The cavalier’s eyebrows leapt up so high as to almost disappear beneath the verge of his periwig. “Monsieur! It is already an incident! Under no circumstances do the rules of war allow such a thing as this!”
“I agree fully, and you have my abject apologies as an English gentleman, monsieur. But only listen and consider what Count Sheerness himself would do, were he here. The Count is an Englishman, living in France, and commanding a regiment that, I need hardly tell you, fights nobly and loyally on the French side. Yet in the halls of Versailles, courtiers, who are not here to witness his gallantry on the field of battle, must be whispering, ‘Can we trust this Anglo-Saxon not to betray us?’ Ludicrous, I know, and unfair,” Barnes continued, holding up a hand to calm the cavalier, who looked as if he were about to lash the impertinent Barnes with his riding-crop, “but in these muddled times, an unfortunate fact of human nature. Now yonder band—”
“I should name them a battalion, not a band!”
“—of English deserters—”
“Strangely well-disciplined ones, monsieur—”
“Wandering lost, far behind enemy lines—”
“Is it wandering? Are they lost?”
“Have made camp, by a perverse accident, on the grounds of the quarters of Monsieur le comte de Sheerness. It means nothing, as you and I can plainly see; but there are those at Versailles who are bound to read something into it! Count Sheerness is detained in the Tower of London, is he not?”
“Obviously you know perfectly well that he is.”
“Some will allege, perhaps, that he is not so much detained as a willing guest, co?perating with King William, and with the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards, which happen to be headquartered in the Tower.”
The cavalier was now so incensed that all he could do, short of murdering Barnes on the spot, was to wheel his mount, gallop some yards down the road, wheel it again, and gallop back. By the time he had returned from this excursion, he had parted his lips to deliver some choice remark to Barnes; but Barnes, who had nudged his saber a few inches out of its scabbard, now drew it out altogether, and pointed it through the iron-work of the gate. This drew the cavalier’s attention, first to the saber itself, and then to half a dozen men standing attentively just inside the gate with loaded muskets cradled in their arms.
“These,” Barnes announced, “are the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards. I recommend we get them out of here as quickly as possible, before there is serious trouble.”
“As I suspected,” said the cavalier, “it is a kind of blackmail. What is it you want?”
“I want you to take this opportunity to be silent, monsieur, and to bide here for a time, so that I may go within and parley with their leaders, and convince them that it is in their best interests to depart immediately and without pillaging.”
The cavalier, after another look at the musketeers, and at another such formation that had appeared on the road nearby, accepted those terms with a nod. Barnes nudged his nag to the gate, which was opened for him. He dismounted and crunched down the gravel path into the chateau.
Five minutes later, he was back. “Monsieur, they will leave,” he announced. Which had been obvious anyway, for as soon as he had entered the house the men had ceased digging, and begun to gather their things, and to form up in the garden by platoons.
“There is a complication,” Barnes added.
The cavalier rolled his eyes, sighed, and spat. “What is the complication, monsieur?”
“One of my men came across something in the house that, I regret to inform you, is not the rightful property of Count Sheerness. We are taking the item in question with us.”
“So, monsieur, it is as I knew all along. You are thieves. What is this prize, I wonder? The plate? No—the Titian! I suspected you had an eye for art, monsieur. It’s the Titian, isn’t it?”
“On the contrary, monsieur. It is a woman. An Englishwoman.”
“Oh no, the Englishwoman stays here!”
“No, monsieur. She goes. She goes with her husband.”
“Her husband!?”