in the classroom I told them Emile needed volunteers for a plan he was going to put into action that night.
‘What kind of plan?’
‘He needs a judge, a scribe and a witness to swear that the trial was fair. Emile will act as the judge.’
‘And you?’ someone demanded.
‘I’ll be the executioner. Should one be necessary.’
‘He’s going to try Dr Faure?’
I shook my head. ‘Even better. He’s going to try his dog.’
Marcus, our class captain, grinned and I knew that if we brought this off Emile would be forgiven. Dr Faure’s dog was a foul-tempered hound on which he doted. It spent its nights in the locked courtyard howling at the slightest noise and keeping the dormitories awake. The beast was walked religiously each day and was, everyone agreed, the only thing in the school with a fouler temperament than the man who walked it. The boys in my class began to draw up a list of crimes with which the dog should be charged.
By the time the shadows thickened to darkness everyone except Emile knew he’d sworn ferocious revenge on Dr Faure, and he greeted my news of this with wide eyes. His lips were bitten, his face puffy and his nose red from crying. So I told him to rinse himself in the cold water the headmaster’s wife had sent up for us. When he just stood there, I put a china bowl on a tripod stand and poured the water myself, then gripped his head and pushed him under. He came up spluttering and flailing at me with useless fists.
‘You do it for yourself then.’
He scowled furiously and splashed his face noisily, spilling water down the front of his uniform, since neither of us had changed for bed and nor would we until justice had been done. I explained what I wanted from him. He’d seen his father in action in a courtroom. He was to be that man. This was to be done seriously.
‘I’m the judge?’
‘Yes. You prosecute and Marcus defends. But the final decision is yours and you are the one who passes sentence.’
‘But how can we get the dog to stay quiet? It will bark itself mad and Faure will come. He’ll see us.’ Another thought occurred to him. ‘And how do we get into the courtyard? It’s locked at night.’
‘That’s the point,’ I said. The little courtyard belonged to the Faures’ quarters and though a dozen windows looked into it there were only two doors: one into the main body of the school and one across the way into where the Faures lived. Dr Faure locked the first when he retired for the night and the second after he’d put his dog out. Only one man had the keys to those doors. Well, perhaps the headmaster had a spare set. But only one man had ready access. ‘We don’t get into the courtyard. The trial takes place on the roof overlooking Faure’s door. As for keeping the brute quiet . . .’
I pulled a bag from under my coat, feeling its stickiness.
Emile looked in horror at the chunk of bloody meat I offered him. He stepped back and seemed to be reconsidering the whole idea.
‘What’s that?’
‘Madame Faure’s cat. I took a piece for . . . experimentation.’ I didn’t share the fact I’d fried that piece and still had slivers of cat and onion trapped in my back teeth. ‘This is the rest of it. It should be enough. Although we’ll need a quick trial. A decisive judgement.’
His eyes widened at my attempt to sound grown up and I almost smiled but caught myself in time. Serious. For this to work we had to be serious. Was he always so thin? I wondered. Had he always looked so weak? His eyes were watery, his lips bitten with anxiety. In my head he was bigger than me, this boy who punched me that first day and demanded my conkers. Now I realised I was looking down on him.
‘You killed her cat?’
‘It was fat and ugly.’
‘This judgement . . .’ Emile sounded anxious.
‘Execution. Death by hanging. To be carried out immediately.’
He mouthed the words, trying to make them his. Then it was time to meet the others in the lesser attic. Being caught out of bed would see us all whipped and I hurried Emile up the stairs, his steps slow and his face tight from his earlier beating. A broken harp loomed over us, leather cases rotted to spill their contents, a pair of ruined rapiers, their snapped blades rendering them exactly the right length for boys our age. Marcus grabbed one and tossed the other to a friend. Their clatter of enthusiastic battle was stilled by my outraged hiss.
‘Leave the blades here,’ Emile whispered. ‘Take them on the way back.’ Ordinarily Marcus would never take orders, but the fact Emile was judge in what came next was enough. Marcus put down the broken foil and his friend did the same.
At the far end of the attic was a door to the roof. Most of us had come this way for bets or to cut lead from the flashings to be melted to make silver rivers or dropped into water to make strange shapes. That was the way we went, up one side of a gully where two roofs met and down the other side, to a parapet overlooking the courtyard where Dr Faure kept his dog. It was late summer and the air was rich with the stink of recently manured fields. The countryside was a dark sea around us. The peasantry were like their animals, early to rise and early to sleep, driven by the seasons and the length of the day.
‘God’s farted,’ Marcus said. Someone sniggered and someone else muttered about blasphemy. I ignored them, already reaching into my bag.
‘May I go ahead?’ I asked Emile.
He stared at me, his hollow eyes half lit by moonshine the yellow of a cheap rush light. He was rocking slightly on his feet.
‘You’re the judge. May I go ahead to quieten the dog?’
‘Go,’ he said. So I opened my bag and pulled out a sliver of bleeding meat and lobbed it underarm along the edge of the parapet so it just cleared the top and splattered down onto the courtyard bricks. An eruption of barking greeted its landing, and I heard Marcus swear and Emile groan, and then the barking became snuffling. No lights showed in Dr Faure’s house, no windows were thrown open. The snuffling became a whine for more.
‘Here.’ I gestured the others closer.
They huddled around me and I had to burrow through them to reach where Emile stood on the edge. His face was white.
‘Do this,’ I whispered.
He raised his chin and his face changed as if his body were a house inhabited by different owners. He moved confidently through the small crowd and stared down at the foul-faced dog. ‘Feed it again,’ he ordered. The dog took its bloody mouthful and looked up to hear the charges. ‘You are charged,’ Emile said, ‘with being owned by Dr Faure. You are charged with being a vile four-legged monster no better than your master. You are charged with being ugly, noisy and foul-tempered. How do you plead?’ The animal whined for another sliver of meat and Emile nodded. ‘The plaintiff pleads not guilty.’
I tossed the plaintiff another chunk of Madame Faure’s cat and wondered if I had enough to last the trial. Emile must have wondered the same, because he turned to the defence and ordered him to keep his speech short and from the point. He then ordered the official witness to watch carefully. It was important that justice was seen to be done. This was an Emile none of us had seen before. Very different from the snivelling wretch who had sidled into our classroom that morning on a sea of his own tears.
‘Begin,’ Emile ordered.
‘To sentence a dog for its owner’s sins is no fairer than punishing a servant for obeying his master. The dog is not at fault. If it were my dog or your dog instead of Dr Faure’s dog it would still be the same dog. Would you judge it then?’
A couple of the boys clapped softly and I agreed. It was a good speech – to the point and clear about the potential for injustice. I wondered how Emile would answer.
‘The