The Ghost Riders of Ordebec (Commissaire Adamsberg) by Fred Vargas Read Free Book Online

bottle,’ he repeated. ‘There are three of us.’
    Zerk jumped up. ‘I’ll go back to the shop,’ he said.
    Before he went out, Adamsberg saw him pass a finger lightly over the pigeon’s feathers. And Adamsberg repeated mechanically, like a father: ‘There’s some money on the sideboard.’
    Seven minutes later, Danglard, reassured by the presence of a second bottle, poured himself another glass, and began to tell Gauchelin’s story, then broke off, frowning up at the low ceiling.
    ‘But maybe it would be clearer if I told you about Hélinand de Froidmond, from the early thirteenth century,’ he wondered. ‘Give me a minute to remember it, it’s not a text I look at every day.’
    ‘Whatever you like,’ said Adamsberg, now completely lost. Since learning that they were off into the mists of the Middle Ages, abandoning Michel Herbier to his fate, the story of the little woman and her panic now seemed of little consequence to him.
    He stood up, poured himself a little wine, and took a look at the pigeon. The Furious Army didn’t concern him, and he had obviously been mistaken about the evanescent Madame Vendermot. She didn’t need his help. She was simply an inoffensive woman with mental problems, who was afraid bookshelves might fall on her head, even those of the eleventh century.
    ‘It was his uncle Hellebaud who told the tale,’ Danglard went on, now addressing the young man only.
    ‘Hélinand de Froidmond’s uncle?’ asked Zerk, concentrating hard.
    ‘Precisely, his paternal uncle. And this was what he said: “When towards midday we approached this forest, my servant, who was ahead of me, riding fast to make the lodgings ready for my arrival, heard a great tumult in the woods, like the whinnying of many horses, the clash of arms and the shouts of men on the attack. He and his horse being terrified, he came back towards me, and when I asked him why he had turned round, he said, My horse would by no means go forward even when I whipped or spurred him, and I was so frightened myself, I was unable to move. I have heard and seen the most astounding things .’”
    Danglard held out his glass towards the young man.
    ‘Armel,’ he said – since Danglard absolutely refused to call the young man by his nickname, Zerk, and regularly criticised Adamsberg for usingit – ‘Armel, please refill my glass and I’ll tell you what this young woman Lina saw. Then you’ll know why she suffers these night terrors.’
    Zerk poured the wine, with the eagerness of a child who’s afraid he won’t hear the end of the story, and sat back down again alongside Danglard. He had grown up without a father, nobody had ever told him stories. His mother had worked nights as a cleaner in a fish-gutting factory.
    ‘Thanks, Armel. So the servant went on: “The forest is full of dead souls and demons. I heard them talking and shouting: We have caught the Provost of Arques, and now we shall capture the Archbishop of Reims. And I replied, Let us make the sign of the cross on our foreheads and go forward in safety .’”
    ‘That was the uncle talking, was it?’
    ‘The last bit, that’s right. And Hellebaud says: “When we advanced and came to the forest, it was getting dark and yet I could hear voices and the sound of armour and horses neighing, but I could neither see the shades nor understand the voices. After reaching home, we found the archbishop at his last extremity and he did not survive fourteen days after we heard those voices. People said he had been taken by spirits. They had been heard saying they were going to seize him.”’
    ‘Well, that doesn’t correspond to what Lina’s mother said,’ Adamsberg interrupted gruffly. ‘She didn’t say her daughter had heard voices, or horses, or seen shades. She simply saw this Michel Herbier and three other men, with the Riders in the Army.’
    ‘That’s because the mother didn’t dare tell you the whole story. And because in Ordebec there’s no need to explain.