Ian Tregillis - Bitter Seeds

Good thing Liv didn't see that . He imagined the way her fingers danced along her belly when she was startled, the way she used his first name when she was upset.

Once on the open road, he opened the throttle as far as it would go. He sped east, toward the Ardennes Forest, and the advancing German armor.

Probably best she doesn't know about any of this.

Another invasion front had also opened up to the north, in the low countries of Belgium and the Netherlands, but that came as no great surprise. France and Britain had put such an offensive at the center of their strategy for dealing with the inevitable German invasion. The British Expeditionary Forces and their French counterparts were positioned for exactly this contingency. But it was the penetration of the supposedly impassable Ardennes—in large numbers and with heavy armor, by some accounts—that had caught the French off guard. And thus interested Marsh.

The French had taken the impenetrability of the forest for granted. So much so that they'd incorporated it into the Maginot Line, treating it like a natural extension of their defenses. Cutting through the Ardennes enabled the Jerry panzers to circumvent the fortifications and press into France against a paltry armed resistance.

Marsh's stomach lurched. Both wheels left the road for an instant as he topped a swell in the road. The BMW flexed under his weight as it touched down at the bottom of the rise. He fought to keep it upright on a track made soft by a week of late spring rains.

The rains of recent days had coaxed a quiet exuberance from the land. Beech and oak trees had shrugged off their lethargy and erupted into new foliage. The woods smelled of new life, a clean start. Marsh blew through patches of sunlight and shadow on the sun-dappled road so quickly that his eyes couldn't adjust. He squinted, but it didn't help him see into the shadows along the roadsides.

It occurred to him he had no idea how far west the Jerries had advanced. The shadows might have hidden anything. He wrenched the throttle again.

The road skirted a field. A farmer directing a horse-drawn plow waved at him.

The sleepiest and most isolated outposts hadn't received the news yet. They'd find out soon enough. Perhaps when they woke up under a swastika.

It was only by accident that Marsh himself had heard the account that piqued his interest.

Outwardly, the Low Countries maintained a policy of strict neutrality. They refused to prepare openly for a German invasion, for fear of provoking one. Secretly, however, they had been negotiating with the Anglo-French Entente for over eight months. Some of these talks took place in small, unremarkable villages throughout the countryside in order to preserve their privacy. Stephenson had tapped Marsh for liaison duty during the latest round of arrangements between the various intelligence services.

It wasn't part of T-section's duties. But the old man had exercised his clout to get Marsh put on the job, on the slim chance their colleagues from other nations had information about von Westarp or the Reichsbehorde. Marsh knew it was a desperation move, because Milkweed was starved for information. Nine months was far too long to go without new developments.

Still, Stephenson's decision was little appreciated by Marsh. It meant leaving his wife, lying to her, days before their first child's birth. It meant listening to French blustering and Belgian dithering when instead he could have been waiting on Liv, serenading her, making her laugh.

But then the reports had come. Marsh had been sitting next to his French counterpart when a breathless gendarme burst in the room. Everyone knew what it meant.

The gendarme had hurried across the room, kneeled between Marsh and his counterpart, and whispered more loudly than was prudent, owing perhaps to fear or adrenaline. His report bleached the color from the other man's face.

Then Marsh's counterpart had stood, announcing through the thick brush of his handlebar mustache: “Gentlemen. The Germans are moving.”

But the gendarme had phrased it differently. The Germans have burned through Ardennes.

Perhaps it was a colloquialism.

Perhaps not.

But something unusual had happened.

More refugees glutted the road as Marsh neared another village. He eased off the throttle. A single maniac racing toward the front was bound to raise eyebrows. They watched him as he passed. In their eyes he saw uncertainty and fear braided together.

He turned down a street filled with the warm-yeast smell of fresh bread. Marsh's stomach gurgled. Some people chose not to run. Where could they run? The German war machine was just a few hours away, and moving fast. Invasion or no, people still had to eat.

The bike jittered over irregular paving stones, needling his irritation. In and out. A quick look around, then back to Liv. That's all . The quicker, the better.

As he crested into the valley on the far side of the village, he caught a whiff of something swampy. The Meuse, farther down the valley. If the Germans stopped to regroup, the river would be a likely place to do so. If he wanted to see the Ardennes firsthand, he'd have to find a way around.

He sped up again. The road descended into a wide green basin quilted with checkerboard fields and hedges, torn down the middle by the dark, sinuous Meuse. Farther down, the steeples and clock towers of Sedan shone in the sun. The chiming of a carillon echoed across the valley.

The morning's meeting had disbanded immediately after the gendarme delivered his news. But before fleeing to the Channel, Marsh had paused just long enough to send a report.

Two words, fired into the ether with a machine gun burst of dots and dashes: “Crowing monarch.”

The first word flagged the message for Stephenson.

The second implied a connection to Milkweed.

The association with that morning's invasion would, Marsh hoped, be self-evident.

After that he struck the transmitter and vacated his room at the inn, intent on getting back to Britain. But then he saw the motorbike leaning against the alley fence. Free for the taking.

The petrol gauge reported the tank three-quarters empty. Enough to reach the Ardennes, but not enough margin to get out again, too. He slowed once again as he entered Sedan, eyes peeled for a chance to refuel the bike. If he were fleeing the invasion, he'd make damn sure his truck had a spare petrol canister.

The world had become steadily more surreal as he sped toward the Ardennes. Sedan was no exception. News of the invasion must have reached a town of this size. Yet for every person hurrying out of town, somebody else clung to daily routine. Aproned shop keep ers swept the sidewalks outside their establishments while people assembled for morning Mass. Quite a few people, in fact.

Their eyes and bodies radiated anxiety. They moved quickly, skittishly, like songbirds expecting a house cat to leap out of the bushes at any moment. And they studied their surroundings intensely. The passage of a stranger drew a great deal of attention. Wary gazes followed him as he threaded the town.

Marsh stopped at the first alley he could find, a lane wedged between an apothecary and a tailor. It was so narrow that he had to dismount before entering.

A woman sat by herself at the cafe across the street, reading a book. The fog of panic settling on Sedan didn't touch her. It wasn't even clear if the cafe was open for business; either way, she looked serene, unmoved. She glanced up as Marsh hopped off the motorbike. She looked down again when he noticed her, hiding her face behind long hair and the fringe of her kerchief. Marsh pushed the bike into the alley. He stowed it behind a rubbish bin.

He peered around the corner before emerging. People on the street paid him no attention, intent as they were either on fleeing the Germans or clinging to the comfort of routine. The woman at the cafe twirled a finger through one black braid while she read.