Part 4 – episode 37
Hours later! It is dark. The sun, that has burned the whole day on our naked bodies, is gone. Above the rooftops I spot a crescent moon. The coolness of the evening is very welcome. It gives at least a little relief. For hours I have had to fight against my own weight, against the suffocating feeling caused by hanging on my arms. I have writhed all the time to stay alive. I've had a terrible thirst from the beginning, but still, I am sweating by the efforts. Pushing my feet on the pedestal helps, but I realize it lengthens my struggle against an unescapable end, a prospect I have as yet been able to push away from my mind, my mind which all day urges me to do everything to stay alive!
There are still a handful of spectators around The Cage. The biggest buzz is over. For hours we had to support the looks and comments of onlookers. Mocking and taunting, insults, obscene comments. We had to undergo them, powerless. It came all on top of the terrible pain and the terrible efforts we had and have to endure. Many of the onlookers, I recognized. They were people from my neighborhood, people I knew. I had expected a little bit more of empathy from them. Apparently we suddenly belong to another world. We are traitors now, we have become their enemies! Crucifying people like the notary and Milos, formerly respected citizens, was a clever demonstration of power, to show that no one is protected. Exposing such people in humiliation to an angry and anxious crowd, has brought up all kinds of feelings of retaliation. Shouting obscenities and mockery to these now naked and powerless men, vented the people’s fears about the future to come.
During the afternoon quiet, when less spectators showed up, and we still had some strength to talk, we had the opportunity to reveal some things. Still, I have to accept (saying ‘I have to live with’ sounds awkward in these circumstances) that some events of my past life will always remain a mystery for me.
A common thread between all ten of us, is ‘Hellenic Dawn’. All right, Colonel Mandrakos, the new ruler of Greece, was also strongly Hellenic Dawn oriented. But there is Hellenic Dawn, and… Hellenic Dawn. In that movement, different ideological trends exist. Mandrakos stands for authoritarian rule. The local supporters, like Milos and the notary, wanted a Greece ruled by its Ancient democratic traditions, and according to the ideas of Montesquieu. No worse enemies than opposite ideas in such a movement like Hellenic Dawn. No more dangerous enemy for Mandrakos than the democratic Hellenic Dawn. It was most of all to the surprise of Smyrna, the most fanatic one, that we had all worked for HD. Curiously, it was my imprudence that has been at the origin of the arrest of the local democratic HD group. It was the notary’s book, Montesquieu’s ‘Esprit des Lois’, that Lieutenant d’Artois had browsed through in my studio. Not the content itself, but the notary’s ex-libris in it, had instigated him to have a search in his house. As could be expected from a notary, he kept everything meticulously written down, including Hellenic Dawn business. Milos, who had already been picked up, suspected of HD activity, had kept silent all the time. The arrest of the notary gave them in a few hours everything they wanted to know.
Meanwhile, it is not yet clear to me, what all happened just before, and after my ' kidnapping ' in Châteaudun, so many years back. As far as de Beauvesque (a very strong man for his age, considering how he stands his suffering) revealed to me, there was already disagreement between Benoît and Robert before my abduction. Robert was opposed against Benoît’s drastic plans of eliminating all other rivaling families by using extreme violence. He found Benoît’s plans, Hardi and Sans Peur, completely unrealistic. Robert was rather inclined to Lisa’s plan to clear the way for an election. Benoît’s plans, when they got disclosed, have brought the family into trouble, but Robert managed to regain trust from the nobility afterwards, exploiting their growing distrust against King Jacques.
One thing is almost certain: there is big quarrel in the d'Artois House. Robert could become King of the Franco-Iberian Union with the support of the French and the Iberian nobility. This to the strong displeasure of his own father Benoît, who never had put away his hate against the Iberians. Robert, however, has apparently called for continuity. And therefore, it seems, the old Benoît has plans to bring his alleged grandson (if Lieutenant d’Artois is, because I have received no clear answer about that) into the game. A dangerous game. And I had absolutely no desire to work again for Benoît d'Artois, and even less to one more of his idiot conspiracy plans. It could well be, literally, postponement of execution for me. After all, as far as I understood, Benoît was now relying on his last support, Réaction Française, not the kind of people I would like to work with.
And what about me? That abduction? Lisa Kellermann had to do with that? Or Jasna von Vetcha? According to de Beauvesque, it seems that Robert was not pleased with me, because of my lack of emotional commitment to the Artois cause. He desired to be supported by a stronger woman behind him, but not King Jacques eldest daughter, as his father had in mind. He neither was in favour of killing me, but the other solution, a divorce was out of the question, because that would have ruined all possibilities to run for the crown. So, a ‘swap’? Me against Lisa/Jasna? We resembled each other a lot. No one has noticed the change?
Why is de Beauvesque here anyway? Like Benoît, he hated the Iberians as hell. He would clearly belong to the side of the conspirators around Benoît now. Did he knew too much? Or, and this is also possible, knowing him, did he play his own agenda? It would not be his first time. Opportunism? I have tried to find out more, but since evening fell, he remains silent, alone and resigning in his suffering.
It was him who wanted to prevent me that night in that little alley. He thought I was planning to shoot Lieutenant d’Artois. He must have known that I was on Chaos. Why didn't he never notified the Artois?
It was also de Beauvesque who had warned me on the phone that one of us should not be trusted. I suspect he was talking about Judith. In particular, because that story about her partner lost at sea was not true after all. She was put here to set up a spy network. But never mind, it does not matter anymore! Am I so credible, after all? Luisa Schneider, a convicted spy myself?
De Beauvesque had kept working for the Artois, in England, to get King Edmund at their site against King Jacques. When Benoît and Robert drifted apart, and King Edmund inclined to King Jacques’ side, he had to make a choice. But he had only bad choices to make. He could no longer stay at King Edmund’s side because he had conspired against King Jacques. If he went to Robert, he had to give up his hatred against the Iberians. He had stayed in the service of Benoît as long as possible. He had been tracking down Lieutenant d’Artois on behalf of Benoît, so he had arrived on Chaos. Apparently with Judith as his local contact. With the victory of Robert, staying with Benoît meant choosing for the losing Artois. His last resort was stay hiding on Chaos, but abandoned by Benoît and now tracked down by Robert, even here he was no longer safe.
About the ‘swap’, well, that was, according to de Beauvesque, a story of three girls, ‘the Krainburg girls’. Triplets? Is it that what he suggested? Sounds incredible to me! Born from my mother after an affair with a person in Slovenia. One of them would live in France and become Aurore d’Artois. Keeping up appearances : no scandal in the Artois, a family of royal ancestry? The two other girls awaited their chance. This chance unexpectedly became an opportunity when I got involved in Benoît’s conspiracy. I still wonder whether I have met only Lisa, or both (which could explain Lisa’s ‘mood swings’ sometimes). Was I too bothered with myself, so I had not noticed there were two of them? Anyway, the most wicked of the three Krainburg girls has won. Lisa has been murdered (Illyrian family tradition, remember), the other one, me has been banished to an island and finally nailed to a cross, the third, the wicked one, became Queen of France. So, Robert got the committed woman he had desired so much, but that swapped wife wanted her own siblings being put forward for a possible succession to the throne. Even de Beauvesque has no idea what happened to Robert and Enguerrand. He only assumed that the lieutenant is my son. If even he does not know for sure, then who would, actually!?
De Beauvesque revealed something more surprising! I was not born in Compiègne! I was born in Krainburg, he told me. Compiègne was a forgery, once more to keep up appearances in the family! My life is forged from my birth act on! Who was my biological father? Let’s say that, according to de Beauvesque’s assumptions about that question, I have fucked my biological father in Slovenia (me being unaware), and probably my biological son, the Lieutenant, here in Chaos (he being unaware of it). Josip had even managed to make me pregnant, since I am convinced now that my painful collapse in Hungary was a miscarriage, rather than an acute abdominal infection (as Lisa, whoever she was, had told me there).
This is the end. I'm exhausted! I have terrible pain everywhere. I would just like to let it hang so I would get liberated from this terrible misery. But my instinct to fight and live on is still too strong. Crazy! It is my will to live that lets this torture continue. The same for my fellow sufferers. They all still give sign of life, even de Beauvesque, despite his advanced age. Even crazier, in these terrible circumstances I feel respect for him for the first time. He has all day behaved as a kind of a leader. In all the pain and humiliation he has not only kept dignity for himself. He has talked courage to us. It took him sometimes clearly a strenuous effort, but he has created a kind of mutual support, which eased our suffering a little bit. De Beauvesque took regularly the confrontation with the hostile spectators, in a way that earned my respect, because he even managed to impose his authority on them. Standing upright on the nails is a really painful matter, I cannot say, but he defied time and time again that pain. I don't know if he realizes how comforting the feeling of protection was, that he has given us in these difficult hours.
Now, there is silence. Those who talk, they talk to themselves, each in his or her native language. I hear talking Russian by Olga, Polish Maryszkà Greek by Smyrna and the Greek men, but not to each other.
I had hoped to see Pavlos, among the onlookers. But he did not show up. No one knows what happened to him.
Lieutenant d’Artois? I have not seen him anymore. Was he searching for the body of Lieutenant Ravanaux, after the clue I gave him? Whoever he might be, I hope he is strong enough to resist the temptation to take part in Benoît’s stupid plans.
“There! Milos! And look, there! Luisa Schneider!”
Some of our former colleagues of the office have arrived. Their reactions on seeing us suffering and humiliated, sound ambiguous. A mixture of feelings of embarrassment, confusion, indignation, but also lustful malicious pleasure.
Luisa Schneider! The trinity of Aurore, Lisa and Jasna! Many years ago, Benoît tried to convince me to marry Robert, and become Queen of France, by the prospect of once being entombed in the royal crypt of the Saint-Denis cathedral in Paris, under a splendid marble gisant. The epitaph would have read Aurore d’Artois, Reine de France. It still will, actually, but another Aurore d’Artois will be buried in it. My grave will likely be more modest, only carry a number and not destined for eternity. After ten years, my bones will be removed and dumped into a common grave. Although, ‘Luisa Schneider, Queen of Chaos’, as an epitaph, it would be a good summary of my life.
THE END