“Er, no,” I replied hesitantly, desperately thinking of a way out of the situation. Any amorous intentions I had harboured the previous day had melted away. The thought of any congress with this amazon frightened the life out of me and I don’t mind admitting it.
Suddenly the perfect solution to my dilemma came to mind. “You must be Clothilde,” I greeted her. “The man you are seeking is resting up in the belfry.” I gave her a warm smile. “He might be a bit reluctant to start with,” I confided. “As he is very proud of being a gentleman and would not want to be seen to be taking advantage of you.”
She chuckled at the idea that someone could take advantage of her. “That is a shame, dearie; I was hoping it was you.” As she walked past me, she gave my cheek a pinch with enough force to bend a horseshoe nail. Then she whispered, “Perhaps we can get together once I have seen your friend upstairs.”
I smiled wanly with half of my face; the cheek she had pinched had gone numb. Then I watched her go into the chapel. She moved surprisingly lightly towards the bottom of the belfry and only broke one rung on the ladder as she swiftly climbed up the tower. I heard Grant’s startled gasp of pain as the trap door was thrown open; it must have hit him in the confined space of the little tower.
“Flashman… who the devil are you?” he cried in pain and surprise.
“It’s Clothilde, silly. Now come here and don’t be shy.”
“Get off me you mad… fnfnfn.” I imagined that the rest of the sentence was cut off as his face was pressed into her enormously ample bosom. He was still putting up a struggle, though, as I could hear his boots scraping along the floor. Then there was a shattering crash that sent dust and cobwebs down from the underside of the platform.
“Now you lie quietly while I take off my shift,” Clothilde cooed at him as Grant must have lain stunned and in pain.
“Please leave me alone,” I heard him wail.
I laughed in delight; it was about time the pompous prig got taken down a notch or two. I resumed my place sitting in the sun, lying back against the wall with my eyes closed. I was going to enjoy listening to this, but I would make damn sure I was out of sight before the giantess descended that ladder.
“There now, what do you think of those?” I heard her say. “Go on then, you can hold one of them if you want.” I pictured those huge breasts being dangled in Grant’s horrified face and was not surprised to hear a howl of despair that seemed almost animal in origin.
As the cry of torment finished, there was the sound of a twig snapping nearby. I opened my eyes to find myself gazing at a fresh-faced young boy standing just a few yards in front of me. He was frowning at me but then he asked simply, “Who are you?”
“I’m Henri,” I told him. “Who are you?”
“I am Victor.” I recognised him as one of Madame Trebuchet’s boys that we had glimpsed earlier in the week. Well, there was no chance to hide this time, and in any event Grant’s wailing seemed loud enough to wake the rest of the household. “What is that noise. Can I go and see?”
“No, no, you cannot go up there.” Those sights would scar the memory of an adult, I thought; God knows what they would do to an impressionable child. I tried to think of something that would frighten the boy away. “There is a nasty, old, one-eyed hunchback living in the bell tower and he does not like children.”
“Why is he making that noise?” the boy persisted.
“He has fallen in love with a beautiful, very light ballerina,” I told him. “But the ballerina does not love the hunchback and so he is crying in despair.”
The boy considered this for a moment and may have even believed it, but then we heard Clothilde’s voice again.
“Now why don’t you suck on one of these bubbies and stop all that noise.” The howl was suddenly cut off and a muffled gurgling noise resumed as she added, “Let’s get these britches off you.”
“That is Clothilde. She is not a ballerina,” announced the lad perceptively. “What are they doing?”
“Never mind that, what are you going to do today?” I asked to distract him.
“My mother says I must write a letter to my father.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste at what he obviously viewed as a tedious chore.
“Where is your father? Is he marching to Russia?”
Before the boy could reply we were interrupted by more noise from the belfry. First there were loud gasps for breath, as Grant must have got his face free from the flesh that had been pressing against it. “For the love of God, get off me, woman… I’ll pay you, just get off me… No, don’t touch me there… I am a British gentleman, dammit – you cannot do this.”
“Ah, he said you might worry about that,” Clothilde cooed back. “You just lie back and relax. You will enjoy it.”
“He said?... Flashma–!… fnfn…” Mercifully the cry was cut off at this point as more flesh was pressed into Grant’s face.
“The hunchback does sound very cross,” declared the boy, before adding, “My father is a soldier, but he is not in Russia; he is in Spain.”
“Really? I was in Spain too.”
“It is a horrid place isn’t it? We all went to visit Father last year.”
“Your father must be a senior officer if he can arrange for his family to visit him.”
“Yes, he is a general,” the boy replied.
“General Trebuchet.” The name did not ring any bells with me. “Is he fighting the partisans rather than the British soldiers?”
“His name is not Trebuchet; that is my mother’s name. His name is General Hugo.”
“General Hugo,” I repeated softly as the morning air suddenly felt several degrees colder. Now earlier events made more sense: the reluctance of Lacodre’s father to be involved, Anna’s fear and her shouting at me that I did not understand what I was doing.
The boy interrupted my thoughts. “Do you know my father?”
“No. I have heard about him of course, but we have never met.” My mind was suddenly filled with an image of the great Gothic cathedral at Burgos where Hugo had nailed partisan heads over the entrance. “You will have to ask your father to decorate this chapel when he comes home. He probably has some interesting ideas for it.” The boy looked puzzled at the suggestion, but my mind was already turning to his mother. If she had visited her husband in Spain last year then they must still be close. If she was as rabid a Bonapartist as her spouse then he could come home and find our heads nailed over the lintel.
“Should I tell Father about the hunchback?” the boy asked.
“I think not. In fact I think it is best if you do not mention anything you have seen or heard this morning to either of your parents. It should be a secret.”
“All right, I will keep it a secret,” agreed the boy, appearing very pleased at having such a responsibility.
In a flash of inspiration I added, “Promise me you will keep it a secret, on the emperor’s life.”
“I promise on the emperor’s life,” the boy replied solemnly.
“That is good,” I told him. “But if you break that promise then the emperor might die and you and your parents could be arrested for treason.”
The boy’s eyes widened in alarm. “I won’t tell anyone,” he promised me again. Then, with a glance up at the bell tower which was emitting more half strangled wails, he walked away back through the bushes while I slumped back down against the wall.
One thing was for sure: we could not stay any longer at the Feuillantines house. I had no idea how well a small boy could keep a secret, but I guessed it would not be long before he let something slip. Even if he did manage to keep quiet, Madame Hugo might notice food disappearing into the garden with Anna. Unless she was deaf, she probably had also heard the cries of Grant and Clothilde carry towards the house in the quiet morning air. But where could we go?
The original idea of escaping upriver and down the canals to Nantes seemed a good one. Surely Lacodre’s cousin Marcel was not the only bargee to take illicit passengers. I still h
ad the gold in my belt; perhaps we could buy our passage with someone else. That was the best plan I could come up with. I thought that we would be best to get to the docks at night when there were fewer officials to ask awkward questions. In any event, if I was bringing Grant, we could not leave now; he was rather occupied. The floorboards at the top of the bell tower had now developed a very regular creak as several hundred weight of flesh moved above them, accompanied by a faint gasping whimper. There was no way I was going to be found when Clothilde came back down that ladder and so I slipped away to the garden gate.
Chapter 26
I wasn’t in the mood for the park. The grunting and groaning from the top of the bell tower accompanied by the sound of flesh slapping on flesh was quite disturbing. It conjured images in my mind that drove away any carnal thoughts. I was much more concerned with Madame Hugo and the reliability of young Victor. As I slipped away down the alley I wondered if the boy was even then blurting out his secret or if the general’s wife was at that very moment walking through the garden to investigate the strange noises from the chapel. What would she do if she discovered that fugitives were hiding in her garden? Almost certainly she would summon the authorities, like a good little Bonapartist, and then when I returned I would be arrested.
So should I go back at all? Having delivered Grant to the tender mercies of Clothilde, even I would have felt a heel sliding out on him without any warning. More importantly if he was arrested, he was bound to talk, willingly or unwillingly. He knew about the plan to escape upriver. Once the authorities had that information, they would search every boat to find me.
On the other hand, little Victor had looked alarmed when I had made him swear on Bonaparte’s life. Perhaps he would keep his mouth shut, at least for a day, which was all we would need.
Instead of going to the park, I walked around until I could see the front of the house. Finding an abandoned old news sheet, I sat down on a nearby bench and pretended to read. I was a hundred yards away from the house, but if Madame Hugo summoned the authorities I would know about it. Then I would at least have a chance of getting away.
I must have read that news sheet twenty times. Even now I can recall that the headline was about the French army crossing the river Vistula in the new Polish kingdom. There were also claims that the Russian army was fleeing in terror at their approach. Clothilde left the house an hour after I took up my surveillance. I shrank back into some bushes, but she walked off in the opposite direction. I spent the rest of the day sitting on that bench, apart from a few short walks to renew the circulation in my buttocks. Not a single person left or entered the house apart from the dairy maid. Eventually the sun began to set and, offering my heartfelt congratulations to young Victor on his discretion, I got up and walked slowly back round to the garden gate.
It had gone dark by the time I quietly approached the little chapel again. I saw against the night sky that was something sticking out of the top of the belfry. As I got closer I realised that Grant had pulled the ladder up into the bell tower so that he could not be disturbed again. Half of it was now pointing into the sky from one of the shuttered windows. At least that indicated that he was still there, and as the garden was quiet, hopefully he was alone. I cautiously entered the building and looked around; it appeared undisturbed from my last visit, a half-drunk cup of water still on the altar.
“Grant,” I called quietly up the tower. “It is me, Flashman. We have to get away.” I waited but there was no reply. “Grant, you bloody fool,” I called in English. “I know you are up there. You pulled the ladder up after you.” Still there was no reply and for a brief moment I wondered if he had done something stupid like kill himself. Surely Clothilde was not that bad? But then I heard him move on the platform above me.
“Flashman, you are an absolute swine. I know you sent that… that… monster up here. I will never forgive you for that, never, you hear?”
“Yes, I hear you, and I am sorry,” I lied. It had been a choice between him and me, and there are some things and people I will not ‘do’ for king and country, Clothilde being one of them. “Listen to me. Madame Trebuchet is General Hugo’s wife. Do you understand what that means? As soon as she discovers we are here, she will turn us in for certain. It will be the rack for you and a firing squad for me. We have to leave now and try to get a boat by ourselves.”
“How do I know that this is not another of your damn tricks? You would sell me out in a heartbeat to save your own precious skin.”
“Maybe I would,” I answered honestly. “But ask yourself this: if I was going to hand you over to the French, why would I be sneaking around on my own in the dead of night to do it? It would be much easier to wait until daybreak, get some soldiers and shoot you down.” I grinned to myself in the darkness and then suggested something that would really horrify him. “Or I could find another ladder and get Clothilde to go back up there to flush you out.”
“You wouldn’t!” cried Grant, aghast at the thought.
“Just think about what I told you and then come on down,” I replied. “We need to get moving.” I was happy to give him a few minutes to mull it over, because when he did even someone as dim as Grant would realise that he had little choice.
I stepped out of the church into the moonlit graveyard that surrounded it. My stomach rumbled in protest; I had not eaten anything since breakfast and there was no food on the altar, which was where Anna normally left it. There was a vegetable garden near the house. I was just wondering if I had time to raid it or hope for something better than raw vegetables at the docks when one of the gravestones moved. Well, it did not move as much as elongate, as a figure stood up behind it.
“So you are British,” stated a woman’s voice I had not heard before. She spoke in French and I wondered how much of my conversation in English with Grant she had been able to understand. Certainly she was on her guard: her arm was extended towards me and something metallic glittered in her hand.
It had to be Madame Hugo, I thought. She was brave or foolish if she was going to try to arrest two soldiers alone with just a pistol. My eyes darted around the other gravestones for movement in case she had any accomplices.
“No, my lady,” I replied in French, searching for an excuse that would buy us some time. “We are Hollanders on our way back from Spain to join our emperor in Russia. Your husband, the general, agreed we could stay here, but it seemed too late to disturb you. We thought we would just camp in the chapel for the night. I apologise if we caused you alarm.”
The response to this long and rambling explanation was brief: the metallic click of a pistol being cocked. She was still six yards away, shooting me from there would be a challenging shot in the dark. Unless it was a rifled barrel I stood a good chance of diving for cover and surviving. That at least was the logical response but my mind froze on the thought of another ball of lead smashing its way through my flesh. I could not steel myself to make the move and I felt beads of sweat break out on my brow as she spoke again.
“You are Captain Thomas Flashman and your companion is General Wellington’s chief spy, a man called Grant. Anna has told me everything.” I glanced around us again, expecting to see soldiers emerge from the shadows. Surely she had not come alone if she knew who we were.
“I am sorry, Madame Hugo, but you are mistaken…”
“Do not call me Hugo,” she interrupted. “My name is Trebuchet. And you need not look around for soldiers. I have not come here to arrest you. I am here to help you.”
“Help me? I don’t understand.” I must have stood and gaped as my mind tried to keep up with this extraordinary turn of events. “Are you not married to General Hugo?”
“We are separated,” she snapped, “and that is none of your business. What does matter is that you have been betrayed. There has been someone watching the house all day. They will probably arrest you as soon as you try to leave.”
“If you mean the French soldier sitting on the bench down the street, that was me,” I exp
lained. “I thought you were going to betray us when I found out who your husband was.”
She was silent for a moment and I saw her eyes glitter in the moonlight as she looked about us. Then the pistol slowly lowered. “I think we should talk,” she said quietly, “and we would be more comfortable in the house. Why don’t you get your companion down and then we can go inside? I can help you, but I think that you can also help me.”
I wandered back into the chapel, feeling bewildered. “Grant, listen to me,” I called up in English. “Madame Trebuchet is outside. She knows who we are and she is offering to help us. She wants us to go up with her to the house.” Even as I uttered the words I knew they sounded ridiculous. Grant was bound to object, not that I blamed him.
“But you said that Madame Trebuchet is the wife of General Hugo.”
“Yes, she is, I think, although she says that they are separated.”
“How can you trust her!” exclaimed Grant. “She married Hugo. He did not become a fanatic overnight. She is bound to be a fervent revolutionary.”
“But she came here alone. She would have brought soldiers if she just wanted to arrest us. And anyway I have been watching the house all day; she has not sent for any soldiers.”
“She must have seen you watching the house. She will have sent for soldiers as soon as you left your post. I’ll wager she has promised to deliver us to them to save troops trampling over her rosebushes in the night. You will be arrested the minute you step foot in the house.” He paused and then added, “You go if you want, but I am staying here. I will jump before I let them take me alive.”
He had a point, I thought. Why would a French patriot help a British spy, and what help could she possibly want from us? Things did not add up, but my gut told me that if she was playing us false, she would have brought some armed men into the garden with her as insurance. God knows I am not one to put myself into danger, but as she knew all about us, we seemed to have little choice.
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