Read Chapter 17: The Alps of Mistrust

The mule's ears flattened before René heard the shout. Snow came sideways off the Jura in a white howl, and through it moved shapes—horses, men, the glint of a pike head. He reined in, and the guide Mercier had paid, a sallow Bernese named Vogel, cursed and spat.

"Road's watched," Vogel said. "They'll be Imperial stragglers or worse."

René counted nine riders emerging from the curtain of snow. They wore a patchwork of harness—Swedish blue under Bavarian leather, a Spanish morion on one, a Boheme cap on another. Mercenaries. The sort who fought for whoever paid last and robbed whoever paid never.

"Your coin, courier," Vogel muttered, hand already on his purse.

René's hand went to the lining of his doublet, where the Bavarian copy sat folded against his ribs. The seals were in a waxed cloth pouch at his belt. He'd counted them in Basel—seven intact, two cracked from the road. Tool of his trade. He was going to need them all.

The lead rider came close enough that René smelled the ale on breath beneath the scarf. A big man, pockmarked, an arquebus laid across his saddle.

"Where are you bound, and what do you carry?"

"Lisieux," René said, his accent shifting into the nasal drawl of a Normandy horse dealer he'd once robbed. "I've sold three mounts to the Swedish quartermaster in Basel and I'm for home before this snow buries me."

The pockmarked man looked at René's mount—a good horse, better than the man's own nag. Then at Vogel, who had gone grey.

"You'll forgive my bluntness, friend," the man said, "but I've killed enough deserters to know the smell. You've the look of a man who left a coat somewhere he shouldn't."

René's gut tightened. The buried coat. A hundred miles behind him now, but these men could have been at the village. Could have seen him drop it in the frozen earth.

"I've nothing to desert from," René said. "I'm a trader."

"A trader with a sword scar on his jaw and saddle calluses on his thighs." The man grinned. His teeth were brown. "You've ridden more than market roads. Get off the horse."

René dismounted slowly, weighing odds—nine of them, himself and a guide who looked ready to bolt. Snow had built on his shoulders, muting sound, making the world small and white and very close.

They searched him with quick, practiced hands. Found the dagger, took it. Found the pouch of coins, and Vogel made a squeaking sound as they took his too. Then the pockmarked man's hand stilled at René's ribcage, felt the folded paper there.

"Eh," he said. "What's this?"

They pulled him to the treeline, into a scraggle of pines that gave some shelter from the wind. The pockmarked man pulled the Bavarian copy from René's doublet and held it up.

"A letter," he said. "Sealed with a seal." He squinted at the wax. "That's a noble's seal, that is. You'd not have this if you were a horse trader."

"Find anything else?" René asked, keeping his voice flat. His eyes flicked to the road, where Vogel was edging his mule backward.

The man laughed. "You're cool about it. That's good. Cool men last longer." He unfolded the letter, squinted at the cramped French script. "I can't read this. One of you read it."

A thin mercenary with the face of a starved priest took the paper, held it close to his face in the grey light. He read haltingly, words catching on the legal French.

"...accord between the crowns of France and Bavaria, sealed at Munich, in the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and thirty-eight..."

René watched the man's face change as the priest read further. The hunting terms, the percentages, the names.

"...that the war in Germany shall be nourished and maintained, both crowns contributing powder and match, until such time as the Spanish house is exhausted and her Italian possessions fall to France..."

The pockmarked man's eyes widened. "That's a master's document," he said. "That's politics. Who the hell are you? A diplomat?"

The priest stopped reading, looked up. His face was pale. "It names French agents in Imperial lands," he said quietly. "By name. This paper could get men killed."

The whole group went still. The snow muttered against the pines. René felt the weight of his situation shift from robbery to something far more dangerous. These men now held a document that could hang them all if they were caught with it, and men in that position had one answer—kill the messenger and the letter both.

"Take the paper," René said. "It's yours. I freed myself of it in Basel. I was paid to carry it so far and no further." He spread his empty hands. "I've no loyalty to what's in it. But you've seen what's in it now. You know it's worth more than anything I carry."

The pockmarked man stared at him. "You'd sell your own cargo?"

"I'd sell my own mother if the price were right," René said, and it was almost true. He forced a grin. "Keep the letter. It names princes and agents. There are crowns in Europe who'd pay in gold for the names in that paper. I've sold it to you. What more do you want from me?"

The tension shifted. The mercenaries looked at each other. The priest was still staring at the letter, his lips moving as he reread a passage. The pockmarked man's posture softened—not friendship, but opportunity.

"You're a slippery one," he said. "I see it now. You're not a deserter. You're a thief."

"Better," René said.

"Then give me the seal," the man said. "The one that stamped this. You've got it on you."

René's heart missed a beat. The seals were in his belt pouch, but they hadn't found them—the pouch was sewn into the leather, hidden under the fold of his shirt. He'd spent an hour in Basel sewing it in.

"The seal was in Basel," René said. "With the broker who gave me the letter."

That was a lie, and the pockmarked man saw it. His hand moved to his belt. "Search him again. Properly."

They did, and this time they found the pouch. The waxed cloth came away, and the seals scattered in the snow—seven red discs, the coats of arms of French and Bavarian houses gleaming dully against the white. The pockmarked man bent and picked one up, rubbed the wax, studied the impression.

"Seals," he said. "Seven of them. You'd have used one in Basel to reseal the letter." He looked up at René with something approaching admiration. "You've got a forger's touch, or a liar's instincts. I like that. I could use a man who steals letters for a living."

René said nothing. His whole body was rigid. The seals were worth more than the letter in some ways—a blank seal, affixed to a false document, could change the course of a war. He'd planned to use one in Lisieux, to seal the altered copy he intended to commission.

"You're keeping the letter," René said, slower now. "Keep a seal too. But let me walk with one. I've a client in Basel expects a delivery, and a man who arrives empty-handed is a man who doesn't sleep safely."

The pockmarked man laughed. "You've got nerve. I'll grant you that." He picked up one of the seals, a red one with the Bourbon lily, and tossed it to René. René caught it one-handed, slippery with goose fat. "There. That's your life. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind."

René walked. He didn't run. He didn't look back. His horse was gone, taken by the mercenaries. Vogel and his mule were gone too, vanished into the snow the moment the violence started. René walked west, away from the road, struggling up the slope, the blizzard hammering his face with ice.

When he was out of sight, he stopped under a rock outcropping, crouched in the lee of a boulder, and unbuttoned his doublet. The letter was gone, but under his right arm, in a second inner lining, folded flat against his ribs, was a handkerchief—and inside it, a single fragment he'd saved from the cannon-shattered courier case in Breisach. A scrap of the original French pact, small as two fingers, with one line of script: the clause in which the French crown agreed to match the Bavarian powder shipment, detail for detail, month for month.

He held the scrap against the snow-light. He had one seal, one fragment, and no full copy of the accord. His plan to present the false letter in Lisieux now required something he didn't have: the full text to forge from.

Or a risk. A forger could reconstruct a letter from a fragment and a memory. And René's memory was very good.

He heard the avalanche before he felt it. A crack like thunder, the world's spine breaking. He scrambled out from under the boulder, but the snow was already moving, sliding down the slope in a white wave. He had time to run maybe ten steps before it took him under.