He was, she knew, deliberately baiting them—no, baiting her father. She could see him look at her father as he said it, waiting for him to react.
They said, in Le Catelet, the major had shot men out of hand, for doing no more than object.
“Wine, major?” In the dining room—the proper dining room—there was a painting, a lush Renaissance affair, all burgeoning grapes and equally burgeoning breasts, of Judith seducing Holofernes, the conquering general who had enslaved her people, pouring wine into his goblet as he ogled her cleavage.
The major didn’t ogle. He didn’t even acknowledge. He let Aurélie fill his glass as though she were a servant and then stood, clanking a spoon against his glass.
He did not, she noticed, drink.
“You have all been summoned here to receive instruction,” he said, without preamble. “I am Etappen Kommandant Major Hoffmeister. This region is under my control. You will report here every day at precisely seven in the morning for orders.”
One man was unwise enough to speak up. “Every morning? It is an hour’s walk from Villeret!”
The man at Hoffmeister’s left, the tall man with the crown of red hair, called out, “Then you had best start early!”
Hoffmeister didn’t dignify either man with a response. Instead, he went on as though he had never been interrupted, “All weapons will be surrendered immediately. The penalty for concealing a weapon is death. That, Monsieur le Comte, includes you.”
“Would you like the shepherd boy’s slingshot?” the count inquired politely. “The kitchen knives, perhaps.”
“All weapons,” Hoffmeister snapped. “You will surrender your swords, and your rifles, and your slingshots. A full list will be provided to you to be posted in your villages. You will also receive lists of goods to be delivered to the castle. You will provide the required amount of cheese, wine, and wheat. Do not think you can fool us by holding anything back. All homes will be searched.”
Aurélie didn’t miss the uneasy looks being exchanged. It was rumored that the mayor of Hargival had quite a cache of wine stored in his cellar. But it wasn’t the wine that concerned her. Absently, she rubbed the calluses on her palms, picturing the bales of wheat, the wheat she had worked so hard and so clumsily to harvest, so that her people might not starve come winter. The people of the village had given all they could spare to the French soldiers that had come through, first in August, then again in September.
She could see the rustles and murmurings, but none of the men would speak out, not with the major’s soldiers standing along the walls and all the might of Germany behind them.
“If you take their wheat, these men will starve.” Aurélie was still holding the carafe and felt like a baroque rendering of Plenty, or something equally absurd. But someone had to speak out, and it seemed it must be she. “The people of this village cannot live without bread.”
“Let them eat cake, then. That is what your people say, isn’t it?”
“Marie Antoinette,” retorted Aurélie, “was an Austrian.”
The local men liked that. The major didn’t. “You aristocrats,” he said slowly, “you are not known for tender sympathy for your people. Would you give your bread so they might not starve, Mademoiselle de Courcelles?”
“If it comes to that. Yes.”
For a moment, she thought the major meant to strike her. But he caught himself in time. “I forgot. You Catholics revel in martyrdom. All of your saints shot full of arrows—or burned at the stake.”
In the back of the room, Monsieur le Curé looked nervous. He had always been more interested in his collection of curios than in martyrdom.
The major grasped the crucifix Suzanne had hung about Aurélie’s neck, pulling it forward so that Aurélie was forced to come with it, or allow the chain to snap. “What bauble is this? Is this the notorious talisman of Courcelles?”
He gave the chain a tug and the thin links snapped, leaving him holding the crucifix in his hand.
“Well?” Hoffmeister demanded. “Is this it?”
Aurélie took a rapid step back, resisting the urge to rub her neck, where a thin, red welt had begun to form.
“The talisman,” said the count, “is with the lady countess. In Paris.”
Or, at least, it was meant to be. Aurélie was very glad she had never told her father otherwise.
“That is what you would say, isn’t it?” said the major, and thrust Suzanne’s silver-gilt cross deep in his pocket. To Aurélie, he said, “Well, what are you doing standing there? Dreier’s glass is empty.”