Page 4 of The Count’s Charade

The burden of breathing was almost too much to bear. It would be easier to let go, give himself up to the marsh and the mire. Give himself up to Robespierre.

He was moving through a doorway. The room was large, the single desk set close by the window, a pool of light from the candelabrum to one side augmenting the fading dusk that came in at the tall windows. The familiar bewigged neatness of the man’s head was bent over the desk, his busy quill scratching on the papers. Jean-Marc was standing silently beside him, waiting. Waiting, waiting. Le Directeur always kept one waiting. It was a part of his strategy.

Jean-Marc looked up and saw him. An expression of hatred entered his eyes, burning even at this distance. Jean-Marc lifted a hand and one finger traced a quick line across his throat, a gesture readily understood.

He backed out of the room, and the boat on the water enveloped him. He lay hidden under its narrow sides while the fellow rowed him across the Seine. He should have been able to trust him, but one never knew these days. What he paid the man might be doubled, trebled. By Jean-Marc? By Etienne or Augustin? His friends once, but there was no longer room for comradeship in this lawless land.

The shadow of the great ship loomed above him. Next instant, he was on its deck, and the unseen eyes were watching. He toyed with the notion of dropping overboard. Could he swim so far? Or would he drown in the dark waters before ever he reached the shores of England? Perhaps it was better so. Why cling to a life both wretched and hopeless?

He was moving in water, sheltered among reeds. Awareness grew of the ache in his shoulder. Had he been hit? He could hear them casting about, hear their voices. They were close. But why were they speaking in English?

“Seems to me, Miss Grace, as how it ain’t nobbut a waste of time messing with it. He’s nigh on dead already, far as I can see.”

A woman’s voice intervened, a throbbing anger detectable within it. “But he is not yet dead, Mr Dunmow, as you can very well see. That he is alive after what he has undergone is surely testament to a strong constitution. I must therefore request you to remove the bullet forthwith.”

There was vague familiarity in the timbre of her voice. That she was speaking of himself was logical, if unlikely. He understood most, if not all the words, thanks to that education he had been at pains to keep secret. Was it possible he had made it? Was he indeed in England?

The man in the case was protesting. “Thing is, Miss Grace, as it’s a tedious difficult job to get a ball out of him, and I dunno if it’ll be worth the doing.”

“Then do it to oblige me, Mr Dunmow, if you please. I will recompense you for your trouble, I promise you.”

“Seems to me as you’d best wait for Doctor Ffrith, miss,” came the grumbling response. “I don’t say as I couldn’t take it out, but I know as it’s likely he’ll die for taking it out, and it ain’t to my taste to be responsible for it.”

“I have sent for Doctor Ffrith,” replied the woman, and he could hear determination in her tone. “But he may come too late. So will you please take the ball out now?”

The other voice became harassed. “It ain’t to say as he won’t die if I do take it out!”

“But he will certainly die if you don’t!”

He wanted to add his voice to the argument, to assure the woman, whoever she might be, that he was ready enough to die if it came to it. Had he not been in danger of his life for weeks past? But he had not the strength for speech. Hazy dreams were all he had to fathom how he had come to be hit. It did not surprise him, and he tried to drag his eyes open to see who insisted upon saving his life. And succeeded only in sending waves of blackness skittering into his mind.

Jean-Marc was calling him, his name echoing strangely across the misted darkness of an alien land. Hen-ri! Hen-ri-i-i-i-i…

He turned, and the light they carried bobbed on the air. Henri’s chest was tight, and breathing had become difficult. He had to go on. If they caught him, he was done for. Life, despite all his gloomy thoughts, yet beckoned. He stumbled on, fearful of losing his step and pitching into the murk of the marsh against which he had been warned by the landlord back at the Three Crowns.

A stabbing pain thrust him back into semi-consciousness. There was fire in the vicinity of his shoulder, and Henri protested with all the eloquence at his command. But all that came out of his mouth was a feeble groan. A vicious jab struck at him, and the heavy lids at his eyes sprang open.

Into his swimming vision came a face he did not know, but the voice that accompanied it had familiarity.

“I’m afraid he is hurting you dreadfully. I am so sorry, but it must be done. It will be over directly, I promise you.” He felt his hand taken in a warm clasp, and gentle fingers stroked his brow. “Brace yourself, pray,” the voice besought him, and his hand was squeezed. “Go on, Mr Dunmow.”

The jabbing started up again, and in reflex Henri’s fingers closed tightly on the hand that held them. A breath hissed somewhere near, and he knew instinctively that he had hurt her. He sought her face again, wanting to apologise, but a pang sharper than the rest sent him plummeting into blackness.

Grace eyed the white features anxiously, fearful, despite her fierce insistence upon the operation, that the Frenchman was slipping away. She cherished the brief moment of wakefulness, recalling that his stillness before had not betokened death. Nevertheless, she could not resist setting her finger to his parted lips to check for his breathing.

The apothecary uttered a grunt of triumph, and Grace turned her head in time to see him withdraw those horrid tongs from the freshly bleeding wound. Between the pincers that had caused her patient so much agony was held the object responsible for his near demise.

“In deep, it was,” said Dunmow, not without a note of satisfaction. “Wonder it hadn’t done for him, only it missed his heart by a hairsbreadth, seemingly.”

He dropped the bullet into a tin receptacle placed for the purpose on the cabinet beside the bed, and set aside his tongs. Grace’s anxious eyes turned back upon the Frenchman, grazing the gaping wound but briefly, and moving on to search the pallid face. She thought she detected a faint furrowing at his brow and experienced a tiny jolt in her breast. He had lived through the ordeal.

“What do you mean to do now?” she asked, glancing to where the apothecary was delving into his little bag of instruments.

“Best I wash the wound with this,” he answered, bringing out a small bottle. “The ball’d leave traces of lead in.”

“Which could poison him,” agreed Grace, unconsciously stroking the hair away from the Frenchman’s moist forehead. “Yes, pray cleanse it thoroughly.”

Dunmow’s method was to wipe away the blood and then pour a judicious amount of the liquid from his bottle directly into the wound. It spilled about the man’s chest and trickled away into the sheets below. Grace thanked him, and took it upon herself to pad the wound with a fresh piece of her ruined sheet and, with Dunmow’s help to lift the fellow slightly, bandage it firmly in place about his chest.