Page 4 of A Fierce Wind

In a world from King to king

Let them beg for shackles

Unworthy to be called Frenchmen!

She had heard the callous ditty before. The oft-repeated lines only increased her loathing of those who sang them.

The man disappeared around the corner. She let out a breath and peered into the fog. Where is Erwan? And the woman and her children?

Out of the misty shadows, a voice whispered, “Zoé, est-ce toi?”

Dressed as she was in peasant’s clothing, her hair captured under a dark blue cap and her face streaked with dirt, he had reason to ask. “Erwan,” she hissed. “You are late! And alone! Where are the ones we are to meet? La Reine Noire lies just offshore and the skiff awaits, but ’tis dangerous for it to linger.”

“The woman and her children are not far,” Erwan whispered, indicating she should follow. His long brown hair, stringy to his shoulders, was lost in the dark shadow beneath his wide-brimmed felt hat. A Breton by birth, he had gone south to the Vendée when the fighting began a year ago. He’d been a loyal follower of Henri de la Rochejaquelein until his death. Then he joined Zoé in her efforts to save those fleeing the Terror. “The two children were fearful and I could not risk them crying out. I have hidden them and their mother a short distance away.”

He led her down the darkened streets and stopped in front of a wooden door on which he rapped three times. Slowly, the door opened, allowing a narrow shaft of light to escape. Following him inside, Zoé inhaled a musty smell and glimpsed a sparsely furnished room before seeing a woman, two children and a maidservant huddled in front of a meager fire.

The whites of the mother’s eyes, huge in the firelight, shouted her fear.

Zoé had seen the same fear in the eyes of other refugees. “You are Madame de Montconseil, princesse d’Hénin?”

“Oui, and these are my two children.” She drew the girl and her younger brother close. The boy clutched his mother’s skirts, burying his face in the simple brown cloth. The girl stared at Zoé with haunted brown eyes, making her wonder at the things the child had seen. Gesturing to the servant, the mother said, “This is my maidservant, Éloise.”

The servant glanced at Zoé before dipping into a proper curtsey. Older than Zoé by several years, the maidservant was attractive even in peasant garb. She had the bluest eyes Zoé had ever seen and her golden hair curled around her face under the plain mobcap to which was attached the obligatory tricolor cockade.

“No need to curtsey, Éloise,” she told the maid in the speech of the locals. “As long as we are in France, we must all act as citoyens of the Republic, oui?”

Madame de Montconseil, her face lined with care, nodded. “We are so grateful.”

Zoé gave the little group a smile meant to lift their faltering spirits. “All will be well.” She was gratified they wore peasants’ clothing, even the princesse. Erwan had done his job well.

“We must go,” he urged, his dark eyes intense, his expression anxious.

“I don’t like it,” hissed Freddie as he joined the quartermaster, standing at the rail of la Reine Noire. “When did Zoé leave?” Freddie stared into the heavy mist toward the tavern lights glowing from the quay in an eerie manner. He had gone to his cabin for only a moment to review dispatches from his contact on Jersey. It rankled that Zoé had left the ship without a word.

Émile Bequel shrugged his powerful shoulders beneath his leather coat. His dark eyes were barely visible under his heavy brows and the russet color of his hair hard to discern in the dim light. “The mademoiselle took a skiff to shore a short while ago. I await her return.”

When Donet was away, his right-hand-man, Bequel, took temporary command of the ship. The years he had served alongside Donet were etched deep in his face, the bond between the two men forged in the fires of adversity. It was he who had slid the brig-sloop into the foggy Granville harbor to hide among the other ships, as stealthily as a fox slipping in among sleeping chickens.

The only light allowed on deck glowed red from the port lantern, serving as a guide for the rescue party’s return to the ship.

Freddie’s frown deepened as a feeling of foreboding gripped him.

Bequel shot him an indulgent look. “Worry not, l’Anglais. Some of my best men are with her.”

“She was supposed to wait for me. Why did you let her go?”

Émile chuckled under his breath in the manner of a man in his fiftieth year who had seen much. “One does not tell Mademoiselle Donet to wait when she is setting forth to save those the Republic has marked for death. She has the stubborn will of le capitaine, non? The rescue of innocents has been her raison d’être since the death of de la Rochejaquelein.”

At the name, Freddie let out an exasperated sigh. Zoé still carried a torch for the fallen hero of the royalist army, much to Freddie’s chagrin. He told himself he was merely concerned for her safety, dismayed at the personal risks she was taking. Inspired by the memory of her martyred hero, she repeatedly defied the revolution’s leaders to steal away their victims. At a deeper level, he had to admit to himself he was jealous. Jealous of a dead man! It was insane. He couldn’t help wishing that lovely Zoé might be as enchanted by the living man beside her as she was by the fantasy of a man gone from her life forever.

In his mind, Freddie heard again her admonishment earlier that day. “Why do you worry so?” she had asked, her beautifully shaped brows drawn together. “How will this night be any different from the other nights when my friends and I have helped those seeking to escape the guillotine?”

If it weren’t for the unsettled feeling in his gut, he would have conceded her point. But because of the foreboding, he had insisted on going with her. “If you must venture into Granville tonight, I will go, too.”

“Très bien,” she replied with a flick of her wrist, “come if you must. But do not get in the way and remember to don the clothes of a citoyen. Speak only French and be ready to leave the ship with me. The streets grow more dangerous and I dare not tarry.”

He hated wearing the tricolor cockade and the shabby trousers of the sans-culottes, the revolutionaries who scorned the breeches worn by the nobility, merchants and lawyers. He found it ironic that the staunchest of the revolutionaries had their own uniform, wearing ill-fitting trousers; some even striped red and white in a ridiculous manner. “I hate what the clothing stands for.”