Edward Marston - Fire and Sword

‘Then why are you here?’

‘I’m breaking my journey on the way to see my sister in Lille.’

‘You put your life in jeopardy by travelling alone?’

‘I rode here with a score of others and will not venture on until I can enjoy the safety of numbers again. I know there’s a war on,’ said Daniel, ‘and that perils may lie ahead. Believe me, I’d much rather have stayed at home to look after my business. But my sister is grievously sick. She begged me to visit her.’

The man put his face close. ‘I don’t think you have a sister.’

‘I can prove it to you. I have a letter from her in my pocket. And you’ll be able to see from my papers that I really am Marcel Daron. Step nearer to that lantern,’ advised Daniel, ‘and you’ll be able to read more easily. Here,’ he continued, taking out a sheet of paper. ‘See for yourself what poor Hortense wrote.’

Glancing down to take it from him, the man gave Daniel the vital fraction of time that he needed. He moved like lightning. Seizing the wrist of the hand that held the weapon, he bunched the other fist and used it to deliver some fierce punches to the man’s face, splitting his nose, closing both his eyes and knocking him senseless with a blow to the chin. As he slumped to the ground, the officer let go of the dagger. Daniel picked it up at once, easing it between the ribs and into the heart. He didn’t bother to retrieve the letter from his phantom sister. It was really a tavern reckoning.

Daniel opened the privy door and found that Major Crevel was fast asleep. After hauling him out, he dragged the corpse into the privy and closed the door on it. Then he pulled up Crevel’s breeches and more or less carried him across to the stables. Daniel’s horse was already saddled in readiness for a quick departure. Reaching into a saddlebag for some lengths of rope, he bound Crevel hand and foot then used a handkerchief as a gag. The major was too drunk and fatigued to know what was going on. When he was lifted bodily and draped over one of the other horses, he made no complaint. Daniel used another rope to secure his cargo before leading both horses out of the courtyard.

Inside the tavern, the other officers continued to roister. It was a long time before they began to wonder where their friends were. One of them eventually went outside to investigate. When he discovered the corpse in the privy, he raised the alarm and a search began but there was no hope of their finding Major Crevel. He was lying in a ditch over a mile away, snoring up to heaven, blithely unaware of the fact that he was no longer in his uniform.

Even though it was far too big for him, it was being worn by Daniel along with Crevel’s boots and hat. He knew that a major in a cavalry regiment would have far less trouble from any French patrol he met than a bogus wine merchant riding on his own. The disguise got him safely out of enemy territory. Night was a willing accomplice. Nobody noticed the baggy coat and the voluminous breeches in the darkness. When he was stopped by a patrol, Daniel had been treated with the utmost deference. It was an uplifting experience. He enjoyed his brief promotion to the rank of major even if it happened to be in the wrong army.

‘Where have you been?’ asked Emanuel Janssen.

‘I went for a walk with Beatrix,’ replied his daughter.

He smiled fondly. ‘And I suppose that you just happened to go past the shops in the course of your stroll. You’ve been looking at new dresses again, Amalia, haven’t you?’

‘It does no harm to look.’

‘Of course not — I wasn’t criticising you. It’s only natural that a young woman like you should want to see the latest fashions.’

She sighed. ‘There’s no such thing in Amsterdam, Father.’

‘Isn’t there?’

‘Clothing here is so drab and dull.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it’s that bad.’

‘You don’t have to wear such dresses,’ she argued. ‘For the most part, they’re so plain and uninteresting. It’s the one thing I miss about our time in Paris. The ladies there dressed beautifully.’

‘Your memories of Paris are much happier than mine.’

‘Think of that day you took me to Versailles. It was amazing to see the King and his court in their finery. The ladies’ dresses were magnificent and so intricate.’

‘I felt that some of them were rather gaudy,’ he said.

‘There was so much bright colour,’ recalled Amalia. ‘Wherever I turned, my eyes were dazzled. It was a different world. There’s nothing like that anywhere in our country. The only real colour in Amsterdam is right here in front of us.’

She pointed to the vivid tapestry on the loom. They were in the large workshop at the rear of the house, the place where Janssen created his masterpieces, sewing them from the back and viewing the front of the tapestry in a mirror to make sure that he was keeping exactly to the design. Though she loved watching her father at work, Amalia had no ambitions to emulate him. She restricted herself to needlework, seeing it as a female accomplishment rather than a source of income. Weaving tapestries was an art practised by men like her father, a self-effacing genius whose handsewn work hung in several European palaces. Whenever she thought about the future — and she did so most days — she never envisaged having to toil at a loom or sew battle scenes with meticulous skill. Her abiding fantasy was one of domestic bliss with a certain British officer.

Her father was well aware of her high expectations.

‘When did you last hear from Captain Rawson?’ he asked.

‘It must be almost a month now, Father.’

‘I suspect that you can tell me the correct day and the precise hour when his letter arrived.’

‘I’m always so pleased to hear from him,’ she said, cheerfully.

‘Well, don’t fret if there’s a long wait for the next letter. The captain moves around so much that it’s difficult for him to write to anyone, especially when he’s on French territory. You simply have to be patient, Amalia.’

‘I accept that.’

‘And you must prepare yourself for the possibility of bad news.’

She frowned. ‘Why should I do that?’

‘Captain Rawson is a soldier.’

‘He knows how to look after himself, Father.’

‘When he goes into battle, anything can happen.’

‘Daniel is always very careful.’

‘Yet he sometimes puts courage before caution,’ said Janssen. ‘Look how he contrived to rescue me from the Bastille. He took the most terrible risks to do that. A careful man wouldn’t even have tried to get me out of there.’

‘Things are different now.’

There was such a hopeful note in her voice that her father couldn’t bring himself to contradict her. He’d seen the way that she and Daniel Rawson had fallen in love and had given their romance his blessing. At the same time, however, he was realistic enough to know that a soldier’s life could come to a sudden end at any moment. Daniel never hid from action. Instead, he deliberately went out in search of it. When he’d been commissioned to make a tapestry depicting the battle of Ramillies, Janssen had been delighted to have Daniel as his adviser but he’d quailed at some of the details he’d learnt. Glorious victories were based on blood and agony. Even during such a triumphant battle, there’d been hideous deaths among the Allies as well and many who survived were afflicted with horrendous injuries. Given the way he’d taken part in a cavalry charge — a fact that Janssen chose to keep from Amalia — Daniel could easily have been one of the casualties at Ramillies. Next time, fortune might not favour the daring captain.

Loving his daughter dearly, Janssen didn’t want to dash her hopes. He was an old man now, his hair and beard silvered by time, his shoulders rounded by long years at his loom. Most of his life was behind him. Amalia, however, had a whole future ahead of her and Janssen wanted it to be as happy and fulfilled as possible. On almost every test of suitability, Daniel Rawson would make an ideal husband for her. What cast a menacing shadow over any thoughts of marriage was the fact that he was engaged in a war that had already claimed thousands and thousands of victims. Janssen prayed that Amalia would not be one more stricken woman, doomed to pass her days by weeping over the grave of her dead lover.