Read Chapter 20: The Prussian Encounter

The snow had stopped falling sometime in the night, leaving the world a white blank page beneath a sky the color of old lead. Marchetti walked at the head of the column, his wounded arm bound tight against his chest, the Cossack's fur hat pulled low over his ears. The locket hung against his heart beneath three layers of wool and canvas, warm as a coal.

Behind him, the peasant girl walked beside the sled where Aubert lay swaddled like a corpse in waiting. The captain's eyes were open now, glassy and fixed on the gray sky, but he had not spoken since they'd hauled him from the fortress. Lefebvre and Denis flanked the sled, their muskets cradled loose in frozen fingers, and Bastien brought up the rear, his young face pinched and older than his nineteen years.

They'd been marching southeast for two days by Marchetti's reckoning, following the peasant girl's bearings through birch forest and frozen marsh. The Berezina's upper reaches lay somewhere ahead, hidden by the treeline, and beyond that, Poland. Or so she claimed.

"Sergeant." Denis's voice came low and urgent from the sled. "Riders."

Marchetti dropped to one knee, hand going to his saber—his good hand, his left, awkward and slow. The others melted into the treeline's shadow, muskets rising. Through the bare branches he saw them: six horsemen in dark blue coats with white facings, carbines slung across their backs.

Prussian. Not Russian. Not French.

The horsemen reined in at the edge of the clearing, fifty paces out. Their officer, a thin man with a waxed mustache and a saber that caught the pale light, raised a hand in the universal gesture of parley.

"Marchetti." Lefebvre's whisper carried the weight of a question.

"Hold fire." Marchetti rose slowly, both hands visible, and walked forward. Snow creaked beneath his boots. The Prussian officer watched him approach with the calm of a man who knew he held the advantage.

"You are French," the officer said in accented but serviceable French. "From the Grand Army's retreat?"

"Sergeant Étienne Marchetti, 3rd Light Infantry." Marchetti stopped ten paces from the horses. "We're heading south. Looking to get clear of the war."

The officer's gaze moved past him, counting the figures in the treeline. "You have wounded?"

"A captain. Fever. He needs a surgeon."

"A captain." The Prussian's eyes narrowed. He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, yellowed and creased from handling. "Then perhaps you can tell me about this."

He tossed it. The paper fluttered and landed in the snow between them. Marchetti bent to retrieve it, his injured arm screaming as he moved. He unfolded it with one hand.

It was a notice, dated eleven days prior, written in the precise hand of a Prussian military clerk. It described a French captain, one Robert Aubert, late of the 3rd Light Infantry, who had offered intelligence regarding a certain conspiracy within the Emperor's inner circle. The notice instructed all Prussian patrols to be on the lookout for this captain and to render him safe passage to any Prussian headquarters should he present himself.

Marchetti read it twice. Then a third time.

"You know this man?" the officer asked.

Marchetti folded the paper carefully, the way he'd once folded broadsheets in the printer's shop on the Rue Mercière, and tucked it into his coat.

"I know of him."

"Where is he?"

"Dead." The lie came smooth as silk. "Killed by Cossacks three days ago. We buried him in a ditch."

The officer's expression did not change. His hand rested on the pommel of his saber, and behind him, the five riders shifted in their saddles. They were veterans, Marchetti saw—hard men with hard eyes who'd survived the same terrible winter that was eating the Grande Armée alive.

"And his papers?" the officer pressed. "His effects?"

"Burned with the rest of the dead. Cossack custom." Marchetti spat into the snow. "They don't leave much."

The Prussian stared at him for a long moment. The wind picked up, carrying a fine powder of snow across the clearing. Marchetti held his ground, his heart hammering against the locket's warm weight.

From the treeline, the peasant girl stepped out. She walked past the sled without looking at it, past Lefebvre's raised hand, and came to stand at Marchetti's shoulder. Her hair was bound in a red kerchief, her face raw with windburn, and she looked at the Prussian officer with a directness that made even his horse shift.

"You're wasting time," she said. "The captain died badly. There's nothing for you here."

The officer's eyes flicked to her, then back to Marchetti. "And who is this?"

"My wife," Marchetti said.

"She doesn't look French."

"Belgian. From Liège."

The officer considered this. Then he turned to one of his riders and spoke in rapid German. The rider nodded and spurred away, disappearing into the trees to the east. The officer turned back.

"I have orders to bring any man with knowledge of Captain Aubert to General Yorck at Königsberg. You say the captain is dead. But I notice you didn't ask what his information was worth."

Marchetti felt the peasant girl tense beside him. "We're not interested in Prussian gold. We just want to reach Vilna and find safe passage south."

"Vilna." The officer's mouth twitched. "You'll be lucky to reach Vilna alive. The French are burning it as they retreat. The Russians are days behind them. And in between—" He spread his hands. "Cossacks, deserters, wolves. Winter."

"We've survived worse."

"Have you?" The officer leaned forward in his saddle. "The men behind you look half dead. Your arm is bound with cloth that hasn't been changed in days. You're walking into a war that's already over, Sergeant. The question is whether you want to survive it."

Before Marchetti could answer, a sound rose behind them—a wet, hacking cough from the sled, followed by a voice that cut through the frozen air like a blade.

"I'll go."

Marchetti turned. Aubert had pushed himself up on one elbow, his face pale as the snow, his eyes wild and burning. The blanket had fallen away to reveal the bandages wrapped around his chest, stained with old blood and yellow pus.

"Captain—" Marchetti started.

"I said I'll go." Aubert's voice cracked, but he held the Prussian's gaze. "I am Captain Robert Aubert. I have information that General Yorck will want to hear."

The Prussian officer smiled. It was not a warm smile.

"Captain. I was told you were dead."

"Then the sergeant was protecting me. He's loyal to a fault." Aubert struggled to sit up fully, wincing. "But I'll not have more men die for my secrets. Not when there's a chance to end this madness."

Marchetti moved to the sled, dropping his voice low. "You don't know what you're doing. You're fevered. You can barely sit."

"I know exactly what I'm doing." Aubert's hand found Marchetti's arm, gripping with surprising strength. "The Prussians want what I know. They'll get us to Königsberg, get us out of this frozen hell. But I won't go to Königsberg."

"Where, then?"

"Vilna. I need to reach Vilna first." Aubert's eyes flicked to the Prussian officer, then back. "There's someone there—someone who has the rest of the story. The part I never told anyone. The part about the double."

Marchetti's blood went cold. "Dargonne."

Aubert nodded, a bare fraction of movement. "The general can have everything I know. But I need to reach Vilna before I say a word. That's my price."

The Prussian officer had heard enough. He wheeled his horse closer, looking down at the two Frenchmen with the disdain of a man who'd seen too many desperate bargains in too many wars.

"You're in no condition to bargain, Captain."

"Then I'm in no condition to talk." Aubert's voice was weak but steady. "Take me to Vilna. I'll talk there. Or leave me here to die—and you can explain to Yorck why the most valuable prisoner in the eastern theater slipped through your fingers because you couldn't manage a two-day ride."

Silence settled over the clearing. The wind died. Even the horses seemed to hold their breath.

The Prussian officer looked at Aubert for a long moment. Then he looked at Marchetti, and something passed between them—the understanding of men who recognized a mad gamble when they saw one.

"The road to Vilna is crawling with French loyalists," the officer said finally. "If we're stopped, you're our prisoners. Convicted deserters being returned for execution."

Aubert smiled, a thin and broken thing. "I've worn worse masks."

The officer turned his horse. "We ride at dusk. The barn at Kraski is four hours east—we'll rest there and move before dawn."

He didn't wait for a response, just spurred his horse into the trees, his men falling in behind him. The peasant girl watched them go, her face unreadable, and when she turned to Marchetti there was something new in her eyes.

"He knows more than he's telling," she said quietly. "That captain. About Vilna. About all of it."

Marchetti looked at Aubert, who had sunk back into the sled, his eyes already closing again, his breath shallow.

"Everyone in this war knows more than they're telling," Marchetti said. "And it's going to get us all killed."