Naomi Rawlings - The Soldier's Secrets

Danielle flipped some hair over her shoulder and huffed. “I hate English.”

Nothing unusual about that. Perchance she was pushing the studies a mite hard given their current living situation, but the girl found trouble too easily when she hadn’t something to occupy her mind. Besides, English had been a most useful language living in Calais, and if the war fell in favor of the English, it might become even more necessary. “Did you finish your arithmetic and grammar?”

“I still have those, too,” Danielle grumbled.

Brigitte pressed her hand to her temple again, the pounding growing ever harder, then moved into the little house.

“How do I tell the difference between a b and a d again?” Serge sat at the table, scrunching his nose as he stared at the letters copied onto his slate.

She ignored the thick layer of dust caking everything from the wobbly table to the shelves to the pallet in the corner where Victor slept, and instead set the food on the table and peered over Serge’s shoulder. “A b has a ball on the back of the stick, remember? And the d has the ball on the front.... Yes, like that. But I told Danielle to finish her studies before you started. What are you doing with the slate?”

Serge’s piece of chalk clattered to the table while his eyes latched on to the soup and bread. “Did you bring food?”

She sighed. There went any chance of reviewing the alphabet or figuring out why Serge had the slate. “Oui. Citizen Belanger sent us some of his soup and bread from last night.”

Serge was already off his chair and scrambling toward the shelves that held naught but two bowls, a motley collection of eating utensils and three plates—all seemingly left behind by the house’s last inhabitants. “I’m hungry.”

“Patience, son. I must heat it first.” She crossed the small room to the aging pot on the hearth.

“I don’t mind it cold.” Serge set the bowls on the table.

“Me, neither,” Danielle piped up.

She ran her eyes over her children’s slender forms. Serge, with his too-short trousers and too-thin hips. And Danielle, with her gaunt face, bony shoulders and dress that would fit a girl who weighed half again as much as Danielle. Was she doing such a poor job of providing for her children that they clambered after cold, day-old soup?

Evidently.

She dished the hearty broth and vegetables out, and Danielle sank down onto the dirt floor with her bowl while Serge climbed back onto the single chair and gulped his food.

“Slow down, child. It won’t run off on you.”

But he finished his bowl in less than a dozen bites and pushed it toward her. “Can I have more?”

The bucket had seemed like so much food but it now stood half empty without enough sustenance to see herself and the children through the evening meal. Though she could hardly blame Citizen Belanger for shortage when the man assumed he fed one person rather than four.

“Oui. Serge, you can have a second helping, but we’ll be eating pulse later tonight.”

The boy nodded eagerly, and Danielle’s dish appeared on the table beside his.

“May I have more, too?”

Her own stomach twisted with hunger, but she nodded at Danielle and divided her portion into two extra servings. Then she tore a piece of bread off the half loaf and chewed. At least the bread from the baker tasted palatable.

One mission for Alphonse, that’s all she needed to complete. Then she wouldn’t have to depend on the charity of a farmer for her children’s food. She could purchase her own cottage much like this one and surround herself with friends and loved ones rather than hide in the woods.

If only she could manage to finish her mission without being discovered.

* * *

Jean Paul hunched over the table in his cottage, quill gripped tightly between his fingers as he thought back over the previous weeks while he prepared his monthly report. No strangers had passed through town—well, besides the woman baking him bread. But she was hardly worth reporting. Frail, thin women with lips the color of autumn apples and skin pale as the moon weren’t a threat to the government.

And here he was, thinking of the woman again when he had business to tend. All day she had flitted through his mind, whether he be working the fields or meeting with Pierre or stocking food in the stable. Mayhap he should send her away for good on the morrow so he’d not be so distracted.

Either that, or he could hire her.

Something hard fisted around his chest. No. It mattered not how grateful he’d be for a meal he didn’t cook for himself or how much dust collected inside his cottage walls.

He let out a low growl. He had a report to write, and here he was, completely distracted by that fool woman yet again.

He bent his head over the paper and forced his thoughts away from soft brown eyes and onto more important matters, like whether any suspiciously large wagons of smuggled English wool had made their way inland from the coast over the past month.

But he came up with nothing. Nor had he heard of any large shipments of French brandy, lace or the like headed toward the coast.

The tallow candle flickered shadows across the walls and table as he scratched his message onto the foolscap. The words seemed unimportant. Insignificant. But a certain representative in the National Convention named Joseph Fouché wrote him back every month, always thanking him for the information. Twice now, the local gendarmes had found army deserters due to his reports. And once a rather large shipment of brandy was discovered on the coast, only minutes away from being loaded onto a vessel bound for England.

The spies were a little harder to track. He wasn’t certain he’d ever found one but he reported anyone with the slightest accent or less-than-fluent French.

A knock sounded on his door, soft and unhurried. He rose and glanced out the window. Darkness had long fallen, and only one type of person would knock so softly this far into the night. He took an extra blanket from the chest in the bedchamber, then made his way to the door.

He’d never met the man standing outside, would probably forget his unmemorable face if ever they chanced to meet again. But then, spies weren’t supposed to be remembered.

The man silently held out a piece of paper. “Citizen Belanger?”

He barely glanced at the missive, the signature at the bottom standing out like a flame. He had a similar letter tucked away in his bedroom, all of Fouché’s men did.

“Come. I’ve a bed for you in the stable, but I need you gone before the sun rises.”

He asked not of the man’s business as he led him to the pallet tucked into the stall beside his mare’s. He had no desire to know the secret workings of his government, but if providing shelter for a night would aid his country’s cause, then he’d house a hundred men. Because France was now a republic, a place where all people were citizens of equal value, where power and wealth were based upon one’s actions rather than right of birth.

To keep the French First Republic alive, the Convention fought not only revolution from within, but enemies from without. He might not be able to dart off into battle with the farm and an old wound in his shoulder, but he could supply food to the gendarmerie post for a fair price, ship some of his extra to the soldiers, watch his hometown for any sign of upset, and give rest and sustenance to government agents when so needed.

As terrible as the actions in his past had been, his country’s cause was just. He refused to shed more innocent blood in the name of liberty, but he’d found a way to keep serving France without the pain and horror.

Because France needed a government of the people rather than the tyranny of a king. And he would do whatever necessary to keep the Republic alive.