The Spymaster's Lady

“None whatsoever. I’m going to unpack. Don’t pick this time to wander off.”

He was not pleased to be doing this piece of field surgery. He was worried sick. She could hear it in every step he took from the coach to the center of the glade, carrying things. That was where he would work, where Doyle was laying a fire.

She had not yet made her decision. She walked for a while, tapping with her useful staff, finding the old fire rings, coming to understand how the wagons lined up in this place. It had the feel of a rich camp. There would be, in those flowery fields beyond the wood, berries and many rabbits, even hedgehogs, if one were lucky. Her feet crunched the old shells of beechnuts. One would eat well here without stealing chickens.

The ground sloped gradually toward the stream. Anywhere she stood, that slope and sound of water told her where she was. It was comforting, that small certainty.

Once, she tripped, because she was thinking hard, and a tree root had been more clever than she was. She did not hurt herself badly. To fall from time to time is part of being blind. One must be philosophic.

On the highest side of the clearing were blackberry bushes, which she found by impaling herself upon the thorns. She ate a few and made her decision and went to listen to Doyle and Grey getting Adrian prepared.

“…repaint the attic rooms the last week of November.”

“…files into storage in the basement…”

“…everlasting whitewash. There’s a lack of imagination that…”

They spoke of inconsequential things. A thousand times she had listened to men before battles, talking just this way. Grey’s voice held nothing but calm confidence. Most certainly, to hear him, one would think he had taken several pounds of metal out of men in the last month, without exception a great success at it. Adrian had an almost French courage, as she had thought before. In his light words, she could hear his resolution to trust Grey, to put his life in those hands. In some time and place, Grey had earned the confidence of that cynical, knowing boy.

It would be a great pity if she had brought Adrian out of Leblanc’s cellar and all this long way to die.

Most likely he would. Grey had not the least idea how to remove bullets. If she were entirely loyal to France she would be glad, for of Adrian she had heard some few things that told her he was a master at spying and a formidable enemy to her Republic.

Metal clattered. Doyle was setting the instruments in place, there, on the ground. She had decided to be disloyal to France in this matter.

“Grey, I would talk to you,” she said.

“Later.”

“Now.” She walked off.

Tiens. This was the test of him, was it not? If he did not trust her to know what was important, he would not trust her with Adrian’s life.

Ten paces downhill, she stopped. His steps followed her.

“I don’t have time for this, Annique.”

“I can take the bullet out of him.”

She was treated to one Grey’s long silences. Then he said, “I shouldn’t be surprised. You were with the armies, weren’t you? Where did you learn to take bullets out of people? Milan?”

“And Millesimo and Bassano and Roveredo and…and elsewhere.” So many battlefields. “The safest place in battle, if one is dressed as a young boy, is in the medical tents. If I am busy mopping up repulsive liquids, no one hands me a gun and expects me to kill people.”

“I see.” Such a dry tone. She knew this about Grey. He had been an infantry major before they took him for the British Service. He would know about medical tents and the aftermath of battles.

“I came at first to clean, in those hospitals. When I was there…Grey, there was not one of those orderlies who could be trusted to sew up a pillowcase, let alone a belly. I am clever with my hands. It was not long before the surgeons knew me. By Rivoli they did not even look up when I came in, just pointed where they wanted me to start working. I have taken much shrapnel out of men, little pieces the surgeons had no time to hunt for. And when times became desperate, many bullets.”

“Many bullets.” She felt his breath on her face.

“I do not need eyes. Not for this.” She did not know why she was trying so hard to convince him. Perhaps she could not save Adrian. Perhaps it was his inescapable fate to die when the bullet was removed. But it should not be for Grey to have his hands on his friend and feel the life leaking out. She could spare him that. “It is not a matter of looking, you understand. In digging out bullets, when one must cut away at the flesh, there is much blood. One cannot see. It is always necessary to go by touch, to feel within the skin and use a probe to find the path entered upon.”

“Do it.”

“I have much experience in—”

“I said, do it.” He walked away without another word of discussion or question. She did not always understand Grey.

In the center of the clearing they had spread blankets upon the ground. There, Doyle had disgorged his selection of medical instruments. While she listened to Grey explain the change of plans—not once, for a minute, did his voice show any doubt as to her skill—she knelt and took stock of the fierce assemblage of metal. What dozens of instruments. Most, she swiftly tossed back into the leather bag. She kept only the smallest of the clamps and forceps and one pair of scissors and one little razor-sharp knife. This was enough for what she must do.

Everything smelled of fishes, for some reason, as well as old blood. She did not even want to set her hands upon these tools when they were so dirty. She sent Doyle to the running stream with soap, to clean them for her. She was feeling Rom at this moment. She would not wash them in a basin. The Rom do not wash in stagnant water.

Then she turned to touch Adrian, to know what was what with him. He had stripped to the waist. He sat on the ground while Grey cut away the bandage.

“Chère Annique, if I’d known you were going to cut into me, I’d have let you finish your coffee this morning.” He caught her hand and lifted it to his lips to kiss. It was hard to believe he was not a Gascon. “How did Grey talk you into this?”

“It was entirely the other way around. Grey fought tooth and nail for the privilege of seeking bullets in you. But I was insistent.” He would laugh on the gallows, this one. “If you have not taken the opium, you should do that. We must wait a time, you understand, after you take it. I would not have you discussing with me the price of green beans or the weather when I am working. I am easily distracted.”

Grey said, “He won’t take it.”

Adrian’s arm moved. He was shaking his head, she thought. “If I took enough to do any good, I’d be stupid for days. Leblanc’s looking for somebody wounded. Make me groggy, and I’m dead.”

“I bloody well hate it when he’s right, don’t you?” Doyle said.

“I’m always right. Annique…Fox Cub…I won’t take opium. If I drank enough brandy to knock me out, it’d probably kill me. So it’s nothing at all. Can you do this?”

“Oh yes,” she said at once. “I have hunted out bullets, often and often. I am fast as lightning, me.” Mon Dieu, could they know what it would be like? It is the stuff of nightmares to operate with no opium at all. Truly, Adrian was like her in this—the good fairies had not attended his cradle to scatter blessings upon him. “Always they run out of opium before they run out of men with holes in them. One copes.”

“Nothing like practice. Here’s this lot, clean.” Doyle started laying instruments into her hand, one at a time so she did not slice herself.

“I am in the medical tents of the losing side, generally, so we have many wounded.” She dried the scissors with a strip of bandage and clipped through the cloth, testing. They were sharp. “I have been diligently spying upon the Milanese and Austrians who lose battles with some regularity. It has been most odd, all these years, dodging so many completely French bullets.”

There was a good supply of bandages. If she needed more than this, she would have killed Adrian anyway. “If you will lie down, Monsieur Adrian, I will be able to reach you. I am not a giantess.”

She hitched herself close to Adrian, to a position where she could work. Her tools made a neat row on the blanket. She picked them up and put them down till she could find everything without thought. Then she laid a cloth across. It was better Adrian did not spend his time looking at this. Sharp, shiny metal is wearing to the soul. She lifted a stack of bandages into her lap where they would be handy. She must concentrate now and think only of