Chapter 49 Balancing the Scales #2
Lord Wellington shaded his eyes to study the lake. “Not our army. Where do we go?”
I closed my eyes to check, then pointed. “Around the lake, and over that hill.”
“Let us proceed cautiously.”
We headed down, abreast at a slow trot. The carnage resolved into human detail—limbs trapped at angles disturbingly unlike the calm of sleep, and dirt-smeared faces with gaping mouths. Lord Wellington counted under his breath. “Five… Ten… Fifteen…” He reached thirty-five and fell silent.
Ten yards short of the nearest body, he said, “Stop. Wait here.” He dismounted and walked between sprawled shapes until he reached a man I recognized as the French commander.
The smell of gunpowder was strong. And something beneath it. Sour orange and bitter almond.
I dismounted and walked to the nearest body, a man of twenty in nondescript worker’s clothes. A pistol had fallen on the stony ground. The man lay on his side, arched backward as if bent on an invisible rack. An agonizing pose, even in death.
His face was swollen and discolored. His eyes bulged. A pair of savage punctures, one on his cheek, the other on his neck, had risen in hideous purple blisters. They were six inches apart. This was not the sting of a palm-sized crawler.
“All dead,” Lord Wellington said beside me. I had not heard him approach. “All French. None are shot. They were killed by some foul method. Their weapons are discharged, but they did not reload. Their powder is hardly touched. A short and brutal battle.”
“Lydia killed them. She summoned foul crawlers.” The words left my mouth even as I wondered if I believed them. “She threatened this if a French woman bound.” I looked over the strewn bodies, then began walking toward a different shape on the rocky shore. A woman.
It was one of the French wives. Her beautiful gown had been replaced by a coarse-woven brown dress.
A disguise for escape. One finger bore a plain gold wedding ring.
Her face was not discolored, but her neck and chest were soaked in sticky, drying blood.
A tiny gold cross hung askew from a chain around her neck.
Lord Wellington knelt beside her. “She died differently. Her throat was cut—” He stopped when I held out a hand. I had heard something.
I whispered, “Someone is alive.” I ran to another figure. Another woman.
A pair of gray eyes, crusted with dried tears and exhausted by pain, met mine.
“Dieu merci. La sorcière l’a prise…”
I knelt beside her. “Je parle très mal le francais.” I speak very bad French.
Her hand caught mine and squeezed. “The witch. She took Alouette and her beautiful firedrake. Il était si beau…” Her voice became a ragged gasp. “Où est mon mari?” Her other hand fumbled until it found the hand of the dead man beside her. Her husband.
Lord Wellington knelt and lifted the torn side of her blood-soaked dress. He became still. Gently, he set the cloth back.
“Le lac tremblait,” she whispered. “The water moved.”
The lake was dark glass. But a few feet above the water’s edge, there was a line of damp flotsam.
“Did Alouette bind la Tarasque?” I asked. A worse thought occurred to me. “Did Lydia?”
Her head fell back. She whispered, “Stay away from the village.”
“What?”
“Lambton. Ses hommes le surveillent. C’est dangereux.” Her words were fading.
I looked at Lord Wellington. He said, “They hold Lambton. She says it is dangerous.”
The French woman rested, her eyes closed. Around me, the nightmare landscape seemed to flicker and jar.
My sister could not do this. This foreign woman was hiding the truth. She should not even be here. I pushed her shoulder. “Who killed the French soldiers?” She lay still. I shook her harder. “Who did it?”
Lord Wellington’s hand caught my wrist, his fingers digging in hard. “She is gone.”
I yanked my hand free and stood. Stones grated under my feet. I turned, looking for some way to understand what had happened. What was true.
“She had no reason to lie,” Lord Wellington said behind me. “There is no sign of English troops. I must assume our messengers were intercepted in Lambton. Wickham’s men could secure it by claiming to be English militia.”
“She said a French woman, Alouette, bound a firedrake.” My pulse was a hammer. It was hard to think. “Lydia wanted a drake, so she would take the woman with her. But she would not do… all this.”
I remembered being woken in the night by a binding. I remembered Lydia’s threat.
Lord Wellington was guiding me toward our horses. “We must go at once, and stealthily, to get word to the navy.”
I dug my feet into the gravel. “We must find Mr. Darcy.”
“Fifty armed men are unaccounted for. The third woman as well. While we speak, they may be escaping England with a French woman bound as a wyfe—and with one of the most lethal breeds of draca. They must not reach France.”
His face was earnest. I had seen that expression a dozen times in newspapers, captioned as heroic. “You would abandon your friend?”
“Our enemy killed thirty soldiers in seconds. There is no chance that you and I can free Darcy, and an attempt would risk your life. Darcy must rely on the mercy of his captors. He would make the same choice if our positions were reversed. Miss Bennet, he is my dearest friend, but the security of England is at stake.”
“I am Mrs. Darcy. And you are a coward.” His face turned ashen. I walked to my horse and managed to drag myself into the saddle.
“Wait,” he called beside my knee. “Let me ride to Lambton to confirm her story. I will return soon, then go with you. You can do nothing on your own.”
I laughed at that, turned my mare, and galloped along the shore beside dark water.
After a hundred thumping yards, I reined in to a trot. I would not be much use if I flew out of the saddle and broke my neck. But the rhythm of a galloping horse continued, approaching behind me.
Lord Wellington slowed to match my pace. He bowed from his saddle. “Mrs. Darcy.”
I nodded, and we continued.