Chapter 23
Flanders
Horses stamped with impatience and soldiers shifted in their saddles, the brush of metal and weapons at the ready, when at last, the drums began.
Boom … boom … boom-boom.
Mary sat up straighter, robed in her blue uniform—the nicest thing she’d ever worn and wasted on such a cruel, messy occasion. Countless boots and hooves had trampled the grass into mud. She swallowed. Somewhere behind her, she knew Henry rode alongside the ninety-nine other men under her watch.
And far up and to the right, Officer Van Acker and his platoon gathered with other Dutch troops.
She could not see him—hard as she searched. She could not make out any individuals in the waveless sea of bodies. Thousands of men, thousands of rapid heartbeats.
And thousands more, the enemy, standing across the thin river ahead. A flimsy divider.
Mary swallowed and Merlin swished his tail with anticipation.
She tried not to think about the enemy ahead, tried to wash her hands of compassion.
But the words from Bjorn’s reading of Julius Caesar the night before rang through her head: “In war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes.”
Had she thought such nonsense before Bjorn? Questioned the world and its motives, beyond her desperate need to survive?
The drums quickened, like her pulse. The pounding set her teeth on edge.
She closed her eyes, inhaled. Find the calm, she told herself as her fingers combed through Merlin’s black mane. Calm under pressure was her strength, her greatest weapon. Do not lose your head.
People are counting on you.
“Soldiers, forward march!” bellowed the Duke of Marlborough from the back of his gray horse.
And with that command, as if delivered by Moses himself, the sea moved.
The infantry regiments struck first, the fire of flintlock muskets announcing the point of no return. Smoke and screams erupted within an instant, and bayonets glistened in the sun.
“Steady,” Mary whispered to Merlin as his ears stood to a point. Every second, every minute, was agony. She imagined she could taste blood. The air smelled of sulfur and iron.
Focus. Mary turned to check on the men behind her.
Their orders were to offer a defense for the dragoons pulling the heavy artillery.
It would be hours before her troop saw any action.
Or, maybe they wouldn’t have to fight at all.
Maybe this would be over once the front lines tore each other to shreds.
“Sir!” came a sergeant in a red coat as he rode swiftly toward the duke.
Mary tried to read their lips. After a rushed conversation, the sergeant tore away.
“Isn’t that Van Acker’s superior?” Henry said, suddenly at her side.
Something whistled and crashed overhead. “Hold formation!” Mary yelled, covering her head and calming Merlin.
“Read, look,” Henry said, pointing at the front as he recovered a spooked Arthur.
The English lines had been breached. The enemy drove like an arrow through them.
“Regroup!” the duke roared, shouting commands to individual officers. “Stay with the artillery,” he barked at Mary, then rode off to the next officer.
She stiffened. Mary had a task, a job. She held firm to the reins and ignored the tingling in her toes, the thumping in her chest.
She ignored the desperate urge to look up, to look out.
Shrieks and bloodcurdling sounds rang out from the front. Inhuman in their horror.
Her eyes watered. Something broke in her. Something was wrong.
At last, she raised her chin and saw Henry—his mouth slightly ajar, his wide eyes fixed ahead.
She dared to look.
The enemy drove deeper, the knife digging into the lifeblood of the troops. As she took in the horror, two more sergeants atop their mounts raced toward the growing gash in the line.
Toward where that other sergeant had gone.
Where Bjorn had gone.
“Henry,” Mary said, speaking before she realized she was speaking.
He snapped his attention back on her, his pale eyes haunted.
They had time. Hours, precious hours, before the enemy would draw near her troop’s position—assuming they would make it this far. “Henry,” Mary repeated, her heart flailing like a wounded bird. “I need you to take charge.”
A blast from the battle sent Arthur on edge, his hooves dancing in the mud. Other horses did the same, shifting and snorting as men covered their own ears against the ringing fire.
“Hold steady!” Mary shouted, whirling Merlin around and backing up, backing away. She tore off her coat.
What was she doing?
She had a job. A commission. A purpose and orders.
But she also had time.
What of the rules?
The rules kept her safe, kept her protected.
Kept her alive.
“Henry Danby will direct this unit,” she said, flinging her coat at him, “until I return.” And she would return.
Henry’s shock melted into an astonished scowl.
“Are you mad?” he mouthed.
“Stay with the artillery.” Where he’d be safe. Where the entire troop would stay safe.
Before he could protest, before her better senses could stop her, before she could imagine all the ways she might be accused of deserting, Mary pressed her heels into Merlin and galloped.
Whizzing shots muffled the sound of Merlin’s thundering hooves. Flashes of misery blurred past. A body rent in two. Another clutching the stump of a missing arm. The blank eyes. Someone dragging himself through gore. Moans that could make the earth crack open.
Where was he?
Where was his troop?
Mary pressed on, smoke stinging her eyes and acrid smells flooding her nostrils. One soldier lunged, and she unsheathed her sword and cut him down without looking back, without assessing the damage and the blood.
Another on a bay horse charged at her, and she dodged, flinging her blade out and slashing with all her might—what she knew to be a fatal blow to his stomach. Her elbow shook from the hit.
She rode on. On and on. Where was he? Where was Bjorn?
Then she saw two men dismounted, circling each other with blades. One of Bjorn’s men.
His troop. This was his troop.
She held up her crimson-soaked sword and scanned the crowd with wild eyes. The chaos and confusion. The steel and crack of gunpowder.
She dared to scan the ground, the wounded and dead.
Be calm, returned that voice in her skull. Breathe.
Merlin leapt over a body and Mary sank into herself, into that well within her chest. An intuition, the navigation—that gift from her father pulsing through her veins.
Head clear, heart open, eyes alert.
Then she heard him.
She circled Merlin toward the sound. Bjorn in hand-to-hand combat, teeth bared as he rammed the butt of his musket into his opponent’s chest. Blood ran down his thigh. The two wrestled, slamming bodies and metal, trying to take the advantage.
That moment of distraction cost her. Merlin jumped over another body, and Mary flew from his saddle. Pushing herself up, she leapt to her feet, slipping and sliding in the mud as her feet pumped, running for Bjorn. She gripped the hilt in her hand.
Then with a grunt, she saw the Frenchmen slam Bjorn to the ground, Bjorn’s back in filth as the man stood above and raised a knife to slash—
Mary slit his throat before he knew she was there.
The Frenchman dropped to his knees with a whimper, then toppled over. Mary gulped air like water as Bjorn’s unfocused eyes found hers.
Eyes she’d recognize anywhere.
“Read?”
She went to him, throwing his enormous arm over her shoulder and forcing him to stand. She did a quick scan: the limp, the blood, the muck in his hair.
“You’re hurt.”
“You’re out of rank.”
“Take a good look; there are no more ranks.”
Bjorn winced as he stepped. Merlin, who’d stayed like some miracle, stood amid the battle, watchful and expectant.
She knew that beast was worth the coin.
Mary took his reins. There was no way she’d be able to lift Bjorn onto her horse.
“Your arm.” It was still unscathed. “Can you pull yourself up?”
He reached for the saddle, tugged and groaned. A shot fired overhead, and he shuddered to put strain on his leg, but with enormous effort he flung himself and settled upright atop Merlin.
He reached out a hand, his gaze filled with a softness that melted her.
She took his hand, held it firm, then pulled herself up.
“Why?” he said, his stomach leaning against her, his hands wrapping around her waist.
She pressed her heel into Merlin. “Hold on,” she said as they cut through the simmering battle toward the hospital tents. Hold on to me. Do not let go. “That’s an order.”
“Are you my commanding officer?”
That same line. He’d remembered. The smile was halfway up her face when a French soldier to her right drew his gun.
Mary watched as the shot whistled. Bjorn, throwing her forward in the saddle, shoving her left with enough force to knock breath from her lungs as her abdomen slammed into Merlin’s withers. Bjorn’s body, a shield.
The shot slammed into him, and he slumped forward.