Clash of Empires

by Brian Falkner

  “I remember this place,” Frost says. “We came here when we escaped from the village.”

  “We did,” Willem says. “It is easy to miss, and a good place to hide.”

  “The entrance to the caves is close to here,” Héloïse says.

  There are voices now on the other side of the ferns. French voices, speaking quietly, just loud enough to be heard over the wash of the boat through the river.

  Then the boat is past, the voices fading as it drifts downriver.

  “We stay a little longer,” Frost says. A few moments later he adds, “More footsteps.”

  They wait, motionless on the edge of the swamp. Even Willem can hear the sound of military boots on the rock of the riverbank. The sounds stop and there is a rustling in the ferns. There is a muted exclamation of pain, no doubt from the sharp edges of the ferns.

  Willem curses and draws his sword. They cannot be caught again. Not here. Not now. Not by French troops. Some of the British troops raise their muskets, but Arbuckle motions them away. They don’t want gunshots.

  Willem is the closest to the cave entrance as the ferns are parted and a man pushes through. He carries a weapon, not a musket or a pistol, not even a sword. It is a crossbow, and that is how Willem knows him before he even looks at his face.

  François sees Willem in the same instant and spins toward him, the sharp point of the crossbow bolt swinging around in an arc.

  Willem rushes at him, aware that he is too far away, that there is not enough time. He stumbles on a root at the edge of the swamp and this saves his life as he falls; he only hears the sound of the crossbow and feels the bolt tug at the cloth of his garments at his shoulder.

  Then he is back on his feet, rising to meet François, who has no time to reload and just swings the crossbow in front of him like a club to fend off Willem’s sword.

  The clang of metal on metal is loud, reverberating through the trees that surround them, and Willem’s thrust is knocked away. He lifts the sword high and slices down but again the stock of the crossbow is there to meet the blow. Now it is François’s turn to stumble, one foot slipping on the mud at the edge of the swamp. He falls backward into the slimy water. The crossbow falls from his grasp and he has only his arms to defend himself, raised in front of his face, flesh and bone against the hard, cruel steel of Willem’s sword.

  But Willem hears Héloïse’s voice, an urgent warning: “Willem!”

  He flicks his head around, aware of the flash of a French uniform behind him. He twists just in time for his sword to fend away a dagger, then he sees the face of his assailant and he can defend himself no more.

  His sword is useless in his frozen hand and he can only watch as the other man draws back his blade.

  “Father!” Willem cries, then comes a blinding pain in his chest, and the shock on the face of the man who attacks him is only a fading blur because the next thing is a wave of blackness and after that nothing.

  RENDEZVOUS

  Jack remembers the village well. It was a hospital the last time he was here. He remembers the surgeon who fixed the bone in his broken arm and wonders what happened to him.

  He wonders what happened to the people who lived here. They were kind to him. But the village is deserted now and burned. He thinks they must have moved away. Somewhere better.

  It has been a slow journey to get here. He dared ride only at night and even then would often seek shelter when he heard other riders on the road. He spent many hours quieting his tired horse in stands of trees or under bridges, waiting for French soldiers to pass by.

  It is the third day of his journey and he worries that he has arrived too late. That no one will be here. That no one else is alive and free.

  He ties the horse to a branch in the forest by a small stream, where Marengo can graze and drink. He walks slowly to the village, watching for any sign of danger. Trying to listen, like Lieutenant Frost, to sounds that are out of the ordinary.

  He sees no one. He walks slowly through the streets, across the long grass of what had been the central village square. It is sad to see the lovely stone cottages lying in ruins, their roofs and doors blackened and burned, the glass of their windows smashed.

  As far as he can see, it is deserted and he thinks he’ll leave, but where will he go? Back to Antwerp? Try to make his way back to England?

  Not for the first time in his life he feels totally and irrevocably alone.

  It occurs to him to stay. To hide out in the ruined cottages, hunting and foraging for food in the surrounding forest. Perhaps if he waits long enough the others will come.

  He circles the village one more time, looking for a building that is mostly intact. He is nearly at the church when a quick blur of movement catches his eye in the doorway of a ruined cottage.

  He draws his dagger as he moves slowly in that direction.

  Another small movement in the doorway of a different cottage catches his eye, and he turns that way, running, dagger raised, only to find the doorway, and the remains of the cottage behind it, completely empty.

  Am I seeing ghosts? he wonders. The spirits of the people who lived here? He begins to feel frightened and turns back to his horse—to find his path blocked by a girl. A girl in rags, with hair cropped almost to her scalp. A girl he well knows.

  “Come with me,” Héloïse says.

  He wants to hug her, so pleased is he to see her. But that is not proper, he knows that, and he suspects that she is not someone who likes to be touched. He gives her his widest smile instead and touches a hand to his heart.

  “I am glad to see you,” he says.

  “And I you,” is her reply.

  Héloïse leads him into the church and through to a small kitchen at the back. There is a fireplace. She reaches up inside it and there is a click. Part of the wooden floor rises a few inches and Héloïse lifts it. Although it is heavy and appears solid, it rises easily.

  The trapdoor reveals a flight of rocky stone steps.

  Below is a cellar, surprisingly spacious. It is lit with candles. The faint glow reflects a thousand cracks in the rough-hewn rock walls.

  In the center of the room, on a rough bed of sacking, lies Willem. The sacking beneath him is red with his blood.

  Jack looks horrified for a moment, until he hears Frost’s voice. “Is that you, Jack?”

  He sees Frost in the far corner of the cellar.

  “Yes, sir, it’s me, sir,” he says.

  Now as his eyes adjust to the low light he takes in the rest of the room.

  Captain Arbuckle stands at the base of the stairs.

  There are others. A man, old and frail, sits in the far corner. A woman crushes herbs in a small wooden bowl. A young lady sits with Willem, wiping his face with a damp cloth. Jack remembers her from the hospital, although he does not know her name. Some British soldiers in ragged, dirty uniforms sit in a corner.

  “What has happened?” Jack asks.

  “An accident, nothing more,” the woman says with a quick glance at the old man. His face, Jack now sees, is white, and his lips are tightly pressed together. His eyes never leave Willem.

  “I am glad you are here,” Frost says. “I feared you had been killed or captured at Krabbendijke.”

  “I almost was, sir,” Jack says.

  “What do you know of the others?” Frost asks.

  Jack shakes his head. “All dead, sir,” he says. “I saw their bodies on the meat cart. All except Lieutenant Hoyes and McConnell and Gilbert, sir. McConnell and Gilbert was captured, sir.”

  “Big Joe is with us,” Frost says. “Where are McConnell and Gilbert being held?”

  Jack looks at his feet.

  “Jack?”

  “McConnell is dead, sir,” Jack says. “I think Gilbert is too. It was the devil himself. I saw him shoot McConnell, and I’m pretty sure he was going to shoot Gilbert. He would have shot me too if I had stayed. He wouldn’t like no witnesses to what he done.”

  “What devil is this?” Willem’s m
other asks.

  “Thibault,” Jack says. “He killed Bony, so he did.”

  There is a shocked silence.

  “Thibault?” Frost asks.

  “Him that chased us in the sewers,” Jack says. “He looks different now. He only has one eye and one hand, but it was definitely him.”

  “Thibault killed Napoléon?” Arbuckle says. “I heard it was a British prisoner. Cosette has a letter from Calais that confirms it.”

  “No, sir,” Jack says. “I was there. He shot Lieutenant McConnell and Napoléon and put a pistol in McConnell’s hand.”

  “Why would Thibault shoot Napoléon?” Frost asks.

  “I been wondering about that, sir,” Jack says. “He didn’t seem angry with him or anything.”

  “Thibault will have assumed control of the army,” Arbuckle says. “We must find a way to get this news to the French.”

  “What do you mean?” Jack asks.

  “If we can spread this information it will cause unrest in the French Army,” Arbuckle says. “They will not follow the man who killed their beloved Napoléon.”

  “If they believe it,” Jack says.

  “They will believe it,” Arbuckle says. “They already think this man to be a devil.”

  “He is the devil,” Jack says.

  “Blücher marches to Calais,” Frost says. “He will find the French Army in disarray, but he will not attack, not while the French still have battlesaurs.”

  “Thibault knows about the rockets,” Jack says. He feels that news is important, although he is not sure why.

  “How?” Frost asks.

  “I don’t know, sir,” Jack says. “That’s what Lieutenant McConnell told me.”

  Frost is motionless, his face hard. Jack looks apologetic at having brought what is clearly bad news.

  “They will use the rockets to lure Blücher into a trap,” Arbuckle says. “He and his army march to their deaths.”

  PRIEST HOLE

  Willem’s eyes open and it is like curtains have been suddenly thrust back on an unclouded morning.

  It is not bright, far from it, but the sudden intrusion of light, any light, into such a dark dream is both shocking and disconcerting.

  There is no fuzziness, as there sometimes is when waking, just a sharp transition from one world to another. But this new world is strange. His bed is hard, perhaps wooden. The ceiling of the room is rock. He is underground, but that is disorienting because the last memory he has is of the forest. And it is not a cave, like those underneath the Sonian. The walls here are too smooth, cut and scraped by the hand of man.

  There are people in this strange rock-walled room but he does not turn his head to look at them. Not yet. He is afraid to do that. He is afraid of what he will see. He is afraid that he has died. If so, this is not heaven.

  A face moves above him and he blinks rapidly with relief. This is neither hell nor purgatory. It cannot be, for the face above him is the face of an angel. A pretty blond angel with a lazy eye that immediately snaps into direct focus with concern. For him.

  “Cosette?” he asks, checking that this is not merely an interlude in his nightmare. That he has not simply exchanged one dream for another. The act of talking hurts his chest and makes him realize that even breathing is painful. He tries to sit up but a thousand tiny knives begin to plunge into his chest. He gasps with the agony and Cosette quickly places her hands on his shoulders to press him back down.

  “Rest,” she says.

  Pieces of the puzzle start to connect in Willem’s mind.

  Cosette was a prisoner. Held in the abbey with his mother. If she is here, then he must also be a prisoner. That explains this room. It must be a dungeon beneath the abbey. He shuts his eyes in misery and defeat. He set out to rescue them, but has ended up sharing their cell. He has only made the problem worse.

  He turns his head to look for his mother and finds her grinding some kind of paste in a wooden bowl with the end of a bayonet. A makeshift mortar and pestle.

  “Maman!” he cries, despite the pain it causes in his chest.

  She places the bowl down and comes to him, wiping his forehead with a cool, damp cloth. “Rest, Willem.” She echoes Cosette’s command.

  There are other people in the dungeon, Willem sees. Frost is here, with Jack—kind, loyal, simple Jack. Two people Willem loves as if they were his family. The earl’s man, Arbuckle, tough and capable, is here also; he sits on a wooden bench against the wall, cleaning a pistol.

  On the floor at the far end of the room is an older man. He seems vaguely familiar to Willem, although he cannot say how he knows him. He is not someone from the village.

  A pistol?

  He flicks his eyes back to Arbuckle. This is not a dungeon, they cannot be captives of the French. Not if Arbuckle holds a weapon.

  “Where are we?” Willem asks.

  “Gaillemarde. Beneath the old church,” his mother says. “Be quiet. There are French soldiers in the village.”

  Even as she speaks there is a creak from above, a footstep on a wooden floorboard.

  “Why do they search so?” Cosette asks, her voice small, her eyes fearful.

  Willem watches her. The thought of a return to captivity must be terrifying.

  “They fear Willem,” Arbuckle says. “They will not rest until they find him.”

  “I put all of you in danger,” Willem says.

  “We are in danger, it is true,” Frost says. “But we go there willingly. And we are safe for now in our burrow.”

  “What about my father?” Willem asks. “François said that he lives. A lie? A ruse to lure us into a trap? Or was there truth behind the trickery?”

  His mother smiles. “In that he did not lie,” she says. She indicates the old man in the far corner. “He will be happy to see you so full of life.”

  And now Willem recognizes the old man. It is so many years since he has seen him, so many, many years, and the man has changed immeasurably. But there can be no doubt. It is his father.

  “Papa?” he asks.

  The man glances at him, then quickly looks away.

  “Enough of your self-pity, Maarten,” his mother says. “He is alive, and for the most part well. Come and greet your son.”

  Willem’s father hesitates, then slowly gets to his feet. He walks unsteadily toward Willem and now Willem remembers. The darkest part of the dream. The flashing knife, the pain, the blackness.

  “It was you,” he says. “In the swamp.”

  “I am so sorry,” his father says.

  “Willem, do not blame your father,” Frost says. “He did not see your face, only your French uniform. He saw you attack François. He did not know of François’s treachery. Your father showed great bravery.”

  “I do not blame him,” Willem says. “Where is François?”

  “He escaped in the confusion after you were injured,” Arbuckle says.

  “He knows this place,” Willem says. “Might not he tell the French of it?”

  “For now, clearly, he has not,” Frost says.

  His father lays his hand on Willem’s arm. “I have waited for this moment for so many years,” he says.

  For a few moments Willem cannot speak at all. “I truly believed I would never see it,” he says finally. He wants to say more, there is so much to say after so many years apart, but he stops at a heavy bootstep right above them, on the wooden roof of their hiding hole. One soldier, more. There are crashes. Bangs that sound like musket stocks on the walls and floor. It seems inconceivable that they will not be found.

  They wait, silently, motionless until the crashing and banging stops. The solid trapdoor has kept its secrets. The bootsteps slowly recede. Willem opens his mouth to continue, but the words he had are gone.

  “They seem to be searching for the priest hole,” Cosette says. “Perhaps François has told them about it.”

  Arbuckle shakes his head. “All churches have one. They know it is here somewhere.”

  Willem tries ag
ain to sit up, and this time succeeds, grimacing through the pain, although it makes his head swim.

  “My wound,” he asks. “Is it serious?”

  His mother shakes her head. “The scrape of a knife along a rib, nothing more. You were lucky. Now lie back down.”

  She approaches with the wooden bowl, dipping her fingers into a gray-green paste.

  “The danger is infection,” she says. “I am doing what I can. Madame Gertruda’s house was destroyed, but her garden remains and grows wild. I only hope that my memory, and the power of these herbs, will serve you well.”

  She applies the salve liberally to Willem’s chest.

  “What about Blücher?” Willem asks. “What of the attack on Calais?”

  There is silence in the cellar. It is Frost who finally speaks.

  “A disaster,” Frost says. “Napoléon is dead, assassinated by Thibault.”

  “Surely that is good news,” Willem says. “The tyrant is dead, his killer surely in chains in the deepest dungeon.”

  “Far from it,” Arbuckle says. “Thibault now commands the French Army.”

  “Worse, he knows of our plans,” Frost says. “He knows of the rockets and the meaning of their colors.”

  “How?” Willem asks.

  “McConnell,” Frost says. “But that is unimportant. What matters is that Blücher marches into a trap.”

  “Then we must warn him,” Willem says.

  “Indeed,” Frost says.

  “I have written a message for the old warhorse,” Arbuckle says. “Jack will ride to Blücher to deliver it. If we can reach him before he begins his attack we may be able to avert a catastrophe.”

  “And if that does not work?” Willem asks. “If Jack does not reach Blücher in time, or if the message is not believed?”

  “There is nothing else we can do,” his father says.

  “There might be,” Willem says.

  All eyes turn toward him.

  “What are you proposing?” Frost asks.

  “That we use Napoléon’s weapons against him,” Willem says.

  There is total silence.

  “That is foolish talk,” Willem’s mother says.

  “Dangerous, but not foolish,” his father says. “The French can ride the beasts; so too can British soldiers.”