The Spymaster's Lady

Twelve

“DO NOT GIVE ME FAMILY PARTIES OF DUTCH, with their three children and a grandmother.” One hand on the reins, the other clenching a rolled list, Leblanc sat stiff in the saddle. “Or schoolgirls. Or two old men who tune pianos. This is useless.”

“These have passed today. No one else.” The corporal of militia stood stolidly.

“I tell you again, you are looking for a blind woman. Young, dark-haired. Very lovely. It is inconceivable no one would notice. There will be a man with her. Tall. Brown hair. Brown eyes.”

“There may be another with them. A young man, wounded,” Henri added.

Leblanc scowled him to silence. “Forget the others. We have to find the blind girl. She will come this way. She must.”

Henri’s mount crept forward, planning to take a bite out of the corporal. Henri kneed it back into line. “Or they may strike south.”

“She won’t. She knows every foot of this coast. And it’s the best route to England.” Leblanc tore the list he had been offered into pieces. They fluttered to the ground and danced in the wind around the hooves of his horses. “How is she slipping past the patrols? How? Damn these peasants. Someone’s helping her.”

“No blind women came by my post,” the corporal said stolidly.

Leblanc squinted across the barrens of pine and sand toward the slice of slate-colored sea. “That village?”

The corporal said, “Pointe Venteuse, sir.”

“It has an inn?”

“Oui, monsieur, a fine one. Madame Dumare is—”

“You will take your men, Corporal, and you will go through every house in that wretched village. You will go through every hedge and outhouse and cow byre searching for that woman. Then you will search them again. You will do this until I tell you to stop.”

“But—”

“Perhaps next time I will not hear so much of Dutch families. I will be at the inn. Henri…”

Resigned, Henri spurred forward.

“Let us make a lesson here. Pick two or three women and bring them to the inn for questioning. If the inn is indeed fine, I will spend the night there.”

So. It was to be one of those nights. Henri shrugged and motioned four of the troop to fall in behind him. Husbands and fathers would object. They would object more tomorrow, when they saw what was done with the girls.

“Dark-haired,” Leblanc called after him. “I want them dark-haired. And young.”