Freemantle was only too glad to put the unnatural air of the special battalion behind him. He gave the horse its head and damned the consequences. Brush flew by in a streak of muddy green, and tree branches whipped at him from all sides, but the bay somehow managed to make it out of the forest without snapping a bone on any of the obstacles within. It burst onto the road with a leap, and pounded toward the ridge and the bellowing cannons as though making for the place it most wanted to be.
Freemantle found himself plagued by nightmare visions of what he would find on the other side of the ridgeline. He imagined cresting the hill to find the line broken and his countrymen slaughtered, a line of French infantry bayoneting the last few who could no longer offer any defense. The scene etched itself so plainly before his eyes that he was almost surprised to find it not true when he reached the ridge. The French infantry had not yet advanced. The British were still holding. Wellington was where Freemantle had left him, and the Iron Duke swung to look at him with no more than a mildly inquiring expression.
“They’re coming,” Freemantle said.
Wellington nodded once, as though the conversation concerned a dinner invitation.
The French guns roared, paused, roared again. Freemantle, following Wellington as the Duke rode from the center to the left, thought he could catch in the moments of relative silence a faint drumbeat carried in the air behind him. He turned, straining his ears, straining his eyes.
He was not imagining it. The drumbeat from the Forest of Soignes grew louder, more distinct, resolved itself into a definite infantry beat.
And they came.
Out of the wood, through the trees, and down the road, huge slavering things marched in something approximating formation. The flesh of their faces hung slack off the bone, and drool trailed from the corner of the mouths they could not completely close. Their overlong arms and thrust-forward necks strained at the fabric of a simplified private soldier’s uniform. A mockery of the uniform, it had been called by some.
Most of them carried muskets. It was in fact easy enough to train them to fire, for they had proven not much more stupid than the average raw recruit. None, however, bore a saber or bayonet. Their primary weapon was instead a large battle-axe, two-headed and spiked like something salvaged from Britian’s savage past, for the special battalion was at its best in close combat. Its members were primitive, resistant to discipline, and incapable of learning sophisticated tactics, but they could be taught to slaughter anyone not wearing a red uniform, and to mostly refrain from slaughtering anyone who did.
General Burnley led them on foot, but managed to preserve a certain grim dignity even while marching like a common soldier. The special battalion was coming up on the left flank. Wellington turned and barked an order to get the remnants of the cavalry out of there.
The cavalry went to reinforce the desperate men at the center crossroads. Wellington followed their progress through a spyglass, and his lips turned upward just slightly at the corners. He slapped the spyglass into Freemantle’s hand and moved to give another order, and Freemantle lifted it to his own eye, curious to see what Wellington had seen.
It was astonishing how much the set of a man’s shoulders and the tilt of his head could tell you. Even with the spyglass, Freemantle could not read anything as specific as expressions, but he saw the shift in posture move from man to man, all along the center of the ridge, as the cavalry came to reinforce the position. The men in the center had considered themselves under an inevitable sentence of death a moment ago. Now they glanced over their shoulders at the horses and straightened as though they still had a fight left in them after all.
The reaction of the men on the left was even more dramatic. Positioned as they were, they could not see what manner of reinforcements approached from their rear, but they heard the drums and the marching feet, and some caught a glimpse of the flag. The words ran through the ranks of exhausted men like wind through a ryefield: “Reinforcements have come.”
The French artillery chose that moment to crash to a stop. The relative silence rang in Freemantle’s ears, more deafening than the noise. He made out a drumbeat, slightly out of cadence with the British one behind him. The French infantry advance.
He heard his name in the Duke’s distinctive bark, and hastily kneed his horse to follow Wellington higher up onto the ridge. The Duke put out his hand for the spyglass, and Freemantle handed it over.
Even without it, Freemantle could see clearly enough. This high up, the visibility almost qualified as good, and even through the powder smoke that still hung densely over the valley, Freemantle could discern precisely which French troops were marching over the churned mud. The Emperor, expecting imminent victory, had sent in the Garde.
The Imperial Garde was the elite of the elite of Napoleon’s troops, distinctive by their height and the bearskins that were part of their campaigning uniforms, usually held in reserve until the moment of victory and partially for that reason never defeated. The day was traditionally as good as won when the Garde took the field, and certainly the rest of the French troops assumed this would be the case at Waterloo as it had been so often before. They cheered as the tight columns passed, a wave of sound that started faint but grew into a crescendo from every part of the valley.
The monsters of the special battalion were not particularly suited to defensive fighting. No one, including Freemantle, had expected them to hold the left flank, and they did not. But they came screeching over the ridge instead, howling and brandishing axes as tall as men, and the French Garde—said to know how to die, but not how to surrender—took one look at this terrible vision and broke.
“The Garde is retreating!” It was shouted all over the battlefield, in triumph by the British and in horror by the French. The rest of Napoleon’s infantry stopped, gaped, then turned and likewise fled for their lives. The French cavalry squealed and trampled, trying to get away from the monsters. The monsters pounded after them, huge and bloodthirsty and completely unfatigued, leaving gore and destruction wherever they passed.
Leaving, too, some fair bit of consternation in the British ranks behind them. It took fast talking and firm handling to keep the British troops who had gotten a good look at their new allies from sprinting away in the opposite direction. No one but the Iron Duke could have managed it, but Wellington rode hard up and down the lines, visible and shouting, and soon enough had them organized to join the monsters’ pursuit of the French. By then some isolated fire had resumed from the French side, but Wellington acted as though he did not care. “Forward and complete your victory, my lads!” His voice pierced the chaos. “Look, they fly before us! See them off our land!”
“For God’s sake!” Freemantle heard someone else shout in exasperation. “Don’t expose yourself so!” He turned his head in time to see a horseman come pounding past. The man reined up beside Wellington, and Freemantle saw that it was Lord Uxbridge, the Duke’s second in command. Uxbridge’s words were lost in the surrounding noise, but his gestures suggested he was attempting to persuade the Duke of the need for some caution. Wellington shrugged him off, as he had shrugged off all other similar arguments that day. Uxbridge persisted, and Wellington seemed to answer tersely, then made an obvious gesture of impatience and drew his mount an exaggerated step backward. He turned from Uxbridge to continue the coordination of the pursuit.
A sound like the snapping of a tree branch hit Freemantle’s ears, and he looked over just in time to see the red stain blossom and spread fast on the white cloth of Uxbridge’s trousers. Wellington swung around in the saddle, catching his second before he could slide to the ground, holding him with one arm as Freemantle struggled through the press toward them. Uxbridge’s face had gone the color of whey. “By God—” he said in hoarse surprise as Freemantle reached them. “I’ve lost my leg.”
White fragments of bone poked from the mangled hole that had been his knee, stark against the dark blood. “By God,” Wellington said, “so you have.” Uxbridge’s eyes
fluttered closed. “Freemantle—” the Duke commanded, and Freemantle reached to take his limp burden. “See to him,” Wellington said, already turning to the job still to be finished. “Get him behind the lines.”
Freemantle summoned a couple of soldiers with a snap of his fingers, and with their aid managed to ease Uxbridge off his mount. As they turned for the relatively safe ground where the wounded were being tended, he paused to take one last look at the battlefield. The road that led out of the valley, the route back to France, was choked with a sickening swarm of fleeing humanity. Nightmarish things pressed close at their rear, hacking through their back ranks.
It was well into the evening and the light was fading before General Blücher’s long-promised Prussian reinforcements emerged from the red setting sun.
But Wellington’s troops no longer had any need of their aid. By the time the Prussians arrived on the ridge, the French army was thoroughly routed, and England’s monsters were observed making for a steadfast square of Gardes who put up such a passionate defense that they must surely be guarding something worth capture—the Emperor himself, perhaps, or at least the Imperial Eagles.
Freemantle, now returned to Wellington’s side, watched the special battalion at its work and supposed he ought to be thanking God for its presence. Somehow, the words would not come to his lips. Wellington turned abruptly from the massacre, and for the second time that day Freemantle could read his expression. Only for a moment: then the helm of the Iron Duke came down.
Chapter 1
Hartwich, Kent, June 17, 1815
The pocket watch arrived on a day when nothing much else was engaging Elizabeth’s attention: no parties or social calls to prepare for or recover from, nothing but gardening or letter-writing to occupy a young lady’s morning. Or fancy-work, of course, but Elizabeth avoided needles and embroidery frames whenever she could.
Truth be told, she did not much care for letter-writing either. To her mother’s despair, she had no liking at all for any occupation that required her to sit still. She went for long walks every day an optimistic outlook could deem the weather fine; she climbed trees as frequently as she thought she could get away with it; she spent as much time as possible gardening or dancing, for those were the only two activities vigorous enough to please her while still being proper enough to please her mother. As recent days had been rather full of conflict with her mother over her chosen pastimes, and as there was no ball conveniently available, Elizabeth had elected to spend this particular morning in the garden and thereby avoid a quarrel. When Bronson brought her the parcel, she was pruning roses and only a little bored by the fine June day.
More accurately, she was bored by the rose garden. The day pleased her greatly, for it was of the sort whose fineness no one could dispute. No more than a handful of fluffy clouds marred the sky, the sunshine was not so very hot, and Elizabeth therefore expected to have no need of the usual coaxing or subterfuge to obtain permission to go walking later. But the canopies and marble statues of the garden could not long hold her interest—she had observed them so many times before, after all—and its high hedges prevented her from seeing anything that lay beyond. She might know that her father’s house nestled among rolling hills, that it was possible to glimpse the sea from the top of the tallest, that the second-tallest was covered with a sweep of white-blossomed apple trees, and that beyond the orchard lay the estate of Mr. Carrington—but she could see none of these things. For all her five senses could inform her, the entire world might have been made up of hedgerows, fencing, and rose blossoms.
Elizabeth was lost enough in her daydreams of sea and hills to clip the head off a perfectly healthy rose. She muttered in vexation, bending to scatter the petals lest she add yet another complaint to her mother’s ever-growing list. A shadow fell over her, and she straightened quickly, stepping to one side to hide the evidence of her mistake—but it was neither her mother nor her aunt who had pursued her into the garden. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with Bronson, the old butler. His eyes glanced down at the scattered petals as though he knew exactly what she had been doing, but he said merely, “This came for you, Miss Elizabeth,” and handed her a parcel wrapped in brown paper.
It was about six inches square, and not particularly heavy. The direction was written in a clear, bold hand. There was nothing remotely remarkable about it...except its presence, for Elizabeth could not think of anyone who was likely to be sending her a parcel. No one of her close family was traveling. Nor was there an imminent occasion that merited a gift, Christmas being more than six months away and her birthday only three months gone. She had the irritable feeling that this was going to be one of those transgressions against decorum that sent her family into fits of agitation over her behavior. Even though she had not sought this particular impropriety. Elizabeth sighed.
“Has my mother seen this?” she asked.
“No, miss,” Bronson replied in a tone so neutral no one but Elizabeth could have heard the faint humor in it. “I took the liberty of bringing it straight to you, without acquainting Mrs. Barton of its arrival. I thought it might perhaps be from a young gentleman.”
“Undoubtedly that is it,” Elizabeth replied. She reminded herself that she must not speak as though she had tasted curdled milk. A normal young lady of seventeen years did not react so to a mention of her presumptive suitors. She thought she managed the correct tone when she added, “Thank you,” for Bronson’s eyes twinkled. He bowed and turned back for the house. Elizabeth, frowning once he was out of sight, used the pruning shears to attack the twine.
The plain brown paper proved to cover an equally plain brown box. Within the box was a small bag of red velvet. Elizabeth could not help but marvel at the quality of the material, even as her fingers hastened to undo the drawstring mouth.
The velvet bag contained a golden pocket watch, complete with a chain and fob. Elizabeth stared at it. Then she turned the brown paper over, to confirm that it was indeed her name written there. It was; but that only made her confusion worse. There was no note included, so she was no further along in discovering the sender. And to this question had been added another—who in the world would send her a gentleman’s watch?
It wasn’t new, but the gold of the casing and chain shone brightly, well-polished and well-cared-for. By looking closely she could see a few small scratches, but she could tell they were honorable wounds, signs of long service. Engraved on the casing were a sequence of intricate vines, flowers, hourglasses, birds, something that she thought might be the sun, and some others that appeared to be only abstract etchings. The fob was not engraved, but the chain felt pleasingly solid as she ran it through her fingers.
The watch itself, Elizabeth reflected, also had a strangely solid feel. Now that she had it in her hands, it seemed heavier than it ought, and for that matter, considerably larger than was customary. Its ticking was somehow discordant, as well. Was it too fast, perhaps? Elizabeth opened the watch to see if it was keeping proper time.
And almost dropped it. The inside of this pocket watch was like the inside of no other she had ever seen. Instead of one face, it had four small ones, two crowded on one side and two on the other. One of these did look like a proper watch face, though its hands were not moving. The second had both an inner and an outer dial, with miniscule numbers running all around it. The third face was even more complicated, comprised of eight dials nesting within each other. And the fourth—Elizabeth stifled a gasp and brought the watch closer to her eyes. Could she possibly be seeing this? The fourth displayed tiny images—and they moved, flickering in and out of sight even as she stared at them.
“Elizabeth!”
That was her mother’s voice, piercing the air like a particularly shrill gull, and her mother’s figure followed the sound, visible through a gap in the hedge as she hastened over the lawn to the rose garden. Elizabeth clutched the pocket watch to her breast, then shook her head at herself. She cast about for another hiding place.
“El
izabeth!”
The querulous note in Mrs. Barton’s voice seemed more pronounced than was customary, and she was moving at an unusually quick pace. Elizabeth had not a moment to lose. She snatched off her bonnet, shoved the pocket watch and its velvet bag inside, and kicked the brown paper under the nearest rosebush. “Coming, mamma!” she called. Catching up the pruning shears with her free hand, she went to meet her mother as a good daughter should.
Mrs. Barton did not seem to notice the unusual courtesy. “I have been looking all over for you, and here you are out in this hot sun—and without your bonnet! You will ruin your complexion, I declare you will—”
“I only thought to feel the wind in my hair, mamma,” Elizabeth soothed. “I am finished in the garden and was just returning inside.” She hoped her mother would turn and accompany her, back toward the house and away from the telltale brown paper. To her relief, Mrs. Barton did just that.
“Your hair will be a fright by the time you get there; do you never think of these things, Elizabeth? Have you forgotten that Mrs. Wilton is to call this morning? And that she brings her husband’s nephew?”
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