Chapter 96
In the round room with spear-shaped windos in Chambert, the storyteller stood between two windows, surrounded by light. Neville and Thaila sat to Vivianne’s left, the Eslarian to her right. Menior and the two burnt men sat opposite Vivianne. Frederico had not returned. Nobody knew where he went. Standing in front of them all, instead of Pierre, was Gregoire. Bojet and Germon exchanged looks, they had expected Vivianne or Neville to speak, but Gregoire positioned himself in front of them all, taking up his brother’s space.
‘Henrique is hidden in the Emerald,’ he drew a map of Franária on a black board and made an arrow pointing at Debur, to the southwest of Chambert. ‘We have Fulbert coming from the North,’ he made a circle and wrote The Mouth of War then drew an arrow between the Mouth and Chambert. ‘By Pierre’s calculations, Patire’s army should be somewhere around here. I believe it had been decided that Menior would go north to investigate the silence of Deran.’
‘I would have already left if it weren’t for what happened to Tuen,’ said Menior. ‘Yesterday I checked the pigeons in Tuen (they’re dead now). Still no message from Deran. I haven’t heard from Fulion in a very long time. Even with Fulbert on the move, that is unusual.’
Gregoire wrote ‘Menior — North’ on the board.
‘Nothing new here,’ he said.
‘Actually,’ said Vivianne. ‘I think I should go with Menior.’
‘I travel fast,’ said Menior.
‘I will will be much more useful in Deran than here. Not only I can get Lune’s support, but I think I can bring Clément into action.’
‘King Clément has no power,’ said Neville. ‘Why wo you think he would help us?’
‘He is a friend,’ said Vivianne. ‘I believe he can be persuaded to do the right thing.’
Menior agreed with a slow nod.
‘If anyone can talk Adelaide of Deran into doing something, it is Clément.’
Gregoire put Vivianne’s name next to Menior’s on the board.
‘Captain Neville, you are going to Debur to challenge Henrique, right?’
‘No,’ said Neville. ‘Whitout Pierre and Gaul, the only people left to lead Chambert are Vivianne and myself. If Vivianne is going to Lune, I must stay.’
‘You know who I am?’ Vivianne whispered.
‘You are my friend and ally,’ he said. Then, louder, to the rest of the room: ‘Thaila and the Eslarian led the revolution in Debur. We don’t have to fight Henrique, all we need are his warriors.’
Neville knew it was cruel to ask those two to go back on their own to the stage of their defeat and sorrow, but he had learned at the Mouth that compassion didn’t win battles.
‘We shall go,’ said Thaila.
The Eslarian hid his trembling hands and nodded.
‘Right,’ said Gregoire. ‘Right. Are you certain?’
Neville did not appreciate the question. There was a reason why soldiers were never allowed to question their orders. War is madness. War is horror. Doubt is poison. Questioning is dying.
Gregoire went on:
‘As for Fulbert, there is nothing we can do.’
‘There are villages and towns on Fulbert’s way,’ Vivianne said. ‘We have time to bring some of those people to Chambert.’
‘There are hundreds of people and we already have to deal with too much,’ began Gregoire.
‘I’m certain we can deal with a few hundred more problems,’ said Vivianne. ‘Luc, can you do this with Coalmi?’
Both agreed.
‘Then it seems we have everything under control,’ Gregoire said.
‘You forgot this detail,’ the Eslarian said. ‘You forgot the dragon.’
And Líran leaned forward.
‘I’ll deal with him.’
Gregoire stood in the empty room, remembering the feeling ot standing before the future of Franária.
I can lead them, he wrote in his diary. Even if Pierre doesn’t come back —
He took a fright at that last piece. Not only because it was ominous, but because part of him wished for Pierre not to return. For th first time in his life, Gregoire wasn’t in Pierre’s shadow. He had a voice outside his notebook.
He felt good.
I feel the need to complement with current notes the gaps on the diary I wrote when I first came to Chambert. Before I was a poet, I was a child, but my half-brother, it seemed, was born already an adult throwing shadows over me. If I ever write na auto-biography, it will be about Pierre.
Things are clearer now that time has distanced me from the story. What a fool I was. Thinking that I was the one who led that meeting, when no one was listening to me. It was Vivianne and Neville who decided everything. All I did was stand there in front of them all.
I read my old diaries and realise I was one of those characters that nobody likes very much. I seeped into the paragraphs, begging for a little line of attention, wondering, comma after comma, why the story hadn’t chosen me as its main character.
Imagine coming across a line of destiny possibly leading something great and magical, and that line comes this close to you, but ties itself to your brother instead. I like to think that many others would also ask: why him and not me?
Thus, with that simple question, pertinent though jealous, I became the character nobody wants to read about. The thorn in the narrative, probably ignored in the future history books, except, I hope, as a poet.
I dare say, when you are too close to someone, no matter how extraordinary he or she is, to you they will always be very ordinary. You will know flaws that he himself doesn’t notice. For instance: Pierre’s incapacity of staying still. Part of him was always moving and he had the maddening habit of carressing the page of the book he was reading with his thumb.
It seems small, I know, but try reading the great Satironese poets, or even worse: the Gorgathian poets, in a silent night with a calous thumb rubbing against sandy paper right beside your ear. It felt like sawing to my eardrums.
Pierre had the habit of being better in everything. Maybe this is why I was so keen on writing. Pierre, like I, loved reading, but to compose a poem, to sew a beautifl narrative, small though it was, that he didn’t enjoy. Books in white stunned him. He felt uncomfortable making up stories when there were so many books out there whose prose was so much better than his.
The truth is my brother was not born to write stories, but to make them happen. I resented that. His raw power. He knew I resented it. The exceptional, he told me once, doesn’t diminish the great. And the great doesn’t erase the ordinary. There is nothing wrong in being ordinary.
He was right: there is nothing wrong in being ordinary. That said, try spending your whole life beside someone who, no matter how hard you try and even sacrifice, will do everything better than you. Then maybe you will begin to understand why, in spite of all the love I felt for him, it was inevitable that I hated Pierre.
— Gregoire Memoire (revisited)