Free The Princess and the Captain by Anne-Laure Bondoux Page B

lamp burning in the carriage entrances; all was shadows and sadness. Shoulders hunched, Orpheus went along the streets, avoiding the puddles and the ruts dug by cartwheels. In only a few days the whole country had turned fluid and muddy. Galnicia was taking water on board, and Orpheus himself, wet and unhappy, had taken a dislike to Galnicia.
    He saw a faint light on the outskirts of the graveyard and told the dog to hurry up, but Zeph kept trailing behind, sniffing theground or stopping to get his breath back, sitting on his stiff old hindquarters with a sanctimonious look.
    Berthilde was waiting at the railings outside the graveyard, with four men who had agreed to be gravediggers in return for a purse of gold, and the Holy Diafron, who was clutching a dog-eared old prayer book to his chest. They all greeted Orpheus in silence, with a mere nod of the head. A venture of this kind made everyone nervous.
    Holding two gas lamps, Berthilde went to the front of the procession, while the four men picked up the Captain’s coffin. The Diafron approached Orpheus and put a consoling arm round his shoulders.
    â€˜We shall miss your father,’ he murmured. ‘He was a good, patriotic man, one of the Coronador’s most faithful servants. He deserves a funeral with full pomp and ceremony, but today …’
    Orpheus forced himself to smile. Yes, in other times the funeral of Captain Hannibal McBott would certainly have taken place in broad daylight, before everyone’s eyes, and no doubt a crowd of curious onlookers would have made their way to the Sanctuary to watch the ceremony. But knowing what he now knew, Orpheus thought that his father was getting only what he deserved: a clandestine burial. Wasn’t that how traitors ended their days?
    They entered the graveyard, followed at a distance by Zeph, who was panting like an elderly asthmatic. The caretaker of the graveyard was waiting hidden behind the trunk of an almond tree. A hole the size of the dead man had been dug at its foot. The stone on the grave next to it bore the name of Merixel McBott, Orpheus’s mother. It was cracked here and there, and overgrown with moss. Orpheus hadn’t been here to pay his respects for a long time. Merixel had always been a stranger tohim, a distant image. He had never known what the word ‘mother’ meant.
    â€˜Quick, quick!’ begged the caretaker when Berthilde was close enough to hear him. ‘The patrol could turn up any moment.’
    The maidservant gave him a purse of gold to buy his silence, and then put her gas lamps down beside the hole. The four bearers lowered the coffin into it under Orpheus’s fixed gaze. When the wooden casket touched the bottom of the hole with a dull sound, the Holy Diafron came forward, picked up one of the lamps and opened his prayer book.
    â€˜Divinities of the World Beyond,’ he began, ‘tonight we entrust to you the soul of our beloved Hannibal …’
    A north wind had risen. The Diafron was having difficulty making himself heard. Orpheus, head bent, couldn’t concentrate on the words. There were too many contradictory thoughts and inadmissible feelings in his heart and mind. Now and then he glanced at his dog. Zeph was scraping at the earth near the other graves, as if to find the best dead body for his purposes.
    â€˜â€¦ open your arms to the Captain who commanded his ship courageously all his life, facing storms and tempests while bringing up his son,’ the Holy Diafron went on.
    Orpheus saw that Berthilde was crying, and the caretaker of the graveyard had picked up his spade, impatient to get the hole filled in. The Diafron finally finished reading his address. He turned to Orpheus.
    â€˜Anything you’d like to add?’
    Orpheus took a step forward and looked down at the lid of the coffin. He took the volume bound in black leather out from the folds of his cape, and held it above the grave.
    The Captain’s logbook fell