The Forbidden Rose

The sergeant piled documents one upon the other. “I ask myself, Citoyen Jobard, whether you are a counter- revolutionary or just a very, very stupid traveler. Where are your wife’s papers?”

LeBreton took his hat off and held it in front of him. “I—”

I must give no warning.

The shutters crashed open. LeBreton dropped like a stone.

Eleven

THE SPACE WHERE LEBRETON HAD STOOD WAS empty. LeBreton and the garde rolled on the floor.

She had to stop the other man. The sergeant. Keep him from shooting LeBreton.

She hit the barrel of the musket with both hands clenched together. It fell, clattering and clattering. The garde grabbed after it. She kicked the gun away. It slid two feet, hit the table leg, and exploded. The noise smashed the air like a fist. The shot hit the wall, spewing plaster.

Charles screamed and struggled in Bertille’s arms. In the other room, the baby began to cry. Bertille scrambled away from the table, taking the boy with her.

I have to distract him. She groped along the table and threw a china plate into the sergeant’s face. It was all she had.

And it did him no harm. He brushed china chips out of his eyes, cursing. Backed away. Pulled a knife from his boot top. For a bare instant he stood there, deciding whether to kill her before he went to kill LeBreton. Then he swung at her with his empty fist, backhanded.

A white flash struck. She felt the pain. The world spun black.

When her eyes cleared, the sergeant was fending off a bowl Bertille threw. And another. LeBreton was on the floor, butting his knee into the other man’s belly.

The sergeant, knife in hand, started for LeBreton’s unprotected back.

No! She lifted the cradle from the hearthside and swung it with all her strength. Hit the sergeant on the back of his head. He yelled and half fell, staggering off balance.

And sprawled headlong, because LeBreton was there to kick his feet away from under him. LeBreton, pure violence that struck like a javelin. She heard the thud of his boot and an animal shriek of pain.

The garde sergeant lay hunched on the floor, slowly drawing together around the pain.

It was strangely still then, though Charles was sobbing against Bertille and the baby wailed in the distance. The sergeant made an odd grating noise in his throat. The other garde whimpered, low and continuous, in the corner.

Adrian appeared in the doorway with no sound at all. His eyes traveled the room and ended on LeBreton.

“Don’t kill anybody,” LeBreton said.

The boy thought it over before he nodded. She saw then that Adrian had his knife out.

“Cut those two loose.” LeBreton indicated Alain and the apprentice, tied at the far end of the cottage. “I need the rope.” Then he was beside her. “Your lip is bleeding.”

“It is,” she touched it, “not so much.”

“That was a bad idea on his part.” LeBreton walked over and stood looking down at the sergeant till the man looked up.

“If you’d hurt her worse, I’d have cut your hand off.” LeBreton’s boot prodded the sergeant’s right hand. “This hand. The one you hit her with.”

Then he went off to check on the other garde.

THE aftermath of battle was left to the women. They were the sensible ones of the world and therefore left to clean up. She worked with Bertille to pack the cart, putting this in and leaving that behind.

Guillaume lifted large objects. Every so often he returned to the cottage, where he had tied the two gardes in chairs, and listened with unimpaired amiability while they blustered and threatened. Then he would go back to help Alain haul about the tools of his trade, some of which were heavy.

Charles sat on the hearth with wide eyes, taking in the words the soldiers used, till Bertille sent him outside. Then Alain came in and sent his young apprentice outside, too.

Marguerite helped herself to coffee from Decorum’s pack and brought it in to grind and heat in the copper pot. LeBreton did not seem to mind her small thefts. He doubtless committed greater ones. Frequently. She poured coffee from the pot, which would be packed last, into the cups, which must be left behind, and brought it to everyone. She did not serve coffee to the soldiers, who were saying filthy things about her.

LeBreton settled himself at the table to drink coffee while he searched the belongings of the gardes, their handkerchiefs and pocket knives, and most especially their papers. He put his boots up on the long bench, which was another thing to distress Bertille, who had a tidy soul.

When he addressed them by name—Sergeant Hachard and Private Labadie—they became more polite. “Who sent you to arrest the Rivières?”

That let loose threats and the promise of retribution. She would not have been so eager to make threats herself if she were tied hand and foot and Citoyen LeBreton were in charge.

“Who told you to arrest these people?” LeBreton drank coffee. He spoke like an educated man now. There was an air of authority about him, as if he had been a military officer and commanded men very much like these. “I’m going to ask that question three times. That’s the limits of my patience. Then I start slicing pieces off your body. Eventually I’m going to get to the bits your wives might miss. Who do I start with?” The question was for Adrian who was walking by.

“We’ll do him.” Adrian meant the sergeant.

“That’s a likely choice, lad. I am glad to see you understand the chain of command.”

Thick, nervous silence held the gardes. Anticipatory silence from Adrian. Stern, uncompromising silence from LeBreton. He nudged a stack of copper pans aside to give himself room to lean back. “Sergeant Hachard, there’s no reason you shouldn’t tell me. You’ve received orders. There’s nothing secret about it. Whose orders? Who told you to arrest these people?”

Adrian’s knife appeared. “Can I do it now?” She was almost used to seeing the boy with a knife in his hand. The soldiers, of course, were not.

“Half minute.” LeBreton shifted his boots. “Take his ears off before you start on the nose. And don’t be getting blood on yourself. I’m damned if I’m going to buy you a new shirt.”

The boy inspected the edge of his knife, looking critical.

“It was two men from Paris,” the private blurted out. “They carried orders from the Committee of Public Safety. Twelve arrest orders. They divided them up and gave us two names.” He looked around nervously. “We chased the first man yesterday and lost him. Then we came to take Bertille Rivière.”

“Now that is very interesting.” LeBreton took up his coffee cup again. “Tell me about these men from Paris.”

And they did. Ten words were enough to tell her these were the Jacobins who had come to her chateau.

The questioning continued. Everyone packed. She carried bags and boxes out of the cottage, coming back to listen from time to time. It could not be said the men spoke freely. But then, it seemed there was very little Citoyen LeBreton expected them to know. He asked the same question many different ways.

Yes, there were twelve to arrest. No, they did not know why. They’d been denounced in Paris, most likely. Lots of folks condemned in Paris. And the men who brought the orders—? Fine revolutionary patriots, to be sure.

When she walked through the next time, carrying sheets, matters had advanced somewhat. Adrian straddled a bench. He’d found a whetstone and was honing a keen, bright edge to the knife. She brought him coffee with milk