THE LAST
BANQUET
Jonathan Grimwood
CANONGATE
Edinburgh • London
Published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2013 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Jonathan Grimwood, 2013
The moral right of the author has been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 85786 879 4
Export ISBN 978 0 85786 880 0
ePub ISBN: 978 0 85786 882 4
Mobi ISBN: 978 0 85786 882 4
Typeset in Baskerville by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
Sam, always . . .
‘The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected . . .’
Contents
Prologue
The angels of death scratch at my door.
Walking through the corridors, with my hollow eyes staring back from every tarnished glass, I can no longer believe the mirrors lie. These are the last days of my life. Schoolmasters say to children start at the beginning. When writing stories people say begin where it begins. François-Marie Arouet, who wrote as Voltaire, began his Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations by tracing human development from its earliest days. But how does anyone know where anything really begins? Did this story begin the day I met Virginie, the day I arrived at the military academy to be greeted by Jerome and Charlot, that day, years before, I first met Emile,
