Read Chapter 28: The Price of a Soldier

The major’s face twisted as Moreau’s blade caught him across the cheek, splitting the scar that ran from temple to jaw. Blood sheeted down his neck, black in the candlelight of the crypt. Duval staggered back against the stone wall, one hand going to his wound, the other still gripping the pistol that had fired empty a moment before.

“You fight like a butcher,” Duval spat, breathing hard.

“I was trained by one,” Moreau said. He advanced, the stolen bayonet low in his fist. His own shoulder screamed where the bullet had torn through earlier, and his side was wet under his coat. He could feel the warmth spreading down his hip, the dull throb that meant he was losing more than he could afford. But the gold was here. The crypt was silent now except for the two of them and the groans of Duval’s fallen men.

Duval laughed. It was a dry, rattling sound.

“You think you know me, Moreau? You think this is about the gold?”

“I don’t care what it’s about,” Moreau said. He closed the distance. “You ordered Lefebvre’s death. You sold the army’s pay. You planned to put a bullet in the Emperor.”

“And what will you do with me? March me to Napoleon with a confession I’ll recant before the first guard? You have nothing. The letter burned with your tent. Your witness is dead.”

Moreau’s hand tightened on the blade. Lefebvre’s face swam before him—the old sergeant’s broken ribs, the way he’d coughed blood onto the stretcher, the way his widow had pressed the pocket watch into Moreau’s palm like a holy relic.

“I don’t need a trial,” Moreau said.

He raised the bayonet.

Duval’s eyes went wide. For a moment, the mask of arrogance cracked, and beneath it Moreau saw something else—a man who had calculated every step except this one, the moment when the blade came down and the reckoning was personal.

“Wait,” Duval said. His voice cracked. “Wait. You want the truth? The real truth about Lefebvre?”

“I know the truth,” Moreau said.

“You know what I told you.” Duval’s smile was a grimace now, blood trickling into his mouth. “But you don’t know what he did. You don’t know why I ruined him.”

Moreau hesitated. It was a heartbeat too long, and Duval saw it.

“I was his colonel in Spain,” Duval said. “Before I was on the Emperor’s staff. Before the scar. Lefebvre was a good soldier—I’ll grant him that. But the regiment’s payroll came up short one month, and I needed a scapegoat. He was the senior sergeant. He was the one the men trusted.” Duval wiped blood from his lip. “I broke him. I took his rank, his pension, his name. I made him carry the shame so the real thief could walk free.”

Moreau’s arm trembled. “You.”

“I was the officer who ruined him. Yes.” Duval’s voice dropped. “But Lefebvre was not the innocent you believe. When I gave him the chance to earn his way back—a small task, a little gold moved from one wagon to another—he took it. He took the money, Moreau. He stole from the army to save himself.”

“Lies.”

“I have proof.” Duval reached slowly into his coat, fingers moving with deliberate care. “A confession. Lefebvre wrote it himself, in his own hand, the night before I sent him to the front lines. He was paid to steal the gold. Paid by me, yes. But he took the coin. He was no martyr. He was a thief who got caught.”

Duval produced a folded paper from inside his tunic. It was stained, creased, old. He held it out.

Moreau did not take it. His eyes moved from the paper to Duval’s face, searching for the lie.

“Read it,” Duval said. “If you have the courage.”

Moreau snatched the paper. He opened it with one hand, the bayonet still pointed at Duval’s throat. The words were in Lefebvre’s hand—he’d seen enough of the sergeant’s letters to know the cramped, careful script. The letters his widow had shown him. The letters she had kept in a tin box.

*I, Sergeant Antoine Lefebvre, do confess that I willingly accepted payment from Colonel Armand Duval to divert regimental payroll from the treasury to a designated location. I acted of my own free will. I knew the act was treasonous and did so regardless.*

There was more. A date. A signature.

Moreau’s stomach turned. He thought of the widow’s face. Of the way she had spoken of her husband with such fierce loyalty. Of the pocket watch, the map inside, the last gift from a man who had died in disgrace.

“He wrote this under duress,” Moreau said. “You forced him.”

“I gave him a choice,” Duval said. “Steal for me or hang for the theft you did not commit. He chose to live. Can you blame him?”

Moreau’s hand shook. The paper trembled in his fingers. He could kill Duval now. It would be easy—one thrust, and the man who had destroyed Lefebvre would be nothing more than a cooling corpse on the crypt floor. The men behind him, Duval’s own squad, were watching. They had seen their major defeated, their gold recovered. Their loyalty was a question with no answer yet.

“You know what this means,” Duval said, his voice softer now, almost conspiratorial. “Your hero was a traitor. Not a great man, not a wronged soldier. A coward who sold his own regiment for a handful of silver. What will you tell his widow? What will you tell the men who mourned him?”

Moreau lowered the bayonet a fraction.

“You think this changes anything?” he said. “You are the architect. You are the one who made him choose.”

“I am the one who survived,” Duval said. “And I will survive this too. You have no evidence against me. You have a dead man’s confession—a confession that makes your sergeant the thief and me the investigator who uncovered him. By the time I am done, you will be the traitor. You and your wagon and your ridiculous loyalty to a man who will be dead by noon.”

The guns of Waterloo rumbled overhead, muffled by the stone. The battle was beginning. Somewhere above them, Napoleon was riding toward the ridge, and a sniper was waiting.

Moreau looked at the paper in his hands. He looked at Duval’s bloodied face. He looked at the men behind Duval—hollow-eyed, exhausted, men who had been paid nothing, fed nothing, promised everything.

“Men,” Moreau said, his voice rising. “Do you know who this man is?”

Duval’s eyes widened. “Moreau—”

“He is the one who stole your pay. Not the Emperor. Not the army. Him.” Moreau held up the confession. “Your major paid my sergeant to divert your wages, your food money, your bonuses for the dead. He has been selling you since Spain.”

The men shifted. One of them, a corporal with a bandaged arm, took a step forward.

“You hear me?” Moreau said. “This man has been feeding you lies while he filled his own pockets. He planned to kill Napoleon and take the gold for himself. He would have watched you die in this field for a crown he meant to wear.”

The corporal’s eyes moved from Moreau to Duval.

“That’s a lie,” Duval said. “He’s a quartermaster. He knows nothing of strategy or command. I have served the Emperor for twenty years.”

“And I have served him for ten,” Moreau said. “I have counted every franc this army was owed. I know where the shortage began. I have the paper trail in my head, if not in my hands.” He stepped closer to Duval, lowering his voice so only the major could hear. “You are finished.”

He turned to the men.

“Take him,” Moreau said.

The corporal hesitated. The other men looked at each other. For a long moment, Moreau thought they would side with their major, would put him down and be done with this.

Duval smiled.

“You see?” he said. “They know what you are.”

Moreau threw the confession at the corporal’s feet. “Read it. The signature is real. The crime is real. He is your thief.”

The corporal picked up the paper. He read it slowly, his lips moving over the words. He looked at Duval. He looked at Moreau.

Then he grabbed Duval by the collar of his coat.

“You,” the corporal said. “You did this to us.”

“Let go of me, soldier. That’s an order.”

“You stole our pay,” the corporal said. “You left us to starve. You sent men to die for nothing.” His hand found the knife at his belt. “You are no officer of mine.”

The other men closed in. Duval began to shout, but the sound was swallowed by a dozen hands pulling him down, binding his arms with a rope from a munitions crate. He was a prisoner of his own squad by the time the shouting stopped.

Moreau leaned against the stone wall. His legs were shaking. The wound in his side had soaked through his coat, and his fingers were sticky with blood. He pressed a hand to the gash and felt the pulse of his own heart leaking out of him.

The corporal looked at him. “What do we do with him?”

“Keep him alive,” Moreau said. “He will answer for what he did. In front of the army. In front of the Emperor.” He forced himself to stand straight. “But first we carry this gold to the field.”

He looked at the crates stacked in the crypt. Thousands of francs. The sound of cannon rolled overhead, steady now, growing closer.

“And we find a man who can stop a bullet,” Moreau said.