lies. When two men gather together for the committal of crime this is conspiracy. In this case we have a conspiracy of ugliness. This court requires you to prove two things to establish innocence. That the dog is not ugly, and that it is not owned by Dr Faure . . . Jean-Marie, more meat.’
I threw it down as the lawyer for the defence began his hasty summary. He could not prove either point, but repeated that the dog was of previously good character and threw himself on the mercy of the court. It was a poor dog, a dog that knew no better, that had fallen in with bad company and was being judged for the sins of others.
Emile, however, was not swayed. ‘There can be no mercy for crimes of this nature.’ He looked to the boy acting as witness. ‘You accept the trial is fair and carried out in accordance with the law. You hold witness to this fact?’
The boy nodded seriously.
‘Then all that remains is for me to pass sentence.’ Emile leant out over the parapet so he could see the dog clearly. Staring back, the dog wagged its tail and whined for treats. ‘Pleading now will not help you. You have been found guilty of crimes so serious that there can only be one sentence . . .’ Emile let the pause stretch. ‘And that sentence is death.’ A couple of our classmates looked at each other and he raised his eyebrows as if wondering what they thought we were doing out here on a rotting roof.
‘You may carry on,’ he told me flatly.
I reached for a rope coiled under my jacket, its noose already prepared, and hesitated. ‘The condemned deserves to finish his last meal . . .’ The remaining pieces of meat splattered onto the brick below and the dog wolfed them down, thrashing its tail with delight and licking its chops. I felt sick at the thought of what I was to do next and furious with myself for suggesting it. The last chunk of meat vanished down the dog’s gullet with barely a chew of those fearsome teeth. And as the hound looked up and whined expectantly, my noose dropped over its head and I yanked furiously, desperation putting steel in my muscles. One handful of rope followed another. The dog rose rapidly until my grip slipped, it plummeted a few feet and came to an abrupt halt. The drop broke its neck. The whole thing was over in seconds.
‘Help me,’ I said desperately.
‘Do what?’ Marcus and the others looked puzzled.
‘Drag the carcass up here. We can’t simply leave it.’ That obvious point had passed them by in the excitement. A huge dog dead in the courtyard would inevitably point suspicion at us. The animal had to vanish. That way, the servants would decide it was witchcraft and the headmaster would waste his time telling them not to be so stupid. Forming a line, my classmates began to pull on the rope while I kept the pendulum dog away from the wall. Our victim was almost at the parapet when I looked up and froze.
‘What?’ Emile demanded.
I grabbed the noose and wrestled the dead dog onto the parapet. ‘Nothing,’ I said hastily. ‘Simply shadows.’ A girl stared at me from a window opposite. White as a ghost against the darkness of an unlit room. Her hair was down and she wore a thin shift. I swear, even from across the courtyard, I could tell she was grinning.
‘Sleep well,’ I told Emile.
‘You’re going to . . . ?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m going to dispose of the body.’
I shook away offers of help from those who wanted a further part in the adventure. How well Emile would sleep in the week to come was down to him – and how brutally the lacerations on his lower back and buttocks hurt. But he would be allowed to try, and that was down to me. He could take to his bed tomorrow night and close his eyes without risk of a further beating from classmates who’d felt themselves shamed only hours earlier.
And me? I tunnelled happily though the darkness of midnight woods towards a shimmering ribbon of shallow river that edged the school grounds. One more dead dog for its cargo? Barely worth anyone’s notice and miles downstream by morning. Extracting my lock knife, I flicked out the blade and cut a strip from the beast’s back, washed the meat in the river and wrapped it in dock leaves. I would grill it over an open fire, away from everyone’s gaze come morning. In my head, as dry leaves crunched underfoot and an owl’s sudden hoot lifted my soul into my mouth, I was already asking Dr Faure’s wicked-eyed daughter if she wanted to share.
What the Chinese eat
Emile declared himself in love with the goose girl. A ragged child of twelve, if that, who dreamed and dawdled her way along the lanes with her stick and her brood, only hurrying them when she crossed school land. We caught her once where the road passed under the shadow of the oak trees, and demanded a kiss as the price for passing. But she gripped her staff like a Gaulish queen and her geese clustered around her, honking in agitation, and we let her pass unkissed for her bravery. Emile claimed he kissed her later. No one believed him, not even me and I was his best friend.
She was a princess in hiding, he said. Lots of goose girls were princesses in hiding or the bastard daughters of wicked dukes. Emile’s flights of fancy were few and quickly over, but he turned this one into a long and twisting fairy tale that he told himself in corners, his head nodding in agreement to something he’d just said. The others allowed him his strangeness. He’d judged Dr Faure’s dog and found it wanting. Emile was small and strange and common and far too brash in how he displayed his intelligence, but he was ours. We were the best, the bravest, the fiercest, the most proudly foolish year the school had seen.
And we were bound by a lie, all of us. The morning after Dr Faure’s dog was tried, convicted and executed for the sins of its owner, the headmaster appeared in our classroom and asked if anyone had heard anything strange the night before. His gaze swept across our attentive faces so blandly I wondered if he suspected us but kept his suspicions to himself. Dr Faure stood behind him, face pale and mouth tight. He’d been having trouble meeting our eyes since classes began that morning.
We shook our heads, glanced enquiringly at each other, put on a very pantomime of innocence and ignorance. ‘What might we have heard, sir?’ Marcus took the lead and that was as it should be. After all, he was class captain.
‘That,’ the headmaster said, ‘is a very good question. Dr Faure’s dog has disappeared.’ Maybe I imagined the headmaster’s eyes settled on me. Although why would they not settle on Emile, since he was the last boy Dr Faure had beaten . . . ? ‘It disappeared from a locked courtyard to which only I and your master have the key.’
‘Witchcraft,’ a boy muttered.
The headmaster scowled and thrust his hands in his coat pockets, leaning slightly forward as he told the boy not to be so ridiculous. It was bad enough the scullery maids thought such things in this day and age. Witchcraft was rare, and serious, a sin against God and punishable by death, but nothing like as common as servants seemed to think. He expected better from us. The boy he berated apologised, and I caught the boy’s smile as the headmaster looked away.
‘Did anyone hear anything?’ I risked.
He stared at me long and hard. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘Dr Faure’s daughter sleeps in a room overlooking the courtyard and she heard nothing. In fact, she slept the sleep of the angels . . .’ His mouth twitched at the words, which had to be hers. Theologians doubted that angels slept at all.
‘Could it have escaped?’ Marcus asked innocently.
The headmaster turned to Dr Faure as if inviting him to answer. When Dr Faure stayed silent the headmaster shook his head. ‘Unlikely,’ he said. ‘The walls are three storeys high and the roof is steep. Unless, of course, it sprouted wings.’
‘Like an angel,’ Marcus said. ‘Indeed. Should you discover anything I’m relying on you . . .’
‘Of course, sir.’ Marcus said. ‘We’ll organise a hunt this afternoon. I’ll divide the class into teams. You can rely on us to search everywhere.’
‘I’m sure I can.’
‘It