Timepiece

by Heather Albano

  “If the Prussians do not come, there is no way we can hold until nightfall,” Canning muttered, and Freemantle gave his fellow aide-de-camp a startled glance. No one had dared say it quite so bluntly before now.

  “They will come soon.” General Muffling spoke unhappily. He somehow managed to appear at Wellington’s side, like a drooping-mustached Greek chorus, whenever anyone raised the question of the missing reinforcements. Muffling was Blücher’s liaison to Wellington, and he had been predicting the imminent appearance of said reinforcements since first light, over and over in almost exactly the same phrasing, while the sun rose high and men died under fire and the hopes of their comrades dwindled. “Once the skirmish in the village is won...then, surely...”

  He trailed off. No one nearby gave him any aid in completing his sentence.

  “Well, gentlemen,” the Duke said, as though offering commentary upon an inconvenient rain shower, “they are hammering us hard, but we will see—”

  He got no further. Something caught his attention—his aides turned to follow his gaze —and a British officer on a black horse came tearing down the ridgeline, mud spraying from each striking hoof. He waved one arm as he rode, screaming something over the sound of cannonade, words no one could possibly hear. The Duke raised a hand in acknowledgment.

  The black charger skidded to a halt, and the rider nearly fell from the saddle as he saluted. Freemantle recognized him, though his face was drawn and splattered with mud: a staff officer named Kennedy.

  “My lord,” he gasped. “La Haye Sainte—the farm—fallen. Overrun. The French pursued our men—engaged Von Ompteda’s battalion—destroyed it. The whole battalion, my lord. Gap in the center of the line.”

  Wellington did not hesitate. “I shall order the Brunswick troops to the spot. Go and get all the German troops you can, and all the guns you can find.” Kennedy saluted and wheeled his horse, and the Duke swung to his aides. “Canning, my compliments to Colonel von Butlar, and the Brunswick Corps is to advance to the center immediately. I shall join them there.” Canning raced away, and the Duke turned to another aide. “Gordon, my compliments to Major Norcott, and I wish a small detachment of the 95th to go into the forest and retrieve those Belgians who retreated so precipitously a short time ago, as their presence is desired to reinforce the center. Freemantle!” Freemantle barely had the chance to touch his heels to his horse’s side before Wellington was galloping away from him.

  Gunsmoke hung thick over the crossroads that had once been defended by Van Ompteda’s battalion, and Freemantle winced to see the pitiful stratagems being employed to fill the gap in the line. As Wellington rode up, officers from all over the ridge made for him, and their reports were identical to a man. The center had suffered the heaviest of Napoleon’s heavy fire since early that day, and so many of their men were now dead or injured that—even with the Brunswick troops supporting them—they would be unable to hold their positions in the event of another French attack. And the French would attack; it was only a matter of time.

  “The Prussians must come,” someone muttered. “If they do not—”

  “I am not saying I mean to retreat,” another officer said, speaking the word aloud for the first time, “but the line may break, and we must decide what to do if it does...”

  Wellington ignored that, turning to greet yet another officer stumbling toward him. “How do you get on, Halket?”

  “My lord, we are dreadfully cut up,” the man said simply. “Can you not relieve us for a little while?”

  Wellington paused one beat. “I fear, sir, I have no one to send.”

  “Surely,” Muffling said weakly, “surely it cannot be much longer before General Blücher...”

  “But until that time,” Wellington said, “it is impossible.”

  There was silence among his officers. Even the noise of the artillery seemed to be faltering. Freemantle strained his ears—everyone was straining their ears—trying to discern if there were drumbeats mixed in with the musket fire. Was the French infantry preparing to march?

  “Very well, my lord,” General Halket said. “Then we will stand until the last man falls.” He turned to gaze where everyone was gazing, at the crossroads hidden from sight by swirling dust and smoke, from which a column of French troops would doubtless shortly appear.

  “Damn me,” Wellington said softly. Freemantle gaped at him, for that was more emotion than anyone had ever seen the “Iron Duke” betray, on the battlefield or off it. Wellington stared into the smoke, heedless of Freemantle’s shock, lips moving slightly as though working out a complicated sum in his head. He reached the solution, examined it for a moment with distaste, then nodded once. When he turned to Freemantle, any trace of uncertainty had vanished from his face. “My compliments to General Burnley, Lieutenant Colonel. Tell him if you please that I am in desperate want of troops not yet battle-weary, who can join the fight upon the left so that I may move some of my men to plug the gaps in the center. It would seem the Prussians are delayed, and therefore—” He paused only for a fraction of a second. It would scarcely have been noticeable to anyone who knew him less well than did an aide-de-camp. “—therefore the General is ordered to bring up his special battalion.”

  “Yes, sir!” Freemantle snapped a salute, clapped his heels to his horse’s side, and clung tight.

  The animal shot away from the ridgeline, up the Louvain road and toward the Forest of Soignes, and Freemantle did everything possible to encourage its speed, making good use of good road while he had it. To enter the forest, he must turn off the road, and then he must slow the horse to a saner pace. Maddening, but if the animal broke a leg on the uneven ground, the rider would be lost, and thus also the message, the battle, the war, the kingdom—

  The forest closed over his head like a shroud. The ground still shook from the artillery a couple miles off, but it was a dull, meaningless sound under these thick green branches. He might have entered an entirely different world.

  The special battalion was encamped a good way in—an inconvenient distance at the present moment, but it would have been worse to have them nearer by. They could not be trusted to restrain themselves with a battle clashing before them, and would turn on their allies if lacking other prey. The Duke had made it plain that he did not intend to use them unless he had absolutely no other choice, and that in the meantime they were to be kept sufficiently far away that the rest of his army would not be hampered in the execution of its duty. It was particularly important to keep them from frightening the cavalry and thereby reducing its effectiveness. Horses did not like the members of the special battalion.

  Few of Wellington’s generals or aides-de-camp liked them either. Wellington himself liked them least of all, considering them to be the most infamous part of the infamous army with which he had been provided. His Grace would have far rather relied on the Prussians, Freemantle thought, and wished the Prussians had come in time.

  The bay stumbled and Freemantle lurched forward, narrowly avoiding being thrown headfirst over its neck. The horse snorted and plunged, but regained its balance before it fell to its knees. “Easy,” Freemantle said, “easy, whoa—” The horse stopped its forward stagger and stood, quietly enough but trembling.

  Freemantle swung out of the saddle, heart pounding. No rabbit holes met his swiftly searching eyes—thank God for that at least—but what had caused the stumble?

  He ran a hand first down one foreleg and then the other, listening with all his might to the wood that surrounded him, trying to hear anything nearer than the distant rumble of canon. Were there enemy here? Had someone hit his mount with a missile meant for him? He could find no sign of actual injury to the bay. He picked up the animal’s left foreleg, and the horse allowed it willingly.

  He saw the problem at once: a stone wedged between shoe and hoof. Freemantle fumbled for a knife. He could not linger here—every moment was precious—but for that reason, he could not grudge the delay to pry out the pebble, or he would be forced to
race the sands of time on an increasingly lame mount. With every instinct screaming at him to hurry, and the forest all around watching him with cold eyes, he set to work. Carefully, taking care not to damage the tender hoof any further, he probed with the blade.

  So intent was he upon his work that he did not notice the shadow detach itself from the undergrowth behind him. A hand grasped his collar, and another hand slammed a nauseatingly sweet handkerchief over his nose and mouth, and John Freemantle collapsed into darkness.

  “You’re sure he’ll wake?” William asked.

  “Chloroform is routinely used by surgeons and midwives,” Maxwell answered, though he kept eyes fixed on Freemantle’s face. “He’ll wake.”

  It was the first coherent thing any of them had said in some time, as it had been difficult to talk while simultaneously attempting to control John Freemantle’s horse and drag Freemantle himself away from its lashing hooves. The horse had been trained to accept riders who were not Freemantle, of course—a battle steed who sat only one man was of little use on the field—but its near-stumble had put its nerves on edge, and it reacted to Maxwell’s unfamiliar hands on its reins with a squeal and a rear, dumping Maxwell neatly on his backside and careening away through the wood.

  At least it didn’t go far. Though spooked, it apparently cared enough about Freemantle’s welfare to return to him. It stood now a few feet away, munching at some green undergrowth and eyeing the three of them warily. The better part of valor was clearly to let it alone and hope it wouldn’t run off again, or at least not in a direction that would warn Wellington the message had not been delivered. Elizabeth tried to watch the horse and the rise and fall of Freemantle’s chest simultaneously.

  “What is chloroform exactly?” she asked. “Did you get it from the Genevese’s trunks?”

  Maxwell shook his head. “From 1885. It hasn’t yet been invented, which has the additional benefit of meaning no one will suspect its use.” Maxwell took a tiny bottle out of his pocket and passed it to her for inspection. “No, don’t sniff it, you little fool, didn’t you just see what it does? But his compatriots won’t know, won’t have any reason to suspect. They’ll think he was thrown from his horse.” Maxwell closed his eyes as though to picture something. “He has delivered no message to Burnley. Wellington will wait a short while at least, expecting a response, before he sends another messenger. And while he waits, Blücher’s reinforcements are advancing. If the sun goes down and we haven’t seen a troop of monsters march past, then we’ve stopped them arriving in time to take the credit for the victory.”

  “Ought we do something else to ensure that?” William mused. “I am still in uniform—perhaps I ought to ride to Burnley and tell him to withdraw?”

  Maxwell pursed his lips. “No,” he said at last. “Burnley knows Wellington’s staff in a way Blücher and Bülow do not. It’s too easy for you to arouse suspicion—to do exactly what I did in an ill-fitting Coldstream Guards uniform.” The faint self-disgust in his voice was there and gone too fast for Elizabeth to comment on it. “We’ll just wait here for a bit,” Maxwell went on. “And while we wait,” he added, “we may as well decide what the deuce we do next. With you. Since you are in two places at once.”

  Elizabeth felt heat prickling over her face again.

  “First we ought to try a quarter past seven on the eighteenth of June, when we are not in two places at once,” William said. “It seems like it should work. If it doesn’t...” He frowned down at Freemantle’s body. “We know we can force a watch to take us where we shouldn’t be able to go,” he said slowly, thinking it out. “At the cost of the watch. So if we had two, and if there were no other option, we could sacrifice one to get back home. Is there anyone who could mend Elizabeth’s? Not here and now, obviously, but someone in some place and time must know how they work. Someone far in the future, perhaps? Gavin Trevelyan, even—it doesn’t seem like there’s much Trevelyan can’t do—did he ever get a look at the inside of yours, sir? Oh, but...” Elizabeth looked up at the sudden change in tone. “But he’ll be a different Trevelyan. He won’t know who we are.”

  Maxwell smiled a little, sadly. “I hope not.”

  “How wretched that should be the best possible outcome...What a very odd life you lead, sir. But yes, I have to agree, I too hope he inhabits an utterly different world.”

  “Could we not ascertain at least something of his world now?” Elizabeth said. “The fourth face on the watch shows images. We got to the year 1885 the first time because we pressed the stem when it showed an image of fog and lightning and a construct in the shadows. If we’ve delayed Colonel Freemantle enough to change the outcome of this battle, won’t the image of 1885 change too? Won’t we know the moment we’ve succeeded?”

  Maxwell looked mildly interested, and fished the pocket watch from his waistcoat. “No,” he said, holding it out of Elizabeth’s reach, “you’re indulging in some pleasant dream if you think I’d let you lay hands on this one after what you did to the last. Look if you like, but don’t touch.” Elizabeth made a face at him, but didn’t touch.

  The watch seemed to linger with deliberate care on the reeds of the meadow beside the sun-dappled brook, and then upon the knights in armor wending down the mountainside. Elizabeth kept her lips pressed tight together to refrain from giving voice to her impatience, but the strain was taking a toll on Maxwell too. She knew this when he abruptly jerked the watch closer to his eyes and began to fiddle with the settings.

  “What—?” William asked.

  “Sometimes it shows an image of the date to which it’s set,” Maxwell answered. “I don’t know why, and I haven’t yet identified a pattern as to the circumstances, but perhaps putting 1885 into its head will encourage it.”

  It did not, as far as Elizabeth could see. The watch showed them heaving waves. Knights on horseback. The meadow again. Heaving waves. It almost seemed as though the confounded thing was deliberately avoiding the image they wanted to see.

  Elizabeth tried the word confounded in her head, and decided it was insufficiently unladylike as an expression of her current frustration. It almost seemed as though the bloody thing was doing it deliberately—Katarina would have phrased it more like that. Elizabeth wondered if she would ever be able to enunciate such a sentence herself, and the very idea made her suddenly and inappropriately want to giggle. Hysteria again, she thought. Perhaps understandable, given the circumstances.

  It seemed like years before the fourth face of the watch displayed an image she recognized. Lightning zagged through yellow-gray fog, from which an ominous silver form loomed to menace London’s streets.

  An image she recognized.

  Bloody hell.

  It was no effort to think the word that time. She looked up, stricken, but William laid a soothing hand on her arm before she could speak. “We’re not defeated yet,” he said again, though his eyes had begun to take on the same sort of strained look that haunted Maxwell’s. “It just means we haven’t succeeded yet either. We’ve stopped the message, but the effect could still be undone. If we leave now, there might still be time for Freemantle to wake, or—or something. We haven’t succeeded, but nor have we failed. Not yet. Let’s see this attempt through to the end before we try something else.”

  Maxwell nodded, lips tight.

  The cannon thundered in the distance and the light changed around them as they watched John Freemantle sleep, Maxwell reapplying the handkerchief to his nose every few minutes. In Maxwell’s other hand, the pocket watch flickered its way through its collection of images.

  Sunlight slanted diagonally through the branches, filling the wood with a red-gold haze. Freemantle still slept, the horse still cropped grass, and the pocket watch showed its images in turn. Waves. Knights. Meadow. Constructs. Elizabeth shifted, and shifted again, and could not find a position that even approached comfortable. It had been some time since she had been able to think of anything except the aching pressure in her lower abdomen.

  At last th
e discomfort grew until pride could no longer restrain her from doing something about it. It was the disadvantage to being a female adventuress, she thought. Adventuresses presumably had to learn to deal with the...inconveniences surrounding a lack of convenience, and had to learn to conquer their embarrassment over such things. At least she wasn’t wearing a ballgown.

  Though she did not know how in the world she was to manage breeches. She thought about asking for advice. Then she thought she would far rather avoid the conversation and figure out the trousers on her own.

  She stood with as much dignity as she could muster. William and Maxwell both looked up, William from the persistently unhelpful pocket watch and Maxwell from Freemantle’s face.

  “I, er...” Presumably adventuresses also got used to not blushing about this sort of nonsense, even if they were embarrassed. “Excuse me for one moment. I’ll just be...” She indicated the bushes a short distance away, and both men nodded understanding.