by Iris Anthony
“Ah. Oui.” That was so. I had asked him. But I still didn’t understand his answer. “So you would smuggle lace for some man’s honor.”
“I might.”
“But what about your own honor?”
“What about it?”
“You would exchange your own honor for the sake of someone else’s?”
He frowned. “I suppose…is that what I am saying?”
“Isn’t it?” Isn’t that what he had been saying? I thought it was. And that’s why it made no sense. But then, maybe he didn’t really understand it himself. As he said, I was the one who had asked the question. I had asked what might make a person smuggle lace. He didn’t smuggle lace, so how would he know? Definitively?
•••
As the sun began to sink, I began to hurry my pace. It wouldn’t do to be found along the road, far from a village, as night fell.
The man with the coffin, however, seemed to feel no such urgency.
“Orchies is ahead of us. And it’s not such a very great distance. If we hurry, we can reach it before nightfall.”
“You hurry. I don’t intend on sleeping anywhere but with the coffin.”
“Bien sûr. With the coffin in the village. Some innkeeper will let you sleep in his stable.” Though why would he want to? It wasn’t as if anyone would steal a dead body.
“Non. No villages for me. I intend to just stop along the road. Or maybe even keep on walking.”
“Along the—? But it’s dangerous. Treacherous! There are bandits who lurk in the woods.”
“And which of them would want to bother a man sleeping beside a coffin?”
Any one of them. But then…he had said he was overcome with sadness. Perhaps grief had stolen his good sense. “Truly, we should speed our pace. I must insist.”
Alexandre gestured to the beast pulling the cart. “This old ox won’t move any faster.”
I eyed the animal. He rolled his own eye back and took a look at me. Non. He probably couldn’t move more quickly. Not even if he’d wanted to. “Then…” I clutched my musket more tightly as I eyed the trees surrounding us. “I’ll stay with you.”
“What? Non! I mean, why should you be made to suffer for this animal’s great age?”
“It would be like having your own private guard. I am, after all, a soldier.”
“And a soldier deserves better than a piece of hard ground on which to spend the night. I don’t even have a blanket to spare you.”
A soldier didn’t need a blanket. “It’s not necessary.”
“But you can go into the village and demand someone house you for the night.”
I could. It was a right granted any of the King’s soldiers. But I wouldn’t. I never had. It didn’t seem very polite. “Non. My place, as a traveling companion, is by your side.”
“There’s not room enough in the cart.”
And I wouldn’t think of sleeping in it. Not beside a body! “I shall sleep beside it.”
“In the mud?”
I eyed the countryside around us. The dog’s face suddenly appeared once more. “Perhaps I can find some shelter beneath a tree in the wood.” Where the outlaws slept. And lived. And practiced their thievery. Perhaps I wouldn’t sleep tonight. Perhaps I’d stay awake. That seemed like the wisest thing to do. “I’ll stay awake for both of us. I’ll stand watch.”
He shrugged. “As you wish.”
He didn’t seem very grateful for my company. And truly, I was sacrificing quite a bit to stay with him. Hot food. A place on a dry floor somewhere beside a warm fire. But then, perhaps, he was stricken by grief. A man overcome by such emotion couldn’t be depended upon to look after himself.
We continued on for a while, and when we found a widening in the road, we pulled the ox off to the side. The sky went gray then blue then black. The stars flickered like distant candles, too far away to provide any warmth, too distant to shed any but meager light. The moon, though, was resplendent in all of her glory. A pretty, plump maiden smiling down upon us. A breeze rattled the trees and startled shadows from the wood.
•••
I woke with the cold blade of a knife pressed against my neck. I was astonished I had fallen asleep.
“Your money.” The voice that spoke was hoarse and smelt of beer.
“I don’t have any.”
He turned the blade. I felt a sharp prick from its point.
“Not much of any.”
“Not much sounds like quite a bit to me.”
“Please. I don’t have very much.” And what I had, I meant to keep.
“Your money.”
“If you would let me rise, then I would get it.”
“Just tell me where it is.”
“It’s…well…it’s…” Did I truly want him to go digging around in my pack by himself?
The knife took a bite at my neck.
“It’s in my pack. Right side. At the bottom.”
The pressure of the knife eased.
I heard the sound of the pack being dragged across the ground. The clink of coins. The knife was withdrawn. I began to breathe more easily and sat up, only to have the knife put to my chest. “Take off your boots.”
“My—?” My boots? Truly? “I would, but I can’t quite move, can I?”
Moonlight glowed from the face of the knife. The man retreated, just a bit, though he brandished his weapon. In the uneasy silence, I heard the cocking of a gun.
The thief heard it, too. His eyes went wide, rolling first in my direction and then in the direction of the cart. He took one last look at me and then vanished into the wood.
I pushed to my feet, considering whether to pursue him. Better not. He’d taken my money, but I still had my boots. And who knew how many others like him there were out in the cavernous reaches of the wood.
Alexandre had jumped down from the cart. He took my jaw in hand, turning my chin toward the moon.
“You saved my life!”
“At the very least, your boots. Give me a look at your neck there.”
“He took all my money.”
“That’s why you should carry it in several different places.”
I hadn’t thought of that. He pressed a finger where the knife had gouged me.
“Ow!”
“He nicked you.”
“I felt it.”
He drew the neckerchief from my collar, wound it round my neck, and tied it off over the wound.
“You saved my life.”
“Perhaps I did. But it wasn’t to hear you exclaim about it. It was to be able to get some sleep.”
Sleep? Now? After I’d almost been killed? When I was shivering like a wet dog?
“Pull yourself together.”
“He might have killed me.”
“But he didn’t.”
“He might have.”
“I would have killed him first.”
Though I was clutching at my own arms to try to keep my wits about me, his words gave me pause. “You would have killed him?”
“Oui.”
“How do you know?”
“How do I know what?” He’d already climbed back into the cart, looking as if, indeed, he was planning to go back to sleep.
“How do you know you would have done it?”
“I had my pistol out, didn’t I?”
“And I had my musket. And I never, not once, thought of picking it up.”
“But then you were surprised out of your sleep.” His head disappeared as I heard a rustling in the straw lining the bed of the cart.
“But even if I hadn’t been, I don’t know if I could have done it.”
“You’re a soldier. Of course you could have done it.”
B
ut how could he know that about me? How could he know that, when I didn’t even know it myself? I was shaking my head, though it jerked up and down, side to side with my shivering. “I wouldn’t have done it.” I’d failed at soldiering, just like I’d failed at baking.
“You would have had to. He might have killed you otherwise.”
“But even so…”
A cloak flew over the side of the cart toward me.
I caught it up before it hit the ground. Wrapped it about my trembling shoulders.
“You’re a soldier.”
A soldier who couldn’t kill a man when it came down to it.
Chapter 25
The Dog
Along the road to Signy-sur-vaux, France
I did not like the man. The one who had come upon us on the road. He was wearing one of those glinting hats. Men who wore those hats were bad. And yet…a person who wore a hat just like it had killed my bad master.
How could a bad man do a good thing?
I took another look at him through the grasses that grew between the edge of the forest and the road.
He glanced over toward me.
I sunk down until my belly touched the ground, and I watched them walk by…he and my new master.
What was he planning to do to me? He didn’t have a box. I didn’t see a switch.
I crept forward on my haunches, keeping my head well below the tops of the grasses.
Was he a good person or a bad one?
I whined with indecision.
If he was bad, then I must leave; if he was good, then I could stay. My nose told me there was water somewhere near. I sat up to scratch at an ear. Perhaps I did not have to choose. I could let them walk away, and I could go find the water.
That is what I would do.
But though I would not mind losing the one with the hat, I did not want to lose the other. My master. It was he who had carried me in his arms that terrible night through the woods. And he who had freed me from the burden of my brother’s hide.
He did not have any cream.
There had been no warming fire.
No welcoming lap.
But he knew my name. He had called me Moncher.
Moncher.
I whined again and scratched at my other ear.
Perhaps he was walking toward a place where there would be some cream. I took a step forward.
The sun reached down and touched the other man’s hat.
I stopped.
What good could come from going anywhere with a man who wore a glinting hat? But what right did I have to leave my master?
Perhaps…if he did not see me, the man in the hat would forget about me.
I turned and trotted toward the forest, keeping well behind the fall of the shadows, where the sun did not dare to challenge the chill in the air. I shivered. I could not see the men any longer, but I could hear them.
The ground was softer to my feet.
I brushed past ferns and padded over fallen branches. I stopped, once, to stare at a squirrel. It scolded me, buried a nut, and then scampered away into the wood. After a while, I crept close to the edge of the shadow to pull at some of the grasses. They came back up a short time after I swallowed them, but at least they had eased the pains in my belly. I trotted ahead of the men and lay at the meeting of sun and shade to warm myself while I waited for them. I sighed from pleasure and rolled over to expose my belly to the heat.
The man with the glinting hat did not sound so terrible when I did not have to look at him. There was no meanness, no malice in his voice.
Not like the bad master’s. And not like that man called De Grote.
•••
I snorted, rolled over, and pushed to my feet. Licked at the place where the bad master’s razor had bit me. My master and the man with the hat had passed by, so I raced to catch up with them, and then I went on past. Lay down to wait for them once more.
If only I had not been so afraid.
If I had not paused at the edge of the field that terrible night, then I might have been able to save my good master. I might have been able to warn him about the men wearing glinting hats. I could have leaped at them. I could have knocked them to the ground. If I had not been so afraid, I could have protected him.
I would not let this new master be harmed. I would not fail him.
Some day…one day…I would show those men who wore glinting hats what I thought of them. I would punish them for beating me. For starving me. For taking me away from my good master.
I topped a ridge that overlooked the road.
The man with the hat spied me.
I slunk back into the wood.
Some day I would do those things… but not today.
•••
I ran ahead and waited and ran ahead again until the sun began to fall asleep. But I started to wait for my master closer and closer to the road. Began to care less and less about what that man with the glinting hat might do to me.
There were things out there in the forest, following us. I could hear them rustling and crackling as they moved. I bit back a whine, for I did not want to betray my own presence. But I sped my pace, and then sat on my haunches as I waited, raising an ear to listen. And I trembled as night fell dark about me.
Chapter 26
Lisette Lefort
Château of Eronville
The province of Orléanais, France
At Souboscq, I had been miserable among those I loved. Here, I had no such comfort. The entire household was waiting for the birth of the child, but that wait had become interminable. The marquise was no longer attentive to anyone’s condition but her own. The merriment had left her, and only impatience and irritation had come to replace it. The marquis had taken himself to hiding away in his chambers. Remy stalked me relentlessly, and the count never ceased to watch me.
I had but two hopes: that the expected boy child would miraculously turn himself into a girl and that the Count of Montreau would die. The first hope was new; the second, ever burning, born from that first encounter with the count ten years before.
Eventually the marquise was confined to her chambers by the family physician. Without the protection of her presence, I did not dare to walk in the gardens, day or night. The count pushed me into a servant’s hallway one evening as I ascended the stair from dinner.
He reached out and took hold of my hair with a jerk.
“Ow!” I raised my hands to his wrist.
“Your father still has sent no word. You cannot think he intends to rescue you with the lace.”
I felt tears pool at the corners of my eyes.
“You’re going to have to rescue yourself. Do you understand? I can make your life here pleasant, or I can make it an unendurable hell.”
“Please…!”
“Here’s what I want you to do…there is one thing yet I must ask of you.”
What more could I do for him? “I have done everything you have asked of me.” I could do little more than whisper from the pain his hold was causing.
“And to no avail. I can expect only provisions. Without that lace, I am left with only one choice. If I cannot influence my father’s decision, then I must be assured there is no heir.”
“Who can say whether it will be a boy child or a girl?”
“I can say. I will say. A girl may live…a boy must die.”
Die?
“You can’t mean—!”
“My father is not going to let me anywhere near the cursed thing. He may be old and decrepit, but he’s smart. You’re the one who is going to have to do it.”
He…Did he want me to kill a baby? “I can’t. I won’t!”
He released my hair, though he did not move to let me pass. “‘Show me six lines wri
tten by the most honest man in the world, and I will find therein reason enough to hang him.’ Does that statement in any way resemble the predicament of your father?”
My shoulders dropped with the weight of the threat.
“Do you know who once said that?”
I knew. Everyone knew.
“I believe it was Cardinal Richelieu himself…the King’s chief minister. And I doubt very much your father is the most honest man in the world.”
I backed away from him in horror. “If you want…I mean, if you intend that I…” I felt as if I were going to retch. “I cannot do such a thing.”
He advanced upon me. “Neither can I. I abhor the sight of blood. Always have.”
“I can’t—”
He gripped me about my arm. “There are a thousand ways to kill someone. If you cannot take a knife to the babe, then smother it. Or leave it out in the garden for the weasels to find.”
“I won’t.”
“Oh, yes, I think you will.” He would not let me escape, but lifted my chin with his other hand so I had no choice but to meet his eyes. “Come now. We’re both the same, you and I. Nobody really loves us. And why should they? I’m the son of a hard-hearted old bastard and his bitch. You’re the contemptible daughter who led to her father’s downfall. I would have given my inheritance ten times over to be told, just once, someone liked me for what I was. But fathers will yell, and mothers will, well…in the end, none of it really matters anyway. We’re alive still, the both of us, and we ought to get something for our pain.”
Something for our pain…and there was so much of it. There was so much pain in living.
“We understand each other, don’t we?”
There was too much truth in his words and too much desolation in his eyes for me to look away. His beauty, in spite of all of his malice, was alluring. It was a beauty that made one want to believe him. He was right: we did understand each other. He might have been the only one in the kingdom who comprehended what I had had to endure. The only other person who knew what guilt will do to a soul.
I felt something inside me crumple against the smoldering rage in his eyes. What did it matter anyway? It was too late. Father was too late. Alexandre was too late. There were no other choices left me. Not if my father’s life was to be saved.