Thomas read his letter at the mechanic’s table.
Turned out, his friend Mark was now Brother Mark. He’d stayed on at the abbey after he and Thomas were done with school. Recently taken vows, he apologized for not having written of late.
Thomas skipped over news of friends, the departure of one of their favorite non-clerical professors.
“But then”—Thomas looked up at George and Augustin—“near the end, there’s a bit of gossip about two students. Twins, who, Mark says, are the talk of the abbey for receiving packages of great value from their patron. Their names,” said Thomas, “are Xander and Xavier.”
The men sat speechless.
George took the letter, read the line over and over, looking for some flaw in the sense of it. He scanned the date of the letter. Seven months ago. Would they still be there? Why not? Could be.
• • •
Adi was dragged downstairs and thrown unceremoniously into a crowded cell. She found herself a sliver of space against a stone column. Between the days without rest, nothing to eat, and nearly freezing to death, she was done in. She fell immediately into a dead sleep.
She woke briefly to notice she was covered with a scrap of blanket. She looked up to see an older woman sitting beside her, an aunt, whose name Adi couldn’t recall. The woman smiled and patted her on the head till she drifted off again.
Hours later, the moon bright through a barred window, Adi sat up from where she’d been sleeping, back to back with the woman. Aunt Anais. Now she remembered.
Oh no! The moon was up. That meant she’d slept all day.
She climbed to her feet, a little unsteady. Looking around her in the pale light, she saw she was in the middle of three adjoining cells. All manner of people were there, even children and the elderly, crowded together in cold, comfortless spaces. Many appeared to have been there for some time.
Most of the family and the servants were here. She recognized faces everywhere she looked. Pretty remarkable, considering how different the context was. Their beautiful clothes served them poorly in this prison cell.
Adi had always known the duchess was unhinged, but this was past believing. What could the woman hope to accomplish? It was not as if she had jailed a couple of people to await trial. She had gone all-in on this madness.
The latrine, a dark niche in the back, was unpleasant, but heaven knows she’d seen worse in the trenches.
As she tiptoed back through the sleeping crowd, a group of men sitting around a square of light from one of the lanterns motioned her over.
She recognized a couple of cousins. Emile, maybe? And an uncle. But the other one . . . ? It took her a few seconds. It was Cook! A little older and a lot thinner.
He had always been on her list of regrets. She’d disappeared without ever letting him know how much she appreciated what ended up being her last meal before the war.
Cook looked up at her and said, “We can’t place you, lad. How do you find yourself here in the guest quarters?”
When she indicated that she was unable to speak, Adi saw a look of confusion pass behind his eyes, fleeting memories, not quite adding up. He scratched his head a little and then grimaced. She noticed a good-sized gash across his forearm darkening his shirtsleeve. She motioned for him to put his arm forward into the lantern light.
It was a nasty gouge across the extensor carpi muscle, the meaty part of the forearm. A little more and it would have been severed. It was becoming infected. She sniffed it. Not good, but not too bad.
Adi motioned for the men to give her a little room and removed her medical gear from her vest pockets. The best of it had been left in her rucksack with her bicycle. But she had the basics. It would have to do. Cutting away the shirt sleeve she tweezed out as much of the debris as she could see.
To the men, she signed drinking from a bottle.
They shook their heads.
“Hold on,” said Cousin Emile. He stepped over several people in the dark, there was a little shriek, and he was back with a silver flask. “Aunt Tudie,” he said with a grin. “She keeps it tucked in her corset.”
It smelled like vodka. Adi used a few drops to sterilize her curved needle and silk thread and then she poured some into the cut. Cook gritted his teeth. She motioned for him to take a swig.
By the time she had him sewed up and had bandaged the wound with a piece of a dress hem, word had spread. Many had not come here easily and the guards had not been gentle.
She fashioned a splint for a footman with a broken fibula (using poor Aunt Tudie’s corset). She bandaged a missing fingernail on a young boy’s hand. Right through the bars of the cell next to them, she lanced a contusion on a woman’s forehead.
While they were waiting for Cousin Emile to round up some more “antiseptic,” Cook studied Adi with frank curiosity.
“Hey Doc?” he asked. “By any chance, you got a sister?”
Adi smiled sadly at her new title and shook her head.
• • •
After Augustin’s motorcar had broken down a couple more times, it became clear that they were going to have to split up. There were two places to be, no time to spare, and they had a motor that was held together by not much more than George’s belt. Despite George’s indignation over the implication that he was incapable of doing anything by himself, it was decided that it made the most sense for Thomas to get dropped off at the crossroads to the abbey. George and Augustin would continue to Alorainn.
Hard to say whether it was George’s distracted cheekiness or Augustin’s self-righteous grandiloquence that got them into more trouble with the guards when they tried to drive in through the front gates of La Maison Chinoise at midnight, in the muddy, broken-down automobile. If ever they’d needed Thomas and his prudence, it was now. But he was not there to mediate.
The royal guard was, understandably, on edge the night after the thieves had broken in. The man who had stopped to do his business outside the garden gate had been locked up in a dark hole with no food nor water. The rest of the guard had been reprimanded, and their pay docked. These men neither knew nor cared about “The Family” or “royal heirs.” They had George and Augustin out of the car and face-down on the pavement before they could reach for their holsters.
“This is . . . surprising,” said Augustin, wincing at the gravel pressing into his cheek.
“Maybe we need to start paying more attention when Uncle Henri’s talking,” said George.
• • •
Everyone in the three cells who wasn’t already awake was awakened by the yelling and commotion coming down the stairs.
“Oh, no,” murmured a governess. “Not again.”
“Who’s left?” said Cook.
Someone with a view of the stairway whispered, “A couple of soldiers, I think.”
Adi looked out through the bars, astounded. It was as if they were following her. She reminded herself, it was George’s house, after all.
Uncle Léon croaked. “Is that you, George?”
George put a finger to his lips and shook his head, ever so slightly.
He turned on the jailer, a disturbingly large and unattractive man, and exclaimed, “You dimwitted simpleton! You’re not putting me in the back cell! Do you have any idea who I am! I will only be in the front cell!”
The guard had actually been about to unlock the front cell. He stopped and growled, “You’ll go where I put you, pretty boy!”
He proceeded to unlock the back cell and shoved them into the crowded space. “You’re done giving orders here, boy!” Returning the key ring to his belt, the guard walked back to the end of the hall. With a satisfied snort, he hung up the lantern and deposited himself in his chair.
“What was that all about?” said Augustin, picking himself up from the floor.
“You’ll remember in a minute,” George said.
Aunt Elodie threw herself upon the boys. “Georgie! Augustin!” she whispered excitedly. “I knew you’d come!”
“Sorry it took so long, Elodie,” said George, seeing the state his delicate aunt was in. He looked around him. It was a dismal sight. They all looked tired and hungry and bedraggled.
Everyone gathered to the bars of their cells, as close as they could get to the boys. In the middle cell, Adi peered out from behind Cook.
Samuel, the chauffeur, leaned in and shook George’s hand.
“How goes it, my lord?” he asked, heartily.
“The world still spins, Sam. Just a bit wobbly right now. Don’t worry, we’ll fix it.”
Adi looked at George, grasping hands and embracing everyone who could reach him. He looked nearly as bad as the people locked up, unkempt, bruised, and dusty. But, though he was in the same fix they were, he had that irresistible smile on his face, not the slightest bit anxious or afraid. People were touching him like a good luck charm.
He was certainly older, she observed. In his face, around the eyes. Not a boy any more.
She looked down at her clothing. Maybe it was time to say the same for herself. A crack opened in the storm-cloud hanging over her head. Could it be, out of nowhere, she had one more chance?
Taking the watch out of her pocket, she opened it up: 28,044 seconds. She calculated: less than eight hours to get to the boys. Might as well throw in with the people who were smiling and laughing.
She pushed her way to the front of the crowd. George was only a few feet into the next cell, but encircled by admirers.
Adi reached through the bars and tapped a little girl, no more than five or six, on the shoulder. She handed her the watch and pointed to George. He was whispering something to Augustin, gesturing over to where the jailer was sitting. Augustin nodded, then noticed the child attempting to squeeze through the crowd. He leaned over, scooped her up and handed her to George.
“And what’s your name?” said George, addressing the little girl.
Not to be diverted from her task, the girl held out her hand.
To say that George froze would be to put it mildly. He was a statue.
Adi could all but see the workings of his mind as he tried to solve this riddle.
Augustin, speaking to the head gardener, noticed the silence and glanced over at the object in the girl’s hand. He took one look at the golden thing that he’d never laid eyes upon, but knew so well.
“Holy Mother Mary!” he said.