Chapter Six
It was late afternoon when Will rode into the hamlet of Bonneville.
Almost two weeks of riding far out of his way to avoid patrols and a convergence of French troops had driven his senses to permanent high alert.
His right hand constantly rested close to his double-barreled flintlock pistol, and sleep had become a luxury.
To make matters worse, rain had fallen incessantly since he set out from England, keeping him in a constant state of damp misery until this morning, when it eased to a drizzle. As he rode into the tiny village sitting along the outer bend of a swollen river, the drizzle finally stopped.
Several cottages huddled close together on the track that led into Bonneville. The only two-story building was the lone inn, La Truite Argentée.
“Silver Trout indeed,” Will grumbled, eyeing the river’s rushing brown water before he stepped through the inn door.
He took off his coat and held the garment at arm’s length.
Water dripped into a muddy puddle around his muddy boots.
Everything was muddy, and he was wet, tired, and more on edge with every mile he advanced into enemy territory.
Cold seeped through his bones as he listened to the silence within the building. It seemed devoid of life . . . except for a rhythmic creaking above his head.
“Est-ce qu’il ya quelqu’un ici?” His call for the owner or indeed anyone, echoed around the empty taproom. From somewhere above his head, the creaking stopped abruptly, followed by a deeper creaking as of someone climbing out of bed, then footfalls.
A door squeaked open, banged shut.
Footsteps, heavy and a trifle unsteady, stomped down a dark and narrow staircase to Will’s right.
A moment later, a florid-faced man stepped onto the dirty floor, his hands occupied with tucking in a rumpled shirt. “What d’you want?”
“Wine, a meal, and a bed for the night. And a fire to sit before.”
The innkeeper’s gaze raked Will from head to muddy boots. “You look like ye have coin enough. Show it to me first.”
Will drew a slim purse from his pocket. The rest of his money he kept well hidden, taking out just enough each night to pay for room and board the next day.
He knew the value of being seen to have enough.
Too much coin and he would be a target for thieves.
“Enough” ensured shelter and food. He drew two coins from the purse and set them on the bar. “This should cover my requests.”
The innkeeper eyed the coins and nodded. “Aye. I’ll get my wife to warm some food.” He turned and called up the stairs, and Will wondered if he should apologize for interrupting their conjugal activities.
“I regret my timing, monsieur, but where is everyone?”
“Where? Most of the men have long been gone into the emperor’s army.
Naturally, their wives do not visit my establishment.
It’s lean pickings for an innkeeper and his wife.
But we find ways to fill our days.” Indeed, Will thought.
The man chuckled and nodded to the fireplace.
“I’ll light the fire. Jeannette will heat some food for you. I am Colbert.”
Will nodded and sat in the chair nearest to the fireplace while Colbert added tinder and kindling to the grate. Every bone in Will’s body ached with weariness. Would he ever feel warm again? “Can you tell me, is there an inn in these parts called La Belle Dame?”
“An inn?” The innkeeper’s deep belly laugh was still rumbling as his wife entered the room.
In her middle years, the woman seemed to have dressed in haste.
Her hair was pushed into a cap, which hung with the weight as though she’d not stopped to pin it first. The neckline of her dress sagged slightly where she had missed a button.
She tugged her shawl more tightly across her chest and tied the ends behind her back.
“What’s set you off, old man?” Her gaze fell on Will, and her eyes lit. “Ah, a customer. Good evening, monsieur. Are you hungry? You’ll stay the night, won’t you?”
“Yes, thank you, madame. A room for the night, and food and drink, and my horse stabled. And an answer as to why my question amused your husband.”
The woman moved to the bar and called to someone out of Will’s sight. “Jules, see to the gentleman’s horse right now.”
The innkeeper stood, wiped his eyes, and jerked a thumb towards Will. “He thinks La Belle Dame is . . . an inn!” He slapped his substantial belly and doubled over with laughter again.
The woman rejoined them, looking from her husband to Will, a measured look through eyes that narrowed on him.
“La Belle Dame, monsieur, is no inn, but an abbey, one that, against the odds, survived the purges of Robespierre and his like. The Convent of the Madonna—La Belle Dame herself. And while they take in occasional travelers, and I’m sure the sisters drink wine the same as we ordinary folks, that’s as close as they come to being an inn. ”
My destination is an abbey, not an inn. That’s both better and stranger.
But who could be his contact at an abbey?
“What business does a man such as yourself have with a convent, and one that is known far and wide as a hospital, monsieur?”
Through the two weeks of purgatory Will had ridden, head down against the rain, his horse plodding through fetlock-deep mud, he’d created several scenarios to explain his presence in this part of the country.
Now, with his destination identified, he sifted through the possible stories and met the steady gaze of his hostess.
“I am seeking my young cousin who ran away from home. I feared she had fallen into bad company when I believed she was heading to an inn. I thank you for the explanation, madame. It relieves my mind. How far is the convent from here?”
Jeannette nodded, and Will breathed a sigh of relief. His story had been accepted at face value.
“No more than five miles. It lies on land offered to the church by the first marquis from the estate now owned by the d’Aubrays.”
Will sensed dislike in the downturn of the woman’s lips as she pronounced the name. No love lost there for Etienne’s family, it seemed.
“I have tasted wine from that estate. Indeed, it was some of the finest I have drunk.”
“And not for the likes of us. I hear tell most of it is reserved for the emperor, and—”
“Tais-toi, Jeannette. Enough.” The innkeeper gripped his wife’s shoulder and threw an anxious glance Will’s way.
Such an abrupt change in her husband drew the attention of the woman. She pursed her lips and dropped her gaze. “I will heat food for you, monsieur.”
Undercurrents of tension and fear swirled suddenly between husband and wife.
Jeannette left through a door between the bar and the stairs.
Moments later, the banging of pots signaled that food would not be long.
Colbert knelt in front of the fireplace and struck a spark from his steel and flint to the tinder, blowing gently until a tiny flame took hold and licked at the kindling.
“This will warm you soon, monsieur. I’ll get you that glass of wine.
” Ducking his head, he made his way behind the bar.
Treading carefully now—he knew there was friction of some sort between his hosts and Etienne’s family—Will enquired about the convent.
“We know of them, monsieur, and that their religious house survived thanks to the intervention of the d’Aubray family, but I have only once met la mère supérieure. A formidable lady is the abbess. It is rumored she is the daughter of a duke who lost his head in the revolution.”
“I will make enquiry for my cousin from the abbess.”
A glass of red wine was set on the table in front of Will.
Despite Jeannette’s comment that d’Aubray wine was not for the likes of them, Will was unprepared for the taste of wine that was, at best, mediocre.
Lord Carstairs may well have been right when he had claimed Etienne accompanied his wine deliveries to Boney.
If a tavern a mere five miles from the d’Aubray estate could not stock the best wine in the region, perhaps in the country, Will was more confident than ever that connecting with Etienne was the way to gain information.
But his first stop had to be the convent, and how on earth was he to find his contact within walls meant to keep men out?
The next morning dawned cloudy, but the rain had finally stopped, and Will rode along the rutted, puddled road in more comfort than he had over the past two weeks. He reined in the bay horse on a hill above the abbey.
La Belle Dame lay below, beautiful, even under gray skies.
Soft, creamy yellow walls gathered the light and gave the building an ethereal look that belied its stone construction.
It seemed to float above an orchard of bare-boughed trees nestled against the high northern wall of the convent, but dark patches of moss along the base of the wall anchored it to the earth.
Tipping his face to the weak sun, he welcomed its faint warmth on the first day without rain since he’d landed in France. Allowing himself a few moments of peace, he waited until a feeling of calm settled over him before turning his attention back to the convent and its lands.
The abbey, with all the management such a holding entailed, gave credence to Colbert’s story of the abbess having come from the nobility.
But how in God’s name had even the well-placed d’Aubray family helped such a fine holding to survive the Reign of Terror?
So few churches remained, and so many clergy had died rather than abjure their faith.
He shook his head at what seemed a minor miracle. Clicking his tongue and with a press of his heels, he urged his mount on over the last few hundred yards, noting more detail as he drew nearer.