Viridian (The Hundred-Days Series Book 2)

by Baird Wells

He did, from his last occupation of Paris. “There's nothing there. The old armory has been cleared out. No one has ever reclaimed it. As far as I know it sits...” He met her eyes in the dark. “Empty.”

  “Vincennes is secluded, abandoned, and half fortress. They’ll take him there.”

  He nodded. “That’s where we’ll start. We should go our separate ways when we leave here in the morning. I'll meet you at the safe house.”

  Silent, Olivia leaned back against the headboard, but he could practically hear the gears turning in her brain. “There is something we should be considering, that we haven't yet.”

  “Which is?”

  “Napoleon hasn't put the toe of his boot inside the city yet, and he's already sent men for Philipe. Their story of preventing the duke from taking up arms against the empire is a nice one. A pointed reminder for the average citizen to be obedient, compliant. But you and I both know there are a hundred men in any direction who have and are again ready to raise a force against the emperor. What makes Philipe in particular more threatening than the rest?”

  She was right. Napoleon, on a break-neck march from the coast to Paris, had somehow found the Duc de la Porte at the forefront of his concerns, enough to send a detachment to arrest him before Paris had been officially occupied. “So, what made Philipe such a threat?”

  “I can't say, but I wonder if our hostess could? She has managed to discover something about him, careful as we’ve been. Napoleon won’t risk exposing the reach of his intelligence, so he’s using a flimsy excuse to hide what he really knows.”

  Philipe had been careful. They were all so careful. Ty wagered that Thalia's little breakdown in the hall was a sham, albeit a well-acted one. Her connection to Fouche and Napoleon was too well established for any of this to be a surprise.

  Olivia's friend the countess had warned that Thalia was a dangerous spy. Perhaps she was more dangerous than they had been prepared for.

  He wracked his brain, going over the last days and weeks, looking for any mistakes he, Philipe or Olivia might have made. He weighed every decision, every word he'd spoken to Thalia.

  It was as if Olivia was reading his mind. “In the immediate, it doesn’t matter where we failed. We should assume that Philipe has been compromised. If not already, then when the torturer finishes with him. And that means you and I are compromised as well, if she didn't already suspect us.”

  He stood up slowly, adjusting his weight to keep the bed and floor from creaking. “Whatever comes of our efforts, we have to be prepared to go to ground.”

  Olivia stood up, too. “It's the hardest thing in the world, making yourself wait when all you want to do is go charging in.”

  “Believe me when I say that I understand. Battle is no different, watching your brothers slaughtered, helpless while you wait for the enemy to move into range. But it's necessary, Olivia. And our enemy will be in range very soon. A single day.” He smacked his fist into his palm, choking back frustrated anger.

  She fell against him, hands pressing his back until he was sure she would squeeze the breath from his chest. “I'm worried, Tyler. Worse, I'm frightened. It feels like everything is falling apart.”

  Her words were braided together with meaning, and so much simmered below the surface. He could ask now, ask her why she was trying to leave him without a word. There were so many questions, so many things he didn't know. Ty felt certain that he could ask her anything in that moment and she would answer.

  Instead, he pulled away, pressing a kiss to her temple. She would answer, but he might not want to hear it. “No need for fright, Dimples. Not as long as I'm here.”

  She leaned back, her beautiful eyes on his, and the ferocity and strength he'd come to rely on burned through the fear and uncertainty in her gaze. “Be careful. So very careful.”

  She grasped his hand until he found the strength to pull away. “I'll see you by noon. I’ll send a message to Grayfield. He can’t do much to help, but he’ll know where we are if the wheels come off.”

  He would, however, likely try to stop them, and Ty decided perhaps he should more carefully consider what he shared with Whitehall. Word of the duc’s arrest would reach the upper echelon soon enough.

  Nodding, Olivia followed him to the window, acting as lookout while he swung his legs over and dropped boots onto the wet ledge. He glanced up and, for a moment, just took her in. Wide green eyes, full lips, a thick silky braid over her shoulder, and a white shift lent her a fairy tale appearance in the moonlight. He again fought the urge to grab her, run away with her. To take her some place Fouche and his men would never find her. “Promise me,” he whispered at her gaunt expression, “promise me you will keep yourself safe for the next twelve hours.”

  She leaned out, brushing her lips over his forehead. “For you.”

  Gripping, crouching, slipping back along the ledge and across the rooftop, he felt capable of saving Philippe, of defeating Napoleon.

  At Olivia's words, he felt capable of anything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  They crouched at the foot of a gutter, its stone-filled drain leading from the park to Vincenne's empty moat. Dry most of the time, two days of rain had conspired to make their approach from the edge of the estate damp at best.

  The chateau and its grounds had grown like a tree, a round Norman tower at its heart. Square medieval towers, a Gothic cathedral, Renaissance arcades, and a Neoclassical manor followed. They grew out in rings from gray stones to limestone blocks and plaster facades, their mortar crumbling and edges chipped, until they enclosed nearly an acre of land. Then, abruptly, the march of history had stopped. Vincennes had been abandoned some time before the revolution and, with few exceptions, had worn away under the passage of time, forgotten.

  There was nothing welcoming about the place, which was probably what discouraged anyone from lining up to claim it. Weathered and austere, it was hulking and military, catching one’s eye from the road only because of imposition; certainly not beauty or charm. Even if someone did wish to own it, who in France could afford to repair or maintain it? Few people remained with that sort of fortune after the terrors of the last decades, and those that did have money weren't eager to announce it. They remembered too well what had happened to the last people living on such grand scale.

  Vincennes wasn't just unwelcoming. In the setting sun, it was downright foreboding. Stark, silent, its black window frames watching and alert for interlopers. Ty pushed aside a real sense of dread, unbuckling the straps on his pack.

  Olivia set one pair of pistols and then another beside him, taking a powder flask from her own gear and beginning to load. “No lights that I can see. That isn't helpful one way or another.”

  Grunting, he inventoried the lock picks tucked into his black leather bi-fold. Olivia had climbed a pavilion on a mound inside the park nearby, getting an unobstructed but distant view of Vincennes' massive courtyard. She'd sighted precisely two moving figures. He was most certainly not reassured by the low count. There could be fifty more in the donjon and the main house. The fact that there was a pair outside told him that a guard had been set, but kept inconspicuous so that anyone watching from afar probably wouldn't notice. He knew better than to think Napoleon had left Philippe with only two guards.

  They would have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

  Taking one of the pistols, he helped Olivia ram home patch and ball, then claimed his own firearms. Two for him, two for her. Next came knives, a smoke bomb, and a flask of belladonna in whiskey. Flint and steel, a small length of rope, and he was ready. He looked over as Olivia fitted her small pouch of vials to her waist. He had no clue what half of them did, but he knew they ranged from diversions to deadly poison.

  Taking stock of their appearance, Ty decided they looked like proper guerrillas. He had led a band in Spain and thought them both a decent representation now. Olivia had cleverly donned a pair of britches beneath her course blue linen dress affording her freedom of movement in case
things got dicey. Two bandoliers formed an X across her chest, mirroring his own with belts, shot bags, and pouches attached. He bunched rolled sleeves higher up his forearms.

  They were ready.

  Reading him as she always did, Olivia nodded, stuffing the second pistol into her wide webbed belt. Scooting to the edge of the drain, she pushed off, landing out of sight with a dull thud. He slipped in behind her as the last rays of daylight faded behind the main house up ahead. Crouched at point, Olivia just behind, he began his approach towards the chateau.

  Ty forced himself to take a slow breath with one step and let it out with the next. He did this again and again, staying calm and watchful as he went. His mind hummed, drawing lines, setting the scene for whatever act lay ahead, rearranging the actors on his stage. The eventualities were too numerous, and he quieted his racing thoughts and stilled his nerves. They would have answers soon enough.

  Pausing halfway up a slope, he looked back at Olivia. Her eyes raked the roof, stopped on each window, checked the doorways. She glanced left, then right checking the green around them. Sound reconnaissance.

  He grinned when he caught her eyes, mouthing ‘Well done.’

  That earned a faint curve of her mouth. “Thank you. This is my first time,” she whispered back.

  Tension drained slowly, loosening muscles between his shoulders. Calmer now, Ty pressed forward. Approaching the chateau was the hardest part. The land around it was open for nearly a quarter mile on each side. Once they reached the wall, they could skirt around it, choosing the best place to make entry.

  The drain widened at its origin into nearly a half-circle pit of stones hugging an arched duct at the base of a crumbling wall. Set deep within was a rusty iron grate, old and solid. Gripping it, he pressed, then pulled slowly. Mortar crumbled into dust and the ends of the bars poked free. “Go through here, or keep looking?”

  Olivia shook her head. “We should enter on the chapel side. There's an arcade along the wall. It'll have cover and high ground.”

  He eyed the grate, unconvinced. “If we drop into the moat, we can pass through inside. Take cover in the buildings.”

  Frowning, Olivia began to speak. Before she could, a door creaked open on the other side of grate.

  Instantly, they moved in unison, flattening themselves against the wall and out of sight.

  There were two men, judging by the footsteps scuffing along the moat. Something clanged against a wall, making a dull ringing he couldn't place. They murmured to one another, but there was no hope of catching the words echoing back along the trench.

  Exhaling, he looked at Olivia, who sat with her heels against the wall. “I like your idea better.”

  She smiled quickly and moved back toward the chapel.

  They had reached the hour of the day that soldiers, and particularly artillery men, hated. The sun was below the horizon, leaving the world not exactly bright or dark. It cast the land in a shadowy sameness, stealing definition from the land and hiding all but the most obvious movement.

  It also provided them, and their enemy, with cover.

  Judging by the design, Ty guessed Vincennes' chapel was one of the oldest parts of the estate. Turrets stood proudly above the wall, capped by spires. Stone arches cradled clerestory windows with a stained glass rosette, the jewel in its crown. It was a mere mortal's version of Reims or Westminster.

  There was only one problem: the chapel's foundations sat atop a wide wall enclosing an ancient bailey. About sixteen feet of wall, to be exact.

  “Mm. Olivia...”

  “I know.”

  “There's no gate back here.”

  “I know,” she hissed. “Watch.”

  With a height that put her at an advantage over most women and some men, Olivia thrust up into a high jump. Her hands came around a lead gutter pipe that protruded from the wall overhead. In one fluid motion she wrapped it with her legs and swung up, using her momentum to continue upward, finishing with her feet under her. From there, it was one more high jump and the wall's lip was in her grasp. A breath later, she was seated atop it. At any other time, he would have cheered.

  Now it was Ty's turn. He licked his lips nervously, knowing that what was about to occur was going to be far less graceful. Readying himself, he leapt up and grasped the pipe. Crumbling mortar skittered down the wall. Heavier than Olivia, he opted to hook both legs until he hung sideways, then sit up. There was a loud scrape, and the pipe dropped an inch beneath him. Time to move. Bracing palms against the wall, he stood and pushed off, catching hold of the wall as the pipe slid free and thudded onto the grass below.

  Getting atop the wall felt far less easy for him than it had looked for Olivia. “Whew.” He sat and panted beside her a moment, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a sleeve. Olivia sat next to him, an amused angle to her eyebrow.

  “I was in the artillery, Dimples. Not the infantry.”

  She smirked. “Ready to move?”

  “Mm.”

  They dropped from the balustrade to the top of the wall almost at the chapel steps. He pointed to the high blue doors. “Let's go in. There must be a staircase down. A passage.”

  “We'll have to move quickly.” Olivia glanced overhead at the first stars winking down from a fading blue sky. “We'll need light soon.”

  They had a torch, of course, and a single candle, but only for the most desperate circumstances. Any light might give them away.

  Reaching the door, he wrapped his fingers around its cold iron ring and pulled. Tension answered him, as though the chapel knew they did not belong. Ancient and tired, it gave way at last, creaking in protest, showering them with leaf litter and dust in a petulant assault.

  As they moved inside, their footsteps rang out from the stone floor up into the rafters with enough echo that must be calling the soldiers like a war drum.

  Despite its age and lack of use, the chapel must have been beautiful in the daytime as the sun poured in through its stained glass windows. White light would have shone off of the marble, bathing everything in a warm glow. Ty closed his eyes and tried to imagine it, listening to Olivia's soft breathing beside him. Peaceful, warm.

  When he opened his eyes again, it was just the opposite. The stillness was nearly deafening, and semidarkness lent the nave an air of a tomb rather than a chapel, casting their surroundings in a sinister light.

  Resting a hand on Olivia's shoulder, he nodded to a door to the right of the altar. “Let's go.”

  * * *

  She had stopped holding her breath nearly an hour ago. It wasn't that she felt more confident. It was just that her heart simply couldn't endure more hammering. Moving through the halls, they'd looked everywhere: servant’s quarters, converted once to a munitions store but vacant now for what had to be a year; kitchen, larder, and buttery; guest apartments, dusty and cobwebbed; mews and carriage house. They had searched each one with neither sight nor sound of anyone else.

  Had the chateau's buildings been completely empty, Olivia knew she wouldn't have been bothered. But in each place they found just enough evidence of the people, the daily life which had once carried on there, that she could nearly believe the inhabitants had simply vanished one day. Wood was piled beside the kitchen's head-high firebox. Crockery and pie plates sat discarded in the pantry. Curtains hung from a bed frame, dusty but otherwise intact.

  And wherever they went, there was no Philipe, no soldiers. Olivia wondered if the chateau swallowed up all who passed through its gates.

  They came out of the great hall door and into the short arcade connecting it with the kitchen. Ty halted and held up a hand to stop her and pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

  She caught only a moment of what he'd heard. Shouting, then silence. It came from far enough away that there was no telling if it was the raucous call of drunk soldiers or angry fighting. Had they not been so close to the gatehouse, she wouldn't even have been sure of its direction. She could only hope that it was a sign that Philipe was still alive.
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  Following Ty's lead, she loped across the courtyard, and together they flanked the gatehouse's rough wooden door. Holding each breath, Olivia willed her heart to beat slower, listening for any sounds around them.

  Nothing.

  She looked to Ty, whose eyes were already on her. Finally, she shrugged.

  “Seems we're going in,” he whispered.

  Their entry into the gatehouse was more obliging than the chapel, and it wasn't hard to guess why. Though the closet-sized front room was dark, a torch just through an archway to their left blazed, chasing dampness from crisp night air that slipped in through the rafters.

  Finally, they were on the right path. Relief washed over her, nervousness unknitting from her shoulders that she hadn't realized was there. Up to this point, a few guards on the parapet were all they'd seen, but as they'd gone through room after deserted room, her frustration had increased, worry setting in; What if they'd chosen the wrong place? She took a breath, vowing to trust her gut a bit longer.

  Ty poked a finger at the doorway. “I'll go first, and you come behind.”

  “I can't see.”

  “What?”

  She jerked a hand between them. “If I go behind, I can't see. You're taller.”

  He huffed. “Negligible.” He pointed behind him. “Follow.”

  Fine. She would follow. And crack the back of his skull if he kept ordering her around like one of his artillery.

  They turned right into a dim corridor, part of the old soldiers’ quarters. Three sturdy doors were set along each side of the narrow hall, two standing ajar and the rest shut fast. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, head buzzing with the knowledge that they could be set upon from nearly every side. Ahead of her, Ty took a confident step at a time, looking unruffled by the possibility.

  The passageway was clear and then, like magic, there was a soldier in front of them. She froze, Ty froze, and with a gape-mouthed stare, the soldier did too. The next four seconds were fluid, as if choreographed. Ty's arm snapped between them. A pistol slipped from his waistband, arced over his head, spinning on his finger. Butt forward, it connected with the soldier's temple. The force was so direct, so heavy, that for a moment she mistook the soldier’s black felt hat for his head when it tumbled to the floor. He hit the ground before he could raise a hand or shout for help, even before Ty could bring the pistol back to his side.