Battlesaurus (21 page)

Willem hesitates, wondering if his mother knows of his feelings for Cosette, and whether that would influence her thoughts.

“Something worries you?” she asks.

“I was just thinking about her father. He was terribly injured. I hope he is all right,” he says.

“Madame Gertruda will be doing everything she can,” she says.

“I will go to find Cosette,” Willem says.

She nods. He turns to go, but stops and turns back, sensing that she has more to say.

“You did a brave thing, facing that animal,” she says.

“So everyone tells me,” Willem says bitterly. “But I was not brave.”

“There is something you should know,” she says.

“What is it?”

“You know that your father fell out of favor with the emperor. But you do not know why.”

“He never spoke of it,” Willem says. “Nor did you.”

His mother acknowledges this with a short nod. “Napol
é
on was very taken with your father's dancing saur. He felt that if a microsaurus could be trained, then so could raptors. He thought they could become weapons. He even spoke to your father of an expedition to the Amerigo Islands to recover dinosaur eggs. Your father refused to help, and that is why he had to flee the palace.”

“Then how…?” Willem asks.

“It seems Napol
é
on found someone else to help him with his plans,” she says.

“I should have been told this,” Willem says.

“You are right,” she says. “And now I fear for our safety if word of your skills reaches the ears of the emperor.”

“My skills?”

“Napol
é
on has a new weapon. But you have shown it can be defeated.”

“The mayor has sworn everyone to silence,” Willem says.

“Do you think that will be enough?” she asks.

*   *   *

Almost at the edge of the forest is a path. Not a track or a trail, but a proper path, laid with smooth gray pebbles. Perhaps it is here that the ladies of Brussels take their forest airs. The pebbles must make for easy walking even when the forest floor is damp, but they are not quiet, and as Jean and Fran
ç
ois reach the path they hear the crunch of footsteps close by and the sound of voices, unmistakably French.

When the cannonfire began, the soldiers in front of them stopped in their tracks. They seemed confused, then concerned, then began to return to the abbey.

Since then Fran
ç
ois and Jean have made a rapid but uneasy transit through the forest, running where the trails allowed it, both of them keen to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the black creatures behind them.

There was another burst of cannonfire after the first, but since then, silence.

They reached the north river without incident and followed it to the very edge of the forest.

Now Jean places a foot carefully on the path but withdraws it immediately as the pebbles start to shift under his foot. They cannot cross the path without making noise.

The thick stone walls of the city seem so close. The road to it is smooth and wide, atop a low ridge. Below that in a grassy field is a troop of British artillery conducting a training exercise. It appears to have finished. The British artillerymen are now packing up their cannon and drawing into formation, ready to move. They look like toy soldiers, tall and thin in their crisp blue-and-red uniforms.

A dash across the path and a wild run through the field and Jean and Fran
ç
ois would be safe. Surely the French soldiers would not dare to fire on them within sight of British soldiers.

“Quickly,” Jean says, “before the French get any closer.”

“No!” Fran
ç
ois says.

Jean hesitates, and even in that short time the opportunity is lost. The footsteps sound now just around a bend in the forest path.

Jean eases back into the trees, Fran
ç
ois beside him, dropping to the ground and crabbing sideways toward a fallen log. It is not a tree but a heavy bough, at the base of an old dead birch. The tree still stands, but only just. It bulges with rot, its bark peeling away in long strips. The bough is not substantial, but smaller branches off it have collected old leaves, and it provides adequate concealment.

The tread of boots on the stones of the path grows louder, and the cousins press themselves into the mulch and moist earth.

As the soldiers draw level with them there is a one-word command, given in a hushed voice, and the soldiers stop.

There comes the shuffling of feet and low conversation, too faint to make out the words.

Fran
ç
ois closes his eyes for a moment, and his lips move slightly as he utters a silent prayer.

“Just stay still,” Jean whispers, peering over the top of the bough. “And do not worry. They have not seen us. They are watching the British.”

Fran
ç
ois nods, but Jean has not understood the meaning or the reason for the prayer.

Fran
ç
ois draws his hunting knife from his belt, and starts to rise.

“Do not be stupid,” Jean hisses. “There are too many of them, and they are armed with muskets. In any case they are moving on.”

The sound of footsteps has resumed and recedes as the French soldiers continue onward.

“See, we are safe now,” Jean says. “Now let us go and deliver our message.”

“Wait just a moment,” Fran
ç
ois says. “Stay here.”

He rises to a squat and crosses over Jean's prone form, straddling him.

“You will undo us both,” Jean says, and starts to say more but cannot, and there is only a slight gasp of air as Fran
ç
ois's knife slips in between his ribs.

*   *   *

Cosette is just closing the gate to Madame Gertruda's. She steps lightly and smiles briefly when she sees Willem.

“How is your father?” Willem asks.

“He will be fine,” she says. “Some bones were broken, but Madame Gertruda has tended to them, and says he will be up and around in a few weeks.”

“That is good news,” Willem says. “Where will you stay in the meantime?”

“I hadn't considered that,” she says. “At home, I suppose. I am going there now.”

“May I walk with you?” Willem asks.

“If it pleases you,” she says.

She walks quickly and he has to lengthen his pace to keep up. They walk in silence at first, Willem choosing his words carefully before revealing them.

They are almost at the square when he says, “My mother asked me to invite you to stay with us. Until your father is well. There is a spare room and we have ample food. She says you can choose your own bath day.”

On the far side of the square, by the church, the cadaver of the dinosaur has disappeared as if it had never existed. As if the memory of that dreadful night was no more than a nightmare. Men with spades are turning the earth to hide the bloodstain, and it will soon be planted with flowers. A pretty garden to hide a terrible secret.

“You saved my life, and that of my father,” Cosette says. “I already have too much to thank you for.”

“It was Jean who killed the beast,” Willem says.

“But you who stood before it, so that he could fire his bow,” Cosette says. “I still do not understand why it did not eat you.”

“Perhaps it did not like Flemish food,” Willem says.

Cosette laughs prettily, and her lazy eye wanders out, gazing at something far away. “People are saying that you were sent by God to protect the village. Some say that is why God saved you at the f
ê
te.”

Willem shakes his head, smiling with her. “Is that what you think?”

“I think that I would be joining my sister in heaven if not for you,” she says, and her face grows sorrowful once more.

“You must miss her unbearably,” Willem says.

“It is true,” Cosette says.

“So will you come and stay with us?” he asks. “The living arrangements will be entirely proper.”

He regrets those words as soon as he says them.

“I know what you thought about my sister,” she says. “But you are wrong.”

“I did not think badly of her,” he protests.

“Yes you did. You all did,” she says.

He is silent.

“There is an artist who lives in Waterloo,” she says. “A painter of some renown. Ang
é
lique would model for him. And his students.”

“That is nothing to cause discomfort,” he says.

“She posed unclothed,” Cosette says. “But the pay was generous and there was no impropriety.”

“You don't have to tell me this,” he says.

“I know,” she says. “But I wanted you to think better of her. Just a little.”

“She was always nice to me, even when others weren't,” Willem says. “That is what I will remember of her.”

“You are a kind person, Willem,” Cosette says. “I think that I would like to get to know you better.” It is the first time since her sister died that he has seen her looking happy. “Tell your mother that I would be honored, and grateful, to accept her invitation.”

*   *   *

Jean lies on his back, his face contorted with pain. He grasps at Fran
ç
ois's arm with hands in which the strength is already fading.

“What is in your heart is not what is in my heart, cousin,” Fran
ç
ois says. He eases his arm out of the other's grip. “Do not look at me with such eyes, filled with confusion and hurt. With all of my being I wish there were another way, but I could not have fought you. You were always the stronger one.”

Jean's mouth opens, trying to form a question, but no sound emerges.

Fran
ç
ois puts a finger to Jean's lips, hushing him.

“Your heart has stopped, Jean. You have but a few seconds, so listen,” he says. “You are my cousin but I have loved you like a brother and that is why I have done this thing for you. I have saved you from transgression. We are Walloon. We are French. Napol
é
on is our one true leader, sent by God to unite all of Europe under His name. Yet you would have aided His enemies.

“It would have been a mortal sin, cousin, and one that would have condemned you to an eternity in the roasting fires of hell. But I have saved you from that. Do you not see? Do not fear, or hate, but rejoice, for you shall live forever in the kingdom of the Lord.”

He stops, seeing that the eyes of the other are cold and still, like those of a fish. Tears begin to fall from his own eyes and he weeps unashamedly, making no attempt to wipe them away.

“I could have turned you over to those soldiers,” he says. “That would have been the easy path, but you are my blood, and I would not have a stranger take your life.”

A thin wind whistles up through the trees around them as the young man crouches, weeping, over the body of his cousin.

“And so you rise to heaven,” he says. “And I shall go to hell in your place.”

*   *   *

The patrol is almost out of sight when Fran
ç
ois steps out from the bushes. They stop at the sound of his footsteps on the path, and turn back, muskets sliding off shoulders into their arms.

“Vive l'empereur,”
Fran
ç
ois says.

 

FRANÇOIS

Despite the death of the dinosaur, lookouts are still posted in the church tower, and it is one of the younger Poulencs, so posted, who is the first to see Fran
ç
ois walking in the fading light of evening along the river path to the bridge. It is a day since he and Jean set off.

The lookout calls out the sighting and the saur-gate is unbolted and open by the time Fran
ç
ois reaches it. Men are waiting to meet him, Monsieur Claude at their head. The mayor has detailed two men with muskets to arrest the cousins when they arrive back, and although Fran
ç
ois is alone, they make a great show of tying his arms behind his back with strong cord.

It is completely unnecessary, Willem thinks, and clearly all for the sake of the emperor, should he ever get to hear about it.

Willem keeps to the back of the small group that quickly gathers, hoping the mayor will not notice him.

Fran
ç
ois carries Jean's crossbow in a sling on his back and one of the men takes it from him as if he would use it against them.

That is when Willem feels a weight, like a boulder, in the pit of his stomach.
Why does Fran
ç
ois carry Jean's crossbow?

Fran
ç
ois makes no move to resist as his hands are tied and just stands with his head bowed.

He either does not hear his uncle's question, “Where is Jean?” or chooses not to answer.

Monsieur Claude repeats the question a few moments later, after marching Fran
ç
ois to the center of the village square where a crowd is starting to form. He wants everybody to see this.

“Where is your cousin?” he asks.

Again Fran
ç
ois does not answer.

Father Ambroise watches the affair but does not attempt to intervene on behalf of his son.

Willem's mother stands at the back of the crowd, her face set. Watching her, Willem has a strong suspicion that she has had her “talk” with the mayor, and the mayor has not been as responsive as she would have liked. Or is that perhaps the reason why Willem is not now standing, hands bound, at Fran
ç
ois's side?

“Where have you been?” is Monsieur Claude's next question, followed by, “What have you been doing?”

Now Fran
ç
ois lifts his head defiantly. “We went to Brussels, to warn the Duke of Wellington about the dinosaurs.”

There is quiet shock in the crowd at this frank admission of guilt.