The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [173]
“The lines.” Manuel gulped. “Yes, I, that’s where the worst will be. But what about his, his body?”
“Oh, that’s an even better idea! I’ll just raise his corpse, make myself look like Bernardo again, and we can all—”
“Oh fuck it all,” Monique hissed, and tiptoed quickly to where Manuel and Monique stood. “It’s Lautrec, it’s fucking Lautrec! He’s coming in!”
“Who?” Awa asked.
“The Lautrec?” said Manuel. “Oh fuck.”
“The big boss,” Monique began, “Frenchman who—”
“Allll-brecht!” The dark-haired, squinty man stepped into the tent, the flaps held back by von Stein’s guards. “Just what is the meaning of this?!”
“Ah.” Awa looked desperately at her two friends. “I, ah—”
“A fish breakfast?” The Vicomte de Lautrec walked around the stunned trio and poked von Stein’s trout. Manuel held his breath, wondering if the man could see the commander’s corpse shoved under the desk from his vantage. Spinning around, Lautrec said, “Might we speak in private, Albrecht?”
“What?” Awa squawked. “They, they need to be here.”
“Tosh.” Lautrec shooed them away with his fingers. “I just want to have a quick little word, Albrecht, then you can have your advisors back.”
Manuel and Monique dejectedly marched outside and stood at the mouth of the tent, wondering if everything was about to turn to shit. One of the guards glanced at them, did a double take at seeing Manuel up and about, and swooned. Then the duo set to explaining to the other guards how Manuel had needed to fake his own death lest there be spies in the camp, obviously, and—
The tent flaps swished and Lautrec stepped out, a curious smile on his thin lips. He looked mischievously at Manuel and Monique. The other guards were standing rigidly in salute and Lautrec looked around, then stepped closer to the artist and the gunner.
“Awa?” Manuel whispered.
“A what?” Lautrec whispered back in French. “Normally I’d take offense to you scum addressing me in your incomprehensible accents, and your uppity refusal to even salute, but thanks to your captain all of you are going to die. Die. Give the Infinite my regards, cowherds.”
“Right!” von Stein boomed, exiting his tent. “To the lines with us, then!”
All heads turned and cocked in his direction, just as the embedded Imperial arquebusiers would soon turn and cock their guns on the advancing Swiss that von Stein would lead. The morning moved very, very quickly after von Stein’s announcement that he would personally lead the contingent of mercenaries from Bern, and as the lines were formed at the front Manuel prayed more and more vigorously. Incomprehensible though it seemed, their orders were to march straight across a field toward a fortified road the Imperials held with pikemen and gunners. As for the boisterous Swiss, their own pikes swayed like wheat, exactly like wheat, and Manuel knew what happened when the wheat grew tall enough to properly sway. Fuck fuck fuck.
“So,” Awa explained after ducking back to von Stein’s tent, altering her appearance to resemble Bernardo again, and returning with the reanimated body of von Stein in tow, “just before we got here von Swine told his master, that Lautrec, that all the Swiss would abandon the fight unless they were allowed to attack immediately. Lautrec was coming to try and change his mind, I think, or maybe just yell at him. But anyway, we’re at the front!”
“Yes.” Manuel panicked at the realization that he had left the satchel with all his planks back in the tent. “We’ve got to go back, I’ve got—”
“That’s the fuckin signal,” Monique observed as a horn lamely tooted somewhere behind them. “Get walkin, lump. Jus’ like von Wine, sendin us straight inta a fuckin killin field. They’ll ’ave all they gunners at the front, mark me, an’ just mow us fuckin down. Only way to use fuckin guns, not that von Wine ever understood that. Never thought I’d say it but wish Doctor Lump had stuck it out with us stead of pissin off ta find those bastards of the Black-wood you was on bout.”
“So what do we do, Awa, what do we do?” Manuel tried to get himself under control. In the past he had not become