18. Chapter 16

Great empires are not maintained by timidity.

"I'm not some spy, you fucking savages!" the pale Elban spat.

"You did try to entice my men to desert," Jacques said, by way of conversation. He had his sword, the Elban sword, across his knee and ran a whetstone down its edge.

The pale Elban was silent.

"Who paid you to do it?" Jacques asked.

The pale Elban sat, cold and miserable, tied to a chair in a cellar beneath the royal barracks. It was early morning now, and Jacques had left him sitting in darkness the whole night. Jacques set his whetstone aside and asked again.

"Who paid you?"

His sword gleamed in candle light.

The pale Elban groaned.

Jacques motioned with his hand, and Astier emerged from the shadows with a bucket. The sergeant doused the pale Elban in cold water, leaving him spluttering in his seat, then retreated out of sight again.

"I-I'm a banker, not a s-spy!" he hissed. His eyes wildly shifted between Jacques and Astier. "I am Arnau of Cerec, and I…" he shivered as cold water dripped from his body, "...r-represent the Galanti branch in Janku. Y-You have the wrong man!"

"You're not a thug then?" Jacques mused.

"I'm not!"

He shrugged. "But you did try to get men to desert."

Arnau squirmed against his restraints, still shivering.

Jacques sighed. "Listen, whoever paid for this has told you that they could find and kill you if they wanted. That's crap. They're not an omnipresent god. They're flesh and blood like any other man. On the other hand, I'm right here with a very sharp sword, and it seems fairly stupid to die here and now because you're afraid of being killed elsewhere."

He pricked Arnau with the tip of his sword, and the pale Elban shuddered.

Jacques leant over so he was face to face with the Elban. "You following me? Tell me who employed you, and I'll get you a horse so you can ride to Italica. I'm sure you'll be able to find work with the Galanti bank there."

Arnau's eyes dropped to the floor. "Italica's branch is gone. You Bluecoats ruined it."

He's considering it.

"Two horses then, and you can ride all the way to Sadera or wherever the hell else you want to go. I don't really care, and I doubt whoever paid you will track you further than Janku's walls."

Arnau groaned.

"There's no need to die in a cellar today when you could be free tomorrow."

Jacques sat back and let more water drip from the pale Elban. The cellar was cold, and Arnau was very uncomfortable, but that was all. He'd let Astier handle the real torture if it came to that.

"Who paid you to do this?" he asked a third time.

Arnau trembled. "The Algunan," he sighed.

Jacques hadn't really expected an answer to his question. Nor did he expect to be done with the man so quickly. But it was as if the word 'Algunan" had held back a flood.

"Please you have to believe me!" he choked. "I don't hate Duran or you Bluecoats! I needed money, and a man came to me and offered to clear my debts if I just gave him a tiny bit of information about the Galanti bank's accounts. So I did. And then…"

He made an indiscernible sobbing noise.

"Oh gods, forgive me. He threatened to tell my employers if I didn't do more… so much more, and worse, and…" Arnau steadied himself. "I did it all. Gods, you must believe me. My other choice was death! He's a killer, one of the professionals from Alguna, and he said he could find me…"

Jacques straightened up and stretched. "What do you know about him?"

"He called himself 'Zorro', and he works for nobility. I don't know which family; it might be all of them. He came to me years ago. I've only met him twice, both times in Janku. I think he uses me whenever he's in the city, and I've never met any of his other agents if he has them. But by the gods, sir, I've been-"

Jacques held up a hand. "Presume you succeeded in getting men to desert. What next?"

The pale Elban seemed to pale further, if that was even possible. "I-I was to uhm…"

"Kill them?"

"No, gods no, sir!" He shivered. "I was to take at least one of them alive and interrogate him. Zorro wanted to know about your passwords and your sentries."

"And then? Were you supposed to meet him? Soon?"

The banker hesitated, so Jacques reached out with his sword and pricked him, like spurring a horse. It felt a bit cruel for a man like Arnau, and he felt unclean.

"Yes! Yes! I'm supposed to meet him at the fucking brothel! And he'll give me the money-"

"So there's money then? Money for you?"

Arnau writhed like a snake against his restraints. "Emroy, you get everything. Yes, I've made mistakes!"

Jacques leant down. "So you're receiving money to cover your debt. Do you always receive money for your jobs?"

"Yes, you bastard. Yes. I gamble, and I enjoy-"

"Spare me your sins. Where were you going to meet him?"

Arnau hesitated again, and Jacques pricked him like a circus animal being corralled. He could hate himself for it later.

"Madam Teresa's brothel!" he cried. "By the south gate, where all the merchants stay. He always stays there when he's in the city. I'm supposed to bring the deserter with me in two days." Arnau suddenly blinked. "Or… Emroy, is it morning now?"

Jacques nodded.

"Tomorrow then. After dark. He said to ask for the fourth room to the right from Madam Teresa."

Jacques had to suppress a sigh, because he now had a new target, and that meant another raid and another chance to risk the lives of his men. He still didn't really understand the whole plot, or who was ultimately behind it, but that didn't matter yet. Was it Prince Teo's loyalists? Overly patriotic nobility? Some stupid greedy fuck who wants power? Those questions were pointless. He didn't need to concern himself with which Elban noble wanted the Marshal dead, nor did he care how Zorro was planning to do it.

Ultimately, he didn't really need to know what the otherside was plotting. Maybe he'd never know. He just had to do his own mission: protect the Marshal and catch the spies.

It was easier to cut the Gordian knot than untie it.

"Well then," Jacques said conversationally, "I suppose I could see myself letting you go with a horse."

"You're going to kill me," Arnau muttered.

"That is, of course, an option." Jacques shrugged. "Just one last thing, and you're free to go."

"Yes?" the banker asked through misery and fear.

"How will I recognize Zorro?"

Arnau blinked, then he blinked again. "Dark hair with a thin moustache. He always wears a grey cloak."

"Thank you," Jacques said. "But I'm afraid I won't be able to release you until tomorrow."

"What? You said-"

"Just a safety measure until we have Zorro," Jacques reassured.

He left with Astier before the banker could protest further.

Jacques sat in his office planning yet another assault. They'd need to move quickly once they were at the brothel. The building, which he'd scouted himself dressed as an Elban, had both a front and back door and plenty of windows. If they were too slow, Zorro would have plenty of opportunity to flee.

He needed Zorro out of commission, preferably alive, to end this whole conspiracy. If he slipped away then Jacques was once more on the defensive, reacting to whatever was thrown at him. He had the initiative for now, and he needed to end it while he had the chance.

He could see us coming on the streets and flee. Jacques rubbed his head. Maybe we should approach in disguise?

He groaned into his hands. The most direct approach was best. Everything else had too many variables. This was all just the anxiety of waiting. It would be hours until they executed the plan, and that gave Jacques plenty of opportunity to worry. Nothing good could come of it.

But what if we lead with auxiliaries instead of regulars? They would be able to-

There was a knock on his door.

"Captain?" came Vidal's voice.

"Come in," Jacques sighed.

She slipped through the door, and he tried to smile like he wasn't tearing himself apart over the minor details of a raid. Jacques gathered he wasn't very convincing because she was frowning when she helped herself to a seat.

Vidal seemed to read his mind. She reached over and put her hand on his. "We'll get him," she said. "We'll get him, and this will all be over."

"Maybe," Jacques muttered. He pulled his hand from her. "Then we get something else we have to deal with."

"You're a soldier," Vidal said, leaning back in her chair.

"Yes, but everyone seems to think I am also a spy catcher. I can't keep…" Jacques hesitated, aware on some level that he shouldn't talk to subordinates like this, but Vidal's presence seemed to override his ideas of discipline. "I hate it," he mumbled. "Fighting shadows and always being one step behind. I hate risking men just so I can know what's going on. I hate that I have to come up with a way to fight people who seem to know everything."

Jacques rubbed his face, embarrassed and at the same time relieved.

Vidal's eyes met his. "You don't give yourself any credit. You're good at this," she insisted.

Jacques grinned despite himself. "So you say. But I'm still tired of it."

"Cheer up," she said, matching his smile. "You could have been a cobbler."

Jacques choked a laugh and felt better for it. Their eyes met again, and he felt his grin grow wider. "Oh what a sight that would have been."

A comfortable silence settled over them. Jacques's office was bare bones, as could be expected of a room originally designed to be an armory. There was a table serving as his desk, a few chairs, and not much else. Hardly comfortable, but Vidal somehow made it comfortable. Odd.

Jacques realized he'd been staring and shifted his gaze. Rude to stare at a lady, his mother's voice echoed. Where had that come from? His heart was beating as if he was in battle. It'd been a long time since he'd acted like this. A very long time. Christ above, get it together man.

"So, why are you here?" he blurted.

She gave a tiny laugh. "Remember Castle Tubet?"

"The assault?"

"Before that. When we were celebrating."

"I doubt any of us remember much of that night," Jacques said, slowly regaining composure. "I think I recall singing badly."

Vidal shifted in her seat. "Nothing else?"

"I fell over a good deal?"

"No… well, yes, but that's not the point." She frowned, then she looked at him strangely. "Do you ever…" she made an obscene gesture with her hands, "you know… with someone?"

"Excuse me?" Jacques coughed.

Vidal gave him an exasperated look. "Sorry. This whole conversation is a breach in discipline, I know. But I've known you since we came in from Russia, and I've never seen or even heard of you with anyone. We've had plenty of opportunities. Boulet seems to find a girl in every town we pass, and Astier's been seeing that young man in the Third Company, and there's always whores wherever an army goes."

"Astier-" Jacques shook his head. Not my business. "I've… I mean…"

"Sorry again," Vidal sighed. "I can go if you'd like." Her eyes darted away. "I was just, well… curious."

"There've been girls." He let out a long breath. "Not since Moscow."

"Ah." Vidal nodded slightly. "Still waiting for someone back there?"

Kill me. Please.

"No," Jacques said flatly. "She's long dead."

There was a flicker of something in Vidal's eyes. "Shit, sorry."

Jacques suppressed a shudder. "It's alright." His eyes narrowed. "But what in God's name made you ask?"

There was some commotion outside his office. A good deal of footsteps and shouting. Bored soldiers fighting, probably. Someone ran past his door in a hurry, and at least a dozen men followed.

Vidal shook her head, a tight smile at her lips. "Jacques. You really don't know?"

"Maria. Would I ask if-"

Astier's shout became audible outside his door. "Quarter guard! To arms!"

Their conversation evaporated. Jacques was on his feet. He grabbed his sword, laying on his desk, and unsheathed it. Vidal was up too. They came pounding out the office together and found the royal barracks in a state of anarchy.

"Prisoner's escaped," Astier said.

Jacques was surveying the chaos, dozens of men running back and forth with muskets in hand and corporals shouting directions. He cursed.

"Greasy little swine," Vidal muttered.

"No," Jacques disagreed, "he thought we were going to kill him and acted accordingly." He shook his head. "Should have kept a better guard up."

Astier spat. "The lads are out looking, but it's not looking promising. Damned banker knocked out Roland while he was giving him water. Happened maybe ten minutes ago, and I haven't got a clue where he's slipped away to."

"Nothing from the sentries?"

"Not a word."

Jacques was thinking quickly. "He could be anywhere in this God-forsaken place, and we don't have time to search every nook and cranny. Get me Kapsner and pull in all the men. The banker's not a priority; we have to go for the head."

"The brothel?" Astier questioned. "Aren't we supposed to do it after dark?"

"No time," Jacques said. "The banker might get word to him by then. I'm betting that's Zorro's headquarters, and he's there right now. So, we're going to go after him right now. Get the men together. We need to be fast."

"Aye, sir!" Astier said and ran off.

Jacques glanced at Vidal, felt a tinge of guilt, and said, "You too. I need Kapsner's company as well. We don't have time to waste."

She hesitated, opened her mouth a fraction, closed it, then saluted and rushed to follow his orders. A good soldier.

In twenty minutes, Jacques was moving through the streets, sword at his side and pistol at his waist, in broad daylight, with more than two hundred fusiliers and auxiliaries at his command.

They went for the south gate, past the demi-human slums, left of the bathhouses, into the merchants' quarters where foreigners from Sadera and beyond came to stay while waiting for market days and a thriving industry had developed to support them. The streets emptied ahead of them.

Astier said to Jacques, "You are sure we'll catch him, even with all this noise?"

Jacques grit his teeth and nodded.

Elbans rushed to the windows as they passed. A few had the courage to heckle them. The merchants were different, foreign and more timid. They cowered from the strange soldiers so as to avoid reprisals.

Jacques had Captain Kapsner's men block off a part of the district, the section reserved for brothels and whorehouses, while his own men moved in to surround one of the buildings. It was a fine place, built to appear comfortable and fit snugly between two other buildings with only thin alleys separating them. From the outside it could have passed for a fine tavern, but a sign with a painted heart indicated its true purpose. Jacques could smell perfume. Madam Teresa's.

"Alive preferably," he said to his men. "Dead if needed."

There were roughly a hundred fusiliers there, divided into groups. Jacques took six men, Vidal did the same, and Astier had the rest. Astier's men formed a perimeter outside the brothel while Vidal's lined up on the front door.

Jacques went through a street alley with his six. They turned a corner to stack up on the back doorway, and there was a crash as the front door was breached.

Jacques slammed into the back door and it flew inwards so hard that it bounced off the back wall, but he was in, moving through the backroom where whores took time to rest. He shouted down one such woman then moved further into the brothel, his men close behind. At the other end of the building, Vidal's group was yelling for men and women to get on the ground.

Madam Teresa's had a simple layout. The backroom opened into the main, and Jacques's group met with Vidal's. Then he climbed a flight of stairs and rushed into a long corridor of rooms, moving toward the fourth room on the right, the one Arnau was supposed to go to.

The room's door opened. Even as Jacques went forward, the shape of a small steel crossbow emerged and shot. Jacques flattened himself against the wall. The man behind him, a Ninth Company fusilier whose name he couldn't quite recall, took the bolt meant for Jacques and died.

His name was Vincent, he realized as the man's corpse hit the ground.

Jacques roared with rage. He surged down the corridor and got to the door, turning into it blindly. Something heavy was thrown at him and pain exploded across his nose, but he was through the door in time to see a grey cloaked figure crouched in the window.

"Stop, you bastard!" he yelled, ineffectually, as the figure climbed to the roof.

Jacques followed and immediately felt regret. The brothel was a tall building, and Jacques only barely managed to scramble up without falling. He made it to the top and there was Zorro, running to the edge of the roof like a madman.

Jacques saw him leap and land, across the thin alleyway, onto another building.

The alleyway suddenly didn't seem so thin. But there was no other option. Vincent had died for this. Jacques took two breaths, sprinted forward, and jumped.

Too early.

He came just short of the roof, and then he was falling. An arm reached out from desperate instinct. His hand grasped the roof's edge; suddenly Jacques's shoulder was buckling under the strain of his body's weight.

He latched on with his other arm and used it to pull himself up.

Zorro was two buildings away by then, and Jacques couldn't possibly catch him. But he didn't need to.

He drew his pistol, a workable piece which he'd been spending time learning to use, and cocked back the hammer. He took aim at the fleeing man's back. His finger squeezed the trigger.

The pistol jolted violently in his hand with a cloud of smoke.

Blood sprayed from Zorro's leg, even as he was jumping for another building, and he stumbled. The spy's leg gave out, but his momentum carried him forward. Jacques watched him plummet two stories.

Then he was out of sight, and Jacques had to figure out how to get back down.

Zorro stood to his feet and knew he'd been crippled.

There was a sharp pain in his left elbow, where he'd landed after his fall, and the wound in his leg caused him to limp. The elbow was broken. The leg was affected by some magic. Neither would fully heal, experience told him that, but of course, he wouldn't live to see any of that if he was captured.

Surrender was for soldiers. He was a spy.

Zorro dove into an alley and used his memory to find a path that would lead him to another part of the city. He limped from alley to alley, pausing only to tie a makeshift bandage around his bleeding leg. It didn't stop the blood fully, but it would buy him time.

No one was in the streets; the Bluecoats had cleared them out with their presence, but he wouldn't risk an open space like that. He was aiming for the demi-human slums. Its countless hiding spots would allow him to disappear and regroup.

But the Bluecoats were well prepared.

Imperials, the scum ones who worked for the Bluecoats, guarded the brothels in the merchant quarters, cordoning them off with patrols and sentries. Zorro's first path was eliminated. He tried a second and found that too was watched by Imperial traitors. His third was similarly blocked.

Disaster after disaster.

Zorro went to a new brothel. He'd used the place before, and he didn't intend to mark himself by rushing to it through an open street, so he entered Madam Fiona's at a brisk walk, hiding the limp, like a young man eager for company.

He pushed open the doors and felt warmth flow into him. The brothel was operating as normal. No one had noted the empty streets outside nor the Bluecoats and their traitor Imperials.

There was no one he knew in the place. Good. He moved across the room, ignoring pain as it shot up from his leg, and allowed himself a seat while a girl moved to get his attention.

Not his preference, but he pretended to admire the girl while he sat. It gave him time to think. One of his agents had been captured. Either Arnau or Silvain; the others wouldn't talk.

It didn't really matter which. Neither was all too useful. He should have cut them both loose months ago. They were liabilities and now he was paying the price for it.

But what was done was done.

He considered briefly which god would be of most help in this situation. There was no god of spies, but he supposed Emroy would do. He was, after all, also an assassin. He closed his eyes and said a prayer to Emroy.

And opened them when he heard soldiers shouting.

He'd been counting on having more time. At least thirty minutes before they'd searched every brothel and found his spot. He'd counted on being gone by then.

How did… Then he looked at his leg, still bleeding, and swore.

His hand reached for the tiny steel crossbow in his cloak and began to wind.

"New orders," Gallio announced, "The Bluecoat captain wants us to tighten the noose."

Placus crossed himself. "Jesus Christ be praised. We may yet be Bluecoats soon."

"Keep that between you and your Bluecoat god. Marcus, you ready?"

The former slave adjusted the scabbard at his side, still not used to being allowed a weapon. "What does tighten the noose mean?"

"Sometimes I forget you're all amateurs," Gallio groaned.

He led the three of them down the street and into a building. Placus stayed outside as a sentry while Marcus and Gallio cleared out the place. It was a whorehouse, every building in this area was some type of whorehouse, and it catered to finer tastes than he'd ever known in Italica. The mistress was terrified, so Gallio allowed her to be terrified. They turned up every bed, opened every closet, and searched every chest. One of the pretty whores had a chip on her shoulder and hit Marcus with a fire poker. Gallio put his pommel into her mouth and ruined her perfect teeth. Dirty business but nothing he wasn't used to. He took her coin purse as compensation then gave half to Marcus and kissed a grinning girl.

Gods, he'd forgotten how much he enjoyed this.

Marcus looked close to fainting, and it wasn't just the bump on his head doing it. "Never again," he swore, "by Hardy and any god who'll listen, I'll never do that again."

"Don't make any promises you can't keep, lad. We have this whole block to clear."

"Did… did you have to hit her?" the slave whined.

Gallio chuckled. "No time for timidity, boy. We're here on business."

Placus eyed his newfound coin purse. "Do I get some?"

"Finders keepers," Gallio growled.

Then they were off again. Marcus stood watch this time, and Placus went inside. The next whorehouse was a bit rundown. A few ugly ladies, cheap prices, and a mistress with a heart of iron. It reminded Gallio of home. They ransacked it like they did the other and didn't find anything except a stash of illegal pipeweed.

"What's this, eh?" Gallio growled at the mistress.

The mistress matched his growl, "Fuck off, Imperial."

"Not very being nice," Placus's broken Elban spat. "We not Imperial. We are being French. Bluecoat, yes?"

"Traitors then."

"How much," Gallio whispered, drawing his sword with a smooth rasp. "are you willing to give us if we pretend we never saw this?"

The mistress cursed him and handed over a hefty bag of coins. Gallio winked at her as they left. Then he split the money with Placus.

Marcus, outside, was keeled over in a nearby alley. Poor lad had been a slave his whole existence and couldn't handle the new life. The Bluecoats hadn't been looking for quality when they were taking people from the streets. At least Placus was willing to do what was necessary.

"Eh! Slave boy! Stop puking and get your skinny arse over here!"

The boy didn't move, so Gallio came up behind him and grabbed his shoulder.

"Lad, what the fuck-"

"Look!" Marcus hissed. The boy wasn't puking at all. He pointed to a series of dark red splotches on the ground.

"Blood," Placus muttered.

Marcus turned to face Gallio with a fire not seen in him before. "How big of a reward do you think we'll get if we personally hand in the spy?"

Gallio was stunned for a moment then laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "We're going to be rich, lad."

"Don't call me lad," came a bitter reply.

"Alright, Marcus. You lead."

They followed the blood trail. It was thick at first, a constant drip that must have come from a terrible wound, but at some point the blood thinned so that only tiny drops showed on the cobble.

Marcus led them, and he did it well. They never lost the trail in spite of the thinning blood. They ducked into at least a dozen alleyways, using indirect routes to travel across the district with impressive speed. Whoever they were following knew what he was doing.

But, like a hunted stag, there were only so many places he could run. The blood trail eventually stopped at the door to yet another brothel.

"He's in there!" Placus shouted.

Marcus had more spirit than he'd ever had. "Let's get the bastard!"

"Quiet you stupid fucks!" Gallio drew his sword and buckler. "You want the whole city to know we're here?"

Marcus matched his actions. "Come on, let's get in there."

"Yes, let's go," Placus agreed, also drawing his sword and buckler.

Gallio snarled, "You two in such a hurry to die? That bastard knows we're out here thanks to you. We should send for reinforcements."

"He's wounded," Marcus insisted. "We can take him."

"I don't intend on an early grave."

"If we don't go now, he'll get away," Placus said, pleading almost. "We're wasting time."

Gallio sighed, "Fine, but since you're so insistent, you two can go first."

Marcus took the lead followed by Placus and finally Gallio. They looked at each other, one final time, and then Marcus hid his nerves behind a mask of determination.

The door blew open, splinters exploding from its frame. Marcus charged forward, Placus right behind him, into a room full of rich men and scantily clad women. Gallio came in late-

And Marcus fell backward with a bolt in his chest.

His falling body took Placus with him and both toppled to the ground. Gallio side stepped their mangle of bodies. His eyes centered on their assailant, a man in a grey cloak holding a small steel crossbow.

Then he was simply moving.

The man couldn't run, not with a wounded leg. They came at each other, the spy with a long dagger, Gallio with his sword and buckler.

The man lunged at him. Gallio hadn't thought he'd had it in him with his wounded leg, so that certainly surprised him. But Gallio had two and a half feet of good steel in one hand and a solid buckler in his other.

His sword extended, his buckler in line. The man had to abandon his attack in the face of this threat. Instead, the man pushed the blade away with his dagger and moved to grab Gallio's sword arm with his left.

Gallio let him go for the sword and punched with his buckler- one, two, three times, as fast as his hand would move. It was a steel fist and came away bloody. The man fell back. Dazed or dead, Gallio didn't know. Gallio charged the man who'd killed Marcus and sent him to the ground. He hit once then, for good measure, once more. Marcus's killer lay there, mocking him, and Gallio pummeled the man's face with his buckler a third time. The bastard spy gave an inch of movement, so Gallio disfigured his face. Again. He moved a final time when his own dagger was stuck through what was left of his eye.

Gallio found himself sitting on a man's corpse, only vaguely aware of what'd just occurred. He had blood over him, and there was a crowd of horrified women staring.

Marcus was dead. He looked at the body and decided he wouldn't care. Just some slave boy, after all. Nothing to cry over.

But Marcus's eyes fluttered open, and Gallio's heart leapt.

Marcus rolled to his knees, looked at his comrades, and spat onto the ground. He chuckled, "I gather we're not dining with Hardy then?"

Placus pushed him over and extracted the bolt from his gambeson covered chest. It didn't have a speck of blood on it.

Marcus laughed from the ground. "Not much force in that thing, eh?"

"Armor saved you. Didn't even get through the last layers. Good padding," Placus stated.

Gallio felt hot blood cooling on his face and looked down at the spy's corpse.

"You could have said something before I killed him."

Jacques returned to his office and briefly considered an early night.

He thought he'd have felt better now. His task was completed. Instead, all he felt was exhaustion. There was dread too. Dread over what he'd have to do next.

Bad thoughts.

He'd seen what remained of Zorro's corpse and felt nothing. If that was good or bad, Jacques didn't know. He was tired but also not tired, and he hated the feeling.

He looked back to his bed.

Then he breathed in and made a decision.

"Astier! Let's light a fire!"

A note sounded out across the royal gardens. Then another.

There was a bonfire burning on the cobbles.

Two flutes played in French fashion, careful joyous melodies. And a company drummer played back.

An auxiliary officer, Captain Kapsner, came and peered out of the royal barracks. He shouted something in his German-Elban.

Corporal Coquelin, who served in the Seventh Company, looked over from his company tents and saw the Ninth Company dancing by firelight. He ran to his sergeant and laughed. "They're dancing!" he said.

His sergeant's grim face cracked a smile.

General Rousseau heard music playing below the windows at the end of his office. He dropped his paperwork and walked carefully across the room and slid open a pane, and the sound of a folk tune raced in with the breeze. He leaned out, listening.

General Courbet entered the office with an arm full of reports. Then he appeared at Rousseau's side.

"What is it?" Courbet asked.

"They're having a party. A big one, out in the open."

Courbet leaned out. "Should we stop it?"

From their vantage point, they could see music breathing life into the royal gardens. Men came out of tents and through the doors of the barracks. Women, Elban women, came to watch just beyond the sentries. Suddenly it seemed like the whole corps was gathered in the gardens to dance.

The three instruments were joined by more company musicians. There was an Elban lute somewhere in there and at least two Saderan pipes as well.

The dancers began to move in circles.

"Let them have their fun," Rousseau answered.

Courbet's gaze was stuck on the Elban women gathering. "I don't suppose we're worried about spies?"

"Duclos caught their spymaster earlier today. The conspiracy's quiet for now."

"We shouldn't allow our guard to drop." Courbet found it hard to maintain his demeanor.

Rousseau shook his head. "They need this."

In the gardens, Captain Alarie, head quartermaster for the regiment, scratched his head and smiled warily at Captain Duclos, who danced in a ring with one of his sergeants like a madman. He turned to his aide and ordered three casks of wine brought up from the stores.

Captain Touissant put a man on the doors to the storehouse and another on the stables. Then he had Sergeant Levett and some unwilling soldiers double up the sentry posts.

When Touissant looked back, his old subordinate, Duclos, danced past in a captain's uniform. He shrugged and began to dance as well.

Davy, Tomas, and Corporal Bonnot hauled a great cauldron of beef stew to the door of the barracks. Cheering regulars and auxiliaries hauled it together into the firelight.

Corporal Boulet appeared with a collection of wine bottles and handed them to the first men he saw. They toasted him, and the bottles passed around, Frenchman to Saderan, and Saderan to Frenchman, until they were empty.

A Saderan went and dug through his belongings in his tent and returned with two jugs that proved to contain ale.

And the music played on.

At some point, someone gave an order to let the Elban women in. Most were prostitutes, and over eager hands searched them for weapons before letting them in. But they smiled and danced all the same. Men began to find women and did their best attempts at being gentlemen. Malet whirled with an Elban lass, and a girl spun, leapt into the air, and was caught by Flandin; Kapsner impressed a lady with his fine manners and accented Elban so that she, a street rat from the slums, felt like an Imperial princess; Boulet turned between three girls at once, and Coquelin found himself being kissed by a woman with cat ears. Astier laughed with a young man from the Third Company, and they smiled and winked. Gallio had an arm around Placus and a flagon in his other hand and was singing at the top of his voice; his face lit with true joy when Marcus joined on Placus's other side. Touissant spun a girl with snakes in her hair, an Elban taught Alarie how to do a double step, and then the snake girl flew by again with Bonnot, and Jacques finally conceded to a dance with Vidal.

And the music went on and on.

The auxiliaries began to dance together, a fast, flashy Imperial dance that every Italican boy knew before they were seven, and the regulars, not to be beaten, leaped into the circle, and the songs ran away with them. More musicians joined in, so that the entirety of the corps's drummers and fifers were battling homegrown Saderan talent. The Ninth Company's drummer beat out his favorite folk tune as dancers swept by. An Algunan woman leaned out of a turning circle and kissed him hard on the cheek as she went by, and he blushed furiously and his tune tumbled, but he caught it and launched it anew.

And at some point in the night, Jacques Duclos sat against the royal barracks' walls alone except for Maria Vidal.

She was looking at the firelit scene distantly ahead of them, and he was looking at her. He was trying very hard not to do something that would be considered a breach of discipline.

But she didn't have the same restraints, and as the night rode on, she lowered her mouth onto his.

Shorter chapter with no Ney, I know, but don't worry the next one will focus on Ney. Again, very busy and very little time to write, so it probably won't come out anytime soon. Review if you liked or disliked the chapter because, as I'm sure you know, it's a major source of motivation to continue writing.