The Tide Watchers

by Lisa Chaplin

  He couldn’t rush into the place with a shooter still alive outside. His gaze darted around, checking out the forest. “Halfway down the path I’ll shoot the Nock. Then you cover me while I run for the boathouse.”

  “She was alive ten minutes ago when I looked in. The rowboat is beneath the trapdoor in the floor of the boathouse, with your men waiting.”

  “She was alive and you didn’t save her.” Duncan watched the glade for more shots, and their direction. Every second gave him more information on who was where.

  Cal answered without heat. “She was tied to a chair and injured, but still breathing. Odds were too long on my own with three Jacobins alive and firing at anything that moved. We’ll need your men unharmed to take the oars. So I came for you.”

  Duncan ran, but the thirty feet between him and the boathouse seemed as endless as Chaucer’s ocean. No time to think of what could go wrong. At the halfway point, he bundled his cloak on his shoulder and lifted the rifle into position. He squinted for the best aim and pointed at two trees close together. Standing wide and leaning as far forward as he could, he dropped his elbow, wrapped his fingers around the smoothbore barrels, and fired.

  The flash pan blew to the right. Fire exploded from the barrels, burning his fingers, and the stock butt walloped him in the shoulder. Even with the wadding and rubber, pain ripped through his body. As he fell back, the trees split apart, bursting into flame. He scrambled to his feet. No broken collarbone or dislocated shoulder, but it throbbed like the dickens. Two screaming gendarmes bolted for the river, hair on fire, jackets burned. Another two ran off into the forest, diving behind whatever cover they could find.

  Delacorte was losing allies fast. Duncan shoved the rifle over his back, pulled his knives from his boots, thrusting them into his cloak pockets, cocked his pistols, and ran for the boathouse.

  “Get down, brother!” Cal yelled. Duncan ducked, wondering how the hell Cal knew he’d learned Gaelic. Then he was rocked off his feet by the explosion of the second Nock. He stumbled into the boathouse and dove to the ground.

  The wall facing their attackers had but an arm’s length of height left, the floor strewn with glass, wood and plaster, bodies and blood. A pall of acrid smoke lay over the ruined room, the stink of river mud and blood and piss on the floor. He couldn’t feel any sign of life.

  Lisbeth was sprawled on the dirt floor tied to a half-broken chair, more flotsam from the battle. Her face was sliced open. A pool of blood surrounded her, more smearing her body. Even through the grime of the tunnel floor, her skin looked as white as the daubs of shattered plaster on her face. If she was breathing, he couldn’t see it.

  His pulse pounding against his skull and chest, he crawled to her.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Tuileries, Paris

  August 27, 1802

  MY LORD CONSUL, MONSIEUR Fouché has been located and brought here.”

  In his study, seated at the mahogany desk that had once been the king’s—France was just emerging from the terrifying amount of debt he’d inherited two years ago, and refurnishing would be a waste—First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte glanced up at his third secretary and nodded. “Bien, Barteau, merci. Send him in.” He made a point of knowing the names of everyone who served him, and always thanking them. Such small honors created loyalty.

  As he waited, he hummed to himself.

  Non, non, z’il est impossible,

  D’avoir un plus aimable enfant.

  If his valet Constant were there, he’d have heard the small Italianism inserted—a sign things were going his lord’s way—indeed, his master was a happy man.

  When the doors opened again, Napoleon became expressionless, watching the minor spectacle. As expected, his sometime ally Fouché came in between two soldiers, dressed in a shabby coat and breeches; his thinning pale brown hair was unkempt, his skinny frame hunched over in a cringing kind of subservience. From long experience, Napoleon knew it was but a ruse, and worse than useless. Repulsive at the best of times, Fouché had a resemblance to a miniature greyhound when he wanted to appear humble.

  A ridiculous disguise today, unless he’d spent the one million two hundred thousand francs settled upon him earlier this year and run through the moneys coming to him above that from the senatorship of Aix. Never in history had a minister been dismissed with more honor and more lush payment than Joseph Fouché, and everyone knew he still ran every spy group in France worth knowing about. So what was the point of this little performance?

  Bonaparte hadn’t reached this current pinnacle of power by being stupid; yet there was no brain to match Fouché’s, in terms of pure cunning. A human phantom, he manipulated all the major players in France without the public ever being aware that he’d even done more than play a very minor part in the pageant . . . but since the near loss turned into stunning victory that had been the Battle of Marengo in 1800, Napoleon had Fouché’s measure. He might make use of the man’s mind, but he would never take his loyalty at face value. So what was this little pageant about? Why was he playing the supplicant?

  “Ah, Monsieur Fouché.” Bonaparte greeted his former minister of police with a smile. “It is good to see you so well, and flourishing.”

  Fouché’s answer to this sally was a thin returned smile. Since he’d been deposed as police minister he had to know his disguises were transparent to his leader, yet still he put them on. By now, even he probably didn’t know who the true Joseph Fouché was.

  With a brief salute, Napoleon’s soldiers left the office. Bonaparte swept a hand to a chair. Fouché sat on its edge, as if expecting a sword to pop up through the cushion. “My lord, it is such a pleasure to return to your presence,” he said when it was obvious his lord wouldn’t give him an opening to see which way he ought to jump. “In what way may I have the honor to serve you?”

  Whenever he was in the same room as Fouché, Napoleon felt as if he’d been drawn into a dark alley with pistols and knives aimed at his back. “You may tell me why your Jacobin and royalist spies have flooded the Channel Coast, and most especially why they attempt to enter Boulogne-sur-Mer and ingratiate themselves with M. Robert Fulton in Le Havre.”

  Fouché’s narrow eyes widened as a hand fluttered up, like a maiden’s. “But my lord, even though I am no longer the minister of police, which office you disabled in your wisdom, you must know I separated myself from the Jacobin party many years ago. I have not returned to them. And I was never a royalist, I assure you. Indeed, in the assembly, did I not vote la mort?”

  After assuring royalists the night before that you would vote to keep the king alive. And one day you’ll swear you were forced to vote “la mort.” Napoleon kept the thought to himself. He did not jump about when snakes hissed, but waited to see which way they’d slither. His was the power in France, and Fouché responded to its warmth like a sunflower.

  Eventually, Fouché murmured, “One hears rumors, my lord . . . one has friends. The Channel Coast is far, and the weather there is insalubrious to my weak chest. So I sent some friends to verify those rumors, for the protection of France.”

  Napoleon wasn’t about to ask anything. If he gave Fouché any indication, the man would know which lie to tell, what poison to whisper.

  Fouché sat watching him, like an expectant dog at table, waiting for that one crumb that would give away his master’s current mood. But Napoleon hadn’t survived two years as France’s leader by being stupid. His smile didn’t shift as he continued to wait. He knew who would break.

  “Pernicious rumors,” Fouché said at last. “Always there is chatter about conspiracies—”

  “But were there anything serious, you would soon see the evidence in the Place de la République,” Napoleon finished Fouché’s own quote of a few years before, alluding to death by guillotine without a trace of emotion. Nor did he remind Fouché that he himself had said those words to President Gohier the night before the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire.

  Though he’d showered Fouché with honors f
or a while, he’d known what kind of man he dealt with. Fouché had betrayed Robespierre, Barras, and Gohier in turn and had almost done so to him when the false rumor reached Paris that there had been disastrous losses at the Battle of Marengo. Fouché’s had been the highest praises when he’d returned the victor; but the conspicuous silence until then taught Napoleon that a chameleon always changes hue under fear of attack. “Tell me what you have learned.”

  With a swift sidelong glance that made Napoleon suppress a shudder, Fouché tested the first water. “I’ve heard vile rumors that you will put aside your wife to wed a Badenese princess—that, I beg your pardon, my lord, your family still wishes you to found a royal dynasty—”

  “Facts, not rumors, if you please,” Napoleon interrupted, without expression. “As none of my family currently resides on the Channel Coast, this information is somewhat redundant.”

  Fouché’s pale cheeks touched with color; his eyes flashed at being stopped midstride. He thrived on the cunning of Iago, watching the poison take root and flourish. Manipulation through secrets and innuendo was the breath of life to him.

  But Fouché would dance a Corsican two-step today. He must become too incontinent with fear to dare be seen showing loyalty to any but the first consul . . . at least until the Louisiana Purchase was signed, the payment sent to Paris. Then the snake could send his spies anywhere he wanted. Napoleon’s spies in Fouché’s camps kept him very well informed, and his men’s loyalty couldn’t be bought.

  After three more wearying tries to interest him in malicious rumors about his family or his more loyal generals, Fouché said at last, “British spies have been seen in the region.”

  Though Napoleon didn’t move, inside he jerked to attention. He waved a dismissive hand. “Ah, your favorite egress from my blaming your beloved Jacobins—the British. You have been trying to interest me in their doings since the Christmas Eve killings. I say bah to the Red Rose Team or the White, Mr. Windham’s famous teams with their pretty names: d’Assas, Lemaire, Tamerlan, and their fancy Pimpernel. They and Captain Wright, and the so-famous Sir Sidney Smith, they release minor prisoners we leave for them and gather only information we want them to know.”

  Ah, those heavy-lidded eyes flashed. Fouché hated his choice nuggets of knowledge being rubbished, but he replied meekly enough. “This is a new team, my lord. They’ve infiltrated Le Havre, Rouen, and Audresselles. A young Englishwoman works in a tavern in Abbeville that is a haunt for spies of every persuasion. Another Briton has just situated himself in Boulogne-sur-Mer, at a time when you are setting up the semaphore tower there—”

  Ah, here is the information I need. But instead of pushing, he smiled. “Ah, is not this young woman in Abbeville the wife of your protégé, thrown aside the day she gave him a son? Nicely trained by you, Citoyen Fouché. Perhaps he ought to be sent to Guiana with the others?”

  Another jolt of anger seared those repellent eyes. If there was one thing Fouché did care about, it was his family, his ugly wife and unattractive sons. He’d truly grieved when his children died. Though Napoleon despised underhand tactics, Fouché never cared when he left a family other than his own in grief. “If you will forgive me, the woman must be interned, my lord. My man repudiated her when he discovered that she’s a spy, a danger to loyal men of France.”

  Napoleon lifted his brows. “A girl reared in the country by her mother is a spy? A girl who spent the year pregnant and is working in a tavern? Now a boy perhaps I could credit. Sunderland’s sons are in the game, I know, but this chit? When did she find the time?”

  “She lives on a tavern wench’s wage,” Fouché murmured. “She must be receiving funds elsewhere, for she refuses to sleep with the tavern’s patrons to fill her coffers.”

  More poison Napoleon refused to swallow. “I see you believe it at least. Leave her, intern her, I care not, but a nobleman’s daughter is not to be killed. I will not hesitate to implicate you with the European Tribunal in anything you do.”

  “I do not have the power to do anything with her, my lord,” Fouché was quick to say, with no seeming resentment. “I am your humble servant alerting you to a danger I see.”

  “Then why did I need to send soldiers to bring you here before you informed me?”

  Fouché sat still and calm, but his cheeks had turned the sallow color of a good Brie. “I would not dare enter your presence without an invitation, my lord—ah, Citoyen Consul,” he added, in a seeming innocent slip. “I know my place.”

  One sneaking allusion to his family’s ambition he’d allowed; but no one, but no one insulted his sainted mother! Of course she wanted her son to rise above the rest, to have the honors given to him. Had he not more than earned it? “Did you not say that to your friend Gohier just before 18 Brumaire—or was it Barras?” he asked, not bothering to sheath his verbal sword. “Answer my original question, Monsieur Fouché, and not with an allusion or an attempted distraction, but with truth.”

  A rat in a trap, Fouché, with eyes blank, thought quickly. “I needed a final piece of information, my lord. I’d heard of a nefarious Jacobin scheme planned against the gendarmes of Abbeville by this English noblewoman and her British cohort, pretending to be a . . .”

  As Fouché went into his usual colorful detail, condemning this English girl and naming each of the local Jacobins—his former sworn friends, whom he now led to their deaths without a single regret—Napoleon let his thoughts drift. If a British spy was indeed in Boulogne, they couldn’t be allowed to leave or to send a message. He must get his best people onto that—

  “The man has a connection to Fulton, and to the Infernal Machine plot. I believe he has proof that the British gunpowder and shrapnel were supplied by Messieurs Pitt and Windham.”

  Napoleon snapped to attention. The infamous bomb on the rue Saint-Nicaise that killed and maimed so many people in 1800 haunted him still. That they had died in his city, under his rule, by a bomb meant for him, made him the soldier on watch who’d let the enemy sneak behind battle lines. He’d beheaded two Jacobins and sent many more to Guiana; but it wasn’t enough. It never would be.

  What had Fouché said? It took but a moment to remember the details. The Briton at the tavern—the Sunderland girl’s seeming cohort—had a connection to Robert Fulton, whose inventions were far more interesting than he’d so far let on. “If that’s so, I expect you would already have brought them both to me for questioning.”

  Fouché smiled, thin and satisfied. Iago indeed, happy to find his version of control. “My man is, shall we say, forcing the issue at present.”

  So he had no confession or proof as yet. “Neither is to be killed until they’re interrogated and identified. Tell Monsieur Delacorte that his unwanted wife is to be left alive.” He saw the eager flash pass through his former minister’s eyes. “No, it is best if you do not involve yourself. I will send a semaphore myself on the subject—as you say, there is now a tower in the town. I will let Delacorte know my men will be sent to the region. Any men you have there may retire when mine arrive. Your cooperation is appreciated, Citoyen Senator Fouché.”

  A moment’s darkness in Fouché’s eyes, then he smiled again. If there was one thing Fouché understood, it was patience. He would be raised again; they both knew that. His brilliance would ensure it. He stood, bowed, murmured some praises, and left Napoleon’s presence.

  When he was alone, Napoleon smiled, having got the information he’d sought.

  Fouché kept his face completely impassive until he was back in his charming château on the Île-de-France, where none could follow or watch him. Then he smiled. He’d planted the seed; Bonaparte’s paranoia would water it, and the British spies on the Channel Coast would make it grow. They’d find the clues he’d left for them and foil his lord’s mighty plot.

  He had a prince ready to step into the excellent financial condition in which Bonaparte had left France. Unlike the arrogant Prince de Condé or the stupid Louis XVIII, his prince had learned the lessons of Louis’s be
heading and would end the threat of war that the kings and lords of Austria, Russia, and Britain, burning for revenge and terrified of rule by any but those born and bred to power, would declare on France before long.

  And Fouché would be the one holding the strings to make the new king dance.

  CHAPTER 15

  Somme River, Abbeville

  BRING HER TO THE trapdoor. I’ll cover you.”

  Cal’s voice right behind his ear startled Duncan. He moved faster, ignoring the glass digging into hands and knees. Cal went to the only possible exit, now that the walls were gone: the trapdoor over the river. He lifted it for Duncan, and then piled up wall rubble around himself for protection.

  As Duncan passed a sprawl of bodies, one head lifted. Luc Marron’s bleary eyes met Duncan’s, and saw the knife in his hand. “I have four daughters. Please. I wouldn’t hurt Elise.”

  He ought to question the man—but if Cal had been part of the group for months, there would be little he didn’t know. He glanced at Lisbeth lying in dirt and blood, and saw the mark of a handprint on her cheek. He turned back in time to see Marron wince. With cold precision he pulled the Nock off his back and whacked Marron on the head with the side of the stock. If the Frenchman’s slump were a ruse, he wouldn’t stop him from taking the girl.

  His gloves and breeches shredded on the broken glass as he crawled; little shards lodged in his skin. Shots whizzed past him. Cal answered with shots. “Hurry, lad.”

  An eerie silence fell as Duncan reached her. Not even a bird chirped. Delacorte must be alone now, either looking for discarded weapons or reloading. Or he was watching, waiting to shoot.

  Lying flat, Duncan cut her bonds. A tiny exhalation came from her lips; blood pumped from her shoulder, sluggish. The glass had gone in so deep he didn’t dare pull it out. With his arms beneath her back and legs he strapped her to him, but every movement he made caused fresh bleeding. Rolling onto his back, he laid her body across him, feeling her blood drip on his skin.