The Forbidden Rose

by Bourne, Joanna

  LeBreton clumped up the path, scuffling his boots on the stone. Being loud. He banged the door. But only once. It jerked open before his fist landed again.

  A soldier in full uniform stood in the doorway. The muzzle of his gun rose. Pointed at LeBreton.

  Blue coat, white breeches, white shoulder belts, red cuffs. Garde Nationale. Loyal revolutionaries from Paris. Not a local gendarme.

  I have walked us into disaster. Cold washed over her. Fear gripped her breath.

  Behind the garde, Bertille’s cottage was in chaos. Broken dishes, chairs overturned, something—flour—sprayed in plumes on the stone floor with dozens of boot marks. Bertille sat at the dark wood table, her arms tight around Charles, the two-year-old. He sat in her lap, pressing his face into the white of her apron. She was alive. Unhurt.

  I have done this to her. I have dragged them all into danger. I did not protect her. Where were Alain and the new baby? There was an apprentice boy. Where was he?

  “Ahhh . . .” LeBreton rubbed the back of his neck. His huge, tough body was awkward. His expression, sheepish. He had become the bewildered bumpkin. “You don’t want to be doing that, Suzette.”

  She had taken a step forward, without thinking, to go to Bertille. The gun swung and pointed toward her.

  Suzette? That is a ludicrous name.

  The garde was young and scared, his finger on the trigger. He’d shoot LeBreton if any of them—herself, Bertille, LeBreton—made the smallest mistake.

  She must be harmless. “What has happened here? Why do you have guns? You should not bring guns into the house. Have you no manners?” She would chatter and babble like a fool. She would be silly. A soldier might turn his back on a silly woman.

  “Now, Suzette.” LeBreton was placating.

  There were two of them, at least. Bertille was looking at something out of sight, behind the door, letting her eyes show that someone was there.

  She jostled the garde, knocking the barrel of the musket. They will think I am a twittering idiot to bump into an armed soldier this way. “I heard nothing of any fighting near here. Has someone been hurt?”

  LeBreton stood upon the doorstep like a frog and did nothing. “That’s a gun, love.” His voice was perfect stupidity. “You got to move aside and not touch it. You don’t want to get yourself shot, just by accident.”

  “Enough! You.” The garde grabbed her. “Inside.”

  While she dithered and sputtered, she was shoved roughly into the room. She hit the table edge hard, clacking her teeth together, biting her tongue. A bowl rolled off the table and fell to the floor and broke.

  She was face-to-face with Bertille. Their eyes met. And it was like old times. They had been in danger before, the two of them. They had survived. Always. She thinks this is like the other times. She expects me to get us free.

  LeBreton lumbered forward, his hands spread and open. “There’s no cause to go pushing Suzette. She don’t mean no harm.”

  “Out of my way, ox. Over there.”

  “I’m coming, citoyen.” LeBreton swung his head from one side of the cottage to the other, taking in the destruction, looking puzzled. Looking like the ox he most certainly was not. “But I don’t know what’s going on.”

  The second soldier, a sergeant, had been hidden from sight by the door. He stood with his musket ready. Behind him, in the curtained alcove where the boys slept, Alain lay on the floor. His hands were tied behind his back, his face bloody and swollen. His apprentice, twelve years old, huddled at his side, also bound.

  No one had been killed. Bertille had not been despoiled. These were not deserters or bandits. They were professional soldiers, disciplined, following orders. They’d come to make arrests.

  This is bad. Bad as it can be.

  She leaned over and clutched her belly as if she were in pain from colliding with the table. It hid her face while she thought, frantically. They know this house is a waystation of La Flèche. They have stayed here to catch the next courier. To trap anyone who comes. “Why have you hit me?” she whined. “What is happening? Why is that man bloody?”

  “Are you hurt, Suzette?” LeBreton looked from one soldier to the other, all puzzlement. “There’s no call to do that.”

  The sergeant snapped, “Your documents.” When LeBreton didn’t move quickly enough, he was hit sharply with the butt of the gun the way a man prods an animal into motion.

  “You want to see my papers?”

  “Yes, I want to see your papers. Dolt.”

  LeBreton unbuttoned his waistcoat, his elbows sticking out awkwardly. His shirt was coarse weave, cut full and loose like the smock of a laborer. He tugged it out, all the way around, being slow and clumsy about it. Next to his skin, he wore a linen money belt with flat pockets. “Got it in here. Just a minute.” He eased out a square of stained, brown leather, tied with twine. “I keep it safe, see. You can’t be too careful these days. The roads are full of thieves.”

  The younger guard was calming down. His finger came off the trigger. The muzzle no longer pointed at LeBreton.

  And she had no weapon anywhere. What was here? Wood benches. A table. Two chairs. A cupboard with dishes on the shelves. Pots on the hearth. An empty cradle. Alain had carved the cradle for Charles. Now the new baby used it. The windows were shuttered. Light came through in bright slits. Nothing she could make use of.

  LeBreton put the leather packet on the table and picked at a knot in the twine. “We followed the road out of Vachielle, up over that hill there. Now that was a mistake.” He picked at the knot, his face screwed up in concentration. “They said this was a shortcut. ‘Suzette,’ I said—I call her Suzette on account of her name being Suzanne. But I had a cow named Suzanne before I got married, and I couldn’t call my wife and the cow the same name, now could I?” He worked away at the packet, his face screwed up in concentration.

  “Give me that.” The sergeant propped his gun against the table and unwound the twine, muttering to himself.

  “I told Suzette, ‘It’s not much of a shortcut, if you ask me, when you have to go walking all this way uphill.’ ”

  He was clever. But it did not matter what he said or how innocent he appeared, these men had orders to hold anyone who came into this house.

  She shook with being afraid. If she stopped to think, she would be clumsy. There is one gun pointed at us. I will get my hands on the other.

  She began a low, irritating grumble. “This way is shorter if you had not gotten us lost.” No one watched her. One does not see annoying women who chatter and scold. She inched toward the gun the sergeant had leaned against the table.

  “That’s Boullages ahead, ain’t it?” LeBreton’s accent had thickened to sludge. “If we keep on this road, we come there?”

  “If you do not shut up your mouth, you will go nowhere at all.”

  The sergeant had the packet open. Papers were laboriously unfolded and spread flat—the passport, a creased sheet with a stamp on it, and a smaller certificate that was nearly new. The sergeant dealt with each cautiously, like a man unused to handling documents.

  “Look here. This.” LeBreton splayed his hand on the passport. “This is me. You see? Bon . . . i . . . face . . . Jo . . . bard.” He picked it out with the pride of the illiterate. “Boniface Jobard. Resident of the Section des Marchés of the Paris Commune. And this one. That’s my certificate of civism. Says I’m a good patriot and an active citoyen. My friend Louis Bulliard—”

  “Be silent. I can read.” The sergeant shoved LeBreton’s hand aside and took up the passport and scowled at it. “I am not impressed by papers, citoyen. Bandits and counter-revolutionaries walk the road with impressive papers. I will decide for myself what you are and why you are here.”

  She edged along the table, as if she wanted to look at the papers also. She was close. She could put herself between the sergeant and his gun. It was one step.

  “That’s the sign of an honest man, that is. Not trusting papers.” LeBreton turned to get confirmation
from the other garde. Took a step toward him. “I’ve always said it. There is no truth to be found in papers.”

  They were well positioned, she and LeBreton. Each within reach of a gun. It was time to act. We must do this now. Should I wait for his signal, or—

  At the shuttered windows, a shadow crossed the light. A leaf fell, or a bird flew through the path of the sun.

  LeBreton, explaining that too much writing was the downfall of liberty, scratched his belly. His fingers bent, stretched, touched one to the other.

  I had forgotten Adrian. It is about to happen. Fear crystallized into spears of ice under her skin. Now.

  The sergeant piled documents one upon the other. “I ask myself, Citoyen Jobard, whether you are a counter-revolutionary or just a very, very stupid traveler. Where are your wife’s papers?”

  LeBreton took his hat off and held it in front of him. “I—”

  I must give no warning.

  The shutters crashed open. LeBreton dropped like a stone.

  Eleven

  THE SPACE WHERE LEBRETON HAD STOOD WAS empty. LeBreton and the garde rolled on the floor.

  She had to stop the other man. The sergeant. Keep him from shooting LeBreton.

  She hit the barrel of the musket with both hands clenched together. It fell, clattering and clattering. The garde grabbed after it. She kicked the gun away. It slid two feet, hit the table leg, and exploded. The noise smashed the air like a fist. The shot hit the wall, spewing plaster.

  Charles screamed and struggled in Bertille’s arms. In the other room, the baby began to cry. Bertille scrambled away from the table, taking the boy with her.

  I have to distract him. She groped along the table and threw a china plate into the sergeant’s face. It was all she had.

  And it did him no harm. He brushed china chips out of his eyes, cursing. Backed away. Pulled a knife from his boot top. For a bare instant he stood there, deciding whether to kill her before he went to kill LeBreton. Then he swung at her with his empty fist, backhanded.

  A white flash struck. She felt the pain. The world spun black.

  When her eyes cleared, the sergeant was fending off a bowl Bertille threw. And another. LeBreton was on the floor, butting his knee into the other man’s belly.

  The sergeant, knife in hand, started for LeBreton’s unprotected back.

  No! She lifted the cradle from the hearthside and swung it with all her strength. Hit the sergeant on the back of his head. He yelled and half fell, staggering off balance.

  And sprawled headlong, because LeBreton was there to kick his feet away from under him. LeBreton, pure violence that struck like a javelin. She heard the thud of his boot and an animal shriek of pain.

  The garde sergeant lay hunched on the floor, slowly drawing together around the pain.

  It was strangely still then, though Charles was sobbing against Bertille and the baby wailed in the distance. The sergeant made an odd grating noise in his throat. The other garde whimpered, low and continuous, in the corner.

  Adrian appeared in the doorway with no sound at all. His eyes traveled the room and ended on LeBreton.

  “Don’t kill anybody,” LeBreton said.

  The boy thought it over before he nodded. She saw then that Adrian had his knife out.

  “Cut those two loose.” LeBreton indicated Alain and the apprentice, tied at the far end of the cottage. “I need the rope.” Then he was beside her. “Your lip is bleeding.”

  “It is,” she touched it, “not so much.”

  “That was a bad idea on his part.” LeBreton walked over and stood looking down at the sergeant till the man looked up.

  “If you’d hurt her worse, I’d have cut your hand off.” LeBreton’s boot prodded the sergeant’s right hand. “This hand. The one you hit her with.”

  Then he went off to check on the other garde.

  THE aftermath of battle was left to the women. They were the sensible ones of the world and therefore left to clean up. She worked with Bertille to pack the cart, putting this in and leaving that behind.

  Guillaume lifted large objects. Every so often he returned to the cottage, where he had tied the two gardes in chairs, and listened with unimpaired amiability while they blustered and threatened. Then he would go back to help Alain haul about the tools of his trade, some of which were heavy.

  Charles sat on the hearth with wide eyes, taking in the words the soldiers used, till Bertille sent him outside. Then Alain came in and sent his young apprentice outside, too.

  Marguerite helped herself to coffee from Decorum’s pack and brought it in to grind and heat in the copper pot. LeBreton did not seem to mind her small thefts. He doubtless committed greater ones. Frequently. She poured coffee from the pot, which would be packed last, into the cups, which must be left behind, and brought it to everyone. She did not serve coffee to the soldiers, who were saying filthy things about her.

  LeBreton settled himself at the table to drink coffee while he searched the belongings of the gardes, their handkerchiefs and pocket knives, and most especially their papers. He put his boots up on the long bench, which was another thing to distress Bertille, who had a tidy soul.

  When he addressed them by name—Sergeant Hachard and Private Labadie—they became more polite. “Who sent you to arrest the Rivières?”

  That let loose threats and the promise of retribution. She would not have been so eager to make threats herself if she were tied hand and foot and Citoyen LeBreton were in charge.

  “Who told you to arrest these people?” LeBreton drank coffee. He spoke like an educated man now. There was an air of authority about him, as if he had been a military officer and commanded men very much like these. “I’m going to ask that question three times. That’s the limits of my patience. Then I start slicing pieces off your body. Eventually I’m going to get to the bits your wives might miss. Who do I start with?” The question was for Adrian who was walking by.

  “We’ll do him.” Adrian meant the sergeant.

  “That’s a likely choice, lad. I am glad to see you understand the chain of command.”

  Thick, nervous silence held the gardes. Anticipatory silence from Adrian. Stern, uncompromising silence from LeBreton. He nudged a stack of copper pans aside to give himself room to lean back. “Sergeant Hachard, there’s no reason you shouldn’t tell me. You’ve received orders. There’s nothing secret about it. Whose orders? Who told you to arrest these people?”

  Adrian’s knife appeared. “Can I do it now?” She was almost used to seeing the boy with a knife in his hand. The soldiers, of course, were not.

  “Half minute.” LeBreton shifted his boots. “Take his ears off before you start on the nose. And don’t be getting blood on yourself. I’m damned if I’m going to buy you a new shirt.”

  The boy inspected the edge of his knife, looking critical.

  “It was two men from Paris,” the private blurted out. “They carried orders from the Committee of Public Safety. Twelve arrest orders. They divided them up and gave us two names.” He looked around nervously. “We chased the first man yesterday and lost him. Then we came to take Bertille Rivière.”

  “Now that is very interesting.” LeBreton took up his coffee cup again. “Tell me about these men from Paris.”

  And they did. Ten words were enough to tell her these were the Jacobins who had come to her chateau.

  The questioning continued. Everyone packed. She carried bags and boxes out of the cottage, coming back to listen from time to time. It could not be said the men spoke freely. But then, it seemed there was very little Citoyen LeBreton expected them to know. He asked the same question many different ways.

  Yes, there were twelve to arrest. No, they did not know why. They’d been denounced in Paris, most likely. Lots of folks condemned in Paris. And the men who brought the orders—? Fine revolutionary patriots, to be sure.

  When she walked through the next time, carrying sheets, matters had advanced somewhat. Adrian straddled a bench. He’d found a whe
tstone and was honing a keen, bright edge to the knife. She brought him coffee with milk in it and sugar, the way she had seen him drink it . . . was it only this morning?

  When she set the cup down beside him, fierce, dark eyes glanced at the coffee then at her. “I’m supposed to do that.”

  “You are engaged in being terrifying. Continue.” She said it low enough she would not be overheard. When she returned, LeBreton was on his feet. “. . . bandits would be my advice. Five or six of them, at least, took you by surprise. If I were you, I’d say they were from the Vendée.”

  The gardes said nothing.

  “Or you can tell everybody a woman hit you over the head with a damn cradle and you let your prisoners get away.” LeBreton sounded perfectly agreeable. “I wouldn’t like living with that reputation myself. I don’t want folks laughing in corners every time I walk by. And what I also don’t want, Citoyen Hachard . . .” He strolled closer. “What I don’t want is, when I’m back in Paris, I don’t want to hear that anybody’s looking for a big man, with a scar like this.” He drew a line down his cheek, pointing it out. “I get annoyed as sour milk when somebody talks about me.”

  “He gets irritated,” Adrian murmured, sharpening.

  The sergeant cleared his throat. “We are required to—”

  “Men who annoy me wake up one morning and notice their throat’s been cut.” LeBreton loomed over the sergeant. He was of a size to loom with great effect.

  “It’s very sad,” Adrian said.

  LeBreton was most utterly convincing in his threats. If she did not know him somewhat, she would wholly believe he slit throats from time to time. When she next walked through the cottage, the gardes had been left bound and gagged, facing the wall, but with all their bodily parts intact, which must have been a great relief to them.

  It was not long after that, that Citoyen LeBreton tracked her to the tiny room where she was sorting Charles’s clothing.

  He watched without offering to help. She said, “There are many things that must be done in this household before Bertille leaves. Surely some of them require great strength. Why do you not go do them?”