Even though it was far too big for him, it was being worn by Daniel along with Crevel’s boots and hat. He knew that a major in a cavalry regiment would have far less trouble from any French patrol he met than a bogus wine merchant riding on his own. The disguise got him safely out of enemy territory. Night was a willing accomplice. Nobody noticed the baggy coat and the voluminous breeches in the darkness. When he was stopped by a patrol, Daniel had been treated with the utmost deference. It was an uplifting experience. He enjoyed his brief promotion to the rank of major even if it happened to be in the wrong army.
‘Where have you been?’ asked Emanuel Janssen.
‘I went for a walk with Beatrix,’ replied his daughter.
He smiled fondly. ‘And I suppose that you just happened to go past the shops in the course of your stroll. You’ve been looking at new dresses again, Amalia, haven’t you?’
‘It does no harm to look.’
‘Of course not — I wasn’t criticising you. It’s only natural that a young woman like you should want to see the latest fashions.’
She sighed. ‘There’s no such thing in Amsterdam, Father.’
‘Isn’t there?’
‘Clothing here is so drab and dull.’
‘Oh, I don’t think it’s that bad.’
‘You don’t have to wear such dresses,’ she argued. ‘For the most part, they’re so plain and uninteresting. It’s the one thing I miss about our time in Paris. The ladies there dressed beautifully.’
‘Your memories of Paris are much happier than mine.’
‘Think of that day you took me to Versailles. It was amazing to see the King and his court in their finery. The ladies’ dresses were magnificent and so intricate.’
‘I felt that some of them were rather gaudy,’ he said.
‘There was so much bright colour,’ recalled Amalia. ‘Wherever I turned, my eyes were dazzled. It was a different world. There’s nothing like that anywhere in our country. The only real colour in Amsterdam is right here in front of us.’
She pointed to the vivid tapestry on the loom. They were in the large workshop at the rear of the house, the place where Janssen created his masterpieces, sewing them from the back and viewing the front of the tapestry in a mirror to make sure that he was keeping exactly to the design. Though she loved watching her father at work, Amalia had no ambitions to emulate him. She restricted herself to needlework, seeing it as a female accomplishment rather than a source of income. Weaving tapestries was an art practised by men like her father, a self-effacing genius whose handsewn work hung in several European palaces. Whenever she thought about the future — and she did so most days — she never envisaged having to toil at a loom or sew battle scenes with meticulous skill. Her abiding fantasy was one of domestic bliss with a certain British officer.
Her father was well aware of her high expectations.
‘When did you last hear from Captain Rawson?’ he asked.
‘It must be almost a month now, Father.’
‘I suspect that you can tell me the correct day and the precise hour when his letter arrived.’
‘I’m always so pleased to hear from him,’ she said, cheerfully.
‘Well, don’t fret if there’s a long wait for the next letter. The captain moves around so much that it’s difficult for him to write to anyone, especially when he’s on French territory. You simply have to be patient, Amalia.’
‘I accept that.’
‘And you must prepare yourself for the possibility of bad news.’
She frowned. ‘Why should I do that?’
‘Captain Rawson is a soldier.’
‘He knows how to look after himself, Father.’
‘When he goes into battle, anything can happen.’
‘Daniel is always very careful.’
‘Yet he sometimes puts courage before caution,’ said Janssen. ‘Look how he contrived to rescue me from the Bastille. He took the most terrible risks to do that. A careful man wouldn’t even have tried to get me out of there.’
‘Things are different now.’
There was such a hopeful note in her voice that her father couldn’t bring himself to contradict her. He’d seen the way that she and Daniel Rawson had fallen in love and had given their romance his blessing. At the same time, however, he was realistic enough to know that a soldier’s life could come to a sudden end at any moment. Daniel never hid from action. Instead, he deliberately went out in search of it. When he’d been commissioned to make a tapestry depicting the battle of Ramillies, Janssen had been delighted to have Daniel as his adviser but he’d quailed at some of the details he’d learnt. Glorious victories were based on blood and agony. Even during such a triumphant battle, there’d been hideous deaths among the Allies as well and many who survived were afflicted with horrendous injuries. Given the way he’d taken part in a cavalry charge — a fact that Janssen chose to keep from Amalia — Daniel could easily have been one of the casualties at Ramillies. Next time, fortune might not favour the daring captain.
Loving his daughter dearly, Janssen didn’t want to dash her hopes. He was an old man now, his hair and beard silvered by time, his shoulders rounded by long years at his loom. Most of his life was behind him. Amalia, however, had a whole future ahead of her and Janssen wanted it to be as happy and fulfilled as possible. On almost every test of suitability, Daniel Rawson would make an ideal husband for her. What cast a menacing shadow over any thoughts of marriage was the fact that he was engaged in a war that had already claimed thousands and thousands of victims. Janssen prayed that Amalia would not be one more stricken woman, doomed to pass her days by weeping over the grave of her dead lover.
‘Yes,’ he said, summoning up a grin. ‘Things are different now.’
‘Daniel leads a charmed life,’ she said, confidently.
‘That’s why he met you, Amalia.’
With a light laugh at the compliment, she kissed him on the cheek in gratitude. Though her father embraced her warmly, his face was lined with apprehension.
Major General William Cadogan was a big, genial man in his early thirties with a reputation as an inveterate gambler. He was also a brilliant cavalry officer and a resourceful Quartermaster General of the Confederate army. But it was his work as head of intelligence that brought him into contact with Daniel Rawson. It fell to Cadogan to collate all the information gathered from prisoners and deserters, or from those who’d been captured by the French then exchanged. He also maintained his own cadre of spies. In this way, he built up a clear picture of the activities of the enemy.
‘By what strange and mysterious witchcraft did you learn all this?’ he asked in wonderment.
‘I happened to be in the right place at the right time, sir.’
‘That’s arrant nonsense, Daniel, so don’t try to fool me. It’s almost as if you rode into the heart of the enemy camp.’
‘I went to an inn nearby,’ explained Daniel, ‘and waited until some of the officers came there for a drinking bout. When I bought Major Crevel some wine, he was kind enough to reward me with details of the French plans.’
‘There’s more to it than that,’ said Cadogan, ‘and I want to hear the full story. No more of your modesty either. You’ve earned the right to boast a little.’
‘I was lucky, sir.’
‘You were both lucky and infernally clever, if I know you.’
Daniel gave him an abbreviated account of events at the inn near Valenciennes and Cadogan was soon laughing heartily. Even the details about the killing of the French officer didn’t stop his guffaws. He loved the notion that a tavern bill had been passed off as a cry for help from a non-existent sister in distress. Cadogan saved his real mirth for the news that Crevel had been stripped of his uniform and left in a ditch. He positively rocked with laughter.
The two men were in Cadogan’s tent, sharing a drink while they talked with easy familiarity. They had much in common. Both had fought in Ireland and taken part in the attacks on Cork and Kinsale under the command of the future Duke of Marlborough. Cadogan had been a cornet in the Enniskillen Dragoons while Daniel had been a humble corporal in a Dutch regiment. Both had shown conspicuous gallantry throughout their careers. When Cadogan married a Dutch heiress, he learnt her native language and was able to converse fluently in it with Daniel. It brought them closer together.