THE LAST QUEEN ROCHETTE
Translated by Edward
Gauvin
ST. JOSEPH’S PRISON, GRENOBLE. 4 A.M. 5
6
ÉDOUARD ROUX.
YOUR REQUEST FOR PARDON HAS BEEN DENIED.
7
VERCORS. 1898.
THEY KILLED THE BEAR!
THEY KILLED THE BEAR!
TOLOZAN KILLED IT! THE SHEPHERD!
8
AT GRANDE CABANE!
9
THEY’RE COMING!
HELL OF A THING, KILLING A CREATURE LIKE THAT, I’M TELLING YOU.
YOU’RE JUST LIKE YOUR MA! ALWAYS OUT IN THE WOODS AND MOUNTAINS, EATING GRASS.
I HEARD YOUR MA SLEEPS WITH WOLVES AND BEARS. ’SIDES, YOU’RE A REDHEAD WITH NO PA. SURE AS SHOOTIN’, YOU’RE A SON OF A BEAR!
SON OF A BEAR! SON OF A BEAR! SON OF A BEAR!
10
SAY ONE MORE WORD ABOUT MY MOTHER, AND I’LL BASH YOUR HEAD IN.
I’LL KILL YOU!
SHUT YER FACE, REDHEAD. A BEAR FATHERED YOU ON THAT WITCH.11
STOP !
YOU CAN COOL YOUR HEELS IN A CELL TILL YOUR MOTHER COMES. THAT’LL TEACH YOU.
REPROBATE! YOU DARE RAISE A HAND TO MY SON?
WHAT YOU NEED IS A GOOD BEATING!
MOVE!
12
OUTSIDE! YOUR MOTHER’S HERE.
13
YOU’VE A WORTHLESS BOY, MARIE. IT’S JAIL OR THE NOOSE FOR HIM.
14
HAVE A CARE, ÉDOUARD. PEOPLE ARE SPITEFUL.
MARK MY WORDS, ÉDOUARD. I’VE SAID IT BEFORE: SPITEFUL AND CRUEL, FAR MORE SO THAN BEASTS OF THE WOOD.
DO NOT TRUST THEM. FLEE THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE. THEY’VE THE DEVIL IN THEM.
15
VERCORS. 100,000 B.C.E. 16
17
It is 1920. The forests have grown too small for freedom.
Édouard Roux, once an outcast youth feared as a child of bears and witches, is left disfigured and alone in the aftermath of the Great War. But when the animal sculptor Jeanne Sauvage grants Édouard the face of Hercules, life begins anew. The two share an epic romance that takes them from the cabarets and salons of Montmartre to the Vercors Massif mountains of Édouard’s homeland. Amidst those mountains, in the Great Hall of the She-Bear, rests a secret from older times…
In The Last Queen, Jean-Marc Rochette bridges war, love, art and greed to shed tragic light on the longstanding struggle between nature and modernity.
UK £19.99 / US $25.99 / CAN $32.99 224195 781914 9 ISBN 9781914224195 52599 > www.selfmadehero.com
We hope you enjoyed this sampler.
UK online purchase links: Amazon UK Bookshop.org Waterstones
Hive
US online purchase links: Amazon US
Barnes & Noble
YOU CAN BUY THE LAST QUEEN BY JEAN-MARC ROCHETTE IN ALL GOOD BOOKSHOPS AND ONLINE AT THE LINKS ABOVE.