Episode #317

Part Five of Five

They help me into the hut, the girl opening the door for us and onto a cot inside. It's warmer, thank God, and mostly dry. The farmer goes out as Ramon lights a lamp from a charcoal brazier. "How do you feel?" he asks me as he rubs me down with a blanket.

"I'll make it," I reply, my teeth chattering. I should lie down to emphasize my weakness, but I don't think I would be able to get up again. Ramon sits on a stool near the door, peering out through a crack in it. The girl huddles next to me for some time, then gets up to tend the brazier. Picking up a stick, she crouches next to the iron pot, poking at the coals. Ramon pays no attention to her and his head is turned away from me. There must be patrols nearby if he is so nervous.

I watch the girl for a time, my mind empty. As she swirls the stick in the fire, the end of it glowing red, a nasty thought crawls into my brain, coils and hisses, waking me out of my dream. When the girl glances over at me, I tilt my head to one side in a come-hither way. She moves to stand up, laying down the stick. I stop her with a shake of my head. Wide-eyed, she picks up the stick again and brings it with her. She hands it over without a word. When I push her away, to the end of the cot, she goes, pulling up her legs and wrapping her arms around her knees.

I look back at Ramon, who is still crouching next to the door, and gather myself. I will only get one chance and the stick's glow is already fading. Bracing myself with one hand, the stick in the other, I push myself off the bed. Ramon looks around casually. "You should lie down. They're not--"

I cut him off with a boot in the chest that throws him against the door. He falls down, the stool kicked away as he goes. I fall down, too--dropping my knees right onto his chest. He grunts in surprise and pain. I fall over, catching myself with my free hand before I can drop the stick. He's still wheezing, out of breath. Before he can recover, I tap the stick against his face. He yelps as it stings his jaw. "What are you doing?!"

I glance at the girl--she is still huddled on the bed, watching me. She won't interfere. In fact, I think she is noting my technique. "Get me another stick," I tell her in Catalan. Without a murmur, she obeys.

I look back down at Ramon, who is staring up at me, face pale, gasping for air. "Didn't think I would notice, did you?" I snarl. "I reckon you thought I was too out of my head to notice anything."

"What...are you...saying?" The bewilderment on his face makes me sick, as if I am Frenchie or Philippe looking down at a torture victim. "Notice what?"

"You thought I'd bring you back with me? A French agent? Let you find out all about us and scarper off into the night?" At his stricken look, I giggle, unable to stop. "That's a good one, Ramon, or whatever the hell your name is."

"Pirenne." He is still breathing fast, but no longer in gasps.

"What?" I blink at him, afraid to unbrace my hand and wipe the sweat off my face. I'm shivering again. "What did you say?"

"My name is Pirenne. Roger Pirenne." He looks close to tears, almost as close as I am. "It is what you want, isn't it? My name?"

"No." I grip the stick tighter and steady myself againt the wall. "I want those papers you showed to your friend the sentry the other day." His name means nothing to me; I don't recognize it. The papers are more important.

"You'll have to get off so I can get them out," he says.

"Oh, I don't think so, you bastard." I lean forward. "I think I'll put your eyes out first, one by one. And then..." I stop, shaking.

"Why?" I stare at him, unable to speak. "Why are you doing this, Robert?" He pronounces my name like a Frenchman and that decides me, or so I think.

"It's what we do." The girl brings over a new stick. I trade mine for hers. As she goes to reheat the old one, I aim the new one at Frenchie's eye.

"Wait," he says, and he becomes just Ramon again. I stop, confused. "Wait, that won't help. The papers are nothing, just part of my cover. It's all in my head, Robert. Kill me and you get nothing."

"So, I'll take you back." I grin. "That farmer will help, once he knows what you are."

He is shivering so hard his teeth are chattering. "Why now? Robert, please. You could have pretended ignorance all the way back to your fleet, if you wanted that. Why kill me now? Why tell me your name? Why?"

"I told you. It's what we do." I swallow bile, feeling dizzy again. I will have to finish this now or I won't have the strength. But the stick stays poised above his face. I don't understand. I've never had a problem killing before. "Damn you."

"I'm not your enemy, Robert." He is sad, condemning me even as he forgives me. "The men who sent us here, they're the enemy. We are just soldiers, pawns of kings and generals. Who are you doing this for? Them or yourself?"

"Go to Hell." My voice comes out unsteady. Who am I doing this for? That uptight sod, Pierson? Wellington, who doesn't give a damn whether I live or die? Mad old King George and his shiftless son?

"Oh, I am already going there, regardless. So are you." He swallows. Is this his way of lying with the truth? "We don't have to do this. We can both walk away."

"Oh, yeah?" I sneer. "What about your beloved Emperor Napoleon?" I blink away tears. This is getting harder by the minute. I should have killed him and had done with it.

"I don't give a damn about Napoleon." He could throw me off anytime now, risk the fire. Why doesn't he? "I love France, not him. And I'll wager you love England, not that fat, mad bastard on your throne."

I stare at the stick and it looks like Frenchie's knife. I toss it away from me. The strength goes out of me. I fall off Ramon, landing on my side with a jolt. Pain flares through my head, making me curl around myself. I scarcely notice when he gets up, or when the girl flies at him with the other stick in her hand, or when he subdues and disarms her, then goes to his knees next to me. It doesn't matter anymore if he kills me. I've betrayed them all, comrades, king and country, and all without a word. Even if I go home now, it won't be home.

He lifts me up by my shoulders just as two men come in. One of them is the farmer, I think, but I can't see well enough to tell. Ramon says something to them about needing to carry me. "You'll have to put him in the boat." I have no energy left to contradict him.

"You're not coming?" Even through my daze, the farmer sounds surprised.

"No," Ramon says, as the other men lift me and carry me out into the rain. That is the last time I see him for the next seven years.

Epilogue

1820, Santa Elena

The sun goes down before the Queen comes to visit. Must be a slow week for her if she is coming by so much, or perhaps she's just curious. No doubt word of Malsano's humiliation has made the rounds in some form or another. As soon as Gaspar had told Vera (and why wouldn't he?) it would be as good as told to the rest of the town. Just as well. Maybe it will scotch the plans of any others who might have been emboldened to take a shot at me.

So far, Pirenne has not put in another appearance. I reckon that Malsano is not very happy with him at the moment. I shouldn't care what happens to the old rogue. Maybe it's just a rough sort of brotherhood that makes me wish him well wherever he has run to escape Malsano's wrath.

I half expect it to be him lurking behind me when I finally give in to the gathering darkness and light a lamp. When I straighten and turn around however, it is the Queen who stands behind me, leaning against the frame of the doorway, her arms folded.

"You've had a busy day," she says.

"You heard the news, then, I take it?" She nods. I sit back down to finish my supper of fish and beans. When she pulls up a chair and sits down across from me, I hand her a fork and pour her a cup of cheap wine so that she can share. We eat in companionable silence, as though we have already been married for many years. Who knows? We may yet reach that goal. As I eat, I enjoy her quick, efficient movements and the way the shadows from the lamp limn the hollows of her face. Yes, we have to be careful, but I'm still a man, and I can still like watching the woman I love do such a simple thing as eating my food, knowing that she will be with me in my bed soon enough.

Once the wine goes down in the bottle, the beans and fish disappear and we are reduced to wiping the plate clean with hunks of bread, her curiosity finally overcomes her. "You never did tell me about this Pirenne, not even his first name."

"His first name was--is 'Roger'. As I said, he saved my life in Catalonia."

She waits. I don't add anything. "And...?" she says.

I look up at her. "And what?"

She chuckles. "Roberto, don't be coy. There is more to the story than that. Otherwise, you would have introduced him to me by now, like your ship-captain cousin."

"I wasn't sure you would want to meet him. You see...he fought for the French. As his name implies"

She stops with her winecup halfway to her lips. "What do you mean he fought for the French? I thought you said he saved your life in Spain. Wouldn't that have been during the War?"

I nod. "Oh, yes. You could call him my counterpart on the other side. And he was very good at what he did. I almost let him follow me back to our own lines before I caught him out. God only knows what mischief he would have wrought there." Almost as much as I tried hard to wreak behind his comrades lines, I'd wager.

"I don't understand. If that were true, why are you both still alive?"

I shrug. "We both got tired. I suppose you could say that he got tired first, and I was too badly injured at the time to take advantage of it. After I recovered, I didn't want to take advantage of it anymore."

A strange look comes over her face--pity? Compassion? Or maybe it's fear. "'The enemy was Evil; I was Good. One day, I realized they felt exactly the same with me. There was no Evil, no Good. There was only blood--and death.'" She is quoting me. Dear Lord, I thought she'd forgotten all about that. It feels eery to sit here and listen to her recite it back to me. Her eyes seem large and bright through the mask.

"Yes," I say. "He was a surgeon before the War; I was an apothecary. When I think back on it, the same thing that made us such good agents was probably what made us both so sick of it in the end. We could see something else, other possibilities. I reported him to my commanding officer, of course, but he was long gone. I understand they tried to track him. At one point, I heard he was dead. By that time, I wasn't feeling very lively myself, so it seemed easier to believe it. And now he's gone."

She strokes the edge of her mask, thinking. I wonder if she knows that she does that? "You don't think he'll be back?"

"Not unless he wants to reckon with Malsano telling everyone in Santa Elena that he's a war criminal like your friend de Beauville."

"De Beauville wasn't my friend," she says, with some heat.

"There you go." I pour myself more wine. "I'm not even sure that Pirenne is a war criminal. And if he is, what does that make me? Not that it matters. I'm afraid he is gone for good." I suppress a sigh at that. I am surprised to say that I will miss the slippery bastard.

The crunch of dirt outside and the thud of heavy boots up to the door startles us both. I glance at Tessa to warn her but she is whisking into my bedroom and (I assume) out through the window. The man knocks, but it is surprisingly discreet. Not Grisham, then. I make sure, before I go answer the door, that Tessa has gone. She has. Damn. So much for a cosy night. I answer the door in no great mood. I am not sure if my mood improves or worsens when I open the door and see Roger Pirenne standing there, grinning at me. Why can't the man make a normal, foreseeable entrance?

"I'd have thought you would be on your way out of town by now," I say in English. Speaking Spanish would be false to us both, and French would be unwise.

"Hmph," he says. "Not me, Malsano. He is on his way to Los Angeles by now." He waits until I step out of the way to let him in. As he comes into the light, I see that one side of his face is bruised and cut.

"Agh," I say, wincing in sympathy. "Malsano?"

He nods. "His parting gift." He touches a cut and hisses in pain. "He was unhappy about his own unfortunate turn of events and blamed it on me--avec raison, non?"

"I take it the bit about his brother being an absinthe drinker gave it away?" He nods. "I've got wine to wash that cut, if you like, and to dull the pain." I indicate the empty table, letting him make what he will of the extra chair, cup and spoon. He says nothing about it, but I know that he notices.

As he sits down, he says, "Wine is good for the cut, but perhaps something stronger to drink, eh?"

"That would be the gin--or should I say, the local rotgut that passes for it." I pull the bottle out of my desk and pour him a glass. As he takes a few swigs, I set the lamp down close to him and bring the wine bottle over with a towel to lay on the table. "Set your head on the table there." He obeys, laying his head down on the towel with the bruised cheek face up. He grimaces when I pour the wine over the bruise, but doesn't say a word. "Doesn't look like you'll be needing stitches, at least."

"Thank God. I am past old enough not to care about my looks." He sits up, looking shaky as he mops his face with the towel. He finishes off the gin and I pour him another dose. Physician heal thyself--though I've known as many drunks in the priesthood as I have in our profession. We fixers of this world make the tavernkeepers rich. Come to think of it, I think I'll have some gin myself.

"What happened to the girl?" he asks as I fill my own glass.

At first, I'm puzzled. "What girl?" "The one who cut you loose in the farmhouse." He grins at my surprise. "Yes, mon ami, you did talk in your sleep back in Catalonia. It was to be expected in your condition, non?"

Touché. "Oh, you mean the little somatent brat?" He nods. "First, tell me something. Were you the one who set me up in that village?"

He purses his lips, considering it. "Non. I think it was one of the villagers. That's why the girl saved you, you know. Her family was betrayed; I saw it happen. They shot the father and the mother right in the street, then took over the house for their own use. The girl must have gone to ground while they ransacked the house."

"You're saying that when they caught me, she thought she could...what, bring her father back?" I shiver as if someone had just walked over my grave. I hope it's not the girl.

He shrugs, smacking his lips as he drinks. "You spoke with her the most. You tell me."

"Poor mite." Shaking my head, I pour myself another glass, wishing he hadn't brought the matter up. I don't need her haunting me again, on top of all the other ghosts. "She's back in England, I suppose. One of the officers' wives adopted her. By the time I woke up on the ship, she was gone."

"Did you ever see her again?" He looks genuinely curious. I wonder if they talked at all while I was asleep. It seems so long ago, now, and it's hard to care.

I shake my head. "No." I muse on her briefly; she would be thirteen now if she's survived. I do wish her well, but I doubt I will ever see her again. "I was out of my head for a week after we got to the ship--or so they told me. They didn't get much that they could understand out of me until I woke up." I grin, amused in spite of myself. "By then, you were gone, too. Not that they would have returned to the coast to look for you."

He grins. "And thank Heaven for that, non? I told my commanding officer about you, too. That's how I found out about your 'death'."

I chuckle, then raise my glass. "Here's to our respective former superior officers not finding us."

"Santé," he says, clinking his glass against mine.

"Cheers," I say and we both drink up.

But I've had enough of the War. "So, he's going to Los Angeles, is Malsano? What is that young idiot up to now?" I should feel more charitable, now that Malsano is gone, but I think I won't. Safer that way.

"Well, he has already tried his case here and in Monterey. He has decided that he might get a better reception down there." He leans the uninjured side of his face on one hand. "Myself, I think he is looking for a quiet way to retreat back to Spain and find out if what you and I said about his brother and sister are true."

"Let's drink to the hope that you're right." I lift my glass. After a moment, he lifts his own and we clink them together again before we drink. I can see that I'll have one hell of a hangover in the morning, but who cares? "What about you? Will you go back to Monterey?"

He looks surprised. "Why would I do that? No, I told you before--I thought I would stay here and practice medicine with you."

Fortunately, I have just swallowed my gin when he says this, so I don't quite choke. "What? Have you lost your mind?"

He gives me a puckish look. "Please, Robert. You look terrible. So tired and overworked. Don't tell me you couldn't use the help."

"That is not the point. You're French. They don't love the French around here, Roger. I'd think you would have noticed that after setting up Don Hidalgo on that false treason charge."

He grins. "Yes, that was clever, n'est-ce pas? It absolutely discredited Malsano." He touches the injured side of his face, wincing. "It was worth the clout on the head."

"It wouldn't have worked nearly as well if Hidalgo had been in Zaragoza during the War." He looks smug. "But you made certain that he wasn't, didn't you?"

"Mais oui. I asked around when Malsano and I first got here. Servants can be very talkative. If Hidalgo had been in Zaragoza, I would have said he was in Madrid. You know how it goes."

"Keep the lies simple. Yes, I remember."

"You have not said 'no' yet, mon ami." He looks worried, and in spite of myself, I like him better for the uncertainty. He is not playing me. It's a simple request of friendship--a plea, even--one that I am not inclined to refuse, despite the complications.

I sigh, thinking about having to pull out my old cot and tomorrow, introducing Roger around town as my new partner. It may not go over well; we will have to admit that he is French up front, to be safe. Very few will be happy about that. I pour each of us another glass. "Have another drink. Tomorrow will be a very long day."

Watch for the next exciting adventure, The Trial, part one - Episode #318, starting on April 20, 2003.