Chapter 26
The signpost marked their destination: Paris.
It was a relief to stop for a span at last measured in days rather than miles.
The road had carried them out of Graz and west through Bruck an der Mur and Leoben, on to Liezen and across the pass to Salzburg—towns taken at speed, names passed hand to hand with papers and seals, never claimed.
From there they cut on through Munich and Augsburg, then Ulm and Stuttgart, kept the Rhine near at Strasbourg, and turned for Nancy and Chalons before the roads thickened and the language shifted.
It was time to repay respects and then move on.
The hotel was miles ahead. The Prince de Clermont-Bircon lay nearer.
He signalled Villiers. Two fingers. Down. “Water down. I shall return.”
Villiers halted. The carriage approached. Fitzwilliam rode off.
He was shortly on the road to the prince’s villa. Black crepe—worn and weathered—adorned the door, the window frames, and the shutters.
He did not dismount. He pulled Argus around and rode back.
Fitzwilliam reined in beside the carriage. “The household is in mourning. Find out why.”
Villiers broke away from Tanner and Cooper, mounted Maréchal, and rode off.
He returned an hour later. “The prince is dead.”
“When?”
“Shortly after our arrival to Vienna.”
Fitzwilliam did not answer at once. He counted. “I do not like coincidences.”
Villiers waited.
“Ride past the doors of the Duc de Rochefort, the Comte d’Aubigny, and the Marquis de Valencay. Give no cards,” Fitzwilliam said. “I shall attend the remaining houses.”
Villiers pulled Maréchal around and was gone.
They met back at the carriage. Villiers pulled up beside him. “Both the Duc de Rochefort and the Marquis de Valencay are dead.”
“And the Comte d’Aubigny?”
“Hale. Sends his regards to the earl.”
“Did he?”
Villiers adjusted his seat. “Yes, sir.”
Fitzwilliam looked once towards the city. He turned Argus without another glance.
“We cannot stay.”
* * *
They passed Abbeville without turning.
The road pinched to a single lane where men had torn it open and left it half-mended—fresh chalk piled at the verge, broken flints scattered like teeth. A cart stood askew across the worst of it, wheel sunk to the hub. No driver in sight.
Fitzwilliam held Argus to the firmer edge and watched the carriage’s trace strain, then catch.
He counted the breaths it cost them.
The road opened again. Fitzwilliam held the line ahead, Villiers at his shoulder. The carriage laboured over the weather-torn road.
The inn sat ahead—curtains drawn, yard swept. No loitering boy. No dog.
A man filled the doorway as if he had been placed there. When Fitzwilliam met his eye, the man stepped back at once and let the dark swallow him. The bolt slid home.
Two wagons met nose to nose where the road should have cleared. Neither moved. Neither yielded. The carriage could not pass without breaking its line.
Fitzwilliam watched the space, marked the seconds, and understood what the road no longer permitted.
He shifted Argus forward—not because it was best, but because it was the only move left.
A shout broke from the rear.
Wood shrieked. Horses cried. Fitzwilliam checked and turned.
The carriage lurched. A pole bit through the spokes and locked the wheels. Horses screamed and went down together. Tanner vanished under the fall. Cooper’s cry cut once and stopped.
Fitzwilliam did not shout. He wheeled. Villiers matched him. They took the broken ground at speed.
A hand signal. Split. Spurs hard to flanks.
One man went under Argus’s chest. Another fell back into the ditch. A fork flashed. Argus drove through it and did not slow.
They broke clear. Fitzwilliam turned them back at once. Bodies—horses and men—lay strewn across the road.
The inn door opened. A man and woman stepped out, halted, and withdrew. The door shut. Fitzwilliam marked the sound.
A shutter above the door shifted a hair’s breadth and went still.
A shape shifted among the fallen. A knee drew up. A hand clawed at gravel.
Fitzwilliam set Argus straight and signalled.
Villiers did not look aside.
Hooves struck. Bone gave. Movement ended.
They rode back to the carriage. Villiers dismounted; Fitzwilliam circled on Argus.
“Both dead,” Villiers said. “And the team.”
Fitzwilliam watched the inn door. Then the rise beyond it. Back to the door.
He signalled Villiers. Men. There. He pointed at the inn.
Then, he dismounted and drew his sword.
“Spare the women and children.”
Villiers drew his sword and stepped to his side.
It took only minutes. They returned to their horses.
Blood sheeted Argus’s chest and darkened his forelegs.
“Tanner and Cooper?” Villiers asked.
“The carriage will serve.”
Villiers tied bags to Maréchal and moved to Argus.
Fitzwilliam looked down the road. “We walk.”
They set off on foot, reins in hand. Breath and leather marked the sound.
Argus slowed. Fitzwilliam shortened the reins. The pace did not change.
Fitzwilliam marked a farm set back from the road. “Over there.”
He left Argus with an old couple. The reins changed hands. Coins followed. No words. Nothing more.
They turned back to the road.
Villiers set Maréchal between them. Fitzwilliam took the pack. They walked.
The miles counted themselves. The wind shifted. The land flattened.
Calais lay ahead.