too. He thought there were two men in it.
“They’re following us,” said Jahn. He sighed.
“Phalangists?”
“Yes.”
“Do they often follow you?”
“They try to. But I can spot them. So I lead them sixty miles over the muddiest roads I can find, I buy a chicken from a farmer, and then I drive back. It infuriates them. I love that.”
Bart didn’t expect such practical jokes from the large man he thought of as placid and reserved. “So we’re on our way to buy a chicken from a farmer?”
“No, I didn’t wake you at five in the morning for that. I’m going to try shaking them off.”
They went on driving slowly for half an hour or more. The black car adjusted its speed to theirs and stayed behind them. Just after a bend in the road, they found themselves at a junction. Here Jahn suddenly accelerated, went straight ahead, and was out of sight before his pursuers had time to come around the bend themselves.
“With a bit of luck, they’ll think I turned off there.”
The maneuver succeeded perfectly. They had lost the black car.
“We’re going to see the horse-men,” Jahn said, a little more relaxed now. “Also known as the cart-horses. Have you heard the term before?”
In his mind’s eye Bartolomeo saw the large form of Basil with his unmanageable tufts of hair and his long, rough-hewn face. What had happened to him? Surely he hadn’t been left to die in that cell. . . .
“I know one. He brought me my father’s letter. But he never explained exactly what the . . . the cart-horses are . . . I mean the horse-men.”
“I’ll tell you,” said Jahn, sighing. “We have plenty of time. There’s a good hour’s drive still ahead of us.”
He lit a cigar and lowered his window to let the smoke out. Bart decided that the smell wasn’t really so unpleasant. He felt well, wrapped in his warm coat, watching the winter landscape pass outside the car windows.
“No one knows exactly where they come from,” Jahn began. “They’re rather like a large family who have always been around. I suppose there are about a hundred thousand in the country in all. All of them are brave, tough, and strong as oxen. But they are unable to learn to read and write. They marry among themselves so regularly that these characteristics go on from one generation to the next. They used to be employed in work needing strength and stamina, particularly carrying loads along narrow streets where horse-drawn carts couldn’t go. Hence their nickname of cart-horses. But you mustn’t think they were despised. Far from it: they were admired for their strength and steadfastness. A good many people even saw a certain nobility in their rustic manners, if you can understand that.”
“I certainly can. It’s what I felt about Basil. He might seem stubborn, but he had such a generous spirit. I got the impression that he’d have died to deliver that letter to me.”
“Not just an impression. I can assure you he’d have done exactly that. When you entrust a mission to a cart-horse, he’s ready to die to carry it out. That’s why the Phalangists wanted the horse-men on their side when they seized power. What a godsend that would have been: a hundred thousand of them, immensely strong and ready to demolish anything once they were given orders to do it. But there was one thing the Phalangists had forgotten.”
“What?”
“They’d forgotten that while the horse-men need a master, they like to choose that master for themselves. And simple and uncomplicated as they may be, they don’t pick just anyone.”
“They refused to serve the Phalange?”
“Every last one of them! People think they are uncouth, but they know the difference between good and bad. Your father was sent to make contact with them. I thought he was the wrong choice, too reserved and short-tempered, while they think in simple terms and are very emotional. But surprisingly, they adored him and he instantly and entirely trusted them. In short, they allied themselves with the Resistance. It cost them severely. It’s all very well to be physically strong, but that’s not much use when you’re facing armed men. Many of them were killed. Others were arrested and treated like animals in prison. When it was all over, the Phalangist police did a deal with their leader, who was called Faber.