“Thank heaven we’ll be gone before breakfast,” Felix muttered. “I’ll be damned if I could face it first thing in the morning.”
They went up to his chamber. From his portmanteau he took one of the precious bottles of cognac and a chased silver pocket flask. Careful not to spill a drop of the nectar, he filled the flask and screwed on the top.
“What a devilish waste,” he mourned, passing the flask to Isaac and drinking a mouthful from the bottle. “Ah, that will help me sleep. Good luck, old fellow.” He shook Isaac’s hand and clapped him on the back.
Reflecting on the change in Felix’s attitude since they had left London together, Isaac crossed the corridor and raised his hand to tap on Miriam’s door. He caught himself just before his knuckles struck the wood. Miriam’s door. Miriam’s bedchamber. A wave of heat flooded his body.
Was she expecting him, or had she returned to the parlour? Worse, was she in her chamber but expecting him to meet her in the parlour? If he knocked would she be embarrassed? Angry?
Somewhere in the village a church clock struck nine. There was no time for hesitation. He glanced up and down the corridor and then knocked.
The door opened at once. By the light of a pair of candles he saw that Miriam’s usually pale face was flushed, her smile tentative, with a hint of uncertainty in her wide eyes. However she reached out to take his arm and tug him into the room, closing the door behind him.
Hannah stood guard, her face disapproving.
“I was afraid someone might interrupt us in the parlour and see what we were doing,” Miriam said a trifle breathlessly. “Did Felix give you the flask?”
He passed it to her. Their hands touched, sending a flash of lightning up his arm. For a moment she stared at him, her soft lips parted, then she swung round and set the flask on the dressing table.
“Hannah, you have the vials and the court plaster?”
“Right here, Miss Miriam.”
“We decided that if we put the laudanum into the flask, Hébert might taste it and be suspicious, or he might take a dangerous amount, or you might accidentally swallow some. So we have put just enough into this little vial to send him to sleep for twelve hours, or more since he will take it with alcohol. I’ll stick the vial to the flask with the plaster, like this. Be sure to keep the other side turned to him until you reckon he is drunk enough not to notice the taste, then pull out the stopper of the vial before you pour the cognac into his glass. You see?”
Isaac moved closer to look. “You are ingenious...” and beautiful. He struggled to resist the desire to take her in his arms.
Hannah spoke. “I made sure the stopper’s in firm, sir, so as it won’t fall out before you want it out. It’ll come out easy if you give it a bit of a twist.”
“I see. I’m off then, and if all goes well I shall wake you as soon as the inn quiets down.”
“I shall try to sleep, but Hannah will stay awake, just in case you are forced to drink more than you mean to. She can go down to the tap room to see what has happened without arousing suspicion.” Miriam gave him a quizzing look. “If she finds you under the table, she will fetch Felix to rescue you and carry you out to the carriage.”
“I’ll do my best to avoid that fate, even if it means pouring the stuff down my sleeve. Wish me luck?”
“I wish you luck, but I know very well you will be successful even without it.”
He put the flask in his pocket, raised her hand to his lips, and departed.
Lieutenant Hébert was slouched a little lower in his corner of the tap room. The bottle in front of him was empty. As Isaac paused in the doorway, a buxom barmaid went over to him, picked up the bottle, and said something.
Hébert took a handful of coins from his pocket. Counting them, he scowled. He waved the girl away. She grabbed his glass and flounced off, disappointed.
Isaac sauntered across the room. He felt silly and conspicuous, for his usual gait was a stride or a pace. No one took any particular notice of him though--except the lieutenant, who regarded him with a sour grin.
“So, the Englishman.” His consonants were slightly slurred.
“Swiss. No hard feelings, eh? I’ll treat you to a drop.” Signalling to the waitress, Isaac sat down.
“Where’s your cousin?”
“He and my sister have retired already, exhausted from our contretemps with Monsieur Grignol this morning.” The waitress arrived and he ordered a bottle of red wine, then continued, “He sent you after us, I take it?”
“Monsieur le préfet never gives up. I’m to follow until I find proof you’re English spies. He’ll have my head if I don’t bring you back, and monsieur le maire will have it if I do,” he added gloomily.
“You’ll have a hard time proving we are English spies, since we are Swiss tourists.”
The girl returned with the wine and two glasses. Isaac paid her while Hébert filled the glasses.
“
Salut!”
He downed his wine.
“
Santé!”
Isaac sipped his and grimaced. The stuff was harsh to a palate Felix was beginning to educate. He refilled Hébert’s glass.
“If you’re jus’ Swiss tourists, you won’t min’ saving me some trouble by telling me where you’re going.”
“Not at all. Toulouse first, then Carcassonne. My cousin wants to go to Marseille but my sister doesn’t, so I cannot be sure after that.”
“Rough place, Marseille.”
“So I’ve heard. We shall probably just go to Avignon and then homeward up the Rhône valley.”
“No side trip to view the Pyr...Pyrenees?”
“We are Swiss. We live among the Alps.”
“Hunh. Drink up, drink up, you’re not drinking,” said the lieutenant irritably, pouring his fourth glassful. He was leaning with both arms on the moisture-ringed table, his long, lank hair dangling about his face.
Isaac manfully swallowed his wine and filled his own glass again. The bottle was nearly empty. “To tell the truth, this is not much to my taste. I’ve got some good brandy here if you’d like to try a nip.” He took the flask from his pocket, careful to keep it the right way round.
“You’re a goo’ fellow even if y’are English. Waste of my time following you ‘roun’ if y’ask me. Waste not, want not.” Hébert poured the last drop of wine, swilled it, and held out his glass.
It was sacrilege to put the cognac in a dirty glass, but Isaac was afraid the barmaid might object to his bringing a full flask into the tap room. He poured half an inch of the amber liquid. Hébert sniffed, tasted, and a dreamy look came over his face. He warmed the glass in his hands, breathing deep of the heady vapours before he sipped again.
Isaac eyed his own glass with distaste. He’d have to empty it before he could drink any cognac, but he knew his own limits. If he drank the wine he’d be in no fit state to start on the spirits, yet the notion of dumping it in his sleeve did not appeal. Philosophically returning the flask to his pocket, he raised the glass to his lips and took a small sip. After all, he consoled himself, superior brandy was a newly acquired taste and Felix still had several bottles.
Hébert’s eyelids were drooping. Isaac wondered if he had drunk two bottles before the one they shared. He didn’t want the man to pass out before he dosed him with laudanum; there was too much risk that he would wake too soon.
“Spare a drop more?” Hébert unsteadily pushed his glass across the table.
As Hannah had promised, the vial’s glass stopper came out with a quick twist. It proved less easy to tilt the flask in such a way that all the laudanum flowed out without a flood of cognac overfilling the glass. Isaac managed to pour no more than half a glassful. He pushed it back across the table.
“Too full.” The lieutenant squinted at it with bleary-eyed reproach. “No room for bouquet. Too bad, English don’ unnerstan’ wine.” He raised the glass for a toast. Isaac winced as a little brandy slopped over the side. “Vive Napoléon!”
It seemed wise to second the toast. “Napoléon,” Isaac murmured, and finished his wine.
Hébert took a hefty swallow of cognac, perhaps with the laudable aim of leaving room in the glass for the bouquet. He grimaced, staring at his drink with a puzzled air. “Same stuff? Tas’ differen’
.
”
“Same stuff.” Isaac poured himself a little and sipped, barely wetting his tongue. “The best.”
“Mus’ be ‘cos you filled it too full,” he complained. He rolled another swig around his mouth, pulled a face, swallowed, and toppled face down on the table.
Too late Isaac grabbed for the glass. An ounce of superb cognac and half a dose of laudanum sloshed onto the floor.
Isaac groaned. Left to himself the man would probably sleep through the night, but here in the busy tap room he was not likely to be undisturbed. He had only taken half the drug. A good shaking might well rouse him.
The barmaid stalked over, scowling. “Dead drunk, hein? Your friend can’t stay here. This is a respectable house.”
“He’s just overcome by fatigue. I shall help him up to his chamber, if you can find out for me which it is.”
“Jean-Paul!” she called to the tapster, “which room is this citizen in?”
“He didn’t take a chamber. Said he had to keep watch all night or his patron would hang him.”
“Watch what?”
The tapster shrugged. “Who knows?” He turned away to serve a customer.
“
Zut alors!”
The girl turned back to Isaac. “Our
patron
will chuck him out. He won’t stand for drunks littering the place. You want to share your room with him?”
“God forbid!” That was the last thing he wanted to do, for more than one reason. He eyed the snoring man with distaste. Yet he couldn’t let Hébert be thrown out. The chill night air was bound to revive him. “I’ll hire another chamber for him,” he decided.
“Don’t blame you. He’s going to be sick as a dog by the looks of him. I’ll tell the patronne. She’ll send someone to show you the way.”
The landlady came herself. “If monsieur will be so good-- payment in advance? With such a one as your friend, you understand, and my husband says you mean to depart early tomorrow...”
“Of course.” Isaac paid her, adding a sizable tip. “My friend does not travel with us, however. You will permit him to sleep as late as he wishes in the morning, I trust.”
“But naturally, monsieur. He can have the second room to the right on the third floor. Here is the key. You will want someone to help you, without doubt?”
He looked at Hébert. The lieutenant was not a particularly large man. There was always a chance he might start talking when he was moved. “Thank you, madame, I can manage him.”
She shrugged. “As you will.”
Taking Hébert by the shoulders, he leaned him back on the settle. The landlady helpfully pulled out the table as she left. Isaac bent down and draped one of Hébert’s arms across his back, put his arm around the man’s waist, and awkwardly raised him to his feet. He was not accustomed to assisting drunkards. No doubt this was something else Felix would do better.
As they started across the tap room, Hébert’s feet moved automatically in step and he began to mutter. Only a couple of words were comprehensible, but those were “...English spies....” Cold all over, Isaac raised a prayer of thanks that he had rejected assistance.
A few heads turned to glance at them as they passed, but no one was interested in so commonplace a sight. They reached the bottom of the stairs without incident and began the climb.
If he had dared leave the lieutenant unattended, Isaac would have gone to wake Felix. The staircase might as well have been the Matterhorn, so difficult was the ascent. In the end, he hoisted Hébert right up onto his shoulders, head hanging down one side, feet the other. This brought Hébert’s face into close proximity with his own. He reeled as a blast of alcohol-laden breath struck him.
Labouring up the stairs, he cursed the landlady for sending him to the top of the house.
When he reached the chamber, he guessed the reason. The room was little more than a garret, the straw mattress covered with a sheet that had seen better days, and by the look of it more than one use since it was last laundered. He couldn’t blame the woman. It was all too likely that the lieutenant would cast up his accounts when he awoke, if not before.
With that in mind, Isaac loosened his neckcloth and laid him on his front, with his head turned sideways. On impulse he took off Hébert’s riding boots. Another impulse suggested removing them, to slow the pursuit, but that would serve to confirm the man’s suspicions. Besides, the unfortunate fellow was going to be in hot water enough if he returned to Bordeaux without prisoners. No need to make his life any more miserable.
Leaving the room key on the night table, Isaac thankfully repaired to his own chamber.
He took up a volume of Maimonides, but he couldn’t concentrate. As the sounds of activity in the inn gradually diminished, he found himself wondering whether he ought to have put the laudanum in the first glass of brandy. Lacking experience of drunkenness, he had misjudged the man’s condition. If Hébert woke too soon and picked up their trail, it would be his fault.
Chapter 17
The river mist was no more than a faint haze veiling the waxing moon, and even that they soon left behind. The rumble of wheels, clink of harness, and regular thud of hooves sounded loud in the stillness. An owl hooted close by; somewhere in the distance another answered.
Hannah drowsed in her corner. Miriam had slept for an hour or two at the inn. She was tired, but now she felt taut as a bowstring, unable to relax. Besides, it seemed unfair to doze while out on the box Felix steered them through the night.
“Are you sleepy, Isaac?”
“Not really. I keep thinking perhaps I ought to have stolen Hébert’s boots.”
“His boots! Good heavens, what happened back there? Tell me all about it. How did you manage to persuade him to drink with you in the first place?”
“He was somewhat disgruntled to have been sent after us, quite willing to let bygones be bygones and the future take care of itself. In fact, he was drunker than I realized when I joined him. He passed out sooner than I expected. I made a mull of it, waiting too long and then the laudanum was diluted with too much brandy.”