Stepsister(99)

“This might just work,” Tavi said.

Felix, his eyes straight ahead, grimly said, “It had better. They have rifles.”

A few minutes later, the soldiers approached them, riding two abreast. Isabelle’s nerves were as taut as a bowstring.

Hugo nodded solemnly to the first riders. The men looked him and his companions over but didn’t stop. The two lines moved quickly by. Isabelle saw that they wore the uniforms of the French army. They were Cafard’s men, they had to be. Thankfully, the grand duke was not among them. The riders’ commander brought up the rear. He, too, peered closely at them as he trotted by.

Keep going, Isabelle silently urged him. Nothing to see here.

“Halt!” the commander suddenly bellowed to his men, turning his horse around.

Isabelle’s heart dropped.

“Let me do the talking,” Tavi said quietly. “I have an idea.”

“You have an idea?” whispered Hugo, his hands tightening on the reins. “God help us all.”





One Hundred and Seventeen


“Why are you about at this hour? Where are you going?” the commander demanded, looking at Hugo.

But it was Tavi who answered him. “Where are we going? Where would we be going with two coffins in the back and the churchyard just up ahead?” she shrilled. “It’s hardly a mystery, Sergeant!”

“It’s Lieutenant. And it’s very early in the day to be going to the cemetery.”

Tavi gave him a contemptuous snort. “Death doesn’t keep bankers’ hours. My husband here”—she slapped Hugo’s shoulder—“must be in the fields by sunrise. My brother-in-law, too,” she said, nodding at Felix. “My sister and I just lost two brothers to this blasted war. Their bodies came home yesterday. One was a married man. Now my sister-in-law here”—she gestured to Ella—“is a widow with three small children.”

Ella lowered her head and sniffled into the horse blanket.

“They have no one to provide for them. My husband and I must take them in,” Tavi continued. “Four more mouths to feed when we’ve barely got enough for ourselves. So, Lieutenant, if you are satisfied now, can we move on? Bodies don’t keep in the heat.”

“The queen is missing,” said the lieutenant. “The grand duke fears she’s been kidnapped. He’s given orders to stop anyone who looks suspicious and to inspect all wagons.”

Tavi laughed out loud. “The queen is a great beauty, lieutenant. Who is a beauty here? Me, in my old dress? My sister in hers? Or perhaps my four-eyed sister-in-law?”

Ella looked up. She squinted through Hugo’s eyeglasses. The lieutenant’s gaze passed right over her.

“Let me see your feet. Each of you ladies,” he said. “It’s well-known that the queen has the daintiest feet in all the land.”

One by one, the three girls showed the lieutenant their feet. Isabelle’s were big, her boots filthy. Tavi’s, too. Ella’s were absolutely enormous in Felix’s old, battered boots.

“Now, if you’re finished harassing a grieving family …” Tavi said.

Hugo made ready to crack his reins, but the lieutenant held up a hand.

Now what? Isabelle wondered, panic rising in her.

“You could be smuggling the queen in those coffins,” the lieutenant said. He directed two of his men to the back of the wagon. “Open them up!”

Isabelle was paralyzed by fear. She glanced at the others. Felix’s shoulders were up around his ears. Hugo was saucer-eyed. Tavi had turned pale, but she hadn’t given up.

“This is a desecration!” she shouted. “Have you no shame?”

The two soldiers selected for the task glanced uneasily at each other.

“That was an order!” the lieutenant barked at them.

The soldiers dismounted from their horses.

“The bodies are several days old!” Tavi protested. “Must our last memories of our loved ones be an ungodly smell?”

An ungodly smell.

With those words, Isabelle’s paralysis broke. She knew exactly what to do. She turned around and faced backward, pretending to watch the soldiers. As she did, she snaked her right hand under the seat. Her fingers found the wooden box there. Slowly, carefully, she wedged them under the box’s lid.

Anticipating that the coffin lids would be nailed down, as coffin lids always are, one of the soldiers pulled a dagger from his belt to pry them off. He shoved the blade in under one of the lids and levered the handle. A few nails screeched free of the wood. As they did, Isabelle made her move.

She slid the lid off the wooden box and unleashed the sweaty dead dog.





One Hundred and Eighteen


The carnage was magnificent.

The horses shrieked. Three of them threw their riders. Some of the soldiers lost their suppers. Even the lieutenant turned green.

Isabelle, Tavi, and Ella, sitting right over the rank abomination, felt their eyes burning from its fumes. Tears poured down their cheeks, making them look even more like the bereaved family they claimed to be.

Tavi saw her advantage and took it. Standing up in the wagon, she shook a finger at the lieutenant. “You should be ashamed of yourself, sir!” she shrilled. “Disturbing the dead! Upsetting mourners! Making a poor widow weep!”