“I don’t know what you think you’re—”
“Hush!” Lieutenant Dreier’s voice was high with excitement. His hand was shaking so that Aurélie was half afraid the gun would go off. “Not another word out of you or I’ll shoot! Men, seize that woman!”
“That woman is a noblewoman of France.” Aurélie’s father’s cold authority checked Dreier slightly, but the sight of gold and diamonds sufficiently overcame any scruples.
Dreier snatched the talisman from Aurélie, shoving it into his inner pocket before the soldiers could see it. “That woman is a prisoner. Take her to the major! Him, too,” he said as an afterthought, pointing at Aurélie’s father. “They’ve both been . . . engaging in crimes against the state.”
With Dreier’s pistol in her back, her arms wrenched behind her, Aurélie couldn’t even look at her father. To have come so close for this . . .
“Courage, my child,” she thought she heard someone say, as they were marched past the effigy of the old countess, but she knew she must have imagined it, for the voice she heard was a woman’s voice.
Dreier and his underlings marched them out of the chapel, past the keep, across the courtyard to the new wing. Dreier kept up a gloating monologue the whole way, although Aurélie couldn’t be sure if it was for her benefit or his own or just that he was so excited he couldn’t keep the words inside. “。 . . knew you’d lead us to it sooner or later . . . watching for months . . . a promotion for me . . .”
“What is it? What is this?” It was Max, his voice sharp with concern. “What are you doing?”
“None of your concern.” Dreier shoved Aurélie through one of the side doors that led into the new wing. Her shoulder was beginning to ache abominably; Dreier was shorter than she, and he had her arm pulled at an acute angle. “We’re taking her to the major.”
“Then I’m coming, too,” said Max, in a voice that brooked no disagreement.
“Suit yourself,” said Dreier, and kicked at the door of her father’s study in lieu of knocking.
An irritated-looking Hoffmeister flung open the door. “What is it?”
“Wait until you see! You, you may go about your business,” Dreier told his men. He shoved Aurélie through the door, waving Max to follow him with Aurélie’s father. “Shut that door! Shut that door and bolt it! Oh. Is he here?”
“Am I here what?” demanded Lieutenant Kraus, who stood by Aurélie’s father’s desk.
A map of the region had been stretched out, marked with pins, her father’s precious eighteenth-century bronzes of Mars and Venus serving as paperweights.
Dreier looked at him with annoyance, and then said, “Oh, never mind. If he’s here, he’s here. Wait until you see!”
“Sir,” Max cut in, in his most Prussian tones. “I must protest. This is most irregular. If I may—”
“You may not.” The lenses of Hoffmeister’s spectacles glittered in the firelight. The people of Courcelles had spent the winter freezing, but Hoffmeister, who did not like the cold, had ordered a fire lit to warm the June morning. The selfishness made Aurélie sick with hatred. “Dreier? See what?”
“This!” Dreier looked down at his hand, which was occupied by the pistol. He dropped Aurélie’s arm and reached into his coat pocket. “I mean, this!”
He yanked the talisman from his pocket and for a moment they all stared transfixed at the sheer glory of it, the rubies and diamonds scintillating in the firelight, the wolf and the cross standing out boldly against the gold, the pride of Courcelles.
Kraus’s mouth hung open. Hoffmeister’s eyes were beady with greed. Dreier, preening with pride, let the pistol dangle.
And Aurélie, without stopping to think, barreled into Dreier with all her might, snatching at the talisman with her left hand. The gun tumbled to the floor as Dreier stumbled into a small footstool, and, with an almost comical look of surprise, fell backward, hitting the fire screen and crashing through it.
There was a moment when the world seemed to go still and then the screaming began, horrible, high-pitched screaming, as Dreier fell onto the fire, the arm of his uniform catching flame. Aurélie’s father dove for the pistol, and Kraus for Aurélie’s father, grabbing the count’s legs. And Dreier, like a human brand, rose to his feet, his back and arm flaming, stumbling this way and that, bumping into the hangings on the wall, mad with pain, screaming, screaming, screaming.