Battlesaurus (31 page)

“Shh,” he says. “Listen.”

They all stop on the bank of the river.

“I hear the French soldiers,” Jack says. “I hear their dogs.”

“That is not the sound of dogs,” Frost says.

 

SISTER

Madame Marie Verheyen, the mother of Willem, walks with dignity and grace as soldiers with muskets march her and Cosette from her home to the village square, stopping in front of the general. She says nothing and takes great care to keep any emotion from her face. What will show, if she allows it, is contempt, and that is likely to antagonize this man.

“Ah, the mother. And an unexpected bonus,” Thibault says. “Perhaps a sister?”

Willem's mother is silent, as is Cosette. The girl stares straight ahead, but one eye drifts off to the side.

Thibault regards them both for a moment, his gaze lingering on the simple frock of the girl, then he abruptly turns to the captain at his side.

“Lansard, this boy has knowledge, and knowledge is a contagion,” Thibault says. “Unchecked, it may yet defeat us.”

“Yes, sir,” Lansard says.

“Look around you.” Thibault points to one of the Poulenc children. “Is she infected?” He indicates Madame Gertruda. “What about her? What about the blacksmith or the tailor? Any of these people might carry the disease.”

“We can question everyone in the village,” Lansard says. “Find out how far this knowledge has spread.”

Thibault steeples his fingers together in thought.

“Sir?” Lansard asks.

Thibault explodes into unprovoked anger, clenching his fists and throwing them up against the sky. “Why do such burdens so often weigh on my shoulders? Is it a test of my character, of my will? For my character is strong, and my will is unrelenting.”

“Your orders, sir?” Lansard asks.

“The boy's mother and sister will come with us. If we fail to locate the boy we may well make use of them.”

“This is the schoolmaster's daughter, not mine,” Willem's mother says, pushing Cosette away from her. “She is of no value to you.”

“She lies!” Father Ambroise calls out, to a shocked look from Marie.

Thibault looks from the mother to the priest and back again. “Where is this schoolmaster?” he asks.

“I am here,” Monsieur Delvaux says from his cot at the entrance to the market hall.

Thibault grasps Willem's mother and Cosette each by an arm and leads them over to where Delvaux lies. Madame Gertruda moves away as Thibault approaches.

“Is this your daughter?” Thibault asks. “If you lie, I will know it, and I will kill you both.”

Delvaux's eyes close and his breathing seems labored in his chest.

“Answer my question, or face the consequences,” Thibault says.

“My daughter died three weeks ago. She was attacked by a saur in the forest,” Monsieur Delvaux says, his eyes still closed.

“And you have no other daughter?” Thibault asks.

Now Delvaux opens his eyes. He looks not at Thibault, but at Willem's mother. “I have no other daughter,” he says.

“You see, madame, I am not fooled by your lies,” Thibault says. “But I understand that you think to protect your child. I will give you one last chance for the truth.”

Willem's mother still looks at Delvaux and in the depths of his eyes she sees what he knows.

“This is my daughter. Willem's sister,” she says with trembling lips, drawing the girl to her. “Please do not harm her.”

“Then she comes with us,” Thibault says, his eyes once again roaming Cosette's body, his lips drawing back into a rare smile.

As Cosette is forced up into the caged wagon, her eyes, wide, terrified, and helpless, are fixed on those of her father. She opens her mouth to speak but the schoolmaster, who has found the strength to sit up, shakes his head, the barest of movements, and only watches as the gate of the cage is shut.

The floor of the wagon is covered with straw, and the droppings of animals. It reeks with a sulfurous, rotten smell. Willem's mother fights the urge to gag and clears a place to sit for both of them. When she looks up, Cosette and her father are still staring at each other through the thick bars of the iron cage. And Willem's mother can see that for the first time since the death of Ang
é
lique, the schoolmaster is at peace.

The other villagers are assembled in the square, and Willem's mother looks at their faces, confused and frightened. Father Ambroise stands with his wife, his arms around her, her hands on her swollen belly, their daughter,
É
milie, at their side. The Poulencs make a huddle in front of the stables with the Beauclerc and Lecocq families. Marcel Lejeune and his wife stand together, holding hands, their chins high and defiant. Next to them is Madame Gertruda. She smiles as the wagon is drawn away toward the open saur-gate. She is having a good day.

Willem's mother draws Cosette to her, pulling her face in to her shoulder so Cosette cannot see what she sees: the French soldiers forming into squares.

 

UNDER THE BRIDGE

Major Jerome Lansard of the Imperial Guard is stationed on the stone bridge outside the wall of the village. This is the job of a conscript, not a captain. But had he remained in the village he would have been given orders that he would have refused to carry out, even knowing that the punishment for such insubordination would likely be death, summarily executed.

Here on the stonework of the bridge he can not only avoid such orders, he can avoid seeing what is taking place behind him, although he cannot pretend he does not know. The bells of the village church have been tolling for many minutes, on Thibault's orders, to cover the sound of the screams.

So Lansard guards the bridge, walking occasionally from side to side, although mostly just standing in the center, his back ramrod straight, his chin proud.

The river catches the sunlight as it meanders beneath the bridge, and, perhaps feeling the need to see something peaceful and clean, he walks to the edge and looks down.

A flash of movement catches his eye. Just a ripple in the water, nothing more. Perhaps a duck, or a fish. Maybe a sudden eddy in the current. He waits, but it is not repeated.

He crosses the bridge to the riverside, from where he can see most of the way under the arch of the bridge. He can see nothing. Yet his eyes did not deceive him before. He moves upriver and peers into the shadow under the bridge from that side. Was that a trick of the light, or a blur of movement? A tangle of weeds, or was it a wild mop of hair?

To see fully under the bridge will involve wading into the river, and the prospect of spending the entire day in wet footwear does not appeal to him. He almost turns back, then sighs and sits on the riverbank, removing his boots.

The sun is out strongly today and the lavender glows in the light. There is a gentle breeze running along the river. Even the bells of the church add a melodic resonance to the day. It seems a shame to spoil such a beautiful day with the sound of shot and the smell of gunpowder. But Major Lansard is not a man to shirk his duty.

He draws his pistol and cocks it before wading into the shallows of the river at the side of the bridge.

 

FRANÇOIS'S PRAYER

The sound of the church bells does not quite drown out the sound of the screams.

Fran
ç
ois runs through the forest and he does not look back.

He moves, and he prays. He prays with his eyes open, gliding on paths that are not paths. Filtering through trees, finding gaps that only someone with a lifetime of living in the forest could know.

After guiding the children to the priest's hole, he had slipped quietly across into the church and retrieved the crossbow, and a full quiver of bolts, from where he had secreted them, behind the pulpit. Then, carefully avoiding the guards, he moved to an area of the saur-fence where a rotten, loose post can be pushed easily to one side, creating just enough room for a young man to slip through. Now, as he moves, so do his lips, asking questions that only God Himself can answer.

“Is this what You want?

“What more can You ask from me?

“Is this a test of my faith?

“My faith is unshakable, but how can I accept the murder of my family, of the people of my village?

“Is this the sacrifice they must make for Your glory? Is this the price I must pay for being an imperfect servant? As You sacrificed Your Son to the cross, did I sacrifice the people of my village?

“But if I turn from this now, then the death of my cousin has no meaning.”

He comes to the river and stops, listening. Every sound of the forest is known to him, from the twitter of the microsaurus to the rasp of the wings of the hawks.

He hears the soldiers. A group of them, blundering through the forest ahead of him.

They are moving upriver and they are moving quickly. No doubt scouring the riverbank for Willem's scent.

He rises and moves in that direction.

And as he does so, the answers come to him. Not as a sign or a voice in his head, but as a dawning understanding, a realization of the truth.

As Jesus had his Judas, so Napol
é
on has his Thibault. The evil of evil men does not make all men evil.

Napol
é
on has been sent by God. Thibault by the devil.

Fran
ç
ois stops running. He lifts the crossbow from its sling on his back and starts to turn back to the village. He even takes a few steps in that direction before he realizes: Thibault must wait. For now he has a higher purpose. Willem cannot be allowed to reach England.

He moves swiftly along the bank of the river, careful to keep a good distance from the crashing sounds of the soldiers and their beasts, who move in front of him.

He tries to think like Willem. Why would he take this route? If he stays in the river he will be forced to move slowly, against the running water, and the soldiers will easily catch him. If he leaves the river, they will find his scent and track him.

But Willem is too smart for that. He must have a plan.

It is only after Fran
ç
ois has passed a thick stand of ferns by the riverbank that it occurs to him. He doubles back, drawing the crossbow again and pushing aside the fronds of the thicket. He presses through into the swamp area, seeing the old shack slowly dissolving into the ground on the other side.

It is deserted, but as he steps forward there is a click at his ear and he spins with the crossbow in his hands to face the muzzle of a flintlock pistol.

“Fran
ç
ois!” Willem says, lowering the gun.

Fran
ç
ois keeps the crossbow steady at Willem's heart.

“What has happened at the village?” Willem asks.

“I am sorry, Willem,” Fran
ç
ois says, and his finger tightens on the trigger.

But now there are more people, two British soldiers who emerge from the bushes behind Willem. One is blind and easily disposed of, but the other is tall and strong. He has one arm in a splint, but his other hand holds a bayonet. The crossbow holds only one bolt.

“I am sorry, I don't know,” Fran
ç
ois says, and the crossbow lowers.

“What about the bells?” the blind soldier asks. “We heard them ringing.”

“I heard them, too,” Fran
ç
ois says. “But I saw nothing.”

“Did my mother escape?” Willem asks.

“Yes,” Fran
ç
ois says, then shakes his head. “I mean no. She and Cosette were taken away in a caged wagon.”

“Cosette also?”

“Both of them,” Fran
ç
ois says.

 

AMBUSH

“Come quickly, we must go,” Willem says.

He leads the others back through the fern grove and out to the riverbank.

“Willem, no,” Fran
ç
ois says. “The soldiers have taken this path with their raptors.”

“And that is why we take it also,” Willem says.

“That makes no sense,” Fran
ç
ois says.

“They know we head to Brussels,” Willem says. “So they head there also. We will follow them. They seek my scent. But they will not find it, because they are only searching what lies in front of them, and we are behind.”

“Your tactics would rival those of Napol
é
on himself,” Frost says.

“Hurry,” Willem says. “Be as quiet as possible and do not speak unless necessary.”

They stay on the riverbank, close to the treeline where they can quickly hide. They listen carefully for the boot steps in front of them. The cuirassiers are easy to follow; in their heavy armor they thunder along the riverbank like a herd of gardensaurus.

Always, mixed in with the sound of the soldiers, is the other sound. An ungodly sound.

Frost stops and turns back the way they have come. They all stop with him.

“Someone, or something, is following us,” Frost says.

“I can hear nothing,” Willem says.

“It is very quiet,” Frost says.

“He is right,” Fran
ç
ois says. “I have heard something, too.”

“It makes no difference,” Willem says. “We must continue.”

It seems so long ago that he was in Monsieur Lecocq's eelboat, floating through the center of the river, watching the same trees and rocks. They seem different now. Dirtier. Tarred with the brush of all the events since that time. What had seemed grave then, an attack by a firebird, now seems no more than a frivolity, a diversion, compared to what is happening around them.

Frost trips on an edge of rock and falls, despite Jack's desperate attempt to save him. His outflung hand catches a branch of a small tree. It is dry, and snaps with a loud crack. They all freeze, waiting to see what the soldiers ahead of them will do, but there is no change in the sounds from upriver, and after a few moments they continue on.