Mr. Darcy's Great Escape (19 page)

Passage into Darkness

“Do we have any
real
idea of where we're going?”

Trust it to Caroline Maddox to point out the obvious. “No,” Lord Matlock said, sitting beside the two ladies at the front of the wagon. Grégoire sat inside it, next to the reliquary buried under blankets and hay and supplies. “None whatsoever. Brother Grégoire?”

“God will light our path,” Grégoire said. “Look to your left.”

“That's not God,” Fitzwilliam said, readying his gun as a man with a lantern stumbled out of the woods. The man dropped his lantern and raised his rifle.

“Give me your horses,” he said in French. Even with his heavy overcoat, torn and bloodied, he was still recognizable as a soldier with his white pants and red colors on his heavy hat. “Just one, please!”

“Stay where you are,” Fitzwilliam shouted as he brought the wagon to a halt. He spoke French, and even though he was not dressed as a soldier, his accent made his nationality enough. “Or I'll shoot.”

The soldier held his rifle up but had not the strength to aim it properly before he collapsed in the snow, his rifle firing aimlessly. It was Grégoire, of course, who leapt senselessly out of the wagon and landed in the snow, his heavy robes caked in white powder as he lifted up the man and began dragging him back to the wagon. “Lord Matlock…”

“For God's sake, are we meant to carry every man we encounter, living or dead?” Fitzwilliam said with the remains of his good humor. There was no use trying to talk Grégoire out of his Good Samaritan habits, not while it was this cold and dark. They needed to find an inn, but for the moment, settled on dragging the soldier into the wagon.

“He's senseless,” Elizabeth said in English.

“Mrs. Maddox, will you please hand me the flask from the front?” Grégoire asked, and she passed it to him wordlessly. “Please, monsieur, drink,” he said in French, pressing the open end to the soldier, who eventually opened his eyes and drank. Fitzwilliam started up the horses again, and after some time, the soldier came to his senses, after much drink.

“Where are we going?”

“To Transylvania. East.”

“No!” he shouted weakly, attempting to sit up in the moving cart. “Let me off! I can't go back there!”

“Please, monsieur, stay still,” Grégoire said, putting his hand on the soldier's shoulder. “You do not have to travel all the way but you cannot be out here, alone, in this weather.”

“He's a deserter,” Fitzwilliam said in English from up front.

“Where are you taking me?” the soldier asked, his alarm rising.

“We are only traveling through on some personal business,” Grégoire said to him in French. “I'm sorry, but we can't give you one of our horses.” He implored the soldier to drink more, but was refused. “What is your name?”

“Aubin.”

“Like the saint,” Grégoire said. “I am Brother Grégoire. These people are my relatives, and sadly, we are on our way east. When it is safe, you can part from us.”

“You were fleeing Russia?” Caroline asked in French.

Aubin looked sideways at her, suspiciously, then back at Grégoire in front of him. “Yes. I am a deserter. I was freezing to death. Can you blame me?”

“It is not my place to judge anyone,” Grégoire said. “Is there an inn nearby, or some sort of town? We need shelter as badly as you do.”

“There is—to the north, about five miles, an inn. I was staying there, but I had nothing to pay them, so I had to leave. And I have to get home—or away from Russia.” He did, after a bit, take another nip. “Are you really a monk?”

“Yes.” Grégoire removed his hat to reveal his tonsure.

“French?”

“Originally, yes.”

“Then what in the hell are you doing with a bunch of Englishmen in Austria?”

“My brother is in Transylvania,” Grégoire said. “It is complicated. Is that near here? Are you familiar with the geography?”

Aubin looked hesitant to reveal more of his identity. “I passed through it—briefly, before my horse gave out from the cold. It wasn't my horse. I took it from the stocks. It was the only way to make it through the mountains—the Carpathians.” He shook his head. “I am a
voltigeur
.”

“A skirmisher,” Fitzwilliam said to Elizabeth and Caroline in English.

“We were sent south—through Austria—but it was too cold. I'm from the south of France; so was most of my company. First we started getting colds; then we started dying. We were not prepared. We defeated ourselves.”

“The folly of man,” Grégoire said sympathetically. “Will you show us the way to this inn?”

Aubin nodded.

It was not far. The night was indeed getting colder, even with all of the layers they had piled on before leaving Munich; their teeth were all chattering when they arrived. Aubin would not enter. He wanted to keep going on his journey.

“Elizabeth,” Grégoire begged, “please lend me some coins. I will pay you back.”

“For what?”

“I am going to buy this man a horse. It won't cost much. What is a horse worth in this season?”

She dropped a few coins in his gloved hand. “Honestly, I would be surprised if you
didn't
do something ridiculously charitable.”

Grégoire quickly purchased the horse from the tavern owner and handed the reins to a confused Aubin, who thanked him profusely before disappearing into the night.

“Will he make it?” Caroline whispered skeptically to Fitzwilliam.

“It's best not to speculate on such things,” was all he said as they entered the tavern. Inside they found they were the only patrons, and that the owner and his wife spoke only broken German and no French. Their first language was Romanian, which Grégoire recognized but could not speak. As his hosts prepared a meal, Grégoire had words with the owner, showing him the seal on the letter Caroline had received from the count holding Dr. Maddox and Darcy hostage. There was much talking and nodding in complex, accented German before Grégoire returned to the table. Before him was some kind of soup, filled with floating chunks of beef bones and sour cream. Caroline was looking hesitantly at her own bowl, and Lord Matlock was doing the same, while gnawing on some extremely buttery bread, but Elizabeth had already finished hers. “What did he say?”

“The man we're looking for is Count Vladimir Agnita, who lives in the county of Sibiu,” he said, crossing himself before taking up his own spoon. “It is only two days' journey from here, if the weather holds out. If it snows—which it most likely will—then maybe three or four.”

“But we don't want to go knocking on his door,” Elizabeth said, as the wife of the owner served her another helping, and she began to devour it.

“No,” Caroline said, finally resigning herself to her own food, only with a healthy helping of whatever was in her wooden cup.

“The innkeeper says that this count is not well-liked by the local princes. One of them even stands to inherit his lands when he dies, his brother-in-law, a Count Olaf
.” He bit off some of the bread, dipping it in the stew. “The owner recommends we see this man, also in Sibiu.”

“The enemy of our enemy is our friend,” Fitzwilliam said. “Hopefully it will be so.”

After eating many small dishes that none of them could identify, but that all seemed to contain a lot of butter and cream, and drinking what seemed to be some kind of orange liquor, they were all ready to retire. Fitzwilliam, ever the vigilant soldier, promised to stay up guarding their doors, but his rosy cheeks said something else.

A few hours later, as Elizabeth crept out to empty her chamber pot, she found him asleep in the hallway, his gun at his side. When she was done with her business, she began to drag him back to his room, only to find helping hands. “Grégoire—”

“Let me. You shouldn't lift,” he said.

“You shouldn't have to do—” but he had already done it, heaving the snoring Fitzwilliam onto his bed and tossing the blanket over him, “—do everything.”

Grégoire closed the door, leaving them in the tiny wooden hallway in the darkest part of the night. “You shouldn't take so much on yourself. You're carrying enough—aren't you?”

Elizabeth gave him a hard stare, but for once, he did not waver humbly or shyly. His expression was a rather compassionate version of being accusatory. “Did Mrs. Maddox say anything?”

“No, but few people can eat
ciorba ruseasca
with the bones still in it without a second glance.”

Her hand, of course, inadvertently fell over her stomach. “Please don't say anything to Lord Matlock.”

“I am happy for you,” he said, “but I wish the circumstances were different.”

“I couldn't stay behind,” she said. “I know I'm no use to this mission, but—I just couldn't. He needs me. I know it.
We
know it.”

“I know,” Grégoire said. “Just be careful, please.”

“I will,” Elizabeth said, not sure if she could keep that promise, or if she hadn't already broken it.

***

Miraculously, the snowfall that night was only a minor dusting, and they had skies clear enough to see the mountains beyond them. When they stopped to ask directions, they learned they were indeed the famous Carpathians, now almost entirely covered in snow.

“
!”

It was fairly clear the man in the fur overcoat and the fur hat approaching them through the snow was local, not French. Grégoire came down from the wagon and approached him. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” (Do you speak German?)

The man was apparently less put-off by the sight of a monk. “Ja.” (Yes.)

“We would like to see Prince Olaf,” he said in German.

The guard, carrying both a gun and a ceremonial lance, looked cautiously at the odd wagon and its riders. Some questions followed, spoken too softly for them to hear, before they were ushered on.

“We're to be received by the prince,” Grégoire said. “For good or ill, I know not.”

***

The castle was massive and foreign. It was not medieval, or how they pictured a medieval castle would be, but it was certainly filled with anciently dressed guards. Grégoire was reluctant to leave behind the reliquary, even though it was hidden in a larger container, but the guards reassured him many times, and Elizabeth finally pried him away from it (almost forcibly) because they needed his language skills.

The stone halls were not much warmer than outside, so they were not relieved of their coats, just the very outer layers, before being ushered into what appeared to be a small dining room. At the head of the table sat the only clean-shaven man they had seen in days, wearing the latest French fashions, with wide sideburns and a mustache. Only an insignia pin on his breast pocket and the fur around his neck noted any significance as he rose to greet them, speaking in plain French. “I am Count Olaf
. I understand you requested an audience?”

They bowed and curtseyed. Fitzwilliam took the lead. “I am Lord Richard Matlock, and this is my cousin Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy, my other cousin Brother Grégoire Darcy, and a Mrs. Caroline Maddox.”