Read Chapter 22: The Final Price

The promotion final would be played at a neutral ground outside Narbonne against Union Salanque, the same team whose September comeback had first exposed Lucas's strange penalty.

The symmetry made journalists happy.

It made Marc uneasy.

Two days before the final, Maître Lemaire called with news. Prosecutors were preparing formal charges against Kovač and several associates. Maret was under financial investigation but had not been charged with match manipulation. Lucas would likely face a lesser criminal charge related to sporting fraud, with cooperation considered at sentencing.

“What about the club?” Marc asked.

“Federation decision after the season.”

“So we can win promotion and lose it later.”

“Yes.”

Marc laughed.

“What?” Lemaire asked.

“Nothing. It's just very rugby. Score first, appeal later.”

That evening he told the squad.

Nobody spoke for a while.

Then Baptiste asked, “If promotion might be taken away, why play?”

Yannis answered before Marc could.

“Because the match still happened.”

Marc looked at him.

Baptiste frowned. “Meaning?”

“Meaning they can decide what league we're in. They can't decide whether we were good enough on Sunday.”

The room settled around that idea.

Marc said, “Exactly.”

The final drew nearly four thousand people. Blue filled one side of the ground. Saint-Aurèle's old paper-mill workers had made a banner from a roll of industrial fabric rescued before the closure.

ON N'ACHÈTE PAS UN VILLAGE.

You cannot buy a village.

Marc saw Vautrin in the crowd, sitting quietly without cameras. Hélène Vidal stood farther down with supporters. Maret was absent.

Salanque played the better first half.

Their forwards dominated collision. Their scrum-half controlled tempo. Saint-Aurèle conceded six penalties.

Halftime: 16-6.

In the changing room, nobody needed a speech.

Marc drew one adjustment.

“Stop trying to beat their pack. Move them.”

Yannis nodded.

Marc looked at the room.

“This is the last forty minutes of this team. Whatever the federation does, whatever contracts you sign, whatever happens to the club—this exact group never exists again.”

That was true of every team, every season. People forgot because they needed continuity.

“Don't waste it pretending it lasts.”

Second half.

Yannis kicked a penalty. 16-9.

Léo scored from a wide move. 16-14.

Salanque answered. 19-14.

Ten minutes left.

Saint-Aurèle attacked through twenty phases and lost the ball inches from the line.

Five minutes.

Salanque cleared poorly.

Yannis countered. Mathieu carried. Baptiste picked. Penalty advantage.

Marc expected the posts.

Three points would make it 19-17 and leave time for another score.

Yannis tapped quickly.

“Idiot,” Marc whispered.

Baptiste drove. Stopped.

The ball recycled.

Yannis took it flat, stepped inside, and was tackled one metre short.

Quick ball.

Mathieu scored.

21-19 after conversion.

Two minutes remained.

Salanque won possession from the restart and drove into Saint-Aurèle territory.

Final seconds. Penalty to Salanque, thirty-five metres, almost central.

Their kicker placed the ball.

Marc stood absolutely still.

He thought of Étienne Fabre missing from twenty-two metres. Of margins. Of markets. Of every moment when a kick had meant something outside rugby.

This one meant only what it appeared to mean.

The Salanque kicker struck it.

The ball hit the left post.

Dropped short.

Yannis caught it.

He did not run.

He kicked into touch.

Full time.

Saint-Aurèle 21, Salanque 19.

For three seconds there was silence, as if the town needed permission to believe.

Then blue noise swallowed everything.

The night before the final, the team stayed in a cheap hotel outside Narbonne. Marc had banned alcohol, media, and discussion of the federation case after dinner.

At ten thirty, he found half the squad in a corridor playing cards for bottle caps.

“Gambling,” he said.

Everyone froze.

Yannis held up a plastic cap. “Unlicensed currency.”

Marc stared long enough to make them uncomfortable, then sat down.

“Deal.”

They played until midnight.

Nobody discussed tactics.

Nobody discussed Kovač.

For two hours they were simply men trying to cheat each other at cards without financial consequence.

Later, Marc stood on the hotel balcony. Claire called.

“Nervous?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Moderately.”

“What happens if you lose?”

“We don't get promoted.”

“That simple?”

He knew what she was asking.

Months earlier he might have said the town needed the win. Sponsors needed it. Reform needed proof. Now he looked at the car park lights and understood the answer had changed.

“Yes,” he said. “That simple.”

Claire was quiet.

“That's progress.”

“Terrible. I preferred melodrama.”

“You live in southern France and coach rugby. You'll survive.”

The next morning, as the bus approached the neutral ground, supporters lined the access road with flags. Marc saw workers from the mill, market traders, schoolchildren, people who had cursed Claire and people who had donated to the fund.

He also saw a small group holding a sign:

WIN CLEAN OR DON'T WIN.

Yannis read it through the window.

“Bit aggressive.”

“Community standards.”

Baptiste said, “What if we win dirty by accident?”

Marc turned in his seat.

“Then Claire writes about you.”

The bus groaned collectively.

Humor did not remove pressure. It gave pressure somewhere to go.

Before entering the changing room, Marc touched the doorframe the way his father had when he coached youth teams.

Not superstition, Henri always claimed.

Just respect for thresholds.

Marc had spent a season crossing too many of them without noticing.

This one he crossed awake.