Tsuu, Tsuu, Kasva Suuremasse
When Emily buried her son in the icy mud of an unnamed forest in Russia, a fox and a deer came from the woods to help. Martin’s chest still seeped blood though his heart had fallen silent; the dark-green uniform which had given him such pride frosted in scarlet rivers. The Frenchman, whose long blade laid bare the heart Emily had nurtured against her breast, lay screaming just out of sight through the trees.
The sound gave Emily strength.
She removed Martin’s boots, singing a cradle song in her thin, wavering voice. “Tsuu, tsuu. Kasva suuremasse, kasva karjatsesse.” Hush, hush. Grow bigger, grow to be a herder.
He had grown to be a soldier, herding death.
Emily rocked back on her worn, cracked boots wrapped in strips of cloth taken from a dead horse’s blanket. Martin’s musket, greatcoat, and shako were already set aside to be carried back to camp. She’d tied his jaw shut in the old way, grateful his eyes were closed. She clawed at the shards of frozen earth, desperate to make the grave deep enough that the animals, whether they had boots and muskets or paws and teeth, could not ravage Martin.
The buck stepped from beneath a fir, soft brown eyes shining. At first, Emily was afraid. She’d taken a great risk leaving the camp to search for Martin after the battle. Then the buck began to cleave the dirt with his hooves. A fox slunk through a bare lilac shrub, yipped once, then scrabbled at Martin’s feet.
Other animals drifted from the woods too: a beaver with a frail sapling to mark the site, a family of chipmunks to dig a pillow for Martin’s soft black hair. Too cold to cry, too hungry to wonder at the magic, Emily dug alongside the woodland creatures, grateful for the company and the scant warmth rising from their labors.
Her soul recognized them. These were väeloom, spirits in animal form, come to help, drawn by her grief. These were her children: four sons lost to war and starvation and disease. Her husband, her grandchildren, her parents. Of all her family, only one little baby still survived. The väeloom brought great comfort. She was not so alone, after all.
At last, only Martin’s face remained to cover. Emily stroked his cheek, his eyebrows, and the scar on his temple where a saber had nearly killed him in his first battle.
“Puhka nüüd, mu arm. Näeme varsti.” Rest now, my love. I will see you soon.
He disappeared beneath mounds of loose dirt, piled on by frostbitten fingers, talons, claws, and hooves. Emily whispered in the language Martin had heard in his cradle, though for the past many years, he had spoken only the Czar’s language.
Emily closed her eyes, willing her pain to drift away on the breeze. The väeloom, too, seemed to take a moment of reflection, watching her, waiting. The Frenchman pleaded for water, for warmth, for death.
The last, Emily could provide.
Wonderment penetrating beneath her misery at last, she formed a thought, a directive to the väeloom.
Kill him.
The fox, fastest, streaked away as a red blur. The buck pounded in his wake, long antlers held low. The smaller creatures cast up puffs of disturbed pine needles as they followed.
The Frenchman’s screams peaked, then fell away. Heat surged through Emily, her heart pounding and her hands trembling. She retched, her stomach twisted by her act. She’d followed Martin across Russia, coaching his Polish woman, Marie, through childbirth and caring for the scrawny infant. Emily had cooked, cleaned, patched up uniforms, tents, and men alike. Her heart had hardened, but she had not fallen into the deprivation of spirit which surrounded her.
Until now.
She shrugged into Martin’s coat, collecting his things. His smell surrounded her, musky with a hint of the cinnamon tea he bartered for. Emily turned toward the Frenchman, thinking to bury his corpse as she had Martin’s. A penance. After all, somewhere, a mother would hear of his death and weep.
She took a step forward, then shook her head. Let the French bury the French. They did not belong here, these invaders who had taken her last child.
Her legs struggled through the thick undergrowth, skirts catching on branches that snapped in the unseasonable cold. The väeloom drifted alongside her. Finally, the meager Russian campfires flickered through the woods, evening’s light casting long shadows that danced with the wind. Still, the spirits followed.
Emily turned, taking in their glittering eyes, soft faces. She froze the moment in her memory. Begone, she thought. They will not understand.
The animals faded into the forest until only the fox remained. It eyed her, nose twitching, eyes twinkling beneath a pale scar across its forehead, just where Martin’s had been.
“My loyal child,” Emily whispered. “Go. Thank you.”
The fox tilted its head back, sniffing the air, and slipped away. Emily stumbled to the campfire’s light, the thin flames drawing her in. Would the väeloom come to her again? Even one touch of the old magic, an evening surrounded by family, seemed a gift she could not have dreamed of in this wretched life. The price was higher than she’d willingly pay, but in her moment of need, she had not been alone.
Marie, holding the baby at her breast, looked up as Emily approached their fire. The smoldering sticks barely gave off warmth, and the rabbit skewered over the flames had more bones than meat. One of the older women made room for Emily on the fallen log where the laundresses, wives, and whores of the camp huddled.
Marie’s eyes took in Emily’s glance, her frown. The young woman looked down at the four-month-old baby and gulped, her eyes filling with tears. Blonde, with a thin face made skeletal by hunger and cold, Marie’s sincere smile had captivated Martin. Long roads and endless battles had left her blonde hair brittle, her wide lips split and bleeding in the cold. The girl claimed to be twenty, but if she was more than eighteen, Emily was the Empress of France.
“It was quick,” Emily said. She held out the shako and the boots to Marie to trade for food or blankets. “The man who killed him is dead. Martin is with his brothers now.” The woods shifted; a fox yelped in the distance. Emily drew Martin’s coat closer to her, a waft of cinnamon teasing her nose.
Marie nodded, chewing her lip. She would be attached to another soldier by the end of the week. It was the only way to survive. The question remained—would Marie continue to share food and shelter with an old woman? Would the new soldier accept a dead man’s bastard? Grandmother or no, everything was scarce.
Karl stirred and whimpered. Marie sighed. Emily took him and, though her throat resisted, she hummed the old lullaby until he settled, blinking wide, blue eyes.
“Tsuu, tsuu …” Hush, hush.
Martin had loved her singing as a baby. Later, his boyhood voice joined hers as they worked the fields. Just that morning before the battle, he had sung to Karl, his deep voice filling the space between the trees.
The rabbit was parted out, typical squabbles erupting over who got how much. Emily managed to snatch a thin, gamy piece of leg and swallowed half without bothering to taste. Her stomach knotted around the pathetic meal, aching for more, but she was no stranger to hunger. It would keep her alive. She stroked Karl’s cheek, savoring the second bite, imagining rich fat running off the meat, dreaming of the black rye bread that rounded off a meal and packed in the empty corners of hunger.
It was all empty corners now.
Karl’s tiny hand, pink and beginning to lose the thinness of a newborn, closed around Emily’s finger. He gazed up at her, the firelight dancing in his eyes.
“You are full of fire, little one,” Emily murmured. She shifted to a more comfortable position on the log, if such a thing could be found. “Your vanaisa Karl was a brave man. He fought hunger and nature instead of the French, but he was a warrior all the same.”
Karl smiled, a gaping grin universal to babies.
Emily’s heart ached, thinking of Martin’s infant smile. She said softly to the babe, “Perhaps you will not have to fight at all.”
Marie snorted. “Don’t fill his head with nonsense, vanaema. Of course he will have to fight. If not the French,” she gestured vaguely into the woods, “then someone else.”
“Perhaps,” said Emily, thinking of the fox. “Maybe the wars will end.”
Marie and the other women laughed at Emily before trotting off to satisfy the hungers of their men or the needs of the soldiers. Emily stayed by the dying fire, shivering as night fell over the wood, sharing lullabies and old stories with Karl.
Three days later, Marie abandoned both Karl and Emily, moving into the tent of an officer. Snow had not yet fallen, but the air crackled amongst the woods, sweeping away warmth.
Marie held Karl to her, snot dripping from her nose in a frigid breeze. “He wants nothing to do with the child. Please, Emily—”
“Give him here.” Emily had warned Martin about the girl, so young herself.
Marie’s arms clung to Karl, then she relented. “I will give you what I can. Someday—”
Emily cocked an eyebrow. “Do not fill his head with nonsense.”
Marie flushed and hurried away.
Emily huddled with the baby as the Russians made preparations to pursue the French, who fled the Russian winter and the smoky destruction of Moscow. None would help an old woman and a babe. The army pulled up its boots and slogged away to the south. Searching the abandoned camp, blood and smoke lingering with sharp pine, Emily found blankets, a tent, some cookware, even a rusting sword that would fend off wild animals—but no food.
Early next day, before the sunlight penetrated the canopy of branches, Emily rolled the meager supplies into the tent and strapped it to her back. Karl wailed, encountering the persistent bellyache for the first time in his brief life. Emily knew from experience that soon his whimpers would cease, the hunger as familiar as his mother had once been. She tucked him into a sling against her belly, just as she’d carried his father so long ago in the fields of Saaremaa. Before the wars, before all the death.
They couldn’t stay—the blackened crops and echoing farmhouses left behind by the forced evacuations stretched for miles in every direction. Bonaparte’s army would go east, to Smolensk and then Vilna. With them would go supply wagons for both armies—the only food in this part of Russia—and so Emily would follow.
Emily picked up her rusted sword and followed after the army. When she reached the edge of the camp, the fox slunk from the woods, peering at her. His bright eyes glittered in the cold winter sun, the pale gap of scarred flesh luminescent. In his mouth dangled a fat mouse, still wriggling. With a crunch, he broke its back and tossed it at her feet.
Emily crouched and scooped up the warm body. She tucked it against Karl’s skin under the blanket, her eyes misty. Martin remained, in spirit, to protect her and his son. “Thank you.”
Then she closed her eyes; first, to thank the väeloom for the food, and second, to press her luck and beg for more.
Milk, she thought. She pictured a babe suckling at a breast, the frothy swirls of creamy milk still warm from a teat. The baby needs milk.
The fox tilted its head, ears spread wide and curving to catch the slightest sound. It yipped.
Emily shook her head at her foolishness. If, by some miracle, such bounty had survived the ravages of two armies, the starving serfs would have found it and devoured it by now. She patted the baby’s bottom. He was warm enough, she was not alone, and that was better than nothing.
For hours Emily and the fox kept pace; Emily in the ruts of the supply wagons, the fox weaving in and out of the brush. Karl gurgled until his hunger awoke, then he whimpered. The fox—Emily called him Rebane, “fox” in the old tongue—howled back at the baby. Before the sun was high above, washing out the tan landscape in a glare so bright it hurt her eyes, Karl had fallen into a fitful sleep.
“Sleep is the best cure for hunger,” she crooned to him. “Dream of a full belly.”
Midafternoon, Emily forded a small stream, stopping to drink the icy water. She dribbled some into the baby’s mouth, and he arched his back, screeching in anger.
Hardened by years of such pain, she forced the lullaby past the lump in her throat and gave him more. “Tsuu, tsuu …” Hush, hush.
Rebane drank, lapping up the water. His thirst sated, he scampered into the brush. She changed the baby’s wraps and slung him once again across her chest.
Rebane barked off to her right. Emily called to him. Insistent, he barked again. Emily looked to the southeast, where dust from thousands of boots and hooves smudged the horizon. At the camp, she might trade her skills as a cook or seamstress for food. If she did not reach it before sunset, though, they’d be forced to spend another night in the woods. She did not dare approach the camp in the dark.
Rebane barked again. Come. The bark was plain to her ears. Come here, he called.
Emily slipped and stumbled along the stream bank. Brambles and thick branches blocked her way, scratching her arms and face. The stream widened. Mud sucked at her boots, icy water stabbing into her feet.
A lowing sound met her ears.
Impossible.
And yet, there in a clearing stood a dairy cow, roped to a tree and mooing to be milked. A hidden bounty, kept away from the ravages of the war by dense brambles and luck. Emily kept her meager sword at the ready and crept forward. Rebane stayed back from the animal, his eyes glittering.
Thank you. She nodded to him.
Emily dug out a wide pot from her supplies and sprayed steaming milk into the basin. Placid and grateful, the cow did not struggle. Emily’s belly ached for the rich cream, but she took a mouthful, brought her mouth to Karl’s, and let the milk dribble in. The milk was rich with fat, sweet and creamy on her tongue. He wriggled in pleasure and gripped her face, his mouth seeking more. When she pulled away, he wailed.
Emily laughed. “You will live one more day, be patient.”
Once they were both full of milk, Karl drifted into a more contented sleep, and Emily stood back, eyeing the cow. It had cleared the grass in a circle around the tree. Even some of the bark had been gnawed away. The person who had stashed it here had not returned since the battle. Could she manage to lead the animal? How long before a deserter or a serf or a soldier took it from her? Setting aside the milk pan, she untied the animal and led it to the water.
“That’s my cow!” A tall man with a nose like a boiled potato burst from the direction of the clearing. He carried a pitchfork. A serf, by the looks of him, with patched pants and a threadbare shirt beneath a worn coat. Around his neck were two clay jugs.
Emily cursed herself. Of course, the cow had been hidden well from the soldiers, but the man had come for milk. “She was thirsty,” Emily said, shifting her grip on the rusty sword. Goodness was gone from Russia, she knew, and people could not be trusted.
“You stole my milk.” The man’s eyes were hard—as hard as Emily’s own could she see them, she was sure. He stepped forward.
Emily raised the sword. “I have this baby to feed. And the cow needed milking.”
“I was coming.” He glared at her. “Get out of here.”
Emily hesitated. “I’ll give you this sword for the cow.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
She nodded. A month ago, he might have taken her offer, with soldiers from a dozen countries rampaging over the countryside, but the armies had gone. If his family was to survive the winter, the cow would be much more useful. But if Karl was to survive the week, Emily needed milk.
“Please. His mother was killed by a Frenchman. His father died at Borodino.”
The serf bit his lip. “Our baby starved when the soldiers burned our crops. Give him to me. My wife will care for him.”
Emily swayed on her feet. “He is my only family.” Her arm tightened on the warm bundle pressed against her, and Karl cooed in his sleep. She’d rather die than abandon him.
The serf shrugged. “Better to be fed and warm than out here. We’re good people.”
“Never.” Never. Emily offered the sword. “For one jug, then.”
The serf considered. “Toss it to me.”
Emily shook her head. “Milk the cow and fill the jug, then leave it and step back. I’ll throw the sword into the stream, take the jug, and then you can retrieve it.”
He nodded. Emily kept the sword high while he milked the patient animal. She watched him, thinking of the Frenchman’s screams and then his silence. When the jug frothed over, the serf capped it with a cork and left it settling into some mud.
Emily sent Rebane an image of the jug, hoping he understood. Her deprivation only went so far. She would not doom the man and steal his cow, but Karl had to survive.
The serf stepped away from the milk. Rebane leapt from the woods and snarled, circling the jug. Emily hurried forward and picked it up even as the serf swore and raised his pitchfork.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I need this sword more than you do. Thank you for the milk.”
“Witch!” The man stared at her and Rebane, his eyes wide.
“Just hungry and desperate, like you.” Keeping her eyes on the man, her arms straining against the heavy sword and jug, Emily backed away.
Then she turned and ran, crashing through the brush with Rebane. Karl awoke with a cry. Branches cracked behind; the serf had not given up so easily.
Help me! Emily cried in her mind.
Rebane turned, growling, his teeth bared. Emily pushed through dry lilac shrubs. The man shouted and then screamed in pain. Emily winced but did not turn.
Only when she reached the wagon tracks again did Emily breathe easy. Rebane, blood on his teeth, joined her alongside the road. The serf would go back to his cow. She hoped his wound would not fester, but she’d had to protect her family. Emily took a moment to tie the milk jug to her heavy pack and turned once again toward the path of the armies.
The snow had fallen two weeks ago and now lay thick as a funeral blanket across the land. Emily’s fingers were numb, her ears beyond recovery, but the pain could be endured. The sharp cinnamon of Martin’s coat had faded, leaving only the empty smell of snow. Rebane stayed by her side, keeping Karl safe, keeping Emily from despair.
The French army dropped gold, silver, valuables looted from Moscow’s wealthy houses, and an endless trail of frozen corpses in their wake. Tucked at the bottom of the pack on Emily’s back was a pouch full of jewels, diamonds, and rubies from a noblewoman’s collection. Just one of the precious stones would make her a rich woman if she survived to sell it.
Emily paused to yank boots off a dead man. Little more than a boy, but small enough that his boots would replace her own. After tying the shoes on her feet—sighing and wiggling her toes in appreciation of the passing pleasure—she withdrew her sword from the snowbank where she’d stuck it and turned toward the Berezina River.
For a month, she’d trailed the armies, searching the multitude of bodies for food and supplies. Rebane caught mice, and once, a fat alley cat. Emily survived on that and the hard, stale bread she found on dead soldiers, French and Russian alike. She’d replaced her sword three times, now carrying a long steel blade with an elaborate guard wrapped in leather.
Rebane had smelled out a grieving serf who had lost her own babe, but let Karl suckle in exchange for the first rusty blade and the clay milk jug. The second sword—a narrow thing crusted in blood—had been left in the back of a rapist outside Smolensk. Emily had taken a silver tea set from him. Half she’d given to his victim, a young woman who’d taken the teapot and sugar bowl and vanished into a blistering snowstorm. The silver Emily traded in the Russian camps for another woman to nurse Karl. The woman’s milk had kept him alive until she froze to death.
Karl babbled against Emily’s chest, wrapped in furs and a woolen blanket. Three mice for Emily’s dinner provided more insulation. Rebane was a constant shadow now, bound by her lullaby and Martin’s love. Rebane’s sharp nose and smoldering eyes kept her moving forward, determined to find a place of safety for Karl.
Now the army approached the Berezina River. She slogged through the muck along the wide track of the French army, grateful for new boots, and considered Karl’s best chance.
The Russians had blockaded the bridge in Borisov. There would be a battle. Already the cannons and gunfire cracked like frozen branches over the snow. Emily might slip over the bridge with her treasure to leave Russia and death behind her. A bent old woman with a tiny baby would hardly be a threat to either army, and Rebane was at her side. Emily straightened and turned toward the fires of the Russian camp.
Rebane gripped her skirt with his teeth, pulling her to the north.
“The bridge is in town.”
He growled and pulled again. Then he scampered ahead, looking toward a forested bend in the river.
Emily sighed. He’d found milk for the baby, after all. Perhaps another grieving camp follower still had milk flowing—the baby hadn’t eaten in a day. The snowdrifts clawed at her legs, shards of snow and ice sliding into her new boots. Soon she was under the trees, fir and spruce blocking the worst of the winter. The sharpness of pine needles mingled with the cold emptiness of snow, stinging her nostrils.
Rebane crouched, his ears quivering. Emily stopped, drawing close behind a tree, and peering through the dense forest. Her mouth dropped open. The French army huddled ahead, pressed against a bend in the river. Tattered uniforms, gaunt men, weapons held with careless habit. The French milled around the water’s edge, the stiff, empty desperation of dying men as potent as the rushing water and the distant booming of cannons.
Emily crept closer, peering past the dense crowd of starving men. Napoleon had built a pontoon bridge. She admired his determination. Even as Russia and her winter chased him from the north, he refused to surrender. The French would slip away while the Russians guarded the wrong bridge.
Emily looked down at Karl, his dark hair just visible beneath the wraps and blankets that sheltered him. Away from Russia, away from serfdom and war, he could thrive. With Rebane at her side, Emily could protect him.
But first, they had to cross the river.
Emily told Rebane to wait in the woods. Then she shuffled around, emerging near a cluster of shivering women and children near the water’s edge. They would be last, of course, after the soldiers crossed. She slipped amongst them as though she belonged, and none questioned her. Who had energy to doubt an old woman? Their eyes were dead already, barely registering her.
All but one.
“Vanaema!” Marie shoved through the crowd. She had lost weight, and wore a bruise on her cheek. “Is that …” Marie reached out for Karl. “He’s alive.”
Karl heard her voice and awoke, squirming against Emily. Emily drew back. The girl’s milk would be long dry after so many weeks apart from the baby. “He is no longer yours.”
Marie’s eyes flashed. “Give me back my son.” The other women drew away, their eyes averted.
Emily shook her head. “I have kept him alive. Make another.” She sneered at Marie. “Where is your officer? You sleep with the French now?”
Marie snarled. “He died. I did what was necessary. Karl,” she sang in a lilt. “Karl, come to me.” Marie reached out and raked her hands along Emily’s shoulders, searching for the knot to the sling. Karl began to cry.
“No!” Emily shoved her.
Marie screeched. “Give me my son!” She swung at Emily, fingers clawed.
Silently, perhaps spurred by the rage in Marie’s voice, the desperate French broke. The remnants of the army surged across the unstable bridge. Men cursed and grumbled, shoving and striking to reach the other side. The camp followers, too, saw their route clear and pressed forward. Marie’s fury was drowned out by the sudden rush.
Emily drew her sword from the fold in her skirts where it hung. “Leave us alone!”
Marie, beyond madness, likely starving, ignored the blade and tackled Emily. Karl wailed in fear. Emily hit the frozen ground, pain sparking from her spine, her legs. Marie batted the sword away from Emily’s old fingers.
Karl’s terrified cries slipped into the cracks of Emily’s hardened heart. Marie’s eyes were wild, her breath coming in gasps as she fought for her son.
Her son.
Emily had fought cold and hunger and fear for her children. She’d crossed Russia to protect Karl. Was Marie so different?
Emily’s arms tightened over the baby. She hadn’t abandoned her children in order to survive. Marie had. She didn’t deserve Karl.
Emily had fought for her children. Just as Marie was fighting now. A sharp bark came from the woods, piercing between the struggle. Rebane. Martin’s spirit who protected his family. She would not be alone.
“Stop.” Emily’s heart shattered. “You can have him. Just let me come with you.” Emily’s voice barely penetrated the cluttered chaos around them. She untied the sling and handed Karl to his mother’s clutching arms. Marie whirled, running across the Berezina. Karl’s wails faded into the clamor.
“Come back!” Emily stared at her treacherous hands, her throat tight. Rebane! Join me! All väeloom come to me!
Rebane slunk from the woods, his ears pressed hard against his head in fear of the men all around, but no other spirits came to her side. Emily struggled to her feet, her heart banging like the cannons to the south, loud and near and full of death.
She had kept Karl alive. She had protected him. Marie should have been willing to suffer an old woman at her side. But where was he? Where had she taken Karl?
There! On the second wobbly platform, Emily glimpsed a dark head, a little pink hand. She leapt forward, her knees protesting. The pontoons were rocking, tilting dangerously beneath the stampede of fear. The Berezina, dull gray and pocked here and there by muddy ice, sighed at the minor barrier as it swept south.
Marie overbalanced and fell into the Berezina, her scream taking the place of Karl’s, which broke off as they plunged into the choppy river. Karl’s tiny body bobbed next to his mother, his chubby cheeks pale against the black water. Emily stumbled into the water with a wail of despair.
The Berezina was frigid. Pain worse than the coldest night dug into her flesh, her legs refusing to lift, her heart pulling her ahead. Teeth chattering, she hummed the tune of her heart, willing her body to move forward.
Grow, grow bigger.
Marie slapped at the water uselessly, mouth clamped shut against cloying waves. Her thin arms lifted Karl above her head, which disappeared for ever-longer moments beneath the water.
A red blur splashed past. Rebane paddled to the baby. He grabbed Karl by the arm and pulled him back to shore. Emily crawled in the mud, refusing the erupting emotions in her chest. Not alone, not alone, she thought over and over.
In the river, Marie fell still, her arms no longer slapping at the surface. She drifted away.
Rebane pulled Karl onto the shore. The baby did not move, his mouth wide and his eyes shut. Emily desperately climbed ashore and scooped him up, rubbing his chest, her arms trembling so hard she no longer felt the cold, her stomach so tight hunger seemed a foolish concern.
“Tsuu, tsuu. Kasva suuremasse, kasva karjatsesse.” Hush, hush. Grow bigger, grow to be a herder.
He wouldn’t, not now. The cold silent ground would swallow him, as it had Martin and the rest. All that remained was emptiness. She forced the song through her tears, soothing herself as much as the baby’s spirit. She squatted on the frozen ground, holding the baby and rocking.
Rebane shook off. He curled around the baby, thick tail encircling Karl’s dark head. Emily’s heart grew icy in her chest, but she kept singing. Could Rebane choose? She would lose the link to her past without Rebane, but without Karl, she had no future. Sparkling black eyes found Emily’s. Rebane yipped, shivered, and then relaxed completely and fell still.
Karl opened his eyes, a weak wail piercing the air. Emily sang louder, scooping him up and swaddling him in the layers of warmth and protection that had carried him so far. He would live, he would grow. Emily would keep him safe. Rebane’s red fur blew in the river’s breeze, his eyes dull and empty.
A life for a life.
Emily stood for a long moment, staring down at the thin body. Martin’s spirit had protected his son to the last, protected him so he could grow, grow bigger. Perhaps in a safer, warmer world, she could grieve, but the cannon fire grew near, the shouts of battle rising. Behind her, the Russians attacked the French defenders, who would die so their comrades could live.
Emily lifted her chin, turned away, and followed the last stragglers across the bridge. Karl cried as babies should.