4 Under Siege

by Edward Marston

  ‘And was he the same person you accompanied to the town hall that night? While you kept watch, was your friend – this married man you entertained – climbing on a rope that stretched from a church tower to the roof of the building?’

  She was flustered. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘We suspect that you were involved in the theft of something from the town hall that night, Madame Borrel. Information has come into our hands, suggesting that you were an accomplice. A woman answering your description – and it fits you exactly – was seen leaving the scene of the crime with a man.’ His smile was icy. ‘No doubt the pair of you celebrated your success by retiring to bed together.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Indeed, that may have been the reward for your assistance.’

  ‘Don’t insult me.’

  ‘Tell me the truth, Madame Borrel.’

  ‘You’ve mistaken me for someone else.’

  ‘Nobody would do that,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, trying to work it out in her head, ‘I think I can see what happened. Someone has laid false accusations against me and I think I know who it is. It must be the wife of the man I spent the night with. She’s done this out of spite. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Well,’ she said with a forced laugh, ‘I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. Set me free and I’ll be on my way. But before I go, Captain,’ she added, ‘I have some ointment in my saddlebag that will cure that rash for you.’

  Her offer enraged him. ‘I want none of your fake remedies,’ he snarled. ‘What I want is the truth and I haven’t heard even a whisper of it so far. Two nights ago, you claim, you had a lover – but you won’t give his name. His wife informed against you yet she too, it seems, is nameless. The reason for that, of course, is that she doesn’t exist.’

  ‘But she does, Captain – I swear it!’

  ‘Then tell me where I can find her and she’ll be summoned. If this lady really has laid a false accusation against you, then she’ll take your place in here and you’ll be free to go.’ He stood over her. ‘Well, Madame, don’t you want to get out of here?’

  Rachel was trapped. Captain Aumonier was far too shrewd to be hoodwinked. At least she now knew why she’d been put in gaol but it brought her little comfort. It was ironic. In acting as Daniel’s wife, she’d been aiding and abetting an enemy agent. That couldn’t be denied. Yet she’d been arrested for something that she hadn’t actually done. At a time when Daniel Rawson was slipping out of the town hall with a stolen map, Rachel had been snoring happily in bed.

  ‘We take this matter seriously, Madame,’ resumed Aumonier. ‘You and I both know what was stolen that night. As a result, we can only conclude that you were working for the enemy. I’ll give you the opportunity to reflect on the situation. When we next meet, I hope that you’ll have come to your senses and be prepared to tell the truth. If not,’ he said, calmly, ‘I’ll order your execution.’

  Rachel felt as if she’d just been hit by a runaway horse.

  Daniel’s first task that morning was to take a close look at the gaol. He had a hazy idea of its internal structure from the sketch drawn by Bette Lizier but that would be useless if he could find no way to get inside the building. Welbeck had expected to go with him but was instead sent off with Raymond to familiarise himself with the town and to inspect each of its gates. Daniel wanted to know through which of them they could most easily escape. Wearing the nondescript clothing into which he’d changed, he now ambled along with his hands in his pockets and his cap pulled down. In the crowded main streets, nobody gave him a second glance.

  There was one consolation. Rachel Rees was being held in the old town gaol. Had she been incarcerated in the citadel, Lille’s giant keep, the chances of rescuing her would have been virtually non-existent. It was so well defended that Daniel would never have been able to get anywhere near the prisoner. As it was, his problems were significant enough. The gaol was an ugly, square, stone building of three storeys, with armed guards outside the double doors at the front. Daniel could see no obvious way of gaining illegal access. When he circled it for the first time, there was no conveniently adjacent church from which he could string a rope across to the roof of the gaol. Indeed, any attempt to climb to the top of the building would be hazardous. The smooth stone offered no footholds.

  He withdrew to a tavern from which he could study the gaol through a window. As he sipped his wine, he let his gaze run up and down its full length. He saw some visitors arrive at the main gate. After a short discussion with the guards, they were turned away. The incident took less than a minute but it implanted a seed in Daniel’s mind. He sat there long enough for it to grow into a vague plan. When he finished his drink, he stepped back out into the street to make another circuit of the gaol. Bette Lizier had told him that Rachel’s cell was on the first floor at the rear of the building. When he walked to the street at the back, Daniel was looking up at a line of identical barred windows. He couldn’t be certain which of the cells was occupied by Rachel Rees. That was a handicap. Until he knew exactly where she was being held, he couldn’t hope to get to her.

  Not wishing to draw attention to himself, he sauntered the length of the street, then waited several minutes before going back in the opposite direction. On this occasion, he couldn’t have timed his arrival better. As he reached the midway point, he heard a familiar cry of fury, then saw something being poured through the bars of a cell on the first floor. It cascaded down yards ahead of him and he had to step back to avoid being splashed. Daniel didn’t realise that Rachel had just tipped the contents of her bucket out of the window and he didn’t care. His visit to the gaol had brought a positive reward.

  He knew exactly where she was being held.

  Amalia Janssen was constantly delighted by the novelty of England. Wherever she went, she marvelled at the architecture, took a close interest in what people were wearing and listened with amusement to the rustic accents of Oxfordshire. Late morning found her sitting on the terrace outside the house with her father. With two servants and a cook already provided, there was little for Beatrix Udderzook to do so she hovered nearby and wiped the dirt from one of the wooden tables. Bright sunshine turned the roof to pure gold and gave the whole property a magical glow. Summer birdsong delighted the ear.

  ‘I love it here,’ said Amalia, beaming.

  ‘My first impressions have been good as well,’ said her father. ‘If we overlook our meeting with Her Grace, that is.’

  ‘Sir John says that she can be prickly at times.’

  ‘She invited us here, Amalia. She seems to have forgotten that.’

  ‘Her Grace has found able deputies. Sir John and Lady Rievers have been perfect hosts. They seem to look on me like a long-lost daughter. I’m going out riding again this afternoon.’

  ‘What about me?’ muttered Beatrix. ‘I’m your chaperone.’

  ‘You could always go for a drive in the carriage with Father. It must be rather boring for you to be left here on your own.’

  ‘It’s the other servants, Miss Amalia,’ complained Beatrix. ‘I can’t get on with them. They’ve all worked for lords and ladies in grand houses and look down on me because I have a humbler station. I’ve heard them laughing behind my back at my voice.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with your voice,’ said Janssen.

  ‘It’s Dutch, sir. They seem to find that very funny.’

  ‘I find the English language rather comical at times.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Amalia. ‘I like it. I just wish that I could speak it as beautifully as someone like Sir John.’

  Janssen smiled. ‘Or someone like Captain Rawson, perhaps?’

  ‘Oh, I could listen to Daniel speaking English all day.’

  ‘He sounds better in Dutch to me,’ said Beatrix, bluntly.

  She moved away, scouring the terrace in search of another chore. Unlike the others, she hadn’t adjusted to life in a foreign cou
ntry and was extremely homesick. In their short time at the cottage, Beatrix had lacked a real function. Back in Amsterdam, Amalia would never venture out without taking her maidservant as a chaperone. Yet she’d already gone out riding alone with a man and was preparing to do so for the second time. Janssen understood why Beatrix was so tetchy.

  ‘I think she’s jealous,’ he suggested.

  ‘She’s no reason to be, Father.’

  ‘Beatrix likes to be involved. At the moment, she’s just twiddling her thumbs out of boredom. You and I are having a splendid time here and that makes her envious.’

  ‘Well, I can hardly take her riding with me,’ said Amalia.

  ‘And I’m afraid that I can’t invite her to join me for a drive this afternoon. Thanks to Sir John, I’ve had an invitation to visit one of his neighbours who, it transpires, is an avid collector of tapestries. If I take Beatrix,’ he went on, ‘she’d only be in the way.’

  ‘What she really wants to do is to see more of London.’

  ‘Then she’ll have to wait, Amalia. We have lots of other places to visit first.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘one of them has to be Daniel’s farm.’

  Janssen frowned. ‘I’d never take him for a farmer somehow. He always looks as if he’s been a soldier from birth. It’s in his blood.’

  ‘His father was a soldier and a farmer.’

  ‘Is that what Daniel wants to do when he retires – go back to farming? Not that I can ever imagine him hanging up his weapons,’ he said. ‘As long as there’s a war, he’ll want to fight in it.’

  Her face darkened. ‘That’s what worries me. He loves the thrill of battle. But, then, so did Sir John. He was Daniel’s age when he left the army. He told me that he misses it a great deal but he couldn’t stay abroad when his wife was taken ill.’

  ‘No, the poor lady is clearly fading.’

  Amalia reached out to clasp his hand. What she and her father had recognised in Lady Rievers were the signs that they’d seen in Amalia’s mother. After being struck down with a disease, she’d simply wasted away in front of them. The helplessness they’d both felt had been intense. All that they could do – as Sir John was doing to his wife – was to nurse her with love until the time came. They sat there without speaking for a long time, sharing silent memories of the last fatal days. What the tragedy had done was to draw Amalia and her father much closer together. United in grief, they’d forged a new life that slowly brought joy back into their world.

  It was an odd coincidence, Amalia thought. Their time on the estate had conjured two beloved faces out of the past. When she met Lady Rievers and saw how bad her condition was, she was reminded of her own mother’s decline. For his part, Sir John had looked at Amalia and been struck by the resemblance she showed to his wife in her younger days. In both cases, past and present had overlapped for a moment.

  ‘Oh, I meant to tell you,’ said Amalia as she remembered the promise. ‘Sir John is going to find out about Daniel.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He knows people who have continuous reports of the progress of the campaign. If Daniel is mentioned in despatches, Sir John will get to hear about it. Isn’t that wonderful?’

  ‘If he’s able to pass on good news,’ said Janssen, guardedly.

  Amalia giggled. ‘Any news about Daniel is bound to be good.’

  The anger which had made Rachel Rees hurl the contents of her wooden bucket through the window had been born of dread. It was her gesture of defiance at the sentence hanging over her. Once she’d made it, however, she lapsed into torpor, sitting on the floor of her cell and speculating on how the execution would be carried out. Would she be lined up in front of a firing squad or must she suffer the greater humiliation of being hanged in public? Her only hope of mercy, as she perceived it, was to tell the truth: to describe how she’d been persuaded to act as the accomplice of a British army officer and to reveal the assistance they’d been given at the Coq d’Or. Such a course of action would, unfortunately, result in the instant arrest of Bette Lizier, her son and her sister. What Rachel would receive in return for her confession, she could only guess. In admitting to being an enemy agent, she’d be courting death. On the other hand, Captain Aumonier might feel lenient towards her if she handed over three conspirators to him and confirmed that Guillaume Lizier had been in the pay of the Allied army.

  She found it impossible to reach a decision. Rachel tried to tell herself that she owed no loyalty to anyone. She had to think solely of herself. Locked in her cell, she felt lonely, abandoned, doomed. If she could buy her survival by sending other people to their deaths, then it was tempting to do so. Why should she be the scapegoat? Yet even as she considered a full confession, something told her that she could never make it. The people at the tavern were friends. They’d formed a bond with her. Rachel couldn’t betray them. All that she could do when she was next interrogated was to maintain a dignified silence. Aumonier would get no names out of her.

  The stink of the cell invaded her nostrils and made her retch. Rachel got to her feet and pressed her face to the bars, inhaling the fresh air to cleanse her lungs. She looked down with envy at the people walking past the gaol, enjoying a freedom that she’d never have again. None of them even bothered to lift up their heads towards her. None of them realised her terrifying predicament. None of them cared. While Captain Aumonier had used no violence against her, there’d been murder in his voice. If she continued to lie to him, he’d have no compunction about sending her to her fate. That thought made her heart pound like a drum. Her throat went dry. Beads of sweat broke out on her brow and her eyes misted over. When they eventually cleared, she gazed down at the street once more and was suddenly jolted out of her misery.

  Someone did look up at her this time. He even took off his cap so that she could see him more distinctly. Using her knuckles to wipe her eyes, Rachel took a second look at the man. He was moving away now but she was certain of his identity.

  It was Daniel Rawson. He’d come back for her.

  ‘I’ve carried out a full reconnaissance,’ said Prince Eugene, ‘and I’ve decided to attack the northern sector of Lille.’

  ‘I applaud that decision, Your Highness,’ said Marlborough.

  ‘The ground is firmer there and the River Marque will offer us a measure of protection to the rear.’

  ‘That was our feeling. From whom did you take advice?’

  ‘I consulted two of the chief engineers, Des Roques and Du Muy. They agreed wholeheartedly with me.’

  ‘You chose the best men, Your Highness,’ said Cardonnel, proudly. ‘Both of them are Huguenots. I come from Huguenot stock myself. We all have a very special reason to hate the French.’

  Marlborough’s secretary was referring to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, an act conferring religious and civil liberties on Huguenot subjects in France. When the edict was revoked without warning, it led to appalling slaughter. To escape death, Huguenots fled from a Roman Catholic populace that despised them. Though the crisis had occurred over twenty years earlier, it was still fresh in the minds of people like Adam Cardonnel, whose family had been among the thousands of refugees. Nobody had such strong motivation to fight the armies of Louis XIV as Huguenots.

  ‘There is another obvious advantage,’ added Cardonnel. ‘By assaulting the northern sector, you’ll be in much closer proximity to our own camp.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Marlborough. ‘If there’s an attack on you from Vendôme or Berwick or even Burgundy, we’ll be able to provide cover. In all respects, it’s a good decision.’

  They were in the captain-general’s quarters. Prince Eugene of Savoy had ridden to the main camp with some of the Dutch generals under his command. The council of war was, for once, not marked by any disagreement. Marlborough was grateful for that. He’d been forced to compromise on too many occasions in the past. Now that the siege had been undertaken, it was important that they all favoured the same strategy. On the table in front of t
hem was the plan that Daniel had stolen from Lille.

  ‘These are our two targets,’ said Eugene, tapping it with his finger. ‘We’ll attack the gates of Magdalen and St Andrew. As you can see, there are solid hornworks close by but I still feel that we can batter a way through.’

  ‘How long do you estimate it will take?’ asked Marlborough.

  Eugene laughed mirthlessly. ‘Only a fool would even try to answer that question, Your Grace,’ he admitted. ‘It will certainly take many weeks to bring Lille to its knees. It may even be a matter of months. Marshal Boufflers will hold out to the bitter end.’

  ‘The conditions are hardly propitious. This sweltering heat is no help to us. Digging the peripheral lines of circumvallation must be like working in the seventh circle of hell. Then there’s the problem of the marshes. Insects breed like mad in this weather,’ noted Marlborough. ‘We’ll have men collapsing from disease before long.’

  ‘That can’t be helped, Your Grace.’

  ‘Alas, no – we must press on.’

  ‘What will decide the issue is the maintenance of supplies.’

  ‘That’s always the case with a siege,’ said Marlborough. ‘The first convoy reached us without undue hindrance but we can’t rely on the French to let the next one slip past them unobserved. It’s a much bigger siege train than the other one.’ He turned to his secretary. ‘Remind us what it contains, Adam.’

  Cardonnel knew the details by heart. ‘It has eighty siege pieces, each requiring twenty horses to haul it and twenty siege mortars that will each need almost as many horses. There’ll be no less than thirty thousand munition waggons, pulled by four horses apiece. All in all,’ he concluded, ‘it will stretch for several miles.’

  ‘It will make a very tempting target,’ said Eugene.

  ‘That’s why you must guard it every inch of the way, Your Highness,’ said Marlborough. ‘There are reports that Burgundy is moving forward from Bruges towards Alost with thirty thousand men. We must hope that he doesn’t try to intercept the convoy.’