Read Chapter 15: A Fork in the Road

The Countess’s smile did not reach her eyes. She folded her hands on the escritoire between them, the candlelight catching the gold band of her wedding ring—a relic, Moreau guessed, of a husband long dead or simply absent.

“North of camp,” she said, her voice low and even. “Three leagues, past the beech line. An old mill, sails half-rotten, its wheel shamelessly dry. It has served as a neutral meeting point for over a decade—smugglers, deserters, the occasional spy who values discretion over comfort.”

“And the Prussian patrol?” Moreau asked.

“Four men. Maybe five. They rotate at dawn and dusk. They are not there to guard the gold—they are there to guard the meeting. Whoever arrives with the right token walks away with the Emperor’s treasury.” She tilted her head. “You do not have the token, Captain.”

“I have a sword.”

“That will make for a shorter negotiation.”

Moreau pushed back from the table, the chair scraping against the flagstones. Pichegru stood by the door, his hand resting on the pommel of his saber, his face unreadable. The boy had not spoken since they entered the Countess’s salon, and Moreau did not know if that was discipline or fear.

“The letter,” the Countess said, rising. “Lefebvre’s sealed correspondence from the Emperor. You will have it in my hands by nightfall tomorrow, or I will take my information to the provost—along with the name of the French officer who visited me seeking stolen gold.”

Moreau met her gaze. “You will have your letter.”

“See that I do.” She gestured toward the rear door. “There is a hunting path behind the garden wall. It will take you past the sentries’ blind spot. Use it.”

---

Dawn broke grey and wet over the camp. Moreau moved through the peripheral tents with Pichegru at his side, keeping to the shadows of picket lines and supply carts. His shoulder ached where the provost’s man had clipped him the night before, and the bandage under his tunic was already slick with blood.

He did not have time to fetch Lefebvre’s letter first. The Countess had given him until nightfall, but the Prussian patrol would rotate at sunset, and by then the gold might be moved again. He would have to steal the letter _and_ reach the windmill in the same window. It was impossible.

Unless he did not go alone.

Moreau stopped at the edge of the artillery park, where a trio of gunners were oiling a caisson. He knew these men—had rationed their powder, weighed their shot, listened to their complaints about thin stew and thinner pay. He trusted them as far as he could throw a cannonball, but he needed bodies.

“Dubois,” he called.

A stocky sergeant looked up, squinting. “Captain Moreau. Heard you were dead.”

“Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.” Moreau stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I need four men. Mounted. Armed. No questions.”

Dubois glanced at Pichegru, then back at Moreau. “Provost’s been asking about you. Says you’re a fugitive.”

“The provost is wrong.”

“That so?” Dubois wiped his hands on his trousers. “What’s this about, Captain?”

Moreau weighed the lie and found it too heavy. “The army’s gold. Stolen. I know where it is. I need to get there before word spreads.”

Dubois held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Gérard. Petit. Laurent. Saddle up.”

---

They rode north through the beech line, the horses’ hooves muffled by wet leaves and the thin mist that clung to the ground. Moreau kept them off the road, threading through the undergrowth until the trees broke and the mill came into view.

It was a skeletal thing, three stories of grey stone with a wooden cap that had long since lost its cross. The sails were broken, one arm dangling at a sick angle, the other stripped to its spar. The wheel sat in a dry channel, moss growing over its buckets.

No lights. No movement.

“Too quiet,” Dubois muttered, reining in beside Moreau. “Could’ve moved on.”

“They didn’t move on.” Moreau scanned the roofline, the outbuildings, the field of tall grass that surrounded the mill. “One patrol. Four or five men. Probably inside, waiting for a contact that’s not coming.”

“So we rush them?”

“We don’t.” Moreau dismounted, handing the reins to Petit. “We get closer. See what we’re facing before we show ourselves.”

He moved forward on foot, Pichegru and Dubois flanking him, the other two holding the horses at the treeline. The grass came up to their waists, wet and clinging, and Moreau’s boots sank into the soft earth with each step.

Fifty yards. Thirty.

The mill door was ajar, a sliver of darkness behind it. A horse nickered somewhere behind the building—more than one, by the sound of it. Moreau motioned for the others to halt and crept to the side of the mill, pressing his back against the cold stone.

He heard voices. Low. French.

“—said the money would be here by now. I’m not waiting for autumn.”

“The Englishman’s dead. His plan died with him.”

“Then we take what we have and go.”

Moreau’s blood went cold. He recognized the second voice.

_Renard._

He eased around the corner, peering through the gap in the door. Inside, lanterns spilled yellow light over stacked crates—his crates, the ones stamped with the regiment’s mark. Renard stood with his back to the door, a pistol in his belt, speaking to a man in a grey coat Moreau did not recognize.

“The gold’s not here,” the grey-coated man said. “Only a fraction. The rest was moved days ago.”

“Moved where?”

“Ask the Countess.”

Moreau’s fist tightened on his saber. He had not come all this way to hear riddles. He pushed the door open.

“Captain Renard,” he said, stepping into the light. “You’re a hard man to find.”

Renard spun, his hand going to his pistol. The grey-coated man reached for his sword. Moreau drew his saber in one motion, the steel singing out of the scabbard.

“Don’t,” Moreau said.

Renard’s eyes flicked past Moreau, to the doorway where Dubois and Pichegru now stood. “You’ve brought company.”

“I’ve brought questions. You’re going to answer them.”

“Am I?” Renard smiled, and that was when Moreau heard the sound behind him—the creak of a floorboard, the whistle of air.

He turned, but too late.

The stock of a musket caught him across the temple, and the world went white, then red. He hit the ground hard, his saber clattering out of reach. Boots surrounded him. A kick to the ribs rolled him onto his back.

“The Countess said you’d come,” Renard said, standing over him. “She wanted you out of the way before we moved the gold. Consider this your farewell, Moreau.”

Moreau’s vision swam. Through the blur, he saw Dubois and Pichegru raise their weapons—saw the grey-coated man raise his pistol in answer.

Then the mill door burst open, and English redcoats poured through.

---

Moreau came to with his face in the dirt and blood in his mouth. Shots rang out around him, the sharp cracks of muskets overlapping in a chaos of shouting and steel. He pushed himself up, his hand finding his saber, and staggered to his feet just as a redcoat lunged at him with a bayonet.

He turned the thrust aside, drove his shoulder into the man’s chest, and sent him sprawling. A second redcoat came at him from the left; Moreau parried, riposted, felt the blade bite through cloth and flesh. The man screamed and fell.

“Moreau!” Dubois’s voice cut through the noise. “We’re outnumbered! We need to fall back!”

Moreau looked around the mill. Renard was gone. The grey-coated man was gone. The redcoats were not—there were at least eight of them, pressing in from all sides, and Moreau’s men were backing toward the door with the crates between them and the enemy.

A musket ball tore through his shoulder—the same shoulder, the wound reopening in a burst of hot pain. He staggered, caught himself on a crate, and looked down at the blood soaking through his tunic.

“Captain!” Pichegru was at his side, pulling at his arm. “We have to go!”

Moreau’s gaze swept the mill. The gold—or what remained of it—was still here, stacked in crates that would take a wagon to move. He could not carry it. He could not hold it. And Renard, the man who had served beside him for years, had just sold him to the English.

“Petit,” he gasped. “The horses. Get the horses.”

“What about the gold?” Dubois shouted, fending off another redcoat.

Moreau looked at the crates. Then at the door. Then at the face of a young gunner—barely a man—pressed against the back wall, his eyes wide with terror.

“The gold is bait,” Moreau said. “We run.”