The Barbed Crown

by William Dietrich

  “I’m beginning to understand why I lose to sharps,” Johnstone said. “One of our cleverest moonshine tricks is to make a rope out of twist tobacco and then wind it into a thicker hawser. You can’t see the sot weed inside the hemp.”

  “And even easier than holding out a card is pocketing another man’s winnings,” I returned. “When you push a pile of coins or chips, have some gum on your wrist and pick up one or two for yourself.”

  “You’ve got the mind of a smuggler, Gage. When you get tired of fighting Bonaparte, come see me for employment.”

  “I appreciate the compliment, but a gambling den is warmer than a smuggler’s smack. And it doesn’t sound like you need my advice. It’s a wonder the king collects any duties at all.”

  “The free trader doesn’t always win. The sharp, neither, I suppose. We’ve both spent time in jail.” He shrugged. “Time is a tax in itself.”

  “A gambler who always wins advertises he is cheating,” I agreed. “There’s a fine art to pinching just enough.” The passage looked no wider than a door.

  “So I’ll run from the king’s men, but if they wish to pay me to smuggle you, I’ll run from Bonaparte’s instead.” Another cannonball sent up a spout near our bows.

  “Sir Sidney would call you an expedient patriot, Captain.”

  “And you, American, a man who doesn’t know to leave well enough alone.”

  “Reef is on us, dammit!” the watchman cried.

  A small cannonball clipped our rail, splinters flying, and one of Johnstone’s boys let out a howl. Our own swivel gun went off in my ear again. Foam heaved up between the barnacled obstacles like a giant lung taking a breath.

  The captain finally slammed his heavy bulk against the other side of the tiller, and our bow swung just slightly. “Nicely timed, Gage, but allow for drift. Steer for the windward rock until the last moment.”

  We pointed straight at destruction. But no, we were pushed sideways and sailed neatly into the gap, our boom scraping stone on one side and our hull the bottom on the other. No normal skipper would try pinching through, but Captain Tom had studied the intricacy of this coast for years. The hull shuddered, and suddenly, Comtesse Marceau clutched my arm.

  “Lantern ashore!”

  And as the surf sucked and thundered, the faintest green light shone.

  CHAPTER 2

  The French cutter chased us to disaster. It followed through the gap and grounded so violently that its mast snapped, its sails collapsing like an unpegged tent. There were oaths, yells, and a final frustrated cannon shot that passed a good fifty yards off our stern. Captain Johnstone gave a satisfied cackle. Comtesse Marceau balanced to peer backward with a slight smile of triumph. My hand on the tiller was sore and sweaty.

  “Will Lacasse sink?” the comtesse asked our captain.

  “More likely left dry when the tide drops. Companions will take them off tomorrow, and their government will get them another ship.”

  She clutched her pistol, a silk reticule with her purse and necessaries tied with a silver cord to her wrist. “The French navy has been helpless since the officers of the aristocracy were driven from the kingdom. It’s one more way the revolutionaries have betrayed France.”

  “A more prudent commander might have rounded up and given a parting broadside,” Johnstone agreed. “Better to lose us than your own vessel.”

  “Curious luck for them to stumble on us like that,” I said.

  “If it was luck.”

  We sailed on toward shore. High gray cliffs materialized in the murk. Surf pounded their base. It looked like the devil’s worst place to go ashore.

  “You promise a way off such a bleak beach?” I asked.

  “A smuggler’s path,” said Johnstone.

  Behind us, red light flared. The wrecked cutter had sent up a rocket.

  “Be quick,” Johnstone added. “Foot patrols may see that commotion and come looking.”

  “You’re very brave, Comtesse,” I said, even though she hadn’t done anything of note yet. Men make pointless compliments to attractive women out of instinct and vague hope.

  “I’ve no life except France and was dead in England,” she replied. “I’m risking nothing except resurrection.”

  “I suppose we’ll have to share quarters in Paris to pose as a couple. More convincing, don’t you think?”

  “Indeed not, monsieur. You will install me in fine apartments befitting a highborn consort, and I will receive you at my whim. Our friendship is solely political, and we’re both mere soldiers in a great royalist army of conspirators already two thousand strong.”

  “Maybe just arm in arm to the opera, then,” I persisted, wondering if we could afford two places. “And elbow to elbow in that new Parisian invention, the dining restaurant. Smarter than an inn, using chefs unemployed by the revolution to make their best for a roomful of strangers. I’m told the Véry offers eight choices of soup, ninety-five main courses, and twenty-five desserts.”

  “Mercenary, impersonal, and common,” she judged. “The modern world is a tasteless porridge of coarseness and mediocrity. We go ashore not just for restoration, Monsieur Gage, but to save civilization from the mob. I will pretend to accompany you, but never forget that birth made us different beings.”

  Well, her message was clear enough. The truth is that I was less than comfortable throwing in with a bunch of royalists, whatever the excesses of Napoleon. They were a self-satisfied yet needy bunch, and though I’m a bit of a climber, I get tired of their pretensions. Catherine Marceau’s snobbery was only reinforcing my longing for commonsensical Astiza. But if I was going to give payback to Bonaparte for destroying my family, these blue bloods were the only chance I had. War makes strange alliances.

  “Captain, they holed our tender,” a seaman reported to Johnstone, looking at the dinghy lashed amidships.

  “Say what? Damaged our gig? The frogs usually can’t hit a thing, and tonight we’re cursed with a marksman?”

  “We’ve no means to get these two ashore.” The mate looked at us unhappily, clearly not eager to lug us back to England.

  “Then they’ll get themselves. I haven’t come all this way not to get my promised fare from Sidney Smith. Do you swim?” The question was addressed to both of us.

  “With reluctance,” I said.

  “Certainly not,” Catherine added. Swimming is what common people did, apparently.

  “Then keep her from drowning, Gage. The beach is steep, and I’ll get you within yards of the shingle.”

  “Captain, you can’t be serious,” she protested.

  “Maybe we should take time to patch the launch,” I said.

  “With rockets lifting up?” Johnstone’s sloop slid in under the cliffs, came about, and anchored into the wind, its stern paid off into surf. His crew pushed us to the back rail, muttering about the reforming benefits of a chill dunking for a cardsharp and female curse.

  “Smith isn’t paying you to drown me!” the comtesse warned.

  “One man has died, mademoiselle,” a mate said. “Another wounded by splinters. Someone has obviously betrayed you, and we’ve paid the price. The least you can do is plunge.” He pushed us, with Catherine shrieking, into the sea.

  I grabbed her as we fell, the cold water knocking my breath away and my heavy belt of gold pieces dragging us to the bottom. Fortunately, the water was so shallow that Johnstone must have scraped his rudder. I felt a mix of stone and sand, shoved off with one arm clutching my struggling companion, and surfaced with a whoosh. Bloody hell, the water was bracing! A wave pushed us toward shore and then broke over us, making us sputter. But my legs got a better grip, I held against the suck, and we staggered ashore, half frozen and spitting Channel salt. I gripped Comtesse Marceau like a wrestler, trying to concentrate on our predicament instead of her form. We men inventory the female shape the way a lepidopterist
does butterflies. She shivered and pulled away.

  Phantom had used her anchor to kedge off the beach. The sloop caught the wind with its jib and began to work into the dark. Above us, chalky cliffs rose into gloom.

  “I could have died!”

  “You will die, sooner or later, as will we all,” I snapped. Women usually find me irresistible, or at least don’t keep such wary distance. By thunder, I’ve had Napoleon’s sister, a British aristocrat, and an Indian maiden, so Catherine needn’t pretend I’m a leper. “In the meantime we try to defeat Bonaparte.”

  “Don’t lecture me about the Corsican.”

  “If you’re going to be a spy, you really should learn to swim,” I retorted.

  She lifted her head. “No. I am on French soil now, and don’t intend to leave it again. I will triumph, or be buried.” She crossed her arms, but then they flew apart. “My reticule!”

  “What about it?”

  “Lost in the water. You must find it!”

  The surf was roaring, the Channel black, and the tide wicked. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  “But my money was in there!”

  The lost coins made me hesitate. It was a dark night, but I made a futile grope before a particularly big wave broke, foam swirling against our knees, before admitting it was useless. “An offering to Neptune, I’m afraid.”

  “This is your fault for letting us make that foolish leap!”

  “On the contrary, your fault for not hanging on to your vital possessions. Next time, clutch before you jump, Comtesse.” She shivered miserably, sniffling, so I took pity. “I’ve money enough for both of us.”

  “I do not like being dependent.”

  The woman had never worked a day in her life. “Then swim for your savings.”

  She glanced at the pounding water before replying. “But I will allow you to help me this time.”

  “We’re friends, then?”

  “Allies.”

  “We’d best get beyond the reach of the tide.” I turned toward the cliffs, which appeared impassable, and saw that green lantern again. “There. Either our salvation or our doom.”

  We stumbled up the slippery cobble to a cluster of men in bicorn hats and flapping greatcoats, their lantern hooded once we got near. In the rain the hats formed twin gutters that diverted rainwater from their crown to their shoulders in little rivulets. We were all silhouettes in the dark.

  “Good King Louis,” their leader said. It was the password.

  “By the grace of God may he reign,” the comtesse replied, finishing the code.

  “They wouldn’t ferry you ashore?” the man continued.

  “Our launch was holed. We’ve had storm, gunfire, and a soaking.”

  “I apologize your return to France wasn’t easier. Bonne nuit, I am Captain Emile Butron of the Vendée rebel army.”

  “I thought that force was destroyed by General Bernadotte.”

  He spat tobacco, which soldiers chew nervously before a fight. “Not entirely. We still have a network of safe houses, once we top this bluff. But we must move quickly; there are spies everywhere. The policeman Réal pays a hundred francs for each report of a royalist, and gets three basketfuls of condemnations every morning. The denunciations cost Bonaparte’s government four million francs a year, and they consider it a bargain.”

  “Once in Paris we’ll be hidden among friends,” Catherine said.

  “Alas, we’re hard-pressed in Paris as well, Comtesse. Georges Cadoudal has been arrested.”

  “What?” Catherine’s question was more of a cry. She was having a bad night.

  “After a coach chase through Paris, Georges shot one policeman and tried to blend with the crowd, but someone pointed him out. General Pichegru was seized after fighting a dozen men in his sleeping chamber. General Moreau had already declined to cooperate with our plan—he says he is a republican, not a royalist, even though Bonaparte is neither—but they’ve imprisoned him anyway. Our conspiracy is falling apart before it can get started.”

  I turned around, wondering if it was too late to get back aboard Phantom, but the sloop had disappeared. “They didn’t tell us this in England,” I said, sounding more inane than I intended.

  “They didn’t know. A servant was caught, and the network unraveled under torture. Réal is an expert at coercion.”

  “Perhaps our chase on the Channel crossing also came from betrayal.”

  “Indeed, Monsieur Gage. It’s sheer pluck and fortitude you’ve come this far.”

  So I’d sailed into a fiasco. Cadoudal was a burly rebel from Brittany. Former French generals Pichegru and Moreau were military heroes who despised Napoleon. Now they were all in prison? “We should regroup,” I said.

  “First you must hide.”

  “We will not give up,” Catherine vowed.

  “Oui, mademoiselle. But only if you can keep from being imprisoned.”

  This rebel captain had common sense. “And we avoid that how, exactly?” I asked.

  “By getting off this beach. Come, there’s a slit of a ravine smugglers have used for decades. It’s wet, steep, and muddy, but we have climbing staffs.” He looked at Catherine. “Some dry clothes soon, Comtesse. And a brandy.”

  “What would warm me is a regiment loyal to the Bourbons.”

  “Oui, mademoiselle. All in good time.”

  The cut in the bluffs was almost impossible to spot from the sea, and probably just as invisible above. Storm-gnarled shrub hid us as we climbed steeply toward a plateau of farmland. Mud soon joined the blood and water in our clothes. Fortunately, there were fixed ropes to help. To Catherine’s credit, she didn’t complain once except to curse the geography. For a lady, she had a rich vocabulary.

  We’d ascended halfway, coming out of bent trees to flattened grass and heath, when a shot came and one of Butron’s men coughed and fell backward. I’m always amazed at how a musket ball falls a victim, as if a puppeteer cut his strings. One moment a man is thriving, and the next he is a silent sack of meat. And it’s dumb chance that you live and he dies.

  More shots rang, slugging into the grit around us.

  “Patrol! They must have seen their ship’s rocket!” Butron’s men drew pistols and fired at the flashes. Then silence as everyone reloaded, ramrods scraping barrels. Sword fights don’t pause, but a gun battle provides intermissions.

  Our comrade was dead, the captain confirmed, so we abandoned him and crawled a few more yards. More shots whined overhead. Shooting high is so common a mistake that soldiers wear high hats and plumes to bait the enemy. Aim low and slow is always my advice; your quicker opponent will likely miss.

  “They’ll block us at the top,” Butron predicted. “We can’t descend; the incoming tide will reach to the cliffs.” He sounded apologetic. “We may be trapped, monsieur.”

  “The devil we are. Those soldiers are between me and a warm fire.” I had to live up to my reputation for ingenuity, especially if I was going to impress a comtesse. I was a protégé of Benjamin Franklin, after all, and a hero of Acre. There was no time to be truly clever, but perhaps I could be daring.

  “Listen: pick up stones or clods of earth. I’m going to draw their fire with the help of rocks you throw my way, and when their weapons are empty, charge. Save your powder until you’re right on top of them and then finish with ball and steel.”

  “You’ll expose yourself for us, Ethan?” I detected a slight note of deference from Catherine, and puffed at finally getting proper notice and being addressed by my first name. It’s easier being brave with a female looking on.

  “I need your coats and climbing staffs. I’ll scramble up the side of the ravine and make it look as if we’ve fled that way. When I shoot at the enemy patrol, throw your rocks at me to make more noise. After they empty their guns, have at them.”

  “The point of all this
is wasted if you, the agent we were assigned to deliver, is shot and killed,” Butron objected.

  I couldn’t agree with him more. “I am rather important.”

  “And nefarious, we’re told. Devious, wily, and unscrupulous.”

  “Calculating. Never fear, I’ll fall flat and trust the inaccuracy of their muskets. I’ve been shot at before.”

  “Yes, your reputation is of being everywhere, on every side, and somehow surviving,” the comtesse said, a little ardor finally in her tone. “I knew you were brave, Monsieur Gage, but this amounts to sacrifice.”

  That was more like it. “No sacrifice is too great for a beautiful woman. Captain, please get ready.”

  So up I scrambled rather ingloriously on all fours, dragging cloaks and staves. Random gunshots banged below. Peering into the dark, I could just make out movement at the head of the ravine.

  I balanced on a precarious perch, thrust the staffs into the soil, and draped coats on them. “Now, now, give it to their flank!” I shouted in French, fluent from my earlier years in Paris. I aimed my pistol and pulled the trigger.

  It snapped uselessly. Soaked.

  “By Franklin’s lightning rod,” I muttered. I’d dunked the piece in the ocean, hadn’t I? I have a habit of not thinking my daring through. The enemy soldiers shouted, trying to spy me, and one musket went off, the bullet buzzing. At least my cartridges and powder flask were wrapped in oilskin. It took what seemed like a century to unwrap, reload, wipe the flint, and add a pinch of fresh powder to the pan.

  Another enemy bullet came, striking close.

  I pulled again.

  The pistol banged, the flash giving my position away. Then a humming through the air as my companions hurled stones and clods in my direction to mimic a rattle of footsteps. One elicited a quite realistic cry from me as it smacked my thigh. I fell.

  Just as I did, the enemy patrol let off its volley. Bullets hit all around, and I flinched so violently that I began to slide back down the slope. I clutched at the walking sticks to arrest my fall and instead they pulled free, so I had an armful of canes and coats as I bounced toward the bottom.