Someone on the quay slung a hawk off her arm and it wheeled up to chase out the colonies of seagulls in the masts. They burst in all directions, wailing.
Across the room, the two marines were sitting side by side at another table, watching him, though they were talking to each other. He gave them a cheery smile and took out Madeline’s letter. There was only a little of it left. Maybe, maybe, the last of it would say what had happened to the Kingdoms, or even which of them he was. She had known, after all; she had sent him the postcard.
*
Two weeks went by and nothing happened, then three; nothing, not even our hateful little timeline seminar. I started to chatter to the guards in my appalling French through the door, just to talk. And then halfway through the fourth week, we were summoned to the observatory, and there was food: an amazing buffet of real meat, real vegetables, real everything. Wine, tea, coffee, even smart uniformed waiters who served things to us on silver plates. Herault, I was starting to suspect, was a thwarted thespian. I would have poked fun, but I was too astonished to say anything. Instead I just ran straight into William, who had held his arms out.
He felt too thin even through his warm clothes. I saw him think the same thing about me.
Charles, of course, had a healthy glow. He might even have put on weight. It was Herault’s doing, not his own, but I hated him anyway. But then he burst into such wretched tears that I don’t think any of us had the heart to be angry with him any more. Sean patted his arm and Frank told him to buck up, looking so pained I thought he was on the edge of weeping too. We all were.
‘This,’ Herault told us happily, ‘is a leaving party. One of you has been so helpful this week that I’ve decided to let that person go free.’
My guts clenched, because I had cracked four days ago. I’d written down everything I knew. It’s unforgivable; no one hurt me, the guard never did educate me, but I was just so hungry I couldn’t think any more. Maybe it was me; maybe it was Charles.
‘William,’ Herault said.
It was the last name I expected him to say.
‘Here’s a bag. There’s food in there. The soldiers will take you to Paris, whence you may go wheresoever you choose.’ He beamed. ‘Congratulations.’ He and the guards all applauded, and two soldiers led William away from us, to the front door. William looked back at us, wretched, and that was the last I saw of him.
There was silence after that. None of us moved. It was a kind of shell shock.
‘Well?’ Herault said. ‘Come on. Eat! That could be you one day soon.’
Frank, Sean, and I were all so hungry there was no sensible choice but to do as we were told. Charles poured out four glasses of champagne, his face set. He handed them round.
‘Maybe better to be drunk now,’ he whispered.
We all sat down together, just like we had before, when we came up with our first stupid plan. We drank the champagne in silence, listening to Herault and the soldiers talk and joke. They were genuinely happy, relaxed; I thought of what Herault had said, about just trying to do his duty, and how he was doing it in the lightest way he could. I think the most frustrating thing about it all is that he was right. He could have put all of us on a rack or started chopping off fingers, but he never did.
I studied the others. Frank, who still had his sailing jumper, was too small for it now; it hung loose off his shoulders. Sean normally had a lustre, but he was losing it. Even Charles, well-fed as he was, looked wrong close up. He was healthy, but it was hollow health, and now that he had been crying, I could see what he had looked like when he was little. After a while, I squeezed his hand.
‘I wrote about Trafalgar and Waterloo as well,’ I said, because it felt important now to tell the truth.
Sean nodded. ‘Me too.’
Frank and Charles looked up at the same time. They checked with each other, and they had opposite reactions. Frank pressed one hand over his eyes as his shoulders tightened, and Charles looked relieved.
‘So he got it from all of us,’ I said softly. ‘Not just William. We must have all said the same thing. That’s … why he’s so sure it’s true.’
‘What’s William going to do in France, now?’ Sean said. He was frowning at the bubbles in his champagne. He hadn’t drunk any. ‘He’s English. Is he going to be all right?’
‘We can’t do anything about it,’ Charles said. ‘So it’s pointless to worry.’
Sean looked very tired of him.
‘They’re going to go after Nelson and Wellington,’ Frank said softly. He clenched his hands over the sleeves of his jumper. He didn’t seem as though he had heard what the other two had said. ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘They know who Nelson and Wellington are anyway,’ I said. ‘That’s common knowledge even now. Isn’t it?’
‘Maybe,’ he said, looking reassured.
‘If they know when and where they have to win, that’s that,’ Sean said. There followed a quiet in which he refilled all our glasses.
‘I’m sorry,’ Charles said in a brittly steady voice, ‘but I don’t think I can … bear this any more. I want to try and get home. We know it wasn’t the fog that brought us here—’
‘Quiet,’ Frank whispered.
‘We all know it wasn’t the fog that brought us here,’ Charles ploughed on, ‘it was those pillars. Nobody builds a fortification like that wall unless it faces something they must keep out. We get back there, we could still get home. Before he changes anything.’
‘Are you suggesting telling him even
