Authors: Mary Robinette Kowal
She had to pause, eyes closed, against the memory of the line of his jaw.
When she opened her eyes, Anne-Marie stood in the door.
“Good morning.” Tucking the end of the cravat through its final knot, Jane finished tying it.
“Madame?” Anne-Marie had difficulty, it seemed, in reconciling Jane’s appearance with her expectations.
“An Englishwoman would not be riding out to Gemioncourt, I think.” Jane lowered her chin as she had seen Vincent do, to crease the cravat just so. “Come in. I may need your help in a moment.” She picked up the blue coat from the arm of the chair. “Have you spoken with Lieutenant Segal?”
“No, madame.” Anne-Marie slid into the room, staying on the edges, more like a wild animal than a young woman.
“Thank you for that.” Jane had not been sure if Anne-Marie’s about-face the previous night would last, and it might still break, but for the moment she would make use of the woman. As she slid the coat on, Anne-Marie came forward to help, as if unable to watch her dress without assisting.
With the coat in place, Jane had the tolerable appearance of a young man. For the first time, the severe features she had been born with served her well. Her long nose and sharp chin gave her the appearance of her father in his youth. Only her hair gave her away. Jane had tried one of Vincent’s hats, but no amount of tucking her hair out of sight did anything to make it seem other than what it was.
She pulled it back into a tail as some gentlemen did, but it was not right. Her hair hung past the centre of her back, too long to be a man’s, and the style was too old-fashioned to be a boy’s. “I thought that might be the case.” Jane pulled a pair of scissors from her sewing basket. “Can you cut my hair in the Grecian style?”
“No! No, you must not cut your hair.” Anne-Marie waved her hands, and would not take the scissors.
“I think it curious that you find cutting my hair so much more horrible than betraying me.” Jane grabbed the long tail of her hair and pulled it over her shoulder.
“I did not betray you. I am French, and I am loyal to my emperor. That loyalty must come first.”
“Yes. I suppose so.” Tightening her grasp, Jane lifted the scissors and hacked off the hair where it lay over her shoulder.
Anne-Marie shrieked as the hair came free. “Oh, madame!”
“It is not as if I am destroying my beauty.” Jane gestured to the mirror and grimaced. At this length, her hair was closer to correct, but still out of keeping with what a young gentleman would wear. She had to hope it would pass. She dropped the hank she had cut off into the ash bin. If she were at all fair to Anne-Marie, Jane would acknowledge that Vincent had been here to spy as well. She could not, however, be fair in this. “Feel free to make an improvement if you think it possible.”
Anne-Marie accepted the scissors and began the work of shaping Jane’s hair into an approximation of a man’s. Though her mouse-brown tresses usually hung limp unless she exerted great effort with an iron, once her hair was freed of its own weight, it had some life to it.
When Anne-Marie had done, Jane ran her hands through it and rumpled her hair as she had seen Vincent do. This simple action, coupled with the physical sensation of her abbreviated locks, dealt Jane’s sensibility a hard blow. She sat with her fingers pressed against her scalp for some moments, trying to press the fear back into her skull so that she might continue at her tasks.
Jane sighed. “Well. That was the simple part. Now, Anne-Marie, would you please ask the stable master to saddle a horse for me.”
“I do not know if there are any horses left. They might have taken them all.”
She had not considered this possibility before, but once stated, it made sense, for if M. Chastain had been earnest in his desire to send all the students away, he might well have lent them horses to aid in that. And with servants travelling with them, it would be only natural for the horses to be in use. “Well. See what you might do. If I need to buy one, then I shall do that.”
With a curtsy, Anne-Marie left. Jane could not rely on her to stay cowed long, and wished she had some other, more reliable ally, but she suspected that even if Anne-Marie turned on her again, she would continue to help simply to remain close to Jane and know her movements. So long as Jane was careful to let her know no greater part of her plans than strict necessity required, she could make tolerable use of Anne-Marie.
In the meantime, with Anne-Marie out of the room, Jane packed Vincent’s travel easel, slipping the glass
Sphère
into his satchel of art supplies while she was at it. From the vials of ground pigment, she shook out a small quantity of vermilion crimson and mixed enough oil with it to create a thin paint. She applied this to the centre of one of Vincent’s pocket handkerchiefs. She folded the oil carefully into the centre of the cloth so that it was not showing, and tucked it in her breast pocket. Jane wished she might have a pocket-book such as her husband’s, but trusted that no one would note the lack.
Anne-Marie returned within the half hour. “We are in luck. One of the horses had thrown a shoe and M. Chastain had not wanted to wait for it. They are readying it for you now.”
“Thank you.” Jane shouldered the easel, grunting under the weight. Anne-Marie reached for the satchel to help her, and Jane snapped. “Leave it.”
Startled, Anne-Marie jerked her hand back. Jane winced, for she had not wished to draw attention to the satchel nor its contents, and now she surely had done so.
“If I am dressed as a man, it will appear strange if I let you carry a burden for me.” Jane bent down and swung the satchel to her other shoulder, careful to keep the end with the glass
Sphère
well away from the easel. “I will, however, ask you to introduce me to the stable-master, who I am rather hoping will not recognise me.”
“Of course, madame—or should I rather say ‘monsieur’?” She waited until Jane nodded before continuing. “And how shall I introduce you?”
“I am Henri Villeneuve, come to study with M. Chastain but arrived too late.” Jane strode to the door, her trousers clinging to her legs. She would be grateful to return to her dresses when this was over.
“But … your French. It is much improved, but you still have an English accent.”
“My parents were émigrées. I am, of course, deeply embarrassed by my accent and long to return to my motherland.” In truth, Jane would endeavour not to speak at all, for even if her accent would pass, her voice was too high to be a man’s.
At the stable, Jane encountered an unexpected problem. The stable master had saddled the bay gelding with a side-saddle.
Jane cleared her throat and then realized that she did not know the word for a gentlemen’s saddle in French. She leaned close to Anne-Marie. “What did you tell him?”
“That I needed a horse for Mme Vincent.”
“Then tell him you meant Mme Vincent’s friend. I cannot ride a side-saddle in these garments without remark.”
Anne-Marie twisted the corner of her apron. “I will not.”
“You confuse me.”
“You cannot ride astride in your situation.”
“I am not going for a gallop. We will walk there and back. Having ridden astride before, it is easier to keep one’s seat.”
“You have said that I have taken everything I could from you. There is yet one more thing, and I will not be blamed for the loss of your child.” Anne-Marie crossed her arms and backed up a step. “No,
sir
, I know it must surprise you but there are things to which even I will not be a party. I will not put a woman who is increasing astride a horse. All of your actions today are a mark of nervous disorder, and I well know that the fault is mine, but this is wildest folly.”
Jane inhaled through her nose, jaw clenched. She recognised the truth of what Anne-Marie said, and though she did not want to admit it, she should not attempt riding. Yet she must get to Quatre Bras, and the distance was too great to cover on foot, particularly with the easel and satchel. “Is there a cart or phaeton of some sort?”
“I will ask.”
As Anne-Marie did so, Jane set the easel down, but not the satchel, and began to pace. The cloud cover meant that she would not be able to use the glass
Sphère Obscurcie
, but she had no intention today of doing more than seeing how Vincent fared and how he was held.
After much grumbling, the stable master harnessed the horse to a dogcart phaeton, complaining the whole time about how it was a saddle horse, not a cart horse. Jane ignored his complaints and drove out of the Chastain estate as soon as she feasibly could.
* * *
When Jane was growing
up, her father had let her take the reins on occasion, but she had never driven for any distance on her own. By the time she arrived at the farm at Quatre Bras, her shoulders ached. She stopped the wagon at the base of a low hill overlooking the farm and tied the horse to a tree. Taking up the easel and satchel, Jane climbed to the top of the hill and set up her paints.
She quickly sketched in the scene in pencil, always seeking signs of Vincent. The farm was spread across a rising countryside, rich with tall fields of rye, which stood nearly as high as a man’s head. Thick stone walls surrounded scattered out buildings, a remnant of the days when every settlement was fortified against the armies that had rampaged across the region. French soldiers dotted the grounds, mostly in idle activities such as smoking and dicing. The only show of any real discipline came in the form of a soldier who marched on the far side of one of the out buildings, mostly out of sight save for the close end of his circuit.
Since that was the only military activity evident on the farm, it seemed likely that Vincent was being held there.
Beyond the walls of the farm on that side rose a small prominence which might afford a prospect on the front of that building. Jane packed away her paints, satisfied that the rough sketch she had done showed enough of this side of the farm to serve for planning purposes. She had, as yet, no idea what she would do, but trusted that the solution would become apparent with enough study.
The second rise she tried offered less visibility, as it was thickly wooded. This gave Jane the opportunity to abandon her pretence of painting, but also meant there were sections of the yard that she could not see. The guard continued to march back and forth, and after some consideration, Jane realized that he was not guarding the door to the out building, but rather a trellis in front of it. The troops’ wash had been thrown over the trellis to dry, though from the grime visible even from her distant aspect, it appeared as though none of it had been washed.
The wash shifted and Jane dropped to her knees, breath rushing out of her. What she had taken for stained clothing was Vincent.
Twenty-three
Champagne and Rope
Jane stood on the hill, watching, for hours. She could not see him well, but she would know Vincent anywhere, by the line of his shoulder, by the shape of his head, by the movement of his arms. Toward evening, Lieutenant Segal arrived and, by his gestures, ordered Vincent to be untied from the trellis.
Two soldiers grabbed him by the arms and hauled him to his feet. When they let go, he staggered and fell heavily to his knees. Through a break in the branches, she now had a clear line of sight to him. His shirt hung in tatters, and his back bore lines of burnt umber crossed in a welter of dried blood.
Jane moaned, and had to press her hand to her mouth to keep more sound than that from escaping.
They jerked him to his feet again and Segal shoved a paper in front of Vincent. He bent his head over it, scarcely moving otherwise, and nodded.
Segal beckoned another officer forward. When that man stood in front of Vincent, her husband lifted his hands and the group of them vanished.
Curses carried up the hill. Moments later, the group reappeared. Vincent had fallen to his hands and knees and was retching on the ground. Lieutenant Segal drew back his boot and kicked Vincent hard in the side.
Jane shouted.
As her voice echoed down the hill, the officers lifted their heads as one toward the woods where she stood. Segal sent two of them racing toward the hill, and Jane’s hiding place. She grabbed the easel and satchel, spinning and carrying them a few feet down the slope.
There was no chance she would outrun the men, and if she could not risk riding a horse, she could risk a fall still less. Jane knocked the easel over and grabbed the paint closest to hand, smearing it on the canvas. She dropped to her knees, hoping first that they would not see her, and second, that if they did, her subterfuge would be convincing. Cursing those few French oaths she knew, Jane mopped ineffectually at the paint with a rag as the soldiers came crashing through the brush.
“You there! What are you about?”
Jane sat back on her heels with a cry of surprise, keeping the timbre of her voice as low as she could. Then she coughed.
Still coughing, she gestured at the spoiled painting and endeavoured to appear annoyed.
“Did you shout?”
Jane nodded and transformed the cough into wheezing. Fumbling at her breast pocket, she drew forth her pocket handkerchief and pressed it to her mouth. The smell of the oil paint tickled the back of her throat and Jane bent double, coughing in earnest now, until her throat was raw. Straightening, she pulled the handkerchief from her mouth and let it fall open to show the spot of red paint. “Pardon,” she whispered.
The soldiers took a step back, the soiled handkerchief and her blotched face evidently painting a clear portrait of disease. One of them said, “You cannot paint here.”
Jane nodded to show she understood and pressed her other hand to her chest as if trying to gather the resolve to speak. Her heart thudded against her palm. They stood over her but did not press her to speak, nor did they come too close as she gathered her supplies and started down the hill. Not until she was at the bottom did they leave their station. Without further incident, Jane reached the phaeton and clambered onto the bench seat. There she began to shake.