Timepiece (33 page)

Maxwell pursed his lips. “No,” he said at last. “Burnley knows Wellington’s staff in a way Blücher and Bülow do not. It’s too easy for you to arouse suspicion—to do exactly what I did in an ill-fitting Coldstream Guards uniform.” The faint self-disgust in his voice was there and gone too fast for Elizabeth to comment on it. “We’ll just wait here for a bit,” Maxwell went on. “And while we wait,” he added, “we may as well decide what the deuce we do next. With you. Since you are in two places at once.”

Elizabeth felt heat prickling over her face again.

“First we ought to try a quarter past seven on the eighteenth of June, when we are
not
in two places at once,” William said. “It seems like it should work. If it doesn’t...” He frowned down at Freemantle’s body. “We know we can force a watch to take us where we shouldn’t be able to go,” he said slowly, thinking it out. “At the cost of the watch. So if we had two, and if there were no other option, we could sacrifice one to get back home. Is there anyone who could mend Elizabeth’s? Not here and now, obviously, but someone
in
some
place and time must know how they work. Someone far in the future, perhaps? Gavin Trevelyan, even—it doesn’t seem like there’s much Trevelyan can’t do—did he ever get a look at the inside of yours, sir? Oh, but...” Elizabeth looked up at the sudden change in tone. “But he’ll be a different Trevelyan. He won’t know who we are.”

Maxwell smiled a little, sadly. “I hope not.”

“How wretched that should be the best possible outcome...What a very odd life you lead, sir. But yes, I have to agree, I too hope he inhabits an utterly different world.”

“Could we not ascertain at least something of his world now?” Elizabeth said. “The fourth face on the watch shows images. We got to the year 1885 the first time because we pressed the stem when it showed an image of fog and lightning and a construct in the shadows. If we’ve delayed Colonel Freemantle enough to change the outcome of this battle, won’t the image of 1885 change too? Won’t we know the moment we’ve succeeded?”

Maxwell looked mildly interested, and fished the pocket watch from his waistcoat. “No,” he said, holding it out of Elizabeth’s reach, “you’re indulging in some pleasant dream if you think I’d let you lay hands on this one after what you did to the last. Look if you like, but don’t touch.” Elizabeth made a face at him, but didn’t touch.

The watch seemed to linger with deliberate care on the reeds of the meadow beside the sun-dappled brook, and then upon the knights in armor wending down the mountainside. Elizabeth kept her lips pressed tight together to refrain from giving voice to her impatience, but the strain was taking a toll on Maxwell too. She knew this when he abruptly jerked the watch closer to his eyes and began to fiddle with the settings.

“What—?” William asked.

“Sometimes it shows an image of the date to which it’s set,” Maxwell answered. “I don’t know why, and I haven’t yet identified a pattern as to the circumstances, but perhaps putting 1885 into its head will encourage it.”

It did not, as far as Elizabeth could see. The watch showed them heaving waves. Knights on horseback. The meadow again. Heaving waves. It almost seemed as though the confounded thing was deliberately avoiding the image they wanted to see.  

Elizabeth tried the word
confounded
in her head, and decided it was insufficiently unladylike as an expression of her current frustration. It almost seemed as though the
bloody
thing was doing it deliberately—Katarina would have phrased it more like that. Elizabeth wondered if she would ever be able to enunciate such a sentence herself, and the very idea made her suddenly and inappropriately want to giggle.
Hysteria again,
she thought.
Perhaps understandable, given the circumstances.

It seemed like years before the fourth face of the watch displayed an image she recognized. Lightning zagged through yellow-gray fog, from which an ominous silver form loomed to menace London’s streets.

An image she
recognized.

Bloody
hell.

It was no effort to think the word that time. She looked up, stricken, but William laid a soothing hand on her arm before she could speak. “We’re not defeated yet,” he said again, though his eyes had begun to take on the same sort of strained look that haunted Maxwell’s. “It just means we haven’t succeeded yet either. We’ve stopped the message, but the effect could still be undone. If we leave now, there might still be time for Freemantle to wake, or—or something. We haven’t succeeded, but nor have we failed. Not yet. Let’s see this attempt through to the end before we try something else.”

Maxwell nodded, lips tight.

The cannon thundered in the distance and the light changed around them as they watched John Freemantle sleep, Maxwell reapplying the handkerchief to his nose every few minutes. In Maxwell’s other hand, the pocket watch flickered its way through its collection of images.

Sunlight slanted diagonally through the branches, filling the wood with a red-gold haze. Freemantle still slept, the horse still cropped grass, and the pocket watch showed its images in turn. Waves. Knights. Meadow. Constructs. Elizabeth shifted, and shifted again, and could not find a position that even approached comfortable. It had been some time since she had been able to think of anything except the aching pressure in her lower abdomen.

At last the discomfort grew until pride could no longer restrain her from doing something about it. It was the disadvantage to being a female adventuress, she thought. Adventuresses presumably had to learn to deal with the...inconveniences surrounding a lack of convenience, and had to learn to conquer their embarrassment over such things. At least she wasn’t wearing a ballgown.

Though she did not know how in the world she was to manage breeches. She thought about asking for advice. Then she thought she would far rather avoid the conversation and figure out the trousers on her own.

She stood with as much dignity as she could muster. William and Maxwell both looked up, William from the persistently unhelpful pocket watch and Maxwell from Freemantle’s face.

“I, er...” Presumably adventuresses also got used to not blushing about this sort of nonsense, even if they
were
embarrassed. “Excuse me for one moment. I’ll just be...” She indicated the bushes a short distance away, and both men nodded understanding.

The branches were thick, scratching at her arms as she struggled through them. She found, however, that merely being on their other side was insufficient to alleviate her embarrassment. Perhaps in time she would learn not to mind, but—She picked her way further into the underbrush. It was darker here, the thicker trees screening more of the evening light. Darkness seemed to offer a more complete privacy, or at least the illusion of same. She stopped when she could no longer hear Maxwell and William’s quiet conversation, because that meant they could also no longer hear her. Then she went a little farther anyway.

It was, indeed, an inconvenient and annoying business. She found it necessary to remove the breeches completely, and then she found it necessary to devote attention to preventing undergrowth from rasping against skin not usually exposed to such dangers. Elizabeth had her teeth set in thorough irritation by the time she had resumed and resettled her garments. She began to pick her way back through the brush to her companions, toying with imprecations that might best describe her sense of frustration with
this
situation.

Maxwell’s voice came to her ears sooner than she expected—that was her first clue as to what lay ahead. The timbre of the voice provided the second, for there was more changed than just the volume. It was deliberately calm, deliberately soothing, overly reasonable. And, Elizabeth realized with a sick spasm in her middle, he was speaking
French.

Waterloo, Belgium, June 1815

Leaves tickled Elizabeth’s cheek, and a sharp weed pierced into the flesh just above her ankle. She held absolutely still, not even breathing, straining her ears to make out words.

“Vous ne voulez pas le faire,” Maxwell said calmly. Elizabeth had studied French, of course, had spoken it with governesses and read it in books, but she could not make her brain detangle these sounds into understandable words. Maxwell’s voice told her enough of what she wanted to know, however. It was too calm, a note off from being believably so, a violin expertly played but with one string mis-tuned.

“Tais-toi!” That voice was harsher. Louder. A different instrument altogether, Elizabeth thought wildly. A drum, possibly? “
Je suis fatigué
de vous
bâtards
britanniques
me dire ce que
je ne peux pas
faire
!”

“
La désertion
est sans importance
,” Maxwell went on, still soothing. “Mais si vous nuire officier britanniques—”

There was a sound like a branch cracking, and he broke off—not with a cry, nothing so overt, but all at once and completely, and Elizabeth could guess. The air vibrated with the sound of the snapped violin string.

“Main il plus,” a third voice said. This one was higher-pitched, reedy. “Ou nous allons vous tuer a la fois. Peut-être que ma poudre mouille, peut-être pas, eh?”

“All right,” Maxwell said, in a voice shaky with pain. “All right, je suis d’accord.”

Elizabeth’s heart was hammering so loudly she was half-surprised the men did not hear it, did not plunge through the brush to seize her. But they were making some noise of their own now, rustling and muttering. No one said, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” or gave any other indication they knew she was there.

She picked up one foot and put it down very gently into the underbrush.
Slow and careful,
she told herself. It sounded almost like Katarina’s voice.
No noise. You can’t make noise.
She raised her other foot and put it down in turn.
You can’t make a speck of noise, or they’ll know.
With great care she lifted her arm and eased a branch out of her way.
If you rustle the brush, they will know you are here. And if they learn you are here...
She shivered at the thought, and knew she ought to keep still—Maxwell would doubtless tell her to keep still—but she didn’t see how she possibly could. She had to know what was happening.

One step, and one more, and she was close enough to hear clearly, though she still could not manage to decipher the French. A final step, and a careful parting of branches, and she could see.

A swarthy man in the dark blue coat of the French infantry held William immobile, forced to his knees and with his good arm twisted behind him. William’s mussed hair and blackened eye, not to mention the blood leaking from the Frenchman’s nose, suggested that William had put up a valiant struggle, but the Frenchman had to outweigh him by three or four stone and had full use of all his limbs. The opportunity for struggle had passed, in any case, for one large brown hand held a knife so that the blade just touched the skin of William’s throat. Late afternoon sun struck sparks off the steel, shifting and glinting as though the hand holding it kept tightening with eagerness or nerves.

There were—Elizabeth looked quickly—something like fourteen or fifteen other men similarly attired, all dark-haired and French-looking, most as large as the first, and all armed with blades or muskets. The second one crouched on the forest floor, rummaging through William’s rucksack with cheerful abandon. He pulled out one of Elizabeth’s gowns and then the other, and whistled through his teeth. “Pour ta putain, hein?” he said, and his was the harsh, gravelly voice she had heard before. “Pour ma putain maintenant!”

On the far side of the clearing, a third man searched Freemantle’s slumbering body, tearing off decorative trim and ripping open pockets. The remainder stood about, watching the show. Six of them held muskets pointed nonchalantly at Maxwell’s head, and perhaps it was that which made Maxwell look so much smaller than usual. Or perhaps the blood running down his face had something to do with it, or maybe it was just the threat to William. Elizabeth could see how Maxwell’s eyes kept going to the knife blade at William’s throat, even as he retrieved coins and a pocket-knife and a snuff-box from his pockets and handed them over to the little weasel of a man beside him. 

Where could the Frenchmen have come from? The Forest of Soignes was well behind British lines. How could French infantrymen have so quickly crossed the disputed valley, marched through the British guns, and eluded the two thin rows of British soldiers upon the ridge? For a moment Elizabeth imagined the worst, but then she listened hard and decided artillery still pounded in the distance. The battle still raged. So she was left with her first question: how could French infantry be here, and why would they be here robbing British officers when there was a battle still to fight?

“Est-ce tout?” the weasel-faced man demanded, reedy voice sharp. This time Elizabeth’s brain made the leap—well, no wonder, the words were simple enough.
Is that all?

“Oui,” Maxwell said.
Yes.

“C’est impossible!” The weasel looked down at the coins in his hands in his disgust. “Il est presque pas la peine!”
It is almost not worth the bother.

 “La montre?” suggested one of the men with the muskets. It took Elizabeth a minute to place that word—
La montre? What was montre?

Watch. The watch.

Oh,
no.

The man with the gravel voice looked up from the rucksack at the chain that stretched across William’s waistcoat. “Oui,” he said, “les montres!” He reached up and pulled the broken watch free of its fob.

Elizabeth clenched her hands and lips so she would not make a sound. The weasel man raised his eyebrows at Maxwell and held out his hand expectantly.

“No,” Maxwell said, “wait.
S'il vous plaît
, monsieur.
Ma montre
n'est pas
valable
.” Elizabeth found herself able to follow him now.
Please, my watch is not valuable.
“
C'était
un cadeau de mon
père et
tout ce que j'ai
de lui
.”
It was a gift from my father and all that I have of him.
 
“
Tenez, prenez ce
lieu
,
et laissez-moi
regarder mon
père
.”
Here, take this instead, and leave me my father’s watch.
Maxwell slipped his hands inside the collar of his shirt and drew out a locket on a silver chain—a little thing, so finely made that it had hidden unseen all this time beneath his coat and waistcoat. His hands shook as he undid the clasp, and Elizabeth wondered whose face the locket held, what lost love might be commemorated inside it—and in what year the woman might have been born. What a very odd life Maxwell led, indeed…

The weasel snatched the chain with one hand, yanking the pocket watch free from Maxwell’s waistcoat with the other. “Je vais avoir les deux!” he said.
I’ll have them both!
“Allez, mes garcons, nous allons sortir d’ici!”
Come, lads, let’s get out of here.

It doesn’t matter,
Elizabeth told herself fiercely.
It doesn’t. We’ll manage somehow. We’ll follow them, or we’ll—we’ll—something. But it doesn’t matter, not even losing the watch matters, not as long as they leave William and Maxwell unharmed...
She held her breath, hoping they would do just that, trying to think what she could do if they made a move to act otherwise. She still had the little bottle of chloroform tucked inside her shirt. Was there anything she could...

“Drop your weapons!” a voice boomed in English from the path that led back to the battlefield, and Elizabeth could have fainted in sheer relief. She saw the musket barrels jerk away from Maxwell as the men whirled in surprise; she saw the eyes of William’s captor widen in alarm. “Vos armes!” the voice repeated in French with a note of impatience. “
Lâchez vos armes
maintenant
!”

The voice was accompanied by the sound of several rifles cocking in unison. William’s captor shoved William hard into the man pawing through the rucksack, and bolted through the trees.

A thump and a cry proclaimed he had not gotten very far, and the others had no chance to even attempt to follow him. Men in dark green jackets were appearing as if from thin air. The hands of the remaining Frenchmen rose in jerky unison, puppets pulled by an unseen thread. 

“On your feet! Battalion will form ranks!” the voice continued. “Formulaire rangs!” Elizabeth shifted just slightly to one side, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the speaker. 

He stood on the path that led back to the field of Waterloo—a thin, sallow man, dark hair shot with gray, arms folded across his chest in an attitude almost of boredom. He might have been calling a group of unruly subordinates to order on a parade ground, rather than facing down an enemy force that outnumbered his own something like two to one. His hatchet-narrow face was lined and weathered, the texture and color of the tree trunks surrounding him on every side, and his jacket was the same dark green as the pines—so he was a Rifleman, a member of the odd 95
^th
Regiment, the skirmishers and sharpshooters who were so different from the usual red-coated officers. “Sergeant,” the man continued briskly, “you will shoot the next man who attempts to flee.”

“Yessir,” one of the green-coats answered with relish, though the Frenchmen did not look to have flight in mind.

The hatchet-faced man strode forward, steely eyes flicking everywhere at once. “What in the bloody hell is going on here? Not bad enough you gutless bastards had to run and His Grace had to send me to fetch you back, now I find you molesting British officers? On your feet, Sergeant,” he added—to Maxwell, Elizabeth realized in a moment. “Lieutenant.” Maxwell staggered upright, holding a hand out to William. The hatchet-faced man’s cold eyes went to Freemantle, and forbore to issue any orders to a man obviously unconscious. “What were you about in the woods to let these Belgian cowards get the drop on you?”

Belgian
.
Oh.
Elizabeth exhaled. Now it made sense. The robbers were not Frenchmen at all—or, at least, they were, in very meaningful ways, but they were part of the Anglo-Allied army. They must be from the Dutch-Belgian brigade that Maxwell said had deserted. Of course they had run; they were after all more French than anything else; they had been part of the French empire until the year before. Even now, they spoke French rather than Dutch, and still wore uniforms almost indistinguishable from those of the men on the other side of the valley. Elizabeth presumed that not all Belgians were useless as allies, but these men plainly were—dishonorable as well as cowardly. It was a sign of the Duke’s desperation, Elizabeth thought, that he had sent Riflemen to round up the runaway Belgians in the hopes of more men to plug the gap in the line. 

“I asked you a question, Lieutenant,” the Rifleman said sharply.

“You must excuse him, sir,” Maxwell interposed. “The Lieutenant was knocked on the head in the scuffle and hasn’t quite regained his wits. We—”