by Wilbur Smith
“Head further out!” Theo shouted.
They changed to a course that took them clear of the point, but it shortened the distance to the men behind. Their pursuers redoubled their efforts, racing to reach the place where their paths would intersect. Theo and Moses hauled the sledge between them, but it made cumbersome progress on the wet ice.
The layer of meltwater on top of the ice grew deeper. They were far out, near the middle of the lake, and the ice had come alive, splitting and groaning. Theo felt it flex under his weight. To his horror, he saw cracks spreading around his feet. But he could not turn back toward the shore, only skate on and pray the ice held.
The hard report of a rifle drowned out the sounds of the ice. Theo saw the ball strike the surface behind him with a spray of ice fragments and water. But the next shot was closer, and the third closer still.
He shrugged off the sledge harness. The French were a hundred yards behind and closing quickly. The ice stretched far in every direction with no cover—except, some distance away, where the branches of a fallen tree waved from the ice. It looked incongruous, so far from land. It must have been washed away in an autumn storm and trapped in the ice when the lake froze.
It could serve as a barricade defense, but they would never reach it in time.
“We cannot run anymore,” Theo decided. He slit the straps that held Judd to the sledge and rolled him off. The man screamed, thinking he was being abandoned, but that wasn’t Theo’s plan. He tipped the sledge up on its side, creating a makeshift shelter. It was hardly big enough for three men to crouch behind—but it was better than nothing.
He could see the enemy clearly. Twenty men, their winter furs streaming behind them. Theo’s heart skipped as he recognized Bichot at the front. In his bearskin cloak, his face seemed to float out of a cloud of darkness against the moonlit ice.
A shot slammed into the sledge, fracturing the wood. Their barrier would not last long. Theo felt the hopelessness of the situation pressing in on him. Thoughts of Caleb and Abigail clawed at his mind, but he fought off the despair. While he breathed, he would fight. If he died, he could at least pay a debt on his way.
He loaded his rifle. But when he tipped powder into the pan, it stuck and caked. Drops of water appeared on the barrel. A soft rain had begun to fall. The guns were useless.
The French changed their tactics. Some fixed bayonets, while others threw down their rifles, drawing axes and tomahawks. They would finish this at close quarters.
They spread out in a broad circle, surrounding the knot of rangers clustered around the sledge. The pine resin in their torches hissed and spat.
“Is that you, Ahoma the Englishman?” called Bichot. The rain flattened his hair against his scalp, showing the scarred skin beneath. “You should have known I always find my prey.”
“We will not surrender,” Theo warned.
“That is not your choice.” Bichot revealed his teeth in a wide grin. “By the time I have finished with you, you will beg me to let you surrender. But I will not. Do you remember the way your wife’s blood flowed when I stuck her like a pig? That was an easy death compared to what I’ll do to you.”
Theo breathed hard and did not rise to the provocation. Beside him, Moses was crouching, rummaging in the bundle they had tied to the sledge.
“Unless you have a gun that does not need powder, and shoots twenty bullets at once, I do not think you will find anything to help us,” Theo muttered. He hefted his tomahawk, his eyes darting, keeping his enemies in sight. The odds were impossible: they were all around him.
Moses stood. Moonlight gleamed on the weapon in his hands. It was the ax they had brought for chopping firewood.
Moses raised it above his head. With all his strength, he swung it down and struck a mighty blow on the ice. Glistening shards flew in the air. Dark cracks raced out from the point of impact.
The Frenchmen stopped moving. Moses landed another blow. This time, he hacked and hacked like a man possessed until he had cut through the ice to the dark lake beneath. Water slopped up through the hole. The cracks in the ice lengthened.
“Are you mad?” said the wounded ranger. “We’ll all drown.”
Theo saw the desperate logic of Moses’s plan. He stamped on the ice and hammered it with the butt of his rifle. Some of the Frenchmen edged back, but that was a mistake. Their movements put more stress on the fracturing ice. The cracks began to run together, forming islands of ice that broke away as the water lapped their edges.
Gaps opened in the circle of Frenchmen around the rangers.
“To the tree, Siumo!” Moses yelled in Abenaki. Theo was already moving. Dropping the rifle, he hoisted the wounded Judd over his shoulder and started toward the tree trunk still frozen in the ice. Half stumbling, half sliding, he slipped across the unsteady surface.
Suddenly, a rift tore through the ice in front of him. Theo had no time to react. The toe of his skate snagged in the gap and pitched him forward. Judd was jolted off his shoulder and thrown in a heap as Theo landed flat on his belly.
For a moment, he thought the ice had held. Then it gave way with a snap, and he dropped into the water.
The shock of the freezing water almost stopped his heart. His head pounded; his limbs burned; he couldn’t move. The weight of the thick furs pulled him down. If he went under, he would slip beneath the ice and drown.
A vision of Mgeso, trapped underwater, flashed through his mind. It gave him the strength to start moving again. He reached out of the water and scrabbled on the ice, trying to pull himself out. It was too slick. His fingers scraped and slid but could not grip. The water sucked him down.
Theo reached into his belt and felt his knife. He drew it, raised it over his head and drove the blade into the ice. He feared the steel would snap, or crack the ice, but both held. The blade dug in.
Using the hilt as a handhold, Theo hauled himself out of the water. Getting to his feet almost tipped him back in. Ignoring the cold that seized his bones, he began leaping from slab to slab toward the tree. The ice was rupturing in earnest, breaking into an archipelago of floes. It was like being caught in a giant game of chess, where all the pieces were moving at once. Everything was chaos. Some of the Frenchmen had fled to the thicker ice nearer shore; others, trapped in the fissures, splashed and floundered.
Theo could see the tree. He leaped like a madman to reach it. He skidded the last few feet and came up against the trunk. He reached for a knot in the wood to pull himself upward.
A hand grabbed the scruff of his neck and spun him around. A snarling face loomed toward him. It was Bichot. A knife glittered in his hand. He swung it at Theo who ducked, but with the tree at his back he had little room to maneuver. The blade sliced his cheek open. He tried to kick Bichot away, aiming his skates at the Frenchman’s legs.
With a groaning sound, like a gate slowly swinging open, the frozen tree broke free of the ice and rolled over. Its branches whipped viciously with terrifying speed, all the energy that had been trapped in the ice suddenly unleashed with tremendous force. One branch nearly toppled Theo. He just had time to jerk out of the way or it would have broken his back.
Bichot was not so lucky. The branch that missed Theo hit the Frenchman in the face. It knocked him into the water and pushed him under. He tried to escape, but it battered him down relentlessly, like the paddles of a water wheel as the trunk spun round.
The flailing tree had shattered the ice that Theo was standing on. He leaped into the churning water as another branch lashed past his head. Fighting for air, he swam up and grabbed one of the branches, letting it whip him around as the tree slowly settled.
At last it came to rest. Theo hauled himself on to its trunk, riding it like a panicked horse as it floated down the newly opened channel in the ice, carrying them away. Further down the trunk, he saw Moses and three other rangers clinging on. Even Judd had somehow managed to get aboard.
Theo looked back, but Bichot had disappeared into the dark lake.
&nbs
p; •••
General Corbeil was in a foul mood. “Your finance minister is a criminal!” he raged. “He has made himself a millionaire, while my men go cold and hungry. I demand he be recalled to Paris immediately, and tried at Versailles for his corruption and embezzlement.”
The governor general, the Comte de Bercheny, stared at Corbeil over his glass of wine. “The finance minister is doing a splendid job. It is not easy, keeping your troops supplied through winter in this godforsaken country.”
“How can you not see it?” Corbeil raged. “He charges me twice the price for meat I could get on the waterfront and pockets the difference himself.”
It was true. Bercheny knew it perfectly well. How else could the finance minister afford the generous bribes that the governor general insisted on? “At least you cannot claim that I have short-changed you on your fort,” said Bercheny. “You have lavished more on its defenses than King Louis spends on his mistresses.”
“That fort is the key to all of New France,” Corbeil retorted. “If it falls, then in a very short time you will see English ships anchored off Québec, and English guns firing through these windows into your salon.”
There was a knock at the door. An aide poked his head in. “A messenger has arrived from Fort Royal, mon général.”
“Show him in.”
The man who entered seemed to have walked straight out of the forest. He was a coureur des bois, one of the irregular soldiers who lived wild, trapping, trading and fighting on the frontiers. He smelt of smoke and bear fat. He placed his beaver-skin hat on the table and did not salute. “Capitaine Bichot sends his regards. He wishes to inform you that two weeks ago he surprised a patrol of English rangers on the slopes above Fort Royal.”
Corbeil went very still. “Did they see the new defenses?”
“We do not think so—but it is a possibility.”
“And did they escape?”
“A few. Bichot followed them. He had not returned when I set out, but I am sure they did not escape him.”
“A few?” Corbeil rose from his chair and slammed his fist on the table, so hard that the beaver hat flew into the air. “His orders were to make sure that no English patrols came within ten miles of the fort.”
Bercheny stood. “I will leave you to your soldiers’ business,” he said smoothly. “No doubt you have much to discuss.” He turned in the doorway and added, “My compliments to your wife, General. I look forward to seeing her at the dance the regimental wives are holding.”
Corbeil didn’t hear him. He was glaring at the courier with icy fury. “How many of the English escaped?”
The courier shrugged. He had the natural insolence of a man who lived by his wits. “Why don’t you ask the prisoner?”
Corbeil paused. “What prisoner?”
Gilyard was almost indistinguishable from the men who had brought him. His beard had grown wild, his clothes were ragged and filthy. Dark blood stained his shirt where it had seeped through the bandages. But fire still burned in his gray eyes, and though he was limping, he refused the chair Corbeil offered him by the fire.
The coureur left. Corbeil poured two glasses of wine and offered one to the prisoner. Gilyard did not touch it.
“I hope your journey was not too arduous, Major Gilyard,” Corbeil said courteously. He spoke in English, to Gilyard’s surprise.
“You cannot understand your enemy unless you understand his language,” Corbeil explained. “And I have an English wife.”
“Life is full of ironies,” said Gilyard.
Corbeil was silent. He tapped his fingernail against the side of his wineglass, studying the prisoner. He had long fingernails, Gilyard noticed. Added to his hooked nose and close-set eyes, it made him look like a bird of prey, studying a mouse.
“What should I do with you?” Corbeil mused aloud.
“I am an officer and a prisoner of war,” Gilyard answered. “Shouldn’t you offer me parole?”
Corbeil laughed, as if the idea had not occurred to him. “If I offered you liberty, in exchange for your promise not to attempt escape, would you accept?”
“Of course not.”
“Then I shall not waste my breath. I have a different fate in mind for you.”
A gust of wind rattled the window panes, blowing icy air through the loose-fitting frame. Despite his best efforts, Gilyard flinched. After his brutal journey, standing so long was sapping what little strength he had left. But he would not break.
“I need you to tell me everything you know of your general’s plans,” Corbeil said abruptly. “His forces, their strength and dispositions. When and where he will attack this summer. Everything.”
For all the pain racking his body, Gilyard forced his face into a grin. “I see you have mastered the English sense of humor.”
Lightning fast, Corbeil lashed out with his boot. It struck Gilyard on the kneecap. Something cracked. Gilyard’s leg twisted and he dropped to the floor with a grunt of pain. He tried to rise, but Corbeil landed another kick in the side of his ribs that made him curl into a ball.
Corbeil stared down at him. “However strong you think you are, however brave, you will not resist me.”
Gilyard moaned and cowered. Corbeil kicked out again.
But this time, his boot didn’t strike. Gilyard’s arms were instantly wrapped around his foot, hauling backward with surprising strength. Corbeil sprawled on his back. Before he could get up, Gilyard was kneeling over him with a small bone-handled knife against his throat. “Never count a ranger out,” he hissed. Putting his weight on his good leg, he dragged himself to his feet, coaxing Corbeil up. Though he clenched his teeth with the pain, the blade at the general’s neck never wavered.
“Are you going to kill me?” Corbeil hissed. “You will never escape this fortress alive.”
“I fancy my chances. I will lead your men a merry dance all the way to Boston, if need be.”
“And where will you find a way out?”
Gilyard shrugged. “You tell me.”
He shifted his grip, keeping one hand around Corbeil’s throat while the other held the knife pressed against the general’s back. “The point is between your third and fourth ribs,” he said. “If you call for help, it’ll slide clean through into your heart before you can make a sound.”
“I do not wish to die a hero’s death,” Corbeil assured him. “I will lead you to the water gate. The river is frozen. You will be able to escape that way.” He started toward the door.
Gilyard tightened his grip on Corbeil’s neck, pulling him back onto the knife so that the point penetrated the fabric of his coat. “Do you take me for a fool? There is a sentry outside that door, and I do not care to meet him.” He nudged Corbeil round toward the back of the room. In the corner a small door was set in an arch. “Where does that lead?”
“My private apartments.”
“Guarded?”
“No.”
“Servants?”
“They will be in their quarters.”
“If you’re lying, you will die before I do.”
“I am not lying,” said Corbeil.
Could Gilyard trust him? He had no choice. When they stepped through the door, they found a small salon with a chaise longue, an ottoman and a fire dying in the grate. More doors opened to left and right.
Gilyard surveyed his options. “Which way is the river?”
Corbeil jerked his head left. It led into a woman’s boudoir, also unoccupied. The candles were lit, and the scent of expensive perfume was heavy in the air. Through the window, Gilyard could see the white expanse of the St. Lawrence River and the lights of the warehouses on the far shore.
Under Gilyard’s orders, Corbeil stripped the sheets from the bed and tied them together, then fastened them to the bedpost. He opened the window and dropped the daisy-chained sheets down. The wall fell sheer to the frozen river below.
“I am sorry to leave you,” said Gilyard. “General Williams would have paid me a large sum of money
if I brought you back alive. But it is a long journey, and I do not think you and I would make good traveling companions. And Williams will still pay thirty shillings for your scalp.”
Without warning, Gilyard clenched his arm around Corbeil’s throat again. Holding him fast, he pulled off Corbeil’s wig and put the knife against his scalp. Corbeil tried to scream, but Gilyard’s grip was crushing his windpipe and no sound emerged. This could not be happening. He was a major general of France, in his own headquarters. To die like this, at the hands of the vermin he had dedicated his life to destroying, was insupportable.
“Maybe only twenty shillings,” Gilyard muttered. “This blade is a little small for the task. But it will serve if I—”
Suddenly, the arm around Corbeil’s throat loosened. The blade fell away from his scalp. That was all the opening he needed. He fought his way free, quick as a leopard, ready to throttle the life out of the ranger who had nearly humiliated him.
Gilyard writhed on the floor, clutching his backside. A small penknife stuck out from his buttock, which was bleeding heavily. Constance stood over him, wearing a blood-spattered négligé.
A marble wig-stand stood on her dresser. Corbeil snatched it and smashed it into Gilyard’s face with such force that it shattered his nose. The ranger collapsed, blood and bone fragments covering his face. Corbeil knelt over him. He raised the block of marble, ready to strike again. His fury was boundless. He would smash this man’s skull until it was nothing but a pulp of bloody flesh.
A voice from behind him stayed his arm. “What has happened here?”
Governor General Bercheny was at the doorway. Two soldiers waited in the corridor outside, though Corbeil had not heard anyone call for help.
“The prisoner tried to escape. I—” Corbeil dropped the wig-stand and struggled to his feet, burning with frustrated blood lust. “I prevented him.”