by Leda Swann
Her son was sleeping quietly in his cradle, snuffling gently as he breathed in and out. She held the candle up so that a soft beam of light fell on him. He lay on his back, his eyes shut tight and a small smile playing over his face. Her heart swelling with love for him, she bent down to kiss his smooth cheeks. He mumbled a little in his sleep and waved one chubby fist in the air.
Poor, fatherless boy that he was. She had sacrificed Pierre for her son. Her boy would grow up respecting his mother and his grandfather, knowing that they were strong enough to avenge any wrong done to them. No one would dare to call him bastard in his hearing or in hers.
She wiped away the tears that started to fall as she thought of Pierre, alone and friendless at the last, fighting to the death to give her a chance to escape. He had died with her name on his lips and with love for her in his heart. Maybe he was less guilty than she had always thought him to be. Maybe he really had loved her.
She blew out the candle and padded softly into the chamber she shared with Suzanne whenever she stayed at the cottage. It was too late for doubts and recriminations, she told herself, as she climbed into the bed beside Suzanne. By now Pierre would be dead, and from death there was no return.
One of the tasks she had set herself was complete - she had avenged herself on her faithless lover by leading him to his death. She shivered under the bedclothes, hugging herself to keep warm. The chill of the winter air had seeped into her bones and she could not get it out again.
Beside her, Suzanne stirred and yawned. “Are you awake?” she whispered softly in the darkness.
As if she could sleep on such a night! Despite her exhaustion, she was as wide awake as if it were broad day. “Yes, I am.”
“Who is chasing you? Robbers? Thieves?”
If only it were that easy. Thieves, even highwaymen, she could deal with. “King’s guards.”
Suzanne gave a gasp of horror. “What have you done wrong?”
It was all so complicated. How could she explain that she had been maneuvered into committing treason, and then betrayed by the very person who had solicited her services? “I tried to start a rebellion against the King. Unfortunately for all of France – and most particularly for me - it failed.”
Suzanne gave a snort of disbelief. “You didn’t!”
“Yes, I did.”
There was silence for a moment as Suzanne digested the information. “You cannot go back to being a Musketeer then?” she said at last, sounding as if she hardly dared to hope.
Courtney stared into the darkness. How completely she had burned her bridges behind her. She would never dare even to put on men’s clothes again for fear of being recognized. William Ruthgard, Musketeer in the King’s Guard, was dead for ever. “Never. If I were ever to be caught, the King would hang me for certain.”
Suzanne sighed with contentment. “You will stay at home with me and bonny little Luc? He is such a good boy and he had missed you terribly. Maybe we can even move back into the country where we used to live, close to Lyons, and be happy there.”
She had not realized that Suzanne hankered to return to Lyons. “You liked living in the country?”
Suzanne was quiet for a moment. “The blacksmith in the village where we lived...” Her voice trailed off into an awkward silence.
The village blacksmith? Courtney searched her memory for any knowledge of him, but the best she could come up with was a shadowy image of a youngish man with fair hair and the well-muscled arms of every blacksmith she’d ever seen. She had never noticed him in particular, but obviously Suzanne had. “You liked him well?”
“He was kind to me when I was lonely. I have missed him since I have been here.”
She knew only too well the heart-aching loneliness of being without the one you loved. “You have an understanding with him?”
Suzanne nodded in the darkness. “He said he would wait for me until we returned. I told him I would not hold him to his promise as I did not know if we would ever be back, but he insisted that he wanted no one else.”
She would strive not be envious of her own son’s nursemaid. “You are a lucky woman, to have his heart.”
Suzanne sighed in the darkness. “Cosette, the daughter of your cook, fancied him madly for a time. I have no doubt she is trying to turn him away from me in my absence.”
What could she say to reassure Suzanne? She was no expert in matters of the heart – this very night she had been the death of the only man she had ever loved, and the only man who had ever loved her. She was worse than poison to those who loved her. “Do not fret over Cosette. If he truly loves you, he will not stray with her, even in his thoughts.”
Suzanne sniffed softly. “I have been faithful to him since I left, in both thought and deed,” she said, in a wavering voice that showed how close she was to tears. “I can only hope he has been so to me.”
They lay silent in the darkness once more, quiet as mice, though neither of them slept. The noise of horse’s hooves coming closer kept them on edge.
Finally came the noise they had been expecting and fearing for so long – a hammering on the door.
Courtney rose from the bed and flung a warm shawl around her shoulders. “Stay here,” she instructed Suzanne. “I will go to the door.”
She left the chain on the latch as she opened the door as fraction. “Who is there? What do you want?”
The guards were in no mood to be polite. “We are seeking a false rebel – a Musketeer turned traitor to the King,” one of them said. “He was last seen heading in this direction. He is deadly dangerous – and will be a desperate man, stopping at nothing to save his pitiful skin. Have you see him this night?”
Courtney shook her head in its white mob cap. “There is no man in the house. Just me and my young son, a mere babe in arms, and his nursemaid."
The guard looked at her suspiciously. “Where is your husband?”
She wiped a tear from her eye. “I am a widow.” That was true enough. The man she had promised to wed, the only man she would ever love, was dead now for certain. “My husband, God bless his soul, was taken from me over a year ago. He did not even get to see the sweet face of his only son.” It was not difficult for her to seem sad and weepy – she wanted to bawl in earnest at the thought of Pierre being hacked to pieces by this mob.
He seemed moved by her evident sorrow. “No stranger has come knocking on your door this evening?”
She put a hand to her mouth as if to hide an expression of shock. “Indeed, no. I would not let a stranger in to my house after dark for all the tea in China.”
He was anxious to get away now he had ascertained she was not harboring his quarry. “May we look around your property, to ensure he is not hiding here?”
She gave a little shriek of terror. “You think he may be hiding here?”
“It is possible. We cannot rule it out.”
“Please, please, look over everywhere you please – only take a care not to trample the kitchen garden, if you would. Do not forget to take a look around my little stables, and through all the hedgerows in the fields, and under every stone. I will never sleep safely in my bed with a nasty rebel lurking in the neighborhood. Heaven knows, he might try to snatch my poor baby and take him off to make a heretic and a traitor out of my poor innocent boy.”
He had already half-turned his back towards her by the time she had finished speaking. “Indeed, Madame, if he is here, rest assured that I will find him. Keep your door bolted against the night, and do not bother your pretty head about him.” He turned in his heel and he and his followers disappeared into the night.
What fools men were, Courtney thought with a bitter smile as she returned to her bedchamber and climbed back into bed beside Suzanne. Let her just put on the act of a foolish woman, and they could not see beyond it.
They had discounted the entire household as unimportant because a man did not live there. All her precautions had been unnecessary – her pursuers had been too blinded by her sex to bother further
with her.
She wondered what they would say if they ever discovered that their fierce, wild rebel was a woman after all – a woman in her nightgown and her bed cap who had just sent them packing with the help of a few false tears. It would almost be worth telling them, just to see their incredulous faces.
She doubted they would believe her even if she confessed to her dual identity. They looked at her and saw only a woman. They did not see a soldier.
Not even Pierre had seen through her disguise and known her for what she was. His blindness had been the cause of his death. He had trusted her – and she had led him to ruin in the end.
She had been as false to him as ever he had been to her. She had won his trust, led him into a rebellion, and then abandoned him like a coward at the end. He had given his life to save hers, and she had accepted his sacrifice without argument. She had not stayed to fight at his side, but had run for the woods, to save her own sorry skin.
She would not feel guilty for what she had done, she told herself, as bitter tears streamed down her face to run unheeded into the soft down of the bolster beneath her head. She would not even feel sorry for him, dying alone in the dark for her sake. He had never known her for who she really was – not even at the end. He had been so blind and so stupid that he deserved to die.
Chapter 9
The soldiers returned the next day when it was light, their faces black as thunderclouds and their tempers strained to the breaking-point. They shouldered Suzanne aside roughly when she came to answer their knock. “We need to search the house,” was all they said by way of explanation.
Courtney fluttered around them as they searched through her few chambers. “You haven’t found the nasty rebel yet? Oh dear. I shan’t feel safe in my bed knowing that he is still on the loose.”
They paused at the sight of Courtney’s newly polished boots in the corner of the kitchen. “Whose are these?” one of them asked, holding up one of them by the heel.
Courtney was fluttering around them. “Those are mine, I have to confess. My late husband had a pair just like them, and I just fell in love with them. They are so good for riding in, and so comfortable. They are the softest leather you can think of. Just feel the quality. I wear them when I go out riding in the lanes on my sweet mare.”
The guard tossed the boot to the floor again with an irritated grunt. Her silly chatter was evidently getting on his nerves, just as she had intended it to do. “It’s too small for a man’s foot, anyway.”
Thank the Lord that she had reasonably small feet for a woman, and thank Him even more that men were too blind to see what was right in front of their eyes.
She had a disquieting moment when they stopped in front of the fireplace and peered in, but they wanted nothing more than to warm their hands and moved on again.
The telltale buttons from her jacket were securely hidden in a crock of lard in the pantry. Early that morning she had poked them deep into the lard and smoothed over the top again. They opened the pantry and took a look inside, but no more than that. They were looking for a man, and only a man. Nothing else was of any interest to them.
They were just about to leave when one of them asked. “That horse in the stable. Is it yours?”
Courtney kept her face composed into the look of silly worry that she had pasted on it ever since they had first come knocking at her door. “Yes, indeed it is. A beautiful mare she is, too. Quiet and gentle as a lamb.” She sighed a little. “She was a present from my husband – the last gift he ever gave me. I cannot bear to part from her, though indeed, she is a finer horse than I need in my station of life. I do so enjoy to ride her about the lanes hereabouts. When I am on her back, it makes me feel that my beloved Charles is still close to me, though he has been dead and gone for more than a year now.”
Just as she had hoped, her speech had their eyes glazing over and their feet tapping with impatience in moments. “Thank you for your help,” the leader of them said as they strode out again and mounted their horses. “Take care. He may still be in the neighborhood.”
“Do catch him,” she said, as she stood in the door of her cottage and waved them good bye. “I shall not feel safe until he is caught. Do come back and let me know when you have caught him.”
She stood in the door of the cottage until they had disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust. Then she went back inside, lay down on her bed and laughed and cried until her sides hurt.
She was safe. She had revenged herself on Pierre, who had loved and betrayed her. She need only warn Miriame of the danger she was in at Brest and rescue her father from prison. Once that was done, she could retire to the country with her son.
She had no time for weeping over her lost love. The time for that was long gone. She had to focus on the tasks at hand. While she was stillin Brest, Miriame’s life was in immediate danger. Warning her must come first.
It was a nuisance that she could no longer travel as a man. That would have been faster and safer. As it was, she would have to take a carriage and travel in greater style, though not exactly greater comfort. Her bones still ached from riding for her life yester eve. The jolting of a carriage or the jolting of horseback riding both sounded equally unpleasant.
She said goodbye to her baby Luc the next morning with tears in her heart. How she hoped she would be back to see him once again before too long. Each day that she was away from him was more difficult to bear. He was growing so fast and so strong – just like his father.
She wiped a drop of moisture from her eye. Her little Luc only had one parent now. More than ever before, he needed her. He needed a mother’s love – the poor thing would never know a father’s. She would keep herself safe for him.
With the sad eyes of little Luc pulling her heartstrings, she set off down the road, riding sidesaddle with her skirts tugging at her legs.
At the nearest town, she hired the best carriage she could find. It was shabby enough, but it seemed sound and the horses to pull it were small and sturdy. They could not travel fast, but they pulled steadily without tiring. She left her mare behind as surety for payment. The landlord of the inn where she hired the carriage was not loath to make the exchange - her fine-blooded animal was worth thrice what the carriage and both horses together was.
Five days later she had bumped all the way to Brest. The plucky little horses that had carried her there were tired to the bone now, their heads were drooping with weariness and they barely had the energy to flick their tails and chase away the flies that hovered around them. She put up at the nearest inn and ordered the stable boy to give them a good brushing and as much of the best corn as they could eat. He looked surprised at the care she showed towards the sorry-looking beasts, but when she frowned at him he hurried to do her bidding.
The afternoon shadows had lengthened into twilight by the time she had hired a hackney and made her way to the wharves. They had agreed on a meeting place where Miriame would stay until they came for her, but she was not at the inn where they had agreed to meet.
She dismissed her hackney and wandered along, looking at the ships tied up in the harbor. A couple of rough-looking sailors catcalled after her, and one of them went to grab her, only to back down again with a muttered apology when he found himself with her well-sharpened knife pressed up against his throat.
She passed another inn and the noise of rattling dice burst in on her ear. Gambling – that was Miriame’s favorite vice. Wherever there was a game of dice going on, Miriame was always in the thick of it – cheating more often than not, she suspected.
She peered in the half-open door of the inn, unwilling to go inside into the darkness where she would be easy to surround and her knife would be less easy to get at. No Miriame as far as she could see.
No Miriame, but something she was far less glad to see. Soldiers. Lots of soldiers. Talking with them were a couple of men, one tall and pockmarked, the other short and shifty-looking, both of them in the rough garb and rolling gait of sailors.
; She walked along the wharves faster now, with a real purpose to her step. Miriame was being hunted – if she was not already caught. She was so intent on looking for the next inn where rough sailors could wager a few sous on the throw of a dice that she almost missed her comrade cross the street right in front of her. She lifted her head just in time to see Miriame’s unmistakable swagger disappearing into an alleyway that led directly to the wharves with the tall sailor she had just seen talking with the soldiers.
It was a trap set by the King’s men to catch Miriame – she was sure of it. The King knew only that someone in Brest was a traitor to him – and that someone wanted a ship. As soon as Miriame confessed to the spying sailor what she wanted, she would be taken.
She was dressed as a woman and could not fight her way through to Miriame. Like the woman she was, she would have to be sneakier about it. There was no time for pride. She did what she had to do.
Breaking into a run, she dashed after them. “Monsieur, Monsieur,” she called out in a whiny voice.
The two ignored her and did not stop. She dashed right up and pulled on Miriame’s sleeve. “Monsieur, did you forget to pay me?”
Miriame’s eyes widened at the sight of Courtney, dressed as a woman, but she didn’t bat an eyelid. “What do you want?” she asked in a bored voice, drawing her a little aside from her companion.
“You promised me ten francs,” Courtney whined aloud, while into Miriame’s ear she whispered, “get out of here. It’s a trap. They’re looking for you.”
Miriame doffed her hat. “Beg your pardon, sweetheart. In my hurry to do business with this gentleman here, it must have slipped my mind.” She turned to her sailor companion and gave him a broad wink. “If you will excuse me for just a moment, I will be right with you. A gentleman must always pay his debts of honor.”
As soon as they were round the corner and out of sight of the alleyway, they broke into a run, not stopping until they had reached Courtney’s chamber in the inn on the outskirts of town. The soldiers didn’t know exactly who they were looking for, save that he wanted to hire a ship to England. They would be safe enough there for the moment.
