“I say there,” Blakeney said in perfect, if accented, French, “what seems to be the difficulty, Sergeant? Why this tedious delay?”
Bibot appraised him with obvious distaste. The man was both rich and English, which were two counts against him from the start, but when he saw the well-known actress, his manner changed and he removed his hat and gave a little bow.
“Your pardon, Citoyenne,” said Bibot, totally ignoring Blakeney, “but everyone must be passed through one at a time, so that I may prevent the escape of any aristocratic enemies of the Republic.”
“Aristocratic enemies?” said Blakeney. “Good Lord! Does this mean that we are to be detained?”
Bibot glanced at Blakeney the way a fastidious cook might look upon a cockroach discovered in her kitchen. “Your wife, monsieur, is a well-known friend of the Republic and you, though an aristocrat, are obviously English, which assures your safety, at least for the time being.”
“Oh, well, thank the Lord for that,” said Blakeney, fluttering a lace handkerchief before his nose. “Then we shall be allowed to pass?”
“ I see no reason why you should not be-”
At that moment, a captain came galloping up to Sergeant Bibot, scattering all those in his way. His slightly skittish horse caused Bibot to back off some steps to stand before the Blakeneys’ coach.
“Has a cart gone through?” the captain demanded.
“I have passed through several carts,” Bibot began.
“A cart… a wagon… Loaded with wine casks…”
Bibot frowned. “Yes, there was one, driven by an old wine merchant and his son. But I examined each and every cask and-”
“You fool!” cried the captain. “You checked the empty wine casks, but did you examine the wagon itself?”
“Why, no…” said Bibot, nervously.
“Idiot! That wagon concealed the Duc de Chalis and his children! They’ve managed to escape, thanks to you!”
I say there, Sergeant,” Sir Percy said, stepping down from the coach, “are we to be allowed to pass or-”
“How long ago did they go through?” the captain said
“Why, only a short while-” said Bibot.
“Then there may yet be time to stop them! If they escape, Sergeant, you shall pay for this with your head! You had best pray that I can catch them!”
No, thought Corderro, not children! They can’t guillotine innocent children! Forgetting his strict orders not to interfere, Corderro leaped out in front of the horse just as the captain set spurs to the animal’s flanks. Eyes rolling, the horse reared and threw the captain, who knocked Blakeney to the ground as he fell. Corderro smashed a hard right into Sergeant Bibot’s face and at the same time wrenched the sergeant’s pistol from his waistband. He spun around, but the fallen captain had managed to get his own pistol out. Still, Corderro was quicker and he fired first, sending a ball into the captain’s chest. The captain fired as well, but instead of shooting Corderro, the ball went through the coach and struck Lady Blakeney.
The shots frightened the horses and they bolted. Corderro leaped up on the sideboard of the coach and the runaway horses hurtled through the city gate. Bibot’s men raised their muskets and fired at the coach, hitting Corderro several times. He managed to get the door of the coach open and threw himself inside, where he collapsed onto the floor of the coach and lost consciousness.
The crowd at the gate had panicked at the shots and they scattered, fleeing in all directions. The army captain lay dead in the middle of the street with a bullet through his heart. Clutching at his chest and coughing, Blakeney stumbled weakly through the gate in a vain attempt to follow his coach. He managed about one hundred yards before he sank down to his knees at the side of the road, retching blood. The hooves of the captain’s rearing horse had crushed his chest and with every step, his splintered ribs hastened the inevitable. Blakeney spoke his wife’s name and collapsed into a ditch. His eyes glazed over. The Scarlet Pimpernel was dead.
1
Biologically, Andre Cross was in her mid-twenties. If her age were to be reckoned chronologically, however, she would be well over fourteen hundred years old. She would grow older still, now that she had been given antiagathic drug treatments. Given all of this, it was difficult for her to accept the fact that by the standards of the 27th century, she was still little more than an adolescent.
If asked, she gave her biological age, which was twenty-six. To do otherwise meant getting into complicated explanations. It would mean revealing that she had been born in the 12th century to a couple of Basque farmers who had died when she was still a child. It would have meant explaining that she and her little brother, Marcel, had gone out alone into the world to become itinerant thieves, surviving as best they could, which meant that they were almost always starving. She would have had to explain that she had learned to pass as a young boy because, as vulnerable as young boys on their own could be young girls were even more so. If all that did not already strain credulity, there was the matter of their having been befriended by an aging, addle-brained knight errant who had taken them both on as squires so that he would not be alone and so that they could care for him. In return, he had trained them in the arts of knighthood (for he had never suspected that Andre was a female). While Marcel was a bit too delicate of frame and disposition to be very good in the skills of chivalry, Andre had excelled at them. She was possessed of an indefatigable drive and under the doting guidance of the senile knight, she had transformed her young and coltish body into a well-coordinated, broad-shouldered, muscular physique. Nature had not endowed her with a voluptuous figure. She was slim-hipped and small-breasted. A life of hardship and physical toil had given her the sort of shape that was not traditionally associated with feminine beauty. She was wiry and unnaturally strong, which had made it easier for her to carry on her male masquerade into an age when most awkward girls began to develop into graceful women. When the old knight died, she took his armor and, swathing her small breasts in cloth, she assumed the role of a young “free companion,” a mercenary knight. She took the invented name of Andre de la Croix and eventually found service with Prince John of Anjou at a time when he plotted to seize his brother Richard’s throne.
She found herself involved with time travelers from the far future, although she had not known it then, nor would she have understood it if she had. She knew nothing of time travel and she was ignorant of the Time Wars, a highly dangerous method of settling conflicts in the future by sending soldiers back through time to do battle within the confines of armed struggles of the past. Her first knowledge of such things came from a deserter from the Temporal Corps named Hunter, a man with a stolen chronoplate who helped her to avenge her brother’s murder and then took her ahead through time to the Paris of the 17th century. There, ironically, she once again became involved with the machinations of people from the 27th century, this time taking a more active part in their activities on what they called “the Minus Side.” If not for her, two soldiers named Lucas Priest and Finn Delaney might have died. They repaid her by granting her request and taking her with them to the time from which they came.