At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [69]
“It’s a matter of weighing one loyalty against another,” he began delicately. “It’s a matter of the men’s loyalty to each other, after three years in the trenches living together, and before this is over, dying together. Weigh that against Northrup’s answering for the truth of his incompetence, and I’m not so certain whoever did it was wrong that I’d be willing to force the issue and see them hang for it. Especially now. You may not know it here in Paris, but the whole of the British line is too close to mutiny to stomach a glaring injustice like that. I don’t know if I’m right, Sam. There are a lot of things I don’t feel so sure of that I’d ask another man to pay the price of it. I’ll pay it myself. I want to know what happened. When I do, I’ll go back and tell Colonel Hook—and General Northrup, if he wants to know.”
“Are you sure the dead officer was an idiot, more than most?” Sam asked thoughtfully.
“I am. I saw some of his handiwork myself. Nigel Eardslie died as a result of it. Edgar Morel is ready to lead a mutiny, I think.”
Sam smiled and his eyes were surprisingly bright. “I apologize. You haven’t changed. Just a little more complex, that’s all. You’ll make a regular Jesuit, if you survive the war.”
“Jesuits are Catholic,” Joseph pointed out, but a tiny flicker of warmth was back inside him. “Can you help me find Punch Fuller? You must know Paris a hell of a lot better than I do. Have you got people I can ask? I haven’t much longer to look.”
Sam sat still for several moments before he answered. “Yes, there’s someone I can ask,” he said at last. “If I tell her you need to know for a good reason, she’ll help. But you’ll have to trust me, Joe. No questions, nothing reported to anyone, not to prove a point, not even to save a man’s life. There are far more lives hanging on it. Your word?”
“My word,” Joseph agreed, holding Sam’s gaze.
Sam considered the absinthe for a moment, and decided against it. He put a few coins on the counter, then stood up, and Joseph followed him out of the club and up the narrow steps into the street. It was dark and still raining very slightly, a sort of drifting mist that covered everything with a sheen that gleamed bright and wet in the few lights that were still on.
“You all right to walk?” Sam asked quietly. “It’s mostly alleys. We need to cross the river.”
“Of course I’m all right to walk!” Joseph said tartly, but without ill temper. “Carry you, if you need it!”
“We have some problems,” Sam said cheerfully, his voice on the edge of laughter in the dark. “Don’t always know who our friends are. Keep up, and say nothing.”
They went together through the old part of the city, along alleys and byways that predated Napoleon’s grand redesign—places that echoed to the footsteps of revolutionaries, and had run with blood then. Now they held the furtive whispers of different secrets, fears, and griefs.
They crossed the river to the Île de la Cité. The rain had eased, and the water glistened in the faint moonlight. A string of barges was black on its shining surface. Everything was wet. A thin strain of a saxophone drifted and was lost. Someone laughed.
Sam spoke to someone, their voice murmuring, and a few minutes later they crossed the river at the far side onto the left bank. There were more whispered exchanges with people, sometimes no more than a few words.
It must have been after two in the morning when at last Sam led the way down steep flagged steps into a cellar. One flame burned in a glass lamp, leaving most of the room in shadows.
“Monique?” he said in little more than a whisper.
She answered him in French, only one word to acknowledge that she was there. Joseph, straining his eyes to discern through the shadows, was certain there was at least one more person there.
“We need to find a British soldier,” Sam told the woman and whoever it was beside her. “This is Chaplain Joseph Reavley. I’ve known him since ’fifteen. You can trust