Brussels, June 1815
Almost always the dreams I have about my master are noisy and frenetic, as crowded as the cathedral was on the day I lost him. I’m always pushing through people as he forges on, just out of sight. I might catch a glimpse of the hem of his jacket, of the heel of his boot, before my way becomes barred. I’ve dreamt of pursuing him through the banqueting hall at Saint-Germain, through tracts of embroidered silk and stockinged ankles, the chamber growing longer and darker the more panic-stricken I become, until the courtiers turn into windblown trees and the chamber is a forest on a winter’s night. I have dreamt of him in London, trying to catch up, as city people pour down to the river, walking on to frozen water to dance quadrilles. Even the dreams that take place in the countryside, shadowing the tail of armies across the land, are inexplicably busy, the sky hectic with dark birds, the route a maze of guarded walls and un-crossable ravines.
But this dream—I’m aware, as dreamers sometimes are—is calm and still. The multitude has vanished and Brussels is silent, utterly. Even the birds, the secret armies, have abandoned the horse chestnuts and linden trees of the boulevards. I walk across the city to the building where the dance is taking place. The air is mountain pure, the grime and dirt filtered away, and the light on the buildings has a silver shine. How exquisite to find these frantic roads vacant.
There is no dance. In my dream, the mansion is empty too. I pass up the alleyway and notice that I’m no longer a dog. I walk on two legs, a human, boots on my feet, a staff in my hand, decorated with the figure of a serpent. I find a dog sleeping, curled up in a porch at the top of a little flight of stairs. He’s sturdy-looking, inky dark fur on his back turning to light hazel on his stomach, and he has a curling scar on his side. He’s shivering in his sleep and I wonder where his master is. I kneel and reach out my hand, my human hand...
I wake and sit bolt upright, listening. There is clarity in my head, and all around me. It is still night, I’m in the alley and the ball carries on. The crimson of the men’s uniform and the white of the ladies’ dresses have a vivid intensity, though their dance is very strange, having lost all its structure, the men moving fast, whilst the women drift at half the speed. My fur tingles, inexplicably so. ‘What’s happened?’ I say to Sporco, but he’s not there. The alley is deserted but for me. ‘Friend?’ My voice has the clarity of a bell.
I realize the dance is strange because, in fact, it has unravelled into chaos. Soldiers are rushing into packs, rallying one another with cries. They’ve been called to battle. I pass up the alley and on the front steps soldiers are bidding hurried goodbyes. ‘Sporco?’
A battalion is driving up the street, on-the-march, in-step, battle-ready, bugles, horns. Then everything goes quiet, as if a cushion has come down over the city, and I notice, further up the road, aboard a troop wagon, a man with sandy-grey hair. The cart is crammed with red-tunic soldiers, but only this man, thin as porcelain, wears just a shirt under his backpack. For certain I’m hallucinating. My heart bumps in time with the drums, but when the carriage turns the corner and I see a flash of yellow on his back, my breath catches in my throat. A serpent entwined about a rod.
‘It is the rod of Asclepius,’ my master said to me in Vienna, sewing on the emblem when he was first preparing for the war. That version had been finely embroidered, whilst this one is painted on, almost childishly.
It is he.
I bark, but there’s too much noise. His cart rolls on. Follow it. No, he’s an apparition. I’d smell him. Follow him anyway. The serpent and the rod. My dream. The mere action of setting off makes me pulse with the possibility that it is my master. I freeze: Sporco. Soldiers bunch into me, push me out the way. I’m split with panic. ‘Sporco?’ Pointless to shout against this din. What was it he asked last night before I slipped into delirium? ‘Can I go back to meet her?’ The terrier in the bonnet, he’s gone to find her.
I have time, just, to hurry to the square. No, I’ll come for him later. Madness, I’ll not find him again. But the yellow intaglio. I’ll go with the army. I halt a third time: can I be sure it was he? There are scores of doctors in a battalion, and perhaps I read the symbol wrong. Dreams and hallucinations. Go now for Sporco, and catch up with the army afterwards, my final decision. When I get to the corner where the terriers had been, I find it empty—until I notice him waiting in shadow, half leaning against the side of the building, Sporco, looking down the barrel of his nose at me.
‘I thought I’d lost you.’ I pant. ‘You’re safe, though.’ He stares aloofly. ‘We’re leaving. The army. Quickly now.’ Silence. His tail is a flat coil on the ground. ‘Sporco?’
‘I shall wait here.’ Then, tersely, ‘Will you wait too, friend?’
‘No—I—I must leave. With the army.’
‘The army.’ He dismisses the notion with a flap of his ears. ‘Armies, armies, armies. Humans.’
‘Sporco, I have seen my master.’
‘Well, go to him then. What stops you?’
At once we’re characters in one of the mirthless plays my master used to find so ridiculous. I make sure my tone is soft and quiet. ‘Please, my friend.’
‘So you won’t wait with me?’
‘Wait? No. What for? For her, you mean? The dog in the dress?’
There’s hate in his growl. ‘You tell me about the realms, but you don’t want me to see them.’
‘Sporco—’
‘I follow you. I wait with you.’
‘Sporco—’
‘But you won’t wait with me.’
‘With females, things seem like one thing, but actually—’
‘Fe-males. Because you know everything. All about the realms. And I know nothing.’
‘It’s her smell that’s all. A trick of smell.’ Now he utters a low, threatening snarl. ‘Sporco, please—’
The yellow symbol. The wagon is getting away.
‘Have you had a girl?’
‘What?’
‘A lady dog? A girl? Have you known one?’
I knew many dogs when I was young, but I remember only Blaise. How do I even begin to tell him of her. ‘Yes. One. Properly.’
‘Well, I haven’t, never.’
‘That’s not true, Sporco.’
‘I haven’t!’ he snaps. ‘Trying is not the same as doing.’ His lips curl showing his teeth, and I’m taken aback. ‘I want it. One time. So I’ll wait until she returns. Understand, friend?’
‘Sporco—’
‘Fight me.’
‘No, Sporco.’
‘Fight me!’ He throws open his shoulders and punches his chest forward. ‘Fight me!’ He attacks, biting my neck. I rear up and we lock together, jaws gnashing, claws swiping, a savage scramble, meshed as one, as wheels sheer past behind us, horns blaring. I’m stronger. I push him back to the corner, knock his skull with the fist of my paw and bring him down, pinning him by the neck.
‘I’ll not fight you, Sporco, I’ll not. You’re my only friend. Are we not a pack?’
A gulp of amazement passes down his throat and the hate in his eyes vanishes. ‘The pack?’ It’s as if a butcher had invited him in and told him to eat all he can. There’s no limit to my shame, telling him anything to make him come. My only friend? My only friend is the man I lost a hundred and twenty-seven years ago. But Sporco believes me. The finest quality of our species is its greatest failing: trust, over sense, over logic, trust over everything. ‘Of course you and I are tied together. The pack.’
We run until we catch up with the tail of the column.
‘The truck there.’
A wagon has halted, the driver tightening the harness, the back open. Sporco doesn’t hesitate to spring aboard. I waver, searching for the yellow symbol. I leap up and bundle inside, to a smack of sulphur. It’s a munitions cart with dozens of barrels of gunpowder. They always travel at the back of the army line, just in case. There’s a thump of boots, hands slam the doors shut, wrangles a chain round the handles and fastens it tight. Moments later, we’ve set off again, the caskets rumbling against each other as we shake up the road. It’s pitch, but for a single slit of light.
‘All fine?’ I ask Sporco.
He lengthens his neck and glitters his eyes. ‘All fine.’
We’re locked in a gunpowder wagon, a travelling bomb. As I catch my breath, the same doubts tumble through my mind: did I imagine the man with sandy-grey hair, the yellow symbol of Asclepius on his back? And to where are we travelling?
To battle for sure.