by Baird Wells
John had shackled DuFresne's arm with one hand and was digging her own small knife into her back with the other. Frozen, she stared down at the blade's point, piercing her shirt. He was jesting. He must be. Olivia blinked and shook her head, meeting his eyes. John was not betraying her. He could not be.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered. “England can never handle France the way that Austria can.” He shoved DuFresne past her, down a few steps, still pressing her with the knife. “You'll stay here.”
She didn't comprehend what he meant until a lean leg shot out, clearing her feet from under her. Olivia dropped to her backside on the landing, her pride more wounded than her body, while John took DuFresne down the stairs two at a time.
Bastard. She berated herself. She’d committed one of the worst errors a spy could: trusting the wrong person. Their engagement, her assumption that they were on the same side; she never thought that he’d do something like this, but she should have.
Well, he didn’t know her very well, either. Especially if he thought she would take this lying down.
The noise drew the other two men who’d stormed the house back into the hallway. They weren’t assassins; probably John's companions, if she had to guess. The timing was too coincidental. He’d probably directed them to cause a commotion shortly after he climbed in the window, distracting her and giving them a reason to team up. Smart.
Scrambling up, Olivia shot for the door behind her as her pursuers closed the distance between them.
Digging her shoes into the wood and her back into the door, she managed to seat it against the force of their shoulders just long enough to close the lock. It would hold them for a few moments, but not forever. She needed a way out. The window. It was the obvious starting place, but one glance told her it was not an option. It had no balcony and no real handholds.
The door shuddered under a blow from outside.
Olivia threw open both halves of the window and turned around, searching the room.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Battle crested on all sides around Ty. Before him, men moaned, others roaring feral cries at their enemy. Horses screamed, wounded by stray shells, while their burning ammunition wagons popped and hissed, warning of impending explosions. Four hundred heavy guns kept time, giving a measured tempo to the chaos.
Suddenly, something changed, a tide shifted, and the guns shook the earth one last time. Then, everything around him – neighing, shouts, gunfire – all was quiet. The absence of noise nearly caused his ears to throb.
Napoleon's battery, belching out the smoke of hell all day, had fallen silent. Ty didn't trust it. The Grand Batterie was unmatched in its deadliness and accuracy. Well supplied and hardly in danger of being overrun, there was only one reason they would stop firing.
Thunder rolled out beyond low hills behind the French guns. He knew the sound for what it was, by its rhythm and because the enemy would not risk firing on its own. Cavalry.
Hoof beats grew louder. Lines appeared through clouds of pewter smoke coming over hills bordering a half-burned farmstead. Marshal Ney's cuirassiers formed an impenetrable wall, breastplates gleaming dully under what little sun filtered down from above. Red plumes waved atop their helmets with a predatory twitch, warning that they were about to strike. They were veterans, men who'd done enough killing to make the slaughter before them perfectly routine.
A decade ago Ty would have been intimidated, green, and feeling alone on the field. Napoleon had given him an education over the last ten years. Now, he felt only a grim determination. They might get the better of him, but he would make them question the effort for a long time to come.
“Form up! Clean lines, you rabble!” He barked orders down to his inherited cavalry, leaderless thanks to an enemy rifle company. They were regrouped now, after a brilliant route near the sunken road.
A piercing whistle broke his attention from the horses. Raising in the saddle, he caught sight of Matthew, soot-covered and bloody-faced, perched on a nearby ridge.
Matthew held up three fingers, shouting down the fracas. “Three hundred yards!”
Ty's gaze snapped to the field, measuring angle and distance with lightning calculations. Had the general lost his mind? “That's half of my effective range!”
Nodding, Matthew held up both hands, indicating a narrow space.
Understanding began to dawn. His guns could reach nearly seven hundred yards, but not well. Matthew was telling him to lure the French in, let them get close. Their own men would be at risk, but they could serve heavier casualties on the enemy.
Matthew raised three fingers. “Let them come! Three hundred yards, understood?”
He didn't wait for Ty's salute, back to shouting orders at his infantry. “Prepare to receive… cavalry!”
Ty felt dread at the order. He knew it well; any experienced infantryman did; it gave them pause. A wall of heavy horse hurtling toward you at full speed was a death sentence.
He skimmed the ridge while Matthew rode his line, giving directions. When the general reached the north end of the ridge, Ty caught his voice once more.
Matthew raised his saber skyward. “Havercake lads, who leads the way?”
Heart hammering, Ty raised his own blade, yelling in time with hundreds of his brothers. “The thirty-third does!”
Matthew thrust his saber higher, raising in the saddle. “For the Duke of Wellington!”
French horsemen ate up smoldering ground into a position that brought them against their enemy, and also into the range of his guns.
A ferocious cry went up, racing through the lines like wildfire. In answer to their battle-roar, Ty dropped his sword level with the horizon. Six guns and two howitzers shuddered their report, blanketing the ridge in thunder and smoke. In spite of damp ground, shots found their mark. Shells bounced, tore, stirring up screams. A front rank of French heavy cavalry tumbled into the dust. Few horses and fewer men got up from the deadly tangle.
Snapping open his lens, Ty surveyed the damage. It was not the decisive blow he’d hoped for. The cavalry charge was broken and the French infantry fell short, but they were persistent. Their guns made up the difference, cutting down whole swaths of Matthew's men. In spite of brutal losses, the French were gaining ground.
The center lines heaved, buckled. It was only a matter of time before the French broke through.
Shouts went up to his left, this time from the rear. Ty wheeled Alvanley in time to see their Hussar reinforcements turn and trot away.
“Von Hacke!” Ty grabbed his hat and threw it to the dirt. “Von Hacke!” he screamed again. “You son of a bitch, turn back!”
The commander heard him, Ty had no doubt. The cavalryman threw him a sharp-eyed glance over his shoulder, then hunched and spurred his horse forward.
“Goddamn coward.” Ty pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to work some order into their dire situation. Olivia always knew what to do in a bad spot. Not that she knew anything about tactics, but she didn't need to. Olivia was the best he had ever seen at grasping something entirely foreign and snapping sense into it.
A shout cut his thoughts in two, and Ty realized he'd been far away for a moment.
A crease-faced Lieutenant Simmons trotted up beside him, lifting his shako to reveal a stubbled head, the only clean skin left on his body. “The Cumberlands are fleein', sir. What's your order?” Ty knew that he was asking if they should retreat, as well.
The situation might look hopeless, but they were committed till the end. Smoothing his coat sleeve, Ty straightened in the saddle. He raised an arm and pointed out toward the column of smoke where the village of Plancenoit had stood that morning. “My order is for guns to aim northeast and fire.” Raising in the stirrups, he turned to catch the eye of every gun crew in sight. “You will fire on that mark until one of two things occurs: until you have no ammunition or until you take a French bayonet to the chest. Understood?”
“Aye, sir!”
“Bring the smoke!” he shouted, willi
ng them to mend what seemed irreversible.
Their answer was swift, and the shelling began at two minutes, by his count. A volley struck well beyond their own lines, deep against the French, stemming one small stream of the greater flood.
Ty refused to lose hope, but there was no fighting pragmatism. Slipping one finger into his breast pocket, he felt for Olivia's ring and pulled it out. He slipped it into place on his third finger. If he died, he would be wearing it. And maybe it would bring them luck. At the very least, it gave him comfort.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Olivia exhaled slowly, willing herself to be flatter against the canopy slats. She also willed herself to weigh less, appreciating with every faint groan from below her feet that the boards were intended for nothing heavier than thick fabric. Footsteps circled the bed beneath her. Wardrobe doors opened and slammed shut. Something whooshed, she guessed the bed skirt being flipped back.
“Where in the hell is she?”
A sigh. “He said she was crafty.”
“He wasn't wrong. But he'll have both our arses if she gets the better of us.”
Footsteps, to her left. “Window's open. You don't think...”
“She came in that way...”
Boots pounded across the rug, headed out to the hallway. Olivia waited until she heard them on the stairs before raising up. She arched, ready to swing her legs over the side of the canopy. Creaking one last warning, the canopy's frame cracked, plunging her to the mattress. She would have laughed had she been able to suck in a breath. The day was slowly progressing from bad to worse. At last able to pull air into burning lungs, she jumped up and ran for the stairs, nearly toppling a white-haired housekeeper who froze gape-mouthed in her path.
She suspected that her pursuers had reached the back of the house now. Gaining the sidewalk, Olivia acted on her hunch, running west like a madwoman with the flow of the crowd. Remembering John’s alleged plan, she scoffed. 'East' her backside. John wasn't taking DuFresne east to the coach stop. She'd bet good coin that he'd come in a carriage, and that meant he would park close and leave in a direction which offered the least resistance: with, not against the mob.
John had gained at least a five-minute head start, but she was one person weaving through the crowd. He'd had to manage a captive, and Olivia prayed that had bought her some time.
Rue Vimier opened onto a small, fountain-centered square before branching into a Y farther east. The crowd bustled through on its way to the Place Nationale, leaving the edges empty and making the only two carriages present easy to spot. She immediately discounted the one on her right. It was too large, too modern, and far too conspicuous. To her left was a more modest conveyance, with black paint weathered from the step and its canopy leather dry and chapped. It was as common as a vehicle could be and was the most likely target.
Skirting buildings, weaving between people loitering to watch the parade, Olivia aligned herself with the back of the carriage just in time to see gray trouser legs disappearing inside. John. No time to congratulate herself on her correct guess. She had to move.
Tugging her red cap farther down, she rushed the coach as it lurched forward. It took two lunging strides, but she caught a footman's handle and pulled herself up. A bounce caused the driver to look back over his shoulder. He scowled from under his hat brim. “Get off, vagrant!”
Pointing a finger to the cab, Olivia sneered and spit back in French. “I am with the monsieur and his guest.”
He hesitated, and for a moment she feared he would get down and summon John. She decided to strike preemptively. “Climb down and ask him. Then you can have your fee cut in half, for the wait.”
Looking sour at the prospect, he eyed her one more time. The mention of a fee must have legitimized her claim in his mind, and Olivia sighed in relief. The bluff had been sloppy, but effective enough. The driver snapped his reins, and they jostled forward a few feet at a time, pushing into a crush of bodies moving across the square.
At the north side, a group of people constricted around them. Chanting housewives with red scrubbed faces, young men with philosophical beards and poet hair, old men crying out through gapped teeth; they were pushing past, trying to reach Place Nationale, and were blocked more by their brothers and sisters than by the carriage. Through their masks of hate and discontent, Olivia could already predict which way the blame would fall for the delay.
No one should be riding, a woman’s voice cried out. Citizens should walk, another cried out. Only a monarchy dog would put his chaise in the way of the people. Get out on your feet, they demanded. The voices came from all around her, and she braced for inevitable violence.
Bodies pressed closer, rocking the carriage, its frame groaning under the pressure. Fingers dug into her back, twisting a fistful of shirt and dragging. The driver slapped his reins without result, waving a hand and shouting for the crowd to move while his horses reared and screamed. Two women on her left grabbed a wheel and began to tug.
“They'll tear us down!” she cried to the driver, willing him to do more than swear.
He turned back, tossing something over the cab.
A whip.
“I'll knock some heads,” he called back, raising a smooth oak club. “You swat 'em back good!”
It was one thing to injure, even to kill an adversary. Whipping a crowd of people made her far more uncomfortable, even if they did have murder in their eyes. Olivia squeezed the leather grip tighter in her palm. She needed John, she needed DuFresne, and she had to get out of the city. She looked them over again, at their hot dead eyes, the spit flying from lips curled back, voices propelling vitriolic shouts; these were people on the edge of anarchy. These were the same people, she reminded herself, who had torn her mother limb from limb. They were crazed, irrational. Every sane man and woman had fled Paris days ago, or locked themselves inside.
Olivia raised the thong up over her shoulder and began to strike.
For a moment, it had the desired effect. Guttural animal screams rose up behind hands and arms shielding faces. Bodies in the front turned away, stumbled back. It only served to inflame the ranks behind them, convinced now that their accusations of the coach's occupants were justified.
They surged, forcing the welted and bleeding closer, even tumbling and stomping them. Olivia's chest pounded. She hoped John was smart enough to keep his head in the cab, both for his safety and so he wouldn’t notice her on top of the carriage.
She skimmed her surroundings, observing the crowd on all sides, realizing there was nowhere to run. Ty would have thought it out better. He would have had a daring plan and a sound escape. She hadn't really factored in his absence when she'd concocted her Paris scheme, hadn’t thought she would need to. She imagined his smug, handsome expression as he told her so, that she should have stayed out of Paris. She just had to stay alive that long.
A stone kissed her cheekbone, radiating threads of pain behind her eye. Another one barely missed her shoulder. Raising the whip, she struck harder, faster, beginning to doubt the possibility of making it across the square.
* * *
Ty hunched his shoulder forward, spitting into his wound. He’d been grazed for a third time. The injuries would have been bearable – after a few minutes the throbbing dulled and the injury became almost numb – but powder smoke burned raw flesh like a spoonful of salt. Still, it was preferable to a ball between the eyes.
A gunny, hunched lower than he should be able while still running, rushed up to him from the left. The man's soot-caked lips moved, but all that came out was a belch from the Grand Batterie.
Ty leaned down from Alvanley's back and cupped his ear. “What!”
“I’m D-Troop, sir. Gun six is dead for ammo! There's nothing to spare.”
“Where's your commander?”
The gunner raked a finger over his sweat streaked neck. “Got no head, sir.”
Ty swatted a frustrated hand over his shoulder. “Send them back, goddammit! Send them back!”
&
nbsp; Thumbing a salute, the sergeant loped back into the smoke. A breath later, drums beat out D Troop’s retreat.
He couldn't give ammo to another detachment. His men were already rationing, and he'd be damned if they abandoned their guns over something so simple. French streamed through their center, a seemingly unstoppable hole in the dam, but at least he could give enough fire to allow an infantry retreat.
A bullet sung past, cutting through his saddlebag and charring the edge of dispatches inside. The fighting had moved to their doorstep, French and Allied mingled together in a bloody crush. Taking the gunner's message as a warning, he decided to conserve ammunition. Ty raised an arm. “G Troop, cease fire!”
More carbine shots winged past. The French skirmishers were growing bolder. “Get down! On the field, all of you!” He exhaled his frustration when a tardy shot rang out. “That's for you as well, second gun! Unless you don't need your heads to fire that thing.”
Bullets harassed his crews, favoring guns three and four where they sat exposed by a dip in the ridge. Losing patience, Ty spurred Alvanley out ahead of his now quiet battery, promenading down his line.
“You've shown us your asses,” he called out in French, forcing his voice above the clang of bayonets farther out, “now show your faces, cowards!”
Chortling came from his left, and a handful more reports from his right. His mocking was having the desired effect, drawing fire to himself and away from his crews. Wheeling Alvanley, he trotted back south. “Whites of eggs in your veins!” He shook a fist. “Moldy cheese where your cocks ought to be. Show me a real Frenchman!”
A shot tore the loose fabric at his arm pit. Laughing madly, adrenaline pumping through him, Ty ducked and tapped his horse forward. Olivia would have come up with cleverer insults, but he imagined she would be amused by his.
Out along the low plain, infantry began to move, forming up. That meant a cavalry charge.
