The Spy's Reward (12 page)

“Don't be an idiot.” Meyer handed him a flask. Abigail suspected it was brandy, which was not an ideal drink for someone in Roth's condition, but they could hardly brew him tea halfway up a mountain. He did look a bit better after taking a few sips.

“It will be very steep for the next mile or so,” Meyer told him. “If you faint, or even sway over to one side, it could be disastrous.”

“Tie me on, then.”

The other two men cut some branches to make a small frame and lashed it to the saddle of the mule. It took them nearly fifteen minutes, and Abigail could not help glancing back down the road, as though soldiers might be galloping after them.

“Mother?” Diana had come over to her. “Do you think I should offer them my pelisse, to use for padding?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “It is ruined in any case, and I am quite warm.”

Diana had had the clever notion of augmenting Abigail's postflight wardrobe by wearing one of her mother's gowns over her own riding habit. Once her tightly cut pelisse was added to the ensemble, she looked a bit like a fabric sausage, and had not been able to get into the saddle until Abigail had cut open the side seam of the coat.

It was chilly and overcast, but the snow Meyer had predicted had not arrived . . . at least, not yet. Abigail nodded in agreement. When they set off again, with Roth braced against his makeshift backrest, Diana rode alongside him, chatting determinedly. Abigail could not help remembering that first day in the carriage, when Roth had been the one bravely trying to make conversation, and Diana had been the one who had barely spoken. Roth had a much better excuse, of course. And he was trying. Every once in a while he would give Diana a shaky grin, or even a monosyllabic response.

Meyer dropped back from his position at the head of the cavalcade to ride next to Abigail. “Do you know,” he said thoughtfully, “when I first saw your daughter, I thought she was nothing but an empty-headed flirt. She was holding court at your hotel in Digne, and she had every mannerism polished to a high gloss: the simper, the lowered eyelashes, the brittle laugh, the toss of the head. I would never have suspected she could outface five armed bullies, or would understand that my nephew will do better if someone stays by him and talks to keep him awake.” He shook his head, bemused. “Last night we had to change the hour of our seating for dinner twice because of—what was it?”

“Her hair.” Abigail gave a wry smile. “It would not curl properly. I make a very poor lady's maid, as she has told me repeatedly since our own ran off.”

“Well then, last night she refuses to eat until her hair is arranged just so, and today she watches you slice open a fur-lined pelisse without even blinking, and then stuffs it onto the back of a mule to make my nephew more comfortable. I must retract what I said yesterday.”

“What was that?” She twisted in the saddle to look at him.

“I believe I said that you were too sensible to have produced such a daughter.”

“And I said she had many excellent qualities.”

He gave a little half bow. “As seems to be the case whenever we disagree lately, you were right and I was wrong.”

“We disagreed this morning,” she reminded him. “About whether to leave.”

“We did not disagree. I stormed in and behaved like an arrogant fool, insisting that we leave at once without explaining myself, and you were sensible enough to overlook my rudeness.”

“Eventually.”

He smiled. “Eventually, yes.”

The track narrowed, and they were forced to ride single file again for some distance. It was very steep, as Meyer had predicted, and the horses were struggling in places. He jumped off, and began leading both his mount and hers; Rodrigo was doing the same for Diana. The mules were in their element now, and would have passed Abigail's horse easily if there had been any room to go by. After twenty minutes of this slow, uphill work, the ground suddenly leveled off. The road widened. It could easily hold six abreast, Abigail thought. And ahead of them, under high, sullen clouds, an enormous valley appeared. It was surrounded on every side by mountains—not the tree-covered peaks Abigail had seen in Italy, or even the sculpted rock gorges farther south here in France. These mountains were so tall that they disappeared right into the clouds. To the west, where the clouds were thinner, an occasional spire was visible, impossibly high, sparkling with snow even in the gray light.

She drew in her breath. Her horse had stopped, as though it, too, was stunned.

“You have never seen the Alps before? The true Alps, as they say in Grenoble?”

She shook her head.

“This is nothing,” he said. “You must go to Switzerland one day.”

“How tall are they?” she asked, gesturing towards the wall of rock ahead of them.

“These? Twelve, thirteen thousand feet. To the east of here, some of the higher peaks are more than fifteen thousand.”

Almost three miles high. It was incredible.

“I am glad I saw this,” she said, more to herself than to him. “I will always remember it.”

“They are very beautiful,” he agreed. “They are also very dangerous.” She looked at his face, outlined against the snow-covered rocks, at the fierce exhilaration she saw there, and an unwelcome but inescapable conclusion presented itself.

“You find it attractive,” she said slowly. “The danger, that is. Perhaps even more attractive than the beauty.”

“Yes.” He looked at her. “I am afraid that is true.”

“You must be having a wonderful time at the moment, then,” she said bitterly.

“I would be,” he admitted. “If I were by myself.” He began to lead her horse forward again. “It narrows again ahead; I will stay on foot and keep hold of your bridle until we have descended a bit.”

Abigail was not as competent on horseback as Diana was, but she still found it unsettling to have someone else leading an animal she was riding. It occurred to her, as they started down the mountain, that she had been experiencing that same unsettled feeling remarkably frequently of late. Since she had met Nathan Meyer, in fact.

13

Just before noon, in the middle of a meeting with the mayor and deputies of Gap, General Pierre Cambronne was interrupted by an aide. Monsieur Doucet wished to speak with him urgently. Cambronne excused himself, and stepped out into the hall. He did not like Doucet. The man was calculating and ruthless, and he did not behave like a soldier. But he was useful. He noticed things: Officials who were too nervous, or not nervous enough. Documents that looked real but were not. Apparently he had just noticed something important.

Doucet was pacing impatiently. “General! There you are. I have a question for you. Do you remember the man we saw at the hotel this morning, just after we came in—tall, dark-haired, aquiline features?” When Cambronne looked blank, he prompted him: “He came in from the opposite side of the room, from some back entrance. He nodded to you.”

“Ah, that man. Yes, he looked vaguely familiar. Why?”

“He looked familiar to me also. I have an uneasy feeling about him.”

Cambronne searched his memory for a minute, then gave up. “My dear Doucet, I am afraid there is nothing save the notion that I knew the face. My own associations were quite the opposite of yours, very positive ones; if I had to guess I would say he must be some local man loyal to the emperor, someone who came to Paris perhaps on government business and saw us there.”

“Perhaps,” muttered Doucet. “But then why not greet us?” He began pacing again.

“Monsieur Doucet, the deputies of Gap?” Cambronne indicated the half-open door to the council chamber.

“I beg your pardon. By all means, continue. But if you should remember anything further, please inform me at once.”

An hour later, Cambronne was just sitting down to an excellent lunch with the deputies when he was interrupted again. With a sigh, he pushed back his chair and went out into an anteroom.

“He is British,” said Doucet, not bothering with a greeting. “I somehow have remembered that much.”

“Who?”

“The man at the hotel.”

“Really, monsieur, I cannot think why you are so concerned about one man whose face we barely glimpsed,” snapped Cambronne. “One would think the fellow had an entire battalion of royalists concealed in the cellars of the hotel.” He returned to his lunch.

Fifteen minutes later, Cambronne remembered where he had seen that face. He put down his fork, stared blindly at his plate, and then left the table without a word to his fellow diners. “Where is Doucet?” he asked his astonished escort.

“He has returned to the hotel, my general,” stammered one of the junior lieutenants.

“I will go there and find him. Make my excuses to the deputies.”

He nearly ran down the hill to the Auberge du Marchand.

Doucet was in the reception room, slumped in a chair, staring at the doorway the mystery man had emerged from as if he could will the stranger to reappear.

“Doucet? I remembered. Not his name, but enough to concern me.”

The younger man jumped to his feet.

“You were right,” Cambronne said, breathing hard. “He
is
British. A Jew. Loosely connected to their intelligence service. He was the one who warned me last April, at Orgon.”

The younger man closed his eyes. “Meyer,” he whispered. He swore profusely. Then he jumped up and rang the bell at the desk, tapping his hand on the wood impatiently until the innkeeper's wife appeared. “Madame,” he said, “is there by any chance an English gentleman staying here? A Monsieur Meyer?”

She beamed. “Why, yes. With another gentleman, and a very lovely young lady, and the young lady's mother, who—”

“Have they left?” Cambronne interrupted.

She looked puzzled. “I do not believe so. Just one moment.” She returned a few minutes later. Doucet was gripping the edge of the desk so tightly his knuckles were white. “They are still here, monsieur. The chambermaid has just returned from changing the beds.”

Doucet looked at Cambronne. “We will have to detain him. He is very dangerous.”

“I am under a considerable obligation to him,” Cambronne objected. “As is His Imperial Majesty.”

“I am under a personal obligation to him as well. We can both shower him with gratitude. After we lock him up.” He turned to Madame Marchand. “This man is an enemy of France, madame. I must request permission to take some soldiers up to his room and arrest him.”

She looked horrified. “Arrest him? In our hotel? Could you not wait outside, in the street, and detain him as he returns?”

“Returns?” asked Cambronne sharply. “Returns from what?”

“Merely a walk, General,” she assured him hastily. “The ladies went as well. Right after breakfast.”

“He's gone,” said Doucet slowly.

“Oh, no, monsieur. There are bags and clothing in both rooms. Jeanette has just brought down two dresses to be pressed before dinner.”

“He saw us. He's gone.” Doucet slammed his fist down on the desk. “
Sacré con!”

Even Cambronne flinched at hearing that particular oath in the presence of a respectable woman.

“I'll find him,” Doucet said through his teeth. “He cannot travel very quickly, not with two women. Give me ten men,
mon général
, and two dispatch riders.”

“I need those men here,” Cambronne objected. “What harm can Meyer do us now? If he sends reports to London, what of it? We will be in Grenoble in two days, three at the most.”

“Not if he blows up the bridge at Pont-Haut,” said Doucet grimly. “Nathan Meyer single-handedly destroyed more bridges in Spain than the entire British engineering corps. It is one of his specialties.” He waited for this to sink in. “Now, may I have my ten men?”

Cambronne nodded.

 

 

By the time the party was approaching Corps, the first town of any size in the valley beyond the pass, they had been traveling for over nine hours. It had been drizzling off and on for the last three of those hours; they were damp and cold and exhausted. Meyer wanted desperately to get Anthony into a bed somewhere, but he was fairly certain Doucet would be coming after him. Better, he decided, to get his nephew to a safe bed, one he could hope to stay in for the night. There was still some daylight left; he should be thankful for the chance that gave him. He therefore called a halt before beginning the ascent to Corps, and led the party away from the road until trees and thickets concealed them from anyone who might ride by.

“That is Corps,” he said, pointing up the hill to the rooftops just visible through the mist. “Napoleon will almost certainly be staying there tomorrow night, which means that his advance guard will be here tonight.”

“We cannot stop there, then,” said Diana, disappointed. She had shadows under her eyes, but it was obvious from the worried glance she gave his nephew that her concern was not for herself.

“I believe we should try to get beyond the town, perhaps find a secluded farmhouse.” He looked at Abigail. If she said no he was not sure what he would do, but he was tired of playing tyrant.

Luckily, she seemed to agree with him. “How far beyond the town? How much longer must we ride?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps another forty minutes.”

She, too, looked at Anthony. “We can do that. But not much more.”

Meyer turned to Rodrigo. “Can you lead them around the base of the hill, rejoin the road from the other side?”

His servant scanned the wooded valley and nodded. “You will go through town?”

“Yes, give me your coat. I will be you.” They made the exchange without dismounting. “I will engage rooms at every hotel in town for Mr. Meyer and his party, arriving later tonight; that should slow Doucet up a bit when he gets here. With luck, he will decide that he missed us somewhere and double back.” He eyed Diana's pelisse, now supporting a very haggard-looking Anthony. “If possible, I will also purchase some more clothing for us.”

“But it is Sunday,” said Abigail, shocked. “No shops will be open.”

“Perhaps someone will take pity on me when I explain that we lost all our baggage when the horses bolted and dragged our carriage into a ravine,” he said solemnly.

“If you tell them you tried to take a carriage over that road, they will take pity on you, all right,” she said tartly. “They will think you are the servant of a madman.”

“Do you have a better story?” he asked, amused.

“Certainly,” she said. “Your, er, master's nephew is very ill, and as a precaution, your master burned all his clothing. Oh, and ours as well.”

He laughed; he could not help it. She really was a terrible liar, but her attempt was oddly endearing. “Would you give a room in your hotel to someone so full of contagion that his uncle has burned all the baggage for the entire party? I suspect not. You would bar the gates of the town and stone any travelers who tried to come through.”

“Oh.” She blushed.

“I shall think of something,” he said. In fact, his main goal in Corps, apart from laying a false trail at the hotels, was an item he would have to steal. He might as well steal a few pieces of clothing as well.

“Shall I leave the usual mark for you to follow?” Rodrigo asked him.

He nodded.

“And when should we expect you?”

“Within a few hours.”

The servant looked relieved.

Meyer suspected Rodrigo would not be so relieved when his master disappeared after supper. He would try to slip off without attracting attention. The answer to “When should we expect you?” this evening would be a bit more dramatic: “possibly never” or “just before dawn, with a dozen troopers after me.”

Of course, if the drizzle did not lift, his self-assigned mission would be impossible to carry out. Instead of defying the former French emperor, he would be spending the evening in the farmhouse, sitting by the hearth and watching the few visible strands of Abigail's hair turn different colors in the firelight.

“Where is my uncle?” Anthony asked Diana.

He was propped up against a mound of down-filled pillows, sipping a clear golden broth which most chefs in London would cut off their arms to produce. Towards the end of the day, he had been finding everything more and more confusing, so he was not quite sure why they were in this farmhouse in the middle of nowhere instead of at an inn, or why he was in what looked to be the bedchamber of the farmer and his wife, with its starched print curtains and old-fashioned furniture. He was certainly not complaining—after sleeping for several hours in the Durrys's luxuriously overstuffed featherbed he was feeling almost human again. And when he had finally been awake enough to understand what was being said as various people gave him medicines and plumped up pillows, he had realized, to his astonishment, that he was something of a hero. He had resigned himself to figuring in Diana's memories of this week as a clumsy weakling: too saddle-sore to walk one day, beaten by yokels the next, feverish the day after that. He would never have dreamed that she would look at him with obvious admiration while she held his soup for him. Or that his uncle would embrace him and tell him he was a credit to the family.

She frowned. “I am not sure. He went out again a few minutes ago. Perhaps he is back now.”

The door opened, and Diana's mother came in.

“Have you seen Mr. Meyer?” Diana asked her.

“I believe he went out to the stables again.” She came over to the bed. “You look much, much better,” she said approvingly. “I am glad I let Madame Durry persuade me to try her tisane. It seems to have worked wonders. Do you think you could eat some toast?”

He considered this, and decided that the answer was yes.

“I'll go.” Diana jumped up from her chair beside the bed.

“Thank you, dear,” said her mother absently, taking her place. “There are kittens in the kitchen,” she explained apologetically to Anthony.

“I know.” He smiled crookedly. “Miss Hart has described them to me in great detail.”

She picked up the bowl of broth. “I must confess that this is far more comfortable than many of the inns we have patronized. Madame Durry is the most cheerful, warmhearted woman I could hope to meet. Her daughter idolizes Diana and has already brushed and pressed her dress for her
and
helped her put up her hair. The two sons groomed and fed all of our animals, so that Rodrigo could come in and eat. I am sure that your uncle is paying them a great deal of money, of course. Nevertheless, at the moment I am almost happy that those officers frightened your uncle. Otherwise we would be staying at one of the hotels in Corps, and I cannot imagine you would have been tended so well there.”