Stepsister(50)

There were many unpleasant things about their new lives. Hunger. Exhaustion. Sleeping in the hot hayloft. Mucking out cow stalls. Raw, blistered hands that cracked and wept. Nothing, though, was more unpleasant than the hulking, surly Hugo. He was home instead of off fighting because his poor eyesight prevented him from joining the army. He didn’t like Isabelle or Tavi and took every chance he could to make that clear.

“You don’t get that wagon filled, you won’t get any soup tonight,” he said.

“You could help us. It would go faster. We’d get done that way,” Tavi said.

Hugo shook his head. “Can’t. Have to sharpen the plow. And then—”

“Hugo! Hey, Hugo!” a voice called, cutting him off.

Hugo, Isabelle, and Tavi all turned to see a wagon trundling down the drive. Two young men were riding in it. Isabelle knew them. They were soldiers under Colonel Cafard’s command. They worked in the camp’s kitchen and came every day to pick up vegetables.

“You’ve got to help Claude and Remy now,” Hugo said. “Both of you. My mother said so. That’ll take a good hour. You’re going hungry again tonight.”

Hugo said this without malice or glee, just dull resignation. Like an old man predicting rain.

“You could give us some of your supper. You could sneak it up to the hayloft after dark,” Tavi suggested.

“It’s soup. How am I supposed to sneak soup?”

“Bread, then. Sneak us some bread. Wrap it up in your napkin when no one’s looking and put it in your pocket.”

Hugo’s face darkened. “I wish you’d never come here. You’re always thinking of … of things,” he said. “You shouldn’t do that. Girls shouldn’t. It’s up to the man to think. It’s up to me to think of sneaking you bread.”

“Then think of it! Think of sneaking us cheese. A bit of ham. Think of something before we starve to death!” Tavi snapped.

“Hugo! Where are the potatoes?” Claude called out. “Cook says we’re supposed to get potatoes and carrots today. Hello, Isabelle. Tavi. Madame de la Paumé.”

Maman, still talking to the cabbages, stood. “Your Excellencies,” she said with a reverent curtsy. “You see, girls?” she added grandly. “It pays to keep up appearances. The pope has come to visit us. And the king of Spain.”

Claude and Remy gave each other puzzled looks.

“Never mind,” Isabelle told them.

Hugo nodded in the direction they’d come. “That’s quite a cloud you kicked up on the road,” he said to the boys. The road was half a mile from where they stood, and a tall hedgerow blocked it from their view, but above it, they could all see a huge mass of dust rising into the air.

“That’s not us,” Remy said. “It’s more wounded.”

Hugo took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. Then he put them back on and gazed at the dust cloud again. It rose higher and higher in the sky, swirling like a gathering storm. “Must be a lot of them,” he said.

“Wagons for miles,” said Remy. “As far as you can see.” He looked down at the reins in his hands. “We’re losing.”

“Come on, Rem. That’s only because we’re not there yet!” Claude boasted, elbowing him. “I’ll send Volkmar running back to the border with my sword up his ass!”

Remy mustered a smile, but it was a wan one.

Isabelle knew that both boys were being sent to the front soon. She wondered if she would see them again. Would they, too, be carried back over rutted roads in a rattling wagon missing pieces of themselves? Or would they end up in hastily dug graves, never to see their homes again?

They’d talked a little over the last few days, she, Remy and Claude, as she’d helped load their wagon. She’d learned that Claude, olive-skinned and dark-eyed, came from the south, from a family of fishermen. Remy, fair and blond, was from the west, a printer’s son, who had hopes of not only printing books but writing them one day. They had no more wanted to be soldiers than Isabelle had wanted to marry the prince. But the choice to fight was not theirs to make, no more than the decision to cut off her toes had been hers.

Leaving Maman with the cabbages, Isabelle and Tavi helped the boys. Hugo decided to pitch in, too. When the last potato sack had been hoisted in, Remy and Claude climbed back into their seats.

“See you tomorrow,” Hugo said, squinting up at them.

Claude shook his head. “Someone new will come tomorrow. We’re heading out, me and Rem.”

It was quiet for a moment; then Hugo said, “Then we’ll see you when you get back.”

Remy swallowed hard. Then he reached inside his shirt and pulled a silver chain over his head. A cross was dangling from it. “If I don’t … if I don’t come back, could you get this to my mother?” he asked Isabelle, handing it to her. He told her his surname and the town where he was from. He looked very scared and very young as he asked, and Isabelle said it wouldn’t be necessary and tried to hand the cross back, but he wouldn’t take it. Instead, he thanked her.

“It’s nothing. I … I wish I could do more to help you, to help all the soldiers,” she said.

Remy smiled at her. “What could you do? You’re a girl,” he teased.

“I’m good with a sword. As good as you are. Maybe better. I’ve been practicing.”