“Here.” She dug in the carpetbag and handed Michelle a bundle of cloth. “Unwrap this after I’ve gone.”
Emma slid the harness straps over her shoulders, pulling the wood-wheeled wagon away and down the hill. Michelle watched until it had turned at the bottom of the lane, heading neither right toward home nor straight toward the village center, but left, in the direction of the harbor.
Then she unfolded the cloth, carefully, to discover that she held the broken body of a chicken. It was strange to receive a dead thing, and Michelle gazed with some puzzlement in the direction Emma had gone, before realizing that for her and the lieutenant, this gift would make an unexpected feast.
Chapter 15
Emma spied Apollo a distance ahead, ambling up the dirt road above the harbor. In her wooden cart she carried the last bit of fuel for Yves, whose boat sat becalmed in the tween-tide waters below. But the old horse rounded a corner out of sight, so that in following, Emma nearly stumbled into a truck of the occupying army, broken down in the middle of the lane. Its hood was open wide, like a great metal mouth, while something black dripped to a puddle in the dirt beneath.
A corporal with red hair stood alone near the rear of the truck, all of his attention on Apollo. Emma watched him reach under a fence to dig a ground-fall apple from the grass, holding it toward the giant horse. His flattened palm told Emma this soldier had grown up on a farm. Then he nuzzled Apollo from the side, and she was sure of it. He knew enough not to put his face before a draft horse’s head; one toss of Apollo’s neck to shoo a fly and the man could have a broken nose. Also he appreciated the comforting scent of horse, his face close to the animal’s flank.
What Emma smelled, however, was opportunity. Slipping out of her harnesses, she ducked to the front of the truck. With one step onto the front bumper, she peered down at the engine. The front portion hissed, a thread of steam rising from an open reservoir of some kind. But there—she spied the thing she was seeking, a length of hose, and grabbed it with both hands. The rubber was hot but not unbearable. It required several pulls back and forth before one end released. Then she tugged and twisted till the other end came free.
Emma was stuffing the hose under a cloth on her cart, when the red-haired soldier cleared his throat.
“Why, hello, m’mselle,” he said. She turned and he had both hands on his hips. He wore a wide smile, but it was not a friendly one. The corporal spoke her language well enough that she could hear the menace in his voice. Had he seen her hiding the hose? “Hello say I to the pretty girl.”
“Good day,” Emma replied, sliding one arm into its harness.
He was at her side in an instant, holding the remaining harness so that she could not slip it on. “Why such a rush, m’mselle? Doesn’t she like soldiers?”
Emma kept her gaze to one side. “My grandmother is ill. I must go help her.”
“Your grandmother.” The soldier nodded, strolling his eyes up and down her body without concealment, assessing as if she were a cow at auction. He smiled again, the same sick grin. “I know this one. You are Thalheim’s girl, eh?”
“I am no one’s girl.”
“Aw. And such a pretty face.” He reached one finger up to touch her jaw, and then to press it till Emma’s head turned. “Pretty profile, too.”
Emma could feel heat coming off the back of her neck. Her mouth filled with the taste of acid. She risked a glance. He wore a pistol on his belt. “Actually I belong to Philippe. My fiancé.”
“Eh, but you forgot him for one moment there. When you said nobody’s girl.”
She needed a different track, something to turn him. “I saw you were skilled with the horse. Did you live on a farm?”
While wrapping one hand around her wrist, as if to measure its circumference, the corporal nodded with mock sadness. “So far from everyone. So far from the nearest pretty girl. And now this m’mselle shows up, right here.” He stepped back abruptly, jolting her away from the cart so hard that she stumbled. “And we are far from everyone. Just like the farm.”
Emma recovered her balance and tried to pull her arm free. But he had a grip like a vise. “Let me go.”
He dragged her toward the back of the truck. “The other corporal went for us a tow. He won’t be return for hours.”
“I mean it,” Emma said, twisting. “Let me go.”
The corporal yanked her against him, chest to chest. “First, one little kiss. Then we discuss.”
“That’s enough.” The voice came from the front of the truck, turning them both. Guillaume stood there, seeming as large as a tree.
“I order you to leave,” the red-haired soldier said.
Not answering, Guillaume strode the length of the vehicle with an iron look in his eye. Emma pulled away, realizing that she could do so because the corporal had released her wrist. He reached to unclip his pistol, but Guillaume slammed him against the side of the truck. Emma heard the wind go out of him like a punctured tire.
Guillaume twisted the corporal’s arm till the shoulder dislocated. The soldier cried out feebly, his wind still gone, wheezing as he fell to his knees. The veterinarian took the pistol, emptied its bullets into his hand, then stuffed them in his pocket. He grabbed the soldier’s arm and lifted, making him scream.
“Can you hear me, you mouse?” Guillaume said. “Can you understand me right now?”
The soldier moaned but nodded.
“You have an army, so you can be any kind of damn fool you want. But you do not trifle with this one, do you hear me? This woman, you leave alone.”
The corporal gritted his teeth. “I will have you shot.”
“No. I could kill you now with your own gun, and there would be no witness to speak against me. But I am showing you mercy, because I believe you will obey.” He pointed at Emma. “This one you do not touch.”
Guillaume shoved the soldier on his back; he writhed in the dirt. The veterinarian threw the pistol, tumbling end over end before it fell in the tall grass. He nodded to Emma. “Come.”
Mutely she followed him back to her cart. He waited as she slid her trembling arms into the harness. Apollo ambled up, standing there blinking.
“Which way were you headed?” Guillaume asked.
Emma gestured with her chin.
“The harbor.” He lifted his blue bicycle, which was lying on its side. “I’m headed that way myself.”
She felt wobbly in her knees, but after a few steps Emma recovered her balance. Fear was swiftly displaced by heat. If Guillaume had given her the pistol, there would be one less soldier on this earth. Her mind boiled with how she might have shot him, while the ground passed unnoticed beneath her feet.
Apollo let them go, wandering off in the direction from which Emma had come. The veterinarian matched her pace, not speaking, his bicycle clicking as it rolled alongside. Soon she had resumed her usual clip.