One Helluva Bad Time- The Complete Bad Times Series

by Chuck Dixon

  Brulo bit his own hand to stifle laughter with enough force to draw blood. The two soldiers in attendance turned red in the face and studied the carpet beneath their feet with exaggerated interest.

  “We shall take more expedient measures,” Bachus said, unamused by any of this. He did not care for mysteries, and this man was indeed a mystery.

  “I want this man scourged, but not so harmed as to prevent his speaking,” Bachus said to Brulo.

  “Branding, sir?” Brulo said, licking a fleck of his own blood from his lip.

  “That will do.” The centurion nodded and returned to his chair.

  The fire in the brazier was restoked while Brulo departed to retrieve his tools. The Celt levered himself to a sitting position and gazed at Bachus with an open expression of bold appraisal. Was that animal cunning or true intelligence the centurion saw there? This man was dangerous, to be sure. And how many more like him were there out there on the desert even now? What was their purpose in being so close to a Roman encampment? Was this the vanguard of a larger army? Were they Celtic mercenaries hired by the Jews?

  “Leave us,” Bachus said to Titus. The chubby scribe goggled wide-eyed.

  “But why, sir?” he wheedled.

  “Because I do not care for you to report every military matter to your master,” the centurion growled. “I am in command here, not the prefect by proxy.”

  Titus, his face red and twisted with resentment, bowed and exited the tent.

  Brulo returned shortly with iron brands, tools used to burn postholes for the assembly of wooden structures. He balanced four of them in the brazier and blew upon the coals there until they glowed red. After only a few moments, the tips of the brands were an incandescent orange. The odor of hot metal permeated the tent. Brulo held the end of one of the irons with a swath of wool and plucked it from the brazier.

  “Hold him still,” Bachus instructed the two soldiers and leaned forward to watch with interest. Raman stood by, smiling eagerly. The optio appeared to be bored by the tedium of it all and held a strip of scented linen to his nose in anticipation of the odor of singed flesh.

  The soldiers moved to brace the Celt as Brulo closed on him with the brand. Before they could get a firm grip, the bearded man bolted to his feet and launched himself forward to slam his forehead into the bridge of Brulo’s nose. The Sabine went down hard with the Celt’s weight atop him. Blood jetted from Brulo’s nostrils in a crimson mist. The soldiers and Raman drew blades and advanced on the Celt, who had rolled off the inert torturer to the pile of pillage that lay at Bachus’s feet.

  “No!” Bachus bawled. “He is only to be subdued.” The soldiers shoved Raman aside and beat on the naked man with the flat of their blades. The Celt rose on his knees with a roar and clumsily tossed a thick belt of some material at Bachus, who fell backward in his chair in surprise. The throw fell short, and the belt landed in the coals of the brazier. The Celt dropped to the floor with the blades of the soldier’s swords pummeling his back and shoulders.

  Bachus rose to his feet, his face red with rage. He ordered the soldiers to stop their bludgeoning. Brulo appeared to be quite dead from the single blow to his face. The amount of blood was astonishing from so innocuous an injury. The centurion turned as a stink filled his nostrils. A most noxious smoke was rising from the thrown belt lying in the hot embers of the brazier. The belt was fashioned to hold lozenge-shaped objects of some unknown description.

  He reached to remove the belt from the fire.

  There was a deafening explosion.

  Bachus was astounded to see his hand vanish in a spray of flesh, leaving only a ragged stump behind.

  The beating hurt like a motherfucker but was worth it, Boats thought to himself as the twelve-gauge rounds began to cook off in the fire. There were screams and oaths, and the SEAL hugged the floor as the tent rocked to a firecracker stream of explosions. A lifeless body dropped on him in a sticky shower of hot blood. The rounds went off like mini grenades, sending lead pellets everywhere. Boats felt the body atop him judder under the impact of one buck load after another.

  The blasts died away, and Boats slid from under the body. The guy was missing everything from the shoulders up. All around the tent, men lay still or writhed. The big cheese who had been asking all the questions was motionless in a pool of blood. His second in command sat on his ass, crying like a baby at the bloody mess of jagged bone and ripped flesh that was all that was left of his legs. The little archer was crawling across the carpet, using a hand to hold his guts in place and leaving a greasy loop trailing behind him leaking shit.

  The SEAL stood and plucked a gladius from the hand of one of the dead soldiers. Then he picked up his bottle of Revolucion tequila. Standing balanced on one foot, he undid the cap and took a long pull from the blue bottle. Then he emptied the remaining contents on the little Assyrian bastard who was leaving a snail trail of gore across the carpet. Boats hobbled to the brazier and tipped it over. Embers reached the pool of hundred-proof agave, and the archer was instantly engulfed in flames.

  Boats tossed the empty aside and stepped through the flaps of the tent into the cool, clean morning air.

  All around, soldiers stopped in their tracks to see a naked giant emerge from the centurion’s burning tent. The man was covered over every inch of his body in drying blood. He held a sword in his hand and eyed the ring of armed men as though mildly surprised to see them. Inside the tent, flames reached other combustibles among the heap of items pulled from the prisoner’s camp. Muffled thunderclaps rumbled within, and holes were rent in the cloth walls all around. A few legionnaires were struck down where they stood, blood gushing from wounds made by forces unseen.

  The soldiers withdrew, some taking cautious steps back while others threw down their weapons and ran for the partly completed walls of the fort. More fire erupted from inside the centurion’s tent, and running men were felled by blows from invisible blades that tore at their armor and flesh.

  Through it all, the red-headed madman stood unflinching. He finally spoke in a guttural tongue none could understand.

  “Veni, vidi, vici, huh? What a load of bullshit.”

  33

  Passion and Procrastination

  The Villeneuve home was in the center of a block along the Avenue Bosquet. It was technically a townhome, Caroline supposed. It felt more like a mansion, with three expansive floors and large luxurious rooms topped with high, sculpted ceilings. Mme. Villeneuve revealed that she was a widow of five years. Her husband had been a captain of industry who had managed his family’s holdings in land and shipping to build an even greater fortune.

  When the war broke out, the widow had been in Paris and chose to remain in the city rather than return to their country home in Versailles. Just as well, as it turned out, since the former imperial palace was now home to the Prussian general staff and, rumor had it, Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig himself.

  The cavernous house had more than enough rooms to house Caroline and Stephen. Mme. Villeneuve lived here with her son Jeannot, a student at university. There was also Claude, the tall man with the boxer’s face, who served as a bodyguard as well as carriage driver and footman. His job was entirely the former now as they had sent their two carriage horses to the knacker’s weeks before and had been living off steaks and soup made from their flesh.

  A chef named Anatole resided in the house as well as Inès and Corrine, the plump downstairs maid and the petite upstairs maid, respectively.

  Caroline was shown into a sumptuous boudoir straight out of a movie. A massive canopy bed dominated the center of the room. A fortune in finely carved furniture in black wood accented in silver lined the walls beneath paintings—mostly traditional landscapes, still lifes, and portraits—all hanging crookedly due to the recent tremors. A thick-pile Persian carpet trimmed in silk of Belgian blue lay at the foot of the bed. Corrine was running a cloth over a child’s crib that had the most charming images of rabbits worked in the wood in bas relief with mother of pearl i
nlays.

  “It was Jeannot’s,” Mme. Villeneuve said wistfully. “I could not bear to part with it.”

  “I am certain that Stephen will adore it as well,” Caroline said.

  “What do babies know or care of luxury?” The widow shrugged. “We indulge ourselves when we spoil them so.”

  “Still, it is all so generous of you.” Caroline set Stephen in the crib on crisp, clean sheets that Corrine had laid inside.

  “It is my pleasure to have the sound of a child in the house once more,” the widow said. “Now, you and your baby will rest. I will send Corrine in a few hours to let you know that the late meal is being served.”

  Caroline leaned back on the bed and watched the two women depart the room. When the door was closed, she went to the window, which afforded her a panorama of Paris that was still breathtaking even though marred with columns of smoke. She could see across the trees of a park to the silver band of the Seine. There was something wrong with this view. It took a moment for her to realize that the Eiffel Tower was absent. That structure would not rise to dominate the skyline for decades.

  The sky below the low ceiling of clouds was crisscrossed with the contrails of artillery fire. They formed loops and arcs that were marked by smears of smoke where they ended like evil and destructive rainbows.

  She pulled the heavy drapes closed, throwing the room into comforting shadow. Caroline lay back, fully clothed on the bed and sank into its lush embrace. The canopy above was bare of curtains, allowing her to see the domed coffered ceiling. A fresco was painted there, an idyllic scene of shepherds and their flock crossing a pasture down to a winding river and a picturesque stone bridge. She smiled as she counted the sheep.

  She drifted off before reaching the tenth sheep despite the occasional growl of the bombardment outside.

  Dinner was served that evening in the formal dining room. Caroline suspected that the chunks of meat in the consommé were from the former carriage horses, but she was too famished to care. There was fresh bread and even butter, and the chef worked miracles with dried vegetables and beans to create a medley baked in a flaky crust. Dessert was a compote of figs and honey topped with clotted cream. It was hard to believe that she was in a city under siege by an enemy invader. But Jeannot, the Villeneuve son, served as a reminder of that. It was all he could talk about.

  “The generals are fools,” he proclaimed. He was a tall, reedy young man of perhaps nineteen. His cheeks were covered with an angry blush of acne. “De Bellemare is the only one with nerve, and they will punish him for his boldness. All they do is fall back and fall back. Fall back to what? They will soon be left with nowhere to stand yet they make no effort to break the ring of steel the Germans have constructed about us.”

  Mme. Villeneuve glanced at him occasionally but said nothing in reply. Caroline wondered who Jeannot was addressing, then realized that it did not matter. The boy was an activist student. Back in college in London and Chicago, she’d seen her share. With his unruly hair and opinionated nature, Jeannot would be at home marching in organized protests and arguing in spirited debates on any campus she’d attended. It might be over immigrant rights, the environment, or the injustice of fur used in fashion. For some, it was a phase they grew out of. She sensed that perhaps Jeannot was not one of those. He liked to hear himself talk too much.

  “Trochu petitioned Moltke for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds. He sent word to the Prussian monster informing him that their cannon fire falls upon hospitals where wounded soldiers and citizens lay helpless. Do you know what Moltke said in reply?” Jeannot’s eyes swept the table, but the two ladies sat mutely dining.

  “I will tell you!” As if any force on Earth might stop him. “He said that they use the red crosses on the flags atop the hospitals to sight their cannons! He said that! He said that he murders innocents with relish, and looks forward to more murder! Enough to make the Seine run thick with blood!”

  “Jeannot! Please!” his mother cried out. “Madame Rivard and I are dining, and cannot do so in peace under the assault of your unspeakable analogies!”

  “I only speak the vivid truth, Mother! While we enjoy our meals, Paris starves. And the generals do nothing to stop the potato-eating swine who come to bayonet us in our beds and rape our women!”

  “Jeannot! For God’s sake!” Mme. Villeneuve slammed her fork down on the table with enough force to slosh wine from their glasses.

  “What would you propose that they do, monsieur?” Caroline asked, as much to break the current course of his colorful ramblings as to satisfy her curiosity.

  “We are still many, we Parisians. How can so many be held prisoner by so few?” He seemed to notice her for the first time. “If every man, not just the soldiers, took up arms, and stormed the Prussian batteries, they would have no choice but to withdraw or be overwhelmed. It is simple mathematics.”

  “It is simple madness,” his mother huffed.

  “There is a movement afoot to make this a reality,” he said, leaning eagerly toward Caroline and gesturing. “The students and the clubs are urging the city fathers toward this action; to allow Parisians to liberate Paris themselves! My club is the Fraternité des Etudiants-Soldats, and we are prepared to fight! We could sweep over the bastards like a tide! Within hours the city would be free of them and their cannon!”

  Caroline searched her mind once again, trying to recall if this event ever occurred. She remembered nothing. Certainly, if it had happened and succeeded, it would have been memorialized. Something that foolhardy and heroic would be celebrated if it had resulted in victory. It would have been immortalized in the writings of Flaubert or Zola and been celebrated as a national holiday upon its anniversary each year. Caroline decided that it was only spoken of by idealistic young idiots like Jeannot.

  “I think we all pray it does not come to that,” Caroline said.

  “Pray all you wish, Madame. But it is man who determines his fate,” Jeannot said, grandly and stood to leave the table.

  “Where are you off to?” Mme. Villeneuve protested. “It is past curfew, son.”

  “I have to meet with my fellow students. The patrols are too lazy or cowardly to act against violators.” He bowed his farewells and left the dining room.

  “A woman as beautiful as you for a dinner companion, and he would rather go talk of war with his friends.” The widow sighed.

  “You embarrass me, Madame Villeneuve,” Caroline said, looking longingly at Jeannot’s untouched dessert.

  “Nonsense, my dear. I do not recall having ever seen any woman with such a complexion or so lovely a smile.”

  Caroline sent a silent thank you to the sciences of dermatology and dentistry. If she learned nothing else in her trips to the past, it was that skin and tooth care were uniformly neglected.

  “I can only credit a healthy diet and plenty of fresh air.” Caroline smiled.

  “They must have an abundance of both in Canada, then.” Mme. Villeneuve smiled back with a hand before her mouth, as was the custom to hide missing or blackened teeth.

  “Your son is certainly passionate.”

  “About politics, absolutely,” the widow sighed. “I sometimes despair for future generations.”

  Caroline reached for the remaining dessert plate still resting untouched at Jeannot’s place.

  “Shall we?” she said, placing a knife in the center of the sweet confection.

  “It would be a sin not to,” Mme. Villeneuve said with a solemn nod.

  In the shuttered bar-parlor of the Hotel Exemplaire, the registrar lifted his glass for a refill. The dark man with the fleece of white hair was paying and pouring and doing both generously. He did not even balk when the registrar suggested they turn to cognac—the fine aged bottle from the very top shelf. At prices made dear by the siege, the well-spoken stranger was paying through the nose, and the francs were filling the registrar’s pockets as the Vieille Réserve filled his head and warmed his insides.

  The dark stranger was clearly
not French but spoke the language like an educated patrician. He intimated, without tacitly saying so, that he was with the Deuxième Bureau. The registrar was flattered by the attention. The soldiers of the guard had treated the registrar with scorn when he brought them back to the hotel to find the German woman was gone. Now all these questions from an important official were making the little man feel like a patriot.

  The questions were all about the filthy German whore in Room 22. What name did she call herself? Was there a man with her? When did he leave? Did she tell anyone what the name of the child was? Were any objects of an unusual nature found in her room?

  “Unusual? Unusual in what way?” the registrar asked.

  “Anything you may not have seen before. A device. A machine. An article of clothing of a design and fabric strange to you,” the dark man said, and tipped the fat cognac bottle to refresh his new friend’s glass.

  “An article of clothing?” The registrar was intrigued. “Was this woman known to wear clothing that was provocative?”

  “Nothing like that. Something remarkable that she may have left behind. Perhaps your maids saw something in the rooms that they would remember?”

  “Shall we wake them?”

  “Vigilance never sleeps,” the stranger said in a hushed, conspiratorial tone that sent a thrill up the registrar’s spine.

  In the master boudoir at 33 Avenue Bosquet, Madame Villeneuve was prepared for bed with the help of Corrine. The widow dismissed the maid and sat at her vanity, which also served as a writing desk.

  From a drawer in the vanity, she retrieved a journal and turned to the blank page that would be the entry for the day. She recorded the events of each day faithfully and had done so since she was a young woman, a school girl. The current journal, a fancy leather-bound book with vellum pages trimmed in gold leaf, was volume twenty and told the story of her life written simply, not artfully, as a list of each day’s occurrences.