Timepiece (34 page)

“
Ces deux
ne sont pas
ce qu'elles semblent être
,” the weasel-faced Belgian piped up.
Those two aren’t what they seem.

“Silence.” The Rifleman snapped it out in English and without sparing him a glance.

“Ils ne sont pas,” the weasel persisted. “
Nous sommes tombés sur
les attaquer
que
pauvre officier
britannique
.”
We came upon them attacking that poor British officer there.

“That’s ridiculous,” Maxwell said. “One of them flung a rock that knocked the Lieutenant Colonel from his horse, and then they rushed—”

“Ils ont essaye de l’etouffer.”
They were trying to smother him.

“Major, are you going to believe some Belgian riffraff over a sergeant in your own—”

“
Je pense qu'ils sont
des espions
français.
Nous étions
seuls
les subjuguer
comme c'était notre
devoir
.”
I think they’re French spies. We were only subduing them as was our duty.

The Rifleman’s cold eyes swept sideways. “And what call of duty led you to be out here in the wood instead of with your allies on the line? Not another word.” But when he looked back at Maxwell and William, it was suspiciously. “Your name and regiment, Lieutenant.”

William hesitated a bare instant. “Carrington, sir, from the 52nd Foot.”

“And what business has a lieutenant of the 52nd Foot here in the forest, with that regiment stationed far front and on the right? In company with a ‘sergeant’ who speaks like he went to Eton with the quality?” The steel eyes flicked over them, probably taking in the ill fit of the uniforms. “I heard a rumor of a French spy dressed as a Coldstream Guard sergeant, and here you are with one of His Grace’s aides, conveniently unconscious...No, don’t bother answering, I don’t want to know. You’re something far more interesting than deserters.” He raised his voice. “Private Prentiss, bring me those trinkets the Belgians took off these men. Good. Now search them for weapons. Baker and Willis, you will keep your rifles pointed at their heads, if you please. Not another word, sir—” That to Maxwell, who was still protesting. “Or I assure you it will be your last. Sergeant, can you spare us a bit of rope? Prentiss, bind their hands. Excellent. Now then. Sergeant, you will take these Belgian cowards to join those of their compatriots we have already located, and see the lot of them back to the line where they belong. My compliments to the Colonel, and tell him I am conveying French spies back to the village, to be held until His Grace is at leisure to interview them. I shall return once I have secured them.”

“Yessir, Major Nysell,” the Sergeant said. “A’right, lads, you heard the Major.”

“Baker, stay with me,” Nysell added. “Prentiss, before you go, give me a hand with the Lieutenant Colonel—”

Nysell arranged it with what Elizabeth supposed was admirable speed and efficiency. He mounted Freemantle’s horse, which submitted to him willingly enough, settling Freemantle’s limp body before him on the saddle. William and Maxwell were commanded to walk in front of him, hands tied behind their backs, a length of rope attaching them to each other and its other end looped through Baker’s belt. Baker walked between the horse and the prisoners, rifle at the ready, and Nysell was precise in his instructions. “If they make any sudden movements,” Nysell said, “or utter so much as a syllable, do not wait for my order. Shoot them dead. Right then, m’sieurs, forward march, double quick!”

They left the clearing in a blur of sound and color. From her hiding place, Elizabeth caught a glimpse of William and Maxwell’s white shirts and slumped shoulders, the fluidly moving dark green coat of the Rifleman Baker, the bay flank of Freemantle’s horse, Freemantle’s lolling fair head. She heard the harness jingle, and quickly moving boots stumble over tree roots, and then she was alone in the woods.

Waterloo, Belgium, June 18, 1815

It was all she could do not to dash off after them. She clenched fistfuls of breeches in both hands instead, forcing herself to remain still until they had moved off at least a short distance. She could still hear them, but if she was careful, they would not hear her. She took a deep breath and the first step in pursuit.

It would be better to follow them if she could. She could get to Waterloo from here, following the road, but she didn’t know where in Waterloo Nysell was headed. So she would have to follow him, and then...And then what?

It was the first time,
ever,
that she would have had more options dressed as a woman than as a boy. If she could have presented herself to Nysell as an officer’s wife—or even mistress—he might have allowed her to nurse Freemantle, and then at least she would be in the same building as William and Maxwell...not to mention the pocket watch…

But maybe she wouldn’t be. Maybe Nysell was intending to convey Freemantle to one place and the prisoners somewhere entirely different, and if she were trapped by Freemantle’s side, she wouldn’t know where. Maybe it
was
better that her female clothing was in the rucksack and she was forced to continue her role as a boy. She could...pretend to have a message for Nysell? What other entrée might be available to a boy who seemed to be from the village? She would have to be careful, for his suspicions were already aroused, and if he thought her another spy—but even that might not be so bad, if they confined her
with
Maxwell and William—

No. Such a circumstance would be acceptable if they had the working pocket watch, but they didn’t. She must somehow keep track of both pieces of the puzzle. Of all three, she realized suddenly, for Nysell might order Maxwell and William separated. Of all
four
, for without Maxwell reapplying the chloroform to Freemantle’s nose, he might wake and remember he had a message to deliver. She must keep track of four puzzle pieces, and she must do it dressed as a village boy.

Elizabeth realized with a flash of panic that she could no longer hear rustling ahead of her. She threw caution to the wind and started to run.

Even to her own ears, she sounded like a troop of cavalry crashing through the brush. Bushes and tree roots rose up to trip her, and the thin branch of a sapling hissed as it whipped across her face. She jerked away from it, lost her balance, and came down hard on the side of her foot. She stumbled and fell almost to her knees, and only barely managed to avoid impaling her eye in an inconveniently placed broken tree limb. It seemed the better part of valor to hold still for a moment or two.

Her wild flight had at least brought her to the edge of the forest, where evening-blue sky peeped between the thinning tree branches. She pushed herself to her feet, on the chance she would be able to glimpse something other than sky. Her ankle gave one throb, then subsided—or maybe she only forgot to think about it as she caught sight of Nysell’s horse. His cavalcade had crossed perhaps half the green slope between the forest and the village. They were headed directly for the back of the church, which meant they were almost certainly going to then cross the street to the tavern.

At least it was easier to leave the wood as a boy than as a girl, since there was no reason for a gently born English maiden to be wandering about the Forest of Soignes with a battle taking place on its other side. Elizabeth crossed the expanse of open space as indifferently as she could, fighting the desire to run, feeling very relieved indeed when she fetched up against the back of the town’s general store. Now she could circle around and walk down the main street toward the tavern as though she had not, in fact, been tracking Nysell through the woods.

She peeped around the corner just as Nysell reined his horse in front of the tavern and dismounted. His subordinate followed suit. Elizabeth gave them another breath or so to get inside, and started the walk down Waterloo’s mud-slimed main street.

She might have been walking at midnight instead of supper-time, for all the signs of life that greeted her. The people of Waterloo, the inhabitants of these houses and proprietors of these shops, either had prudently gone elsewhere, had been turned out by Wellington’s commandeering officers, or were shut up behind barricaded doors until the outcome of the battle should be decided. No one hailed her—there might have been no living soul for miles—but Elizabeth could not quite shake the feeling of eyes watching her. From upstairs windows this time, rather than from shadowed glens. She hoped no one would come out to summon a seemingly local lad to join them in safety. She might be able to put them off by pretending to be English—dressed in Belgian boy’s clothing? Why?—but she really did not have time to waste on explanations. She had to get to the inn and find out what Nysell planned to do next.

The green hill and sloping dome of the church rose up on her left side, peaceful and sleepy in the evening light, and across from it sat the coaching inn Wellington had taken for his headquarters. No one seemed to be stirring here either, though at least Nysell and his party must be inside. Elizabeth did not know if the proprietress had fled or had stayed to care for the English soldiers, but if she and her servants were within, they were busy at their work in the back of the house and nowhere near the front door. Should Elizabeth try to get in through the front door? Knock and spin a tale—beg a bit of bread, maybe?—or hope it was unlocked and sneak inside?

Trying to make up her mind, Elizabeth spied a third option. The great swinging iron gates that led to the inner courtyard yawned open. Wellington’s officers had doubtless put the courtyard to some use this morning—the place where coaches stopped for a change of horses would be a fine place for mounted officers to assemble—and no one had locked the gates after them, perhaps thinking there no need. Elizabeth nipped through them before anyone could chance to spot her through the front windows.

The evening sun was too low to cast any rays over the high two-storied walls. The cobblestone courtyard was, in consequence, surprisingly cool—the evening air oddly moist, and smelling of mud and horse. But the heat of the day had only recently lessened, and the shutters of every window surrounding the courtyard were open, threadbare white curtains and mint-green leaves of ivy moving lazily in a breath of air too light to really be called a breeze.

A door slammed like the report of a musket, and Elizabeth jumped nearly out of her skin.

There was no one nearby, she realized after a frantic moment of looking in every direction. No one had come out of the inn; no one had seen her; no one threatened her now. The slamming door had come from inside, the sound carried to her through one of the open windows. She tried not to move at all as she craned her head to see from which. On the south wall, she thought, but it was hard to tell, given how sounds echoed in a courtyard. She wondered if holding still would do her any good at all if the slammer of the door did look out. Would her muddied white shirt hide her against the dingy white wood of the inn? She feared it would not. Certainly the rough brown breeches would give her away.

“—leave him here,” Nysell’s clipped tone came to her ears, and it
was
from one of the windows on the south wall. Wonder of wonders, Elizabeth could actually see him from where she stood—a flash of green coat and profile, no more, but it did tell her which window. He wasn’t actually facing it, at least, so if she did not move and thereby catch his eye, maybe he would not notice—

“There’s no point in taking him to Mont St. Jean,” Nysell’s voice went on. “Stacked six deep there, and what can a surgeon do for a man who hit his head falling from a horse? He’ll wake or he won’t, so best to leave him here. And it’s not as though—” A hard breath, not laughter. “The Colonel won’t be needing his room tonight, after all.”

An inarticulate rumble in reply. Nysell turned his back to the window, saying something Elizabeth could not catch, and she seized the opportunity to inch her way along the wall, closer to the window. If she were right underneath it, she could hear better. Moreover, he would have to look straight down to see her, and the twining ivy might provide just enough cover. She kept her eyes fixed on the window, waiting for the hook-nosed profile to turn back—and when Nysell did turn, she froze like a rabbit. She hadn’t made it far enough, but at least she had stopped before he could see the movement. He didn’t seem to notice her.

“I’ll leave this nonsense here,” Nysell said, and Elizabeth’s heart leaped at the clink of metal on wood. Could she possibly be so fortunate—“For all we know, some of it is Freemantle’s. We’ll sort it when we sort the prisoners. Right then.” He pivoted. “This is the key to the coal cellar, which you will guard with your life. Give it to no one until I come back myself, or until His Grace returns. Let
no
one let those men out. There’s more here than meets the eye, and we’ll damned well find out what it is. Otherwise... ” A pause. “Otherwise, stay here. Guard the door. He may wake, and be able to tell us some part of the story.”

“And you, sir?” a second voice asked.

“Back to the line. Can’t let His Grace think I’m as faithless as those Belgian hounds, can I? Don’t worry, he’ll know you’re doing him a service too. Stand fast, private. I’ll see you after sundown.”

The sound of a door opening. The sight of an edge of door sweeping into the square frame of the window. Nysell’s tall, stiff back walking through it. The squatter form of Nysell’s subordinate following him. The sound of a door slamming shut—Elizabeth, expecting it, did not jump so badly this time. And then silence, from all the watching windows with their fluttering leaves and curtains.

Elizabeth thought. The subordinate now stood watch outside the door. Nysell would be headed for the staircase, and for the front of the inn where his horse waited in the street. There must surely be other people in the inn, but they did not seem to be taking any part in the unfolding drama. If they were soldiers, they would follow orders to leave the prisoners be, and if they were the proprietress and her servants, they would not interfere with the unconscious British officer or the captured spies locked in the coal cellar. Not while there was any chance of the British winning the day, at least. As far as she could tell, no one was watching from any of the windows, and Nysell was safely descending a staircase within, and she might never have another chance like this—

Elizabeth ran for the trellis. As she had long suspected, it was indeed much easier to climb while wearing breeches than while wearing a skirt. A trivial undertaking, in fact, when one compared it to an Orkney cliffside, or out her bedroom window via a bedsheet. Thinking of one of Mirabelle’s novels, she at first tried to hold onto the ivy itself—but Mirabelle’s novel must have featured a different sort of ivy, for the leaves of this plant ripped free as soon as she put any weight on them. After that, she used the latticed trellises for handholds as well as footholds, and if some of those creaked ominously, at least none of them broke.

At last she came level with the open window. She reached out with her right hand, and by leaning and straining, managed to wrap her fingers around the wood of the window frame. Then she lifted her right foot from the trellis and extended it through empty space and to the sill.

The lattice under her left foot groaned.

Her heart pounded like the distant guns as she probed with her right foot for the window sill.

Just as her toes touched the sill, the trellis under her left foot snapped.

Her knee struck the sill hard enough to bring tears to her eyes, but she didn’t lose her grip on the frame. The filmy curtain molded to her face, half-smothering her, as she fought to draw up her left leg without losing her balance. She did not quite fall into the bedroom, but it was an eminently graceless entrance, seat-first and with a curtain wrapped about her. She caught herself before she could fall with an audible thud, and turned, terrified that she had woken the man on the bed.

To her profound relief, Freemantle slept on, fair face slack, mouth open and revealing rabbit teeth. Elizabeth noted nervously that he did shift a little from side to side, hands twitching along the threadbare quilt underneath him. But at least he did not wake.