“What is wrong?” Willem’s mother asks. She knows him well and although he has done his best to hide his distress, she can sense it.
The dismantling of the dinosaur carcass is finished and Willem has come home to try to wash the stink of blood and meat from his clothes and body.
His mother is baking. No baking was done the previous day, and the village needs its bread. Her hands are covered in flour and her apron is streaked with dough.
Willem stares at the floor.
“Jean and François have gone to tell the British about the dinosaur,” he says.
“At least someone in this village has a backbone,” his mother says.
“The mayor has found out. He will put the cousins on trial to convince Napoléon that the village had no part in it.”
“It will be a sham,” his mother says. “But do not concern yourself. The mayor is a fool. I will make him see reason.”
“He blames me for helping them,” Willem says. “I too will face trial.”
“Not when I have finished with him,” his mother says. “You are the hero of the village after last night. The people will not let you be put on trial.” She pauses, then smiles. “But if I ever see you approach a dinosaur like that again, I will kill you myself.”
“Yes, Mother,” Willem says. At that moment he hates himself. That his mother would use her relationship with the mayor to save him is bad enough. That he wants her to do it is much worse.
“Do not let this sham trial concern you,” she says. “There is something else I want to talk to you about.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“You know that Monsieur Delvaux is at Madame Gertruda’s while he recovers,” she says.
Willem nods.
“That leaves Cosette alone in her house,” she says. “It is not good for her to be on her own. She has suffered greatly in the last few weeks.”
“More than anyone should have to bear,” Willem says.
“Perhaps she would like to live with us for a while,” his mother says. “We have plenty of space, and ample food.”
Willem hesitates, wondering if his mother knows of his feelings for Cosette, and whether that would influence her thoughts.
“Something worries you?” she asks.
“I was just thinking about her father. He was terribly injured. I hope he is all right,” he says.
“Madame Gertruda will be doing everything she can,” she says.
“I will go to find Cosette,” Willem says.
She nods. He turns to go, but stops and turns back, sensing that she has more to say.
“You did a brave thing, facing that animal,” she says.
“So everyone tells me,” Willem says bitterly. “But I was not brave.”
“There is something you should know,” she says.
“What is it?”
“You know that your father fell out of favor with the emperor. But you do not know why.”
“He never spoke of it,” Willem says. “Nor did you.”
His mother acknowledges this with a short nod. “Napoléon was very taken with your father’s dancing saur. He felt that if a microsaurus could be trained, then so could raptors. He thought they could become weapons. He even spoke to your father of an expedition to the Amerigo Islands to recover dinosaur eggs. Your father refused to help, and that is why he had to flee the palace.”
“Then how…?” Willem asks.
“It seems Napoléon found someone else to help him with his plans,” she says.
“I should have been told this,” Willem says.
“You are right,” she says. “And now I fear for our safety if word of your skills reaches the ears of the emperor.”
“My skills?”
“Napoléon has a new weapon. But you have shown it can be defeated.”
“The mayor has sworn everyone to silence,” Willem says.
“Do you think that will be enough?” she asks.
* * *
Almost at the edge of the forest is a path. Not a track or a trail, but a proper path, laid with smooth gray pebbles. Perhaps it is here that the ladies of Brussels take their forest airs. The pebbles must make for easy walking even when the forest floor is damp, but they are not quiet, and as Jean and François reach the path they hear the crunch of footsteps close by and the sound of voices, unmistakably French.
When the cannonfire began, the soldiers in front of them stopped in their tracks. They seemed confused, then concerned, then began to return to the abbey.
Since then François and Jean have made a rapid but uneasy transit through the forest, running where the trails allowed it, both of them keen to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the black creatures behind them.
There was another burst of cannonfire after the first, but since then, silence.
They reached the north river without incident and followed it to the very edge of the forest.
Now Jean places a foot carefully on the path but withdraws it immediately as the pebbles start to shift under his foot. They cannot cross the path without making noise.
The thick stone walls of the city seem so close. The road to it is smooth and wide, atop a low ridge. Below that in a grassy field is a troop of British artillery conducting a training exercise. It appears to have finished. The British artillerymen are now packing up their cannon and drawing into formation, ready to move. They look like toy soldiers, tall and thin in their crisp blue-and-red uniforms.
A dash across the path and a wild run through the field and Jean and François would be safe. Surely the French soldiers would not dare to fire on them within sight of British soldiers.
“Quickly,” Jean says, “before the French get any closer.”
“No!” François says.
Jean hesitates, and even in that short time the opportunity is lost. The footsteps sound now just around a bend in the forest path.
Jean eases back into the trees, François beside him, dropping to the ground and crabbing sideways toward a fallen log. It is not a tree but a heavy bough, at the base of an old dead birch. The tree still stands, but only just. It bulges with rot, its bark peeling away in long strips. The bough is not substantial, but smaller branches off it have collected old leaves, and it provides adequate concealment.
The tread of boots on the stones of the path grows louder, and the cousins press themselves into the mulch and moist earth.
As the soldiers draw level with them there is a one-word command, given in a hushed voice, and the soldiers stop.
There comes the shuffling of feet and low conversation, too faint to make out the words.
François closes his eyes for a moment, and his lips move slightly as he utters a silent prayer.
“Just stay still,” Jean whispers, peering over the top of the bough. “And do not worry. They have not seen us. They are watching the British.”
François nods, but Jean has not understood the meaning or the reason for the prayer.
François draws his hunting knife from his belt, and starts to rise.
“Do not be stupid,” Jean hisses. “There are too many of them, and they are armed with muskets. In any case they are moving on.”
The sound of footsteps has resumed and recedes as the French soldiers continue onward.
“See, we are safe now,” Jean says. “Now let us go and deliver our message.”
“Wait just a moment,” François says. “Stay here.”
He rises to a squat and crosses over Jean’s prone form, straddling him.
“You will undo us both,” Jean says, and starts to say more but cannot, and there is only a slight gasp of air as François’s knife slips in between his ribs.
* * *
Cosette is just closing the gate to Madame Gertruda’s. She steps lightly and smiles briefly when she sees Willem.
“How is your father?” Willem asks.
“He will be fine,” she says. “Some bones were broken, but Madame Gertruda has tended to them, and says he will be up and around in a few weeks.”
“That is good news,” Willem says. “Where will you stay in the meantime?”
“I hadn’t considered that,” she says. “At home, I suppose. I am going there now.”
“May I walk with you?” Willem asks.
“If it pleases you,” she says.
She walks quickly and he has to lengthen his pace to keep up. They walk in silence at first, Willem choosing his words carefully before revealing them.
They are almost at the square when he says, “My mother asked me to invite you to stay with us. Until your father is well. There is a spare room and we have ample food. She says you can choose your own bath day.”
On the far side of the square, by the church, the cadaver of the dinosaur has disappeared as if it had never existed. As if the memory of that dreadful night was no more than a nightmare. Men with spades are turning the earth to hide the bloodstain, and it will soon be planted with flowers. A pretty garden to hide a terrible secret.
“You saved my life, and that of my father,” Cosette says. “I already have too much to thank you for.”
“It was Jean who killed the beast,” Willem says.
“But you who stood before it, so that he could fire his bow,” Cosette says. “I still do not understand why it did not eat you.”
“Perhaps it did not like Flemish food,” Willem says.
Cosette laughs prettily, and her lazy eye wanders out, gazing at something far away. “People are saying that you were sent by God to protect the village. Some say that is why God saved you at the fête.”
Willem shakes his head, smiling with her. “Is that what you think?”
“I think that I would be joining my sister in heaven if not for you,” she says, and her face grows sorrowful once more.
“You must miss her unbearably,” Willem says.
“It is true,” Cosette says.
“So will you come and stay with us?” he asks. “The living arrangements will be entirely proper.”
He regrets those words as soon as he says them.
“I know what you thought about my sister,” she says. “But you are wrong.”
“I did not think badly of her,” he protests.
“Yes you did. You all did,” she says.
He is silent.
“There is an artist who lives in Waterloo,” she says. “A painter of some renown. Angélique would model for him. And his students.”
“That is nothing to cause discomfort,” he says.
“She posed unclothed,” Cosette says. “But the pay was generous and there was no impropriety.”
“You don’t have to tell me this,” he says.
“I know,” she says. “But I wanted you to think better of her. Just a little.”
“She was always nice to me, even when others weren’t,” Willem says. “That is what I will remember of her.”
“You are a kind person, Willem,” Cosette says. “I think that I would like to get to know you better.” It is the first time since her sister died that he has seen her looking happy. “Tell your mother that I would be honored, and grateful, to accept her invitation.”
* * *
Jean lies on his back, his face contorted with pain. He grasps at François’s arm with hands in which the strength is already fading.
“What is in your heart is not what is in my heart, cousin,” François says. He eases his arm out of the other’s grip. “Do not look at me with such eyes, filled with confusion and hurt. With all of my being I wish there were another way, but I could not have fought you. You were always the stronger one.”
Jean’s mouth opens, trying to form a question, but no sound emerges.
François puts a finger to Jean’s lips, hushing him.
“Your heart has stopped, Jean. You have but a few seconds, so listen,” he says. “You are my cousin but I have loved you like a brother and that is why I have done this thing for you. I have saved you from transgression. We are Walloon. We are French. Napoléon is our one true leader, sent by God to unite all of Europe under His name. Yet you would have aided His enemies.
“It would have been a mortal sin, cousin, and one that would have condemned you to an eternity in the roasting fires of hell. But I have saved you from that. Do you not see? Do not fear, or hate, but rejoice, for you shall live forever in the kingdom of the Lord.”
He stops, seeing that the eyes of the other are cold and still, like those of a fish. Tears begin to fall from his own eyes and he weeps unashamedly, making no attempt to wipe them away.
“I could have turned you over to those soldiers,” he says. “That would have been the easy path, but you are my blood, and I would not have a stranger take your life.”
A thin wind whistles up through the trees around them as the young man crouches, weeping, over the body of his cousin.
“And so you rise to heaven,” he says. “And I shall go to hell in your place.”
* * *
The patrol is almost out of sight when François steps out from the bushes. They stop at the sound of his footsteps on the path, and turn back, muskets sliding off shoulders into their arms.
“Vive l’empereur,” François says.