Clash of Empires (32 page)

“Enough of your self-pity, Maarten,” his mother says. “He is alive, and for the most part well. Come and greet your son.”

Willem's father hesitates, then slowly gets to his feet. He walks unsteadily toward Willem and now Willem remembers. The darkest part of the dream. The flashing knife, the pain, the blackness.

“It was you,” he says. “In the swamp.”

“I am so sorry,” his father says.

“Willem, do not blame your father,” Frost says. “He did not see your face, only your French uniform. He saw you attack François. He did not know of François's treachery. Your father showed great bravery.”

“I do not blame him,” Willem says. “Where is François?”

“He escaped in the confusion after you were injured,” Arbuckle says.

“He knows this place,” Willem says. “Might not he tell the French of it?”

“For now, clearly, he has not,” Frost says.

His father lays his hand on Willem's arm. “I have waited for this moment for so many years,” he says.

For a few moments Willem cannot speak at all. “I truly believed I would never see it,” he says finally. He wants to say more, there is so much to say after so many years apart, but he stops at a heavy bootstep right above them, on the wooden roof of their hiding hole. One soldier, more. There are crashes. Bangs that sound like musket stocks on the walls and floor. It seems inconceivable that they will not be found.

They wait, silently, motionless until the crashing and banging stops. The solid trapdoor has kept its secrets. The bootsteps slowly recede. Willem opens his mouth to continue, but the words he had are gone.

“They seem to be searching for the priest hole,” Cosette says. “Perhaps François has told them about it.”

Arbuckle shakes his head. “All churches have one. They know it is here somewhere.”

Willem tries again to sit up, and this time succeeds, grimacing through the pain, although it makes his head swim.

“My wound,” he asks. “Is it serious?”

His mother shakes her head. “The scrape of a knife along a rib, nothing more. You were lucky. Now lie back down.”

She approaches with the wooden bowl, dipping her fingers into a gray-green paste.

“The danger is infection,” she says. “I am doing what I can. Madame Gertruda's house was destroyed, but her garden remains and grows wild. I only hope that my memory, and the power of these herbs, will serve you well.”

She applies the salve liberally to Willem's chest.

“What about Blücher?” Willem asks. “What of the attack on Calais?”

There is silence in the cellar. It is Frost who finally speaks.

“A disaster,” Frost says. “Napoléon is dead, assassinated by Thibault.”

“Surely that is good news,” Willem says. “The tyrant is dead, his killer surely in chains in the deepest dungeon.”

“Far from it,” Arbuckle says. “Thibault now commands the French Army.”

“Worse, he knows of our plans,” Frost says. “He knows of the rockets and the meaning of their colors.”

“How?” Willem asks.

“McConnell,” Frost says. “But that is unimportant. What matters is that Blücher marches into a trap.”

“Then we must warn him,” Willem says.

“Indeed,” Frost says.

“I have written a message for the old warhorse,” Arbuckle says. “Jack will ride to Blücher to deliver it. If we can reach him before he begins his attack we may be able to avert a catastrophe.”

“And if that does not work?” Willem asks. “If Jack does not reach Blücher in time, or if the message is not believed?”

“There is nothing else we can do,” his father says.

“There might be,” Willem says.

All eyes turn toward him.

“What are you proposing?” Frost asks.

“That we use Napoléon's weapons against him,” Willem says.

There is total silence.

“That is foolish talk,” Willem's mother says.

“Dangerous, but not foolish,” his father says. “The French can ride the beasts; so too can British soldiers.”

“It would even the odds if both sides had battlesaurs,” Frost says.

Another long silence as they consider what has just been said.

“If we are to do this,” Arbuckle says, “then we must do it now without delay.”

Willem stands and has to put a hand to one wall to steady himself. His head swims.

“Not Willem,” his mother says. “We go to La Hulpe, to seek refuge from the priest there. You must come with us.”

“Mother,” he says. “To ride the beasts we must mesmerize the beasts. I am the only one here who can do that.”

He hears the words coming out of his mouth, and he knows they are right, but he can barely believe he is saying them.

“Not the only one,” his father says. “I taught you, if you remember.”

“Then we must both go,” Willem says.

“You are wounded. You will come with us,” his mother says, and in her voice is the same tone he heard so many times as a child, and that more than anything else is what decides him.

She is right, and Willem knows what he must face if he goes, and to be honest, he is not even sure if he
can
go. He can barely stand, let alone walk and crawl through black caves. Yet still he says, “I will go to the caves with the soldiers.”

“No—” his mother starts, but he cuts her off, politely but firmly.

“Maman, if I go, then tonight you may be mourning me,” he says. “But if I do not go, then many mothers will be mourning many sons in England and Prussia. And the devil himself will be the conqueror of all Europe, and who knows, soon, the world.”

“We must all go,” Cosette says.

“No, Cosette,” Willem says.

“I heard your fine speech to your mother just now,” Cosette says. “I fling it back in your face. What applies to you applies to me.”

“I am needed in the caves,” Willem says. “You are not. Go with my mother to La Hulpe.”

“Do you imagine that the French are not expecting you?” Cosette says. “They anticipate just such an attack and the cavern will be full of guards to prevent it.”

“And you, a mere girl, can somehow overpower these guards for us?” Arbuckle asks.

Cosette stares at him with such ferocity that Arbuckle—and Willem knows no braver man—quickly lowers his eyes. Cosette looks away, and when she turns back, her face and demeanor have changed; her voice too, its pitch and her accent are all subtly different. “No, a ‘mere girl' cannot,” she says. “But Lieutenant Horloge just might be able to.”

 

THE WIZARD OF GAILLEMARDE

Workers in peasant smocks scurry around on the floor of the vast cavern beneath the abbey. Some wheel hay carts or trolleys piled high with the carcasses of goats, sheep, and small saurs. Others push barrows of watery steaming dung, the stench of which hangs thickly in the damp, cold underground air. The barrows buzz with saur-bugs, and moths create frenzied clusters around lanterns hung from the walls.

Deloque scratches at his beard, holding his musket loosely in the crook of his arm. He would rather be out in his garden, tending his vegetables, but he, along with almost every other available soldier, is on duty guarding the dark and smelly caves. Their commanders are expecting an attack.

He has been given one of the saur-guns today. A big musket for a big man. Some of the smaller and younger soldiers can barely lift such a gun. He likes it. It is big enough to kill a battlesaur. He almost wishes there would be an attack just so he can see what kind of a hole his gun will put in the chest of an enemy soldier.

A battlesaur growls nearby and all the eyes around Deloque flicker nervously in that direction. The saur, a greatjaw, is chained to the wall close—too close, Deloque thinks—to where the soldiers stand in rank. It is the only saur in the cavern. All the other sets of shackles are empty, the former occupants over in Calais, or Ireland. The greatjaw seems restless, shifting from one foot to the other and occasionally jerking its head against the heavy chains.
Perhaps it is lonely
, he thinks. Or perhaps it is frustrated at all the live meat in front of it, but out of its reach. It raises its head and growls again, a long moaning howl, so loud that he can feel it. It lowers its head and eyes the rows of soldiers. For a moment it seems to be looking directly at him. Deloque's palms start to sweat, despite the cold.

He thinks of the girl: Cosette. The prisoner, now released. He thinks of her often. He salivates at the thought of what he might do to her if he caught her. But she will be long gone now. To a new city. Perhaps to a new country. Somewhere she can hide. She will have to hide for the rest of her life after what she did to the lieutenant. After what she did to him! Stealing their uniforms and locking them in the prison cells.

Horloge is a weak, insipid little man. But now he, Deloque, has something to hold over him. Horloge's simpering cowardice in the prison cell. He will suffer for that. But not now. Later, when it is to Deloque's greatest advantage.

There is a murmur in the ranks; heads have turned from the greatjaw toward the darkness in the depths of the cavern. He follows the gaze of the others but can see nothing.

It takes his mind a few moments to work out what the other soldiers have already realized, what they are looking at.
Nothing.

That is what is strange. The rear of the cave is muffled in darkness. All the lamps have been extinguished. He is mulling this over when it occurs to him that this could be the prelude to an attack.

“Hold fast,” a voice calls out. It is the sergeant. A rougher, tougher man Deloque has never met, but there is an uneasy tone in his voice. The sergeant feels something, Deloque thinks, because he feels it too. A foreboding.

Two more lamps flicker out, the creeping blackness from the depths of the earth swallowing their light as it moves toward the soldiers.

“Make ready,” the sergeant calls.

Make ready for what?

Deloque hoists his heavy gun, cradling it in his arms, raising the barrel to aim at the sky. Sky? There is no sky. Only a solid rock roof over their heads, trapping them underground with whatever now comes.

There is movement in the deepest shadows of the cave. Fading into view as if the blackness itself has swirled and formed and solidified into a living creature. It walks toward them, arms outstretched. Not it.
She!

It is so incomprehensible that his mind cannot at first believe it. It is her. The prisoner. The escapee. Cosette. Or something that has taken her form.

She (it) walks forward slowly. She still wears the stolen uniform of the lieutenant but over it flows a long, black cape.

There are murmurs and movement around him, but the sergeant seems uncertain of his next actions.

Now she is fully in the light of the main cavern, her hair golden, shining like silk in the lamplights. Deloque almost breaks ranks; he wants to rush over to the girl, to wind his fingers through that beautiful hair, to feel the softness of the skin of her neck between his fingers as he snaps it.

But he fears that it would dissolve back into the blackness. And so would he.

He can do nothing but watch as she raises her arms slightly. The explosion at her feet is a bright flash and a brief puff of smoke with a sharp crack like musketshot. He blinks at the insult to his eyes and ears, and as the smoke clears, it is no longer the girl who stands before them.
It
has transformed into a young man, the cape flowing from his shoulders, a cowl shadowing his features. But Deloque does not need to see his face to know who this is. They all know.
The Wizard of Gaillemarde.

“Present!” the sergeant calls, unable to keep a nervous quiver from his voice.

They all hear him but only a few raise their weapons. The rest stand, petrified at this manifestation of evil.

There are stories. The wizard is not human. He cannot be killed. They say he was shot in the chest with a pistol and, unharmed, spat the ball out of his mouth. They say he made an entire ship disappear into thin air. Some say that he can transform himself into a battlesaur.

Deloque does not know whom to believe. He is a simple man and has learned to trust what his eyes show him, and little else. He lowers the wide, wide muzzle of his huge saur-gun toward the wizard.

The robed figure raises his hands and begins to rub them together, faster and faster, until his fingers are no more than a blur. Steam begins to rise from the wizard's hands, drifting upward. Deloque's eyes are drawn to the roof of the cave where, miraculously, impossibly, storm clouds start to gather. Roiling, tumbling clouds inside the cave. It is not possible and yet it is real.

There are gasps from around him. Movement, too, as terrified cave workers run past the soldiers, heading for the surface.

From somewhere Deloque finds an inner strength. The wizard must be destroyed. He tries to steady his musket on the robed figure.

The clouds thicken and darken, and Deloque shivers and tightens his finger on the trigger. The wizard stops rubbing his hands and abruptly claps them together. Thunder roars and lightning flashes overhead just as the sergeant screams, “Fire!”

Deloque's musket jerks and the shot goes wild, high into the wall of the cave. But the air around him shivers with the sound of musketshots and is smeared with smoke from the gunpowder. The wizard is hit and staggers backward into the shadows. Deloque stares, his mouth open, as the thunder still echoes off the rock walls.

A cheer starts among the soldiers but it is cut short as the wizard steps forward again into the light. He spits one, two, three musketballs from his mouth and raises his hands again to the roof of the cave.

It begins to rain.

Deloque is the first to break ranks, throwing down his musket, pushing other soldiers out of the way as he runs, panic-stricken, toward the ramp that leads out of the cave. There are shouts, some screams around him, and the retreating ranks of the soldiers have become a rout. Deloque barely notices. He runs, pushing some out of the way, trampling over those who fall.