The Soldier's Secrets

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the cool dirt floor. ’Twould be astonishing if her heart survived this assignment.

* * *

Brigitte turned her back against the setting sun and moved her leaden feet along the clover field, skirting the trees that lined the edge. Had she really argued with Citizen Belanger over the price of her bread and snuck into his house earlier that day? The events seemed so distant, they might have occurred a week ago.

Her weariness was growing worse. Her joints ached as she trudged through the green countryside. Sweat slicked her hands and beaded on her forehead, and her head pounded with each step she took.

Surely she felt ill because of the meeting and what lay ahead at the rendezvous location, not because she was getting sick. She couldn’t get sick right now.

“Bonjour, Citizen,” a voice called from the field.

She stilled, her pulse thudding sluggishly against her throat. Had Alphonse’s man already found her? No one was supposed to know she was here besides the person she needed to meet—whomever that was.

“Bonjour?” she answered tentatively.

A man emerged from the midst of the cows grazing in the field, his clothing smeared with mud and hands crusted with dirt.

Or rather, his hand was crusted with dirt. He only had one. His other arm stopped somewhere beneath his elbow, leaving the remainder of his sleeve to hang free.

“Oh.” She took a step back. This couldn’t be the man Alphonse had sent.

“I’ve yet to meet you, Citizen.” The man dipped his head at her, his young face tanned beneath the uncocked hat he wore. “I’m Pierre Dufort, one of Jean Paul Belanger’s tenants.”

Well, that certainly explained his presence in the field. Her eyes slid to the gaping hole at the end of his shirtsleeve. How did a farmer work with only one hand?

“I lost it in the Batavian campaign.”

She jerked her eyes up to meet his and found herself staring once again into that terribly young face, a face not much older than Julien’s or Laurent’s.

’Twas almost worse than looking at the amputated arm.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have stared. My name is Brigitte Moreau and I’m—” She licked her lips. How to describe why she was here near Abbeville, let alone cutting through a field? “Living in the area for a bit. I trust Citizen Belanger won’t mind my travelling through his land?”

“Jean Paul’s hardly the type to bother with a person crossing his field now and then.”

She only hoped he was right, but then, he hadn’t been cowering under a bed in fear of Jean Paul Belanger eight hours earlier.

“And no need to apologize about staring. ’Tis hardly a secret.” He raised his arm, drawing attention to the incomplete limb. “I lost my hand. Everyone can see as much.”

But he was so young to face the rest of his days maimed. Had he a mother who sent him off to fight? A wife? Did he blame whoever had sent him into the army for the injury he’d suffered? She swallowed hard, then glanced away.

“Adieu, then. I must be...”

“I have two sons...”

The both spoke at the same time then fell silent.

“You were saying?” The subtle lines around Pierre’s eyes creased with curiosity.

“In the navy.” She cleared her throat. “I have two sons in the navy.” She wasn’t sure why she told him, save that he might understand something she couldn’t. Might be able to name the aching sorrow that filled her chest every night as she lay down to sleep and longed for her oldest children. And if he couldn’t name it, he’d assuredly felt it before. One would have to after losing an arm on the battlefield.

“Good seamen, are they? That’s noble of you, now, sending your boys off to serve their country.”

But it didn’t feel very noble, not at moments like this when she simply wanted them home. “I hope...” Her eyes drifted down to his empty sleeve again. “That is, I want...”

“Don’t worry yourself.” Pierre smiled softly. “Your boys’ll fare fine. Battle at sea’s a mite different then battle on land. I’ve nary met a sailor who lost his arm.”

Yes. Battle at sea certainly was different, because if either Laurent’s or Julien’s frigate was captured, her boys wouldn’t face the mere loss of a hand—they would be killed, thrown into a gaol or impressed onto a British warship. Was she mad for thinking the loss of an arm seemed the better consequence? What kind of mother sent her children into the navy at all?

The kind who wanted to help her country fight against its tyrannical neighbor.

The kind who wanted to keep them away from Alphonse Dubois.

“They’re only fifteen.”

Pierre put his hand on her shoulder, a gentle touch like one Laurent or Julien might use to comfort her were they here in Abbeville. “Citizen Moreau, Brigitte, why don’t you come home and sup with me and my wife tonight? Looks like you need a little cheer to lift your spirits.”

She looked up into Pierre’s face, kindness and hospitality emanating from a young man who had every reason to be angry at life.

“That’s a kind offer, but I must make haste. I’ve three younger children back at the house.” And she was already late for her rendezvous.

“Some other time, then. I’ve got a wee babe I like to show off, and my wife will be pleased to meet another woman. She and Citizen Fortier are the only two women on Jean Paul’s land, you know.”

No. She didn’t know and hadn’t given much thought to who Citizen Belanger’s tenants were, whether they were married or widowed, whether they had all their hands or feet or ears. Though Jean Paul had told her there were women around to work as laundresses, and most farmers had wives and children to help bear the work.

“Au revoir, for I hope we meet again, Citizen Moreau.” He gave her a little wave.

“Au revoir.” She turned and took two steps away, then looked back. Pierre made his way along the edge of the field, his gaping sleeve hanging comfortably at his side.

“Did Citizen Belanger hire you after he learned of your arm?” The question exploded from her lips.

Pierre turned, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Oui. And I’d not have found work save for him. My father is the butcher, you see. There’s little one can do around a butcher shop when missing a hand. But I’m not the only one he saved from such dire straits. Citizen Courtemanche limps, and Citizen Fortier lost her farm after her husband’s death. Then there’s Citizen...”

She held up a hand to stem his words. “I understand.”

And she did. Pierre could likely go on for a quarter hour listing Citizen Belanger’s tenants and why each of them needed an extra bit of help. It certainly explained how he had three men waiting to become tenants in a country where all able-bodied men were off at war.

What murderer hired one-armed men, cripples and widows?

What murderer helped needy people with food?

She turned back toward the path that ran along the edge of the field. Maybe now she had evidence enough to give Alphonse’s man.

Chapter Seven

Jean Paul bent over the green-and-amber-tinted field and fingered the stalks of wheat. No orange or yellow stripes on the leaves, no powdery mildew coating the plant, no holes where aphids, worms or flies had chewed through the leaves. It was completely, utterly healthy.

Or it should be. But the stalks were only half the size of those in the field behind it. And the hulls growing on each plant considerably fewer than the number on the stalks in the neighboring field.