Read Chapter 5: The Medal and the Snub

The medal arrived in a linen pouch, handed over by a clerk who did not meet his eyes. Silver. Small. Worth perhaps three francs by weight, and stamped with the Emperor's profile worn smooth from the die. Moreau turned it over in his palm on the muddy parade ground of the winter camp, while behind him the regiment formed up to cheer the new general.

Lefebvre wore his fresh epaulettes like a man born to them. The promotion had come through the same courier that delivered the medal. Moreau watched him stride the line, accepting congratulations, his tarnished silver watch chain catching the weak December light. The nephew—Captain Armand Lefebvre, now, at twenty-two, with a chestful of ribbons earned by other men's blood—rode at his uncle's side like a remora on a shark.

Renaud found Moreau at the edge of the bivouac an hour later, staring at the medal in his fist.

"They gave him the battalion," Renaud said quietly. "Boucher's to be his adjutant. The whole company's to be broken up and reformed under the nephew's colors."

Moreau closed his fingers around the medal until the edges bit into his palm. "And us?"

"Seconded to picket duty until further orders. We're to guard the supply wagons at Brünn while the army moves on. There's talk we'll winter there."

"Guarding wagons." Moreau laughed, a short, hollow sound. "While the nephew learns to ride at the head of my squadron."

Renaud said nothing for a moment. Then: "You could request transfer. The Imperial Guard are taking volunteers from the line regiments. They say the Emperor wants veterans."

Moreau looked at him. "Me? The Guard take sons of the soil now?"

"They take men who've proved themselves. And you've proved yourself enough for ten." Renaud hesitated. "The colonel—the general now—he'd have no say over you once you're in the Guard."

The thought landed like a spark in dry tinder. Moreau turned the medal over once more, then pocketed it. "Where do I submit the request?"

---

The request took three days to write, revise, and rewrite. The army ran on paper, and Moreau had learned that every line he penned could be turned against him. He cited twelve years of service, four campaigns, the skirmish at Hollabrunn where he'd captured the Austrian dispatch, the charge at Austerlitz where his squadron had held the Pratzen heights against two regiments of Russian infantry. He mentioned, carefully, that his father had been a farrier in the old Royal Army, that he'd been born in the saddle, that he could ride, shoot, and fight as well as any man in the line.

He did not mention that his father had been a common soldier. He did not mention that his mother had laundered officers' linen to feed her children. He let the paper speak for his deeds, and hoped that deeds were enough.

The reply came back in six days, returned to him through the chain of command with such speed that Moreau knew it had been opened and read by Lefebvre's adjutant before it ever reached his hands. The captain of the Guard who had signed it was polite. Regretful. The request had been considered with great care, and the officer regretted to inform Sergeant-Major Moreau that the Imperial Guard, as currently constituted, required its entrants to possess certain qualifications of birth and education that the applicant, despite his commendable service record, did not presently meet.

"Noble birth," Renaud said, reading over his shoulder. "That's what it means. They want you to have noble birth."

"Or a patron with a general's stars." Moreau took the letter back and folded it with exact, careful creases. "Lefebvre's nephew has neither birth nor service, and he wears a captain's uniform tonight."

Renaud watched him for a long moment. "What are you going to do?"

Moreau did not answer. He tucked the letter into his coat, beside the forged battle report he'd stolen at Austerlitz, beside the note ordering his commendation withdrawn. Three pieces of paper. Three proofs of theft.

He went to find Lefebvre.

---

The new general had requisitioned the best house in Brünn for his quarters, a merchant's villa with a wine cellar and servants and a marble fireplace that crackled with logs enough to heat a barracks. Moreau was stopped at the door by a sentry who knew him, and who shook his head with the weary sympathy of a man watching another man walk into a noose.

"He's at dinner with his staff," the sentry said quietly. "Come back tomorrow, Moreau. Come back when you've had time to—"

"I'll wait."

He waited in the cold for two hours, standing at the edge of the garden where the light from the windows fell across the frozen ground. He heard laughter from inside, the clink of glasses, the warm murmur of men who had eaten well and drunk better and were congratulating themselves on their cleverness.

When the door finally opened and the officers spilled out into the night, Moreau stepped forward. Lefebvre saw him immediately, and his face did not change—the same cold, flat mask Moreau had seen a hundred times.

"Sergeant-Major." Lefebvre's voice carried the weight of command now, heavier than it had been before. "You've been reassigned to Brünn. Your orders are on my desk. Collect them in the morning."

"I'm not here about orders, sir." Moreau stood straight, his hands at his sides, his voice level. "I'm here about the commendation from Hollabrunn. The one you promised me. The one that went to your nephew."

The officers around Lefebvre went still. Somewhere in the garden, a wind stirred the bare branches of an apple tree.

Lefebvre looked at him for a long moment. Then he smiled—a thin, practiced smile that did not reach his eyes. "The commendation was awarded on the recommendation of your commanding officer, based on the reports submitted to headquarters. Those reports were filed. The award was made. I'm afraid I don't understand your concern."

"You filed a false report," Moreau said. "You claimed the capture of the Austrian dispatch for your nephew. The nephew was in the baggage train that day. I was the one who took the captain's map. I have witnesses."

The silence stretched. One of Lefebvre's staff officers shifted his weight; another looked at the ground. Lefebvre's smile did not waver.

"Witnesses," he repeated. "You have witnesses. How unfortunate, then, that your witnesses are corporals and private soldiers, men whose word carries precisely as much weight as their rank." He stepped closer, and his voice dropped, so that only Moreau could hear. "I am a general of the Empire now, Moreau. You are a sergeant-major with a silver medal and no patron and no blood. If you continue this conversation, I will have you court-martialed for insubordination before the week is out. I will have you broken. I will have you shot, if I must. Do you understand me?"

Moreau understood him. He had understood him for a long time.

"Yes, sir," he said.

"Good." Lefebvre stepped back, adjusting his coat. "Collect your orders in the morning. I expect the supply inventory to be immaculate by the end of the month." He turned to his officers. "Gentlemen. The night is cold. Let us return inside."

They filed past him like ghosts, none meeting his eyes. The door closed. The warmth disappeared. Moreau stood alone in the frozen garden, his breath misting in the December air.

He had lost. He had lost the commendation, the transfer, the honor. Lefebvre was a general. He was a sergeant-major with a worthless medal and a file of enemies.

But he still had the papers.

He walked back through the dark streets of Brünn, his hand inside his coat, his fingers resting on the edge of the forged battle report. Lefebvre had written it himself. Lefebvre had signed it. The handwriting was unmistakable, ink on paper, evidence that would survive any court, any tribunal, any war.

The army's rules had failed him. The chain of command had failed him. The honor he'd believed in had been a story told to keep men like him from asking questions.

So be it. If the army would not give him justice, he would take it.

He was not a noble. He was not a patron's favorite. He was a son of the soil who had learned to ride, to shoot, to fight—and now to read, and to write, and to keep every piece of paper that might someday become a weapon.

Somewhere ahead, in the darkness, a bugle called the night watch. The war would resume in the spring. The army would march. Men would die, and their deaths would be written down by men like Lefebvre, shaped into lies and medals and promotions.

Not anymore. Not if he could help it.

Moreau reached his billet and pushed open the door. Renaud was still awake, sitting by the stove, his face carved with worry.

"Well?" Renaud asked.

Moreau sat down across from him. He pulled out the forged battle report, the withdrawal note, the Guard's rejection letter, and laid them on the table between them.

"Lefebvre is a general now," Moreau said. "He thinks that makes him untouchable." He looked at Renaud. "He's wrong."

Renaud studied his face, then nodded slowly. "What do we do?"

Moreau thought of the missing lieutenant from Eylau. Thought of the reports that never matched the casualty lists. Thought of Lefebvre's tarnished watch, taken from a prisoner who'd died in his care.

"We find out what else he's buried," Moreau said. "And then we dig it up."