The coachman pulled on the reins, bumping the carriage off the road and onto the verge. He shouted at the horses, cracking the whip above their ears, and the carriage seemed to surge and heave its way over the wet ground, yet whip the horses as he could, the coachman knew the carriage was slowing.
The rear of the coach dipped and Saumier, opening the door to lean out, saw people clinging to the baggage rack. He threatened them with his pistol, but their weight had slowed the carriage too much, the wheels were already sinking into the morass, and, slowly, finally, it stopped.
Saumier swore.
A dozen people were running towards the horses, knives drawn to cut the traces and use the animals for their own escape. He reached for La Marquesa, politeness forgotten, and pulled her out of the coach. `Come on!’
The maid was hunched into a corner, refusing to go out into the panicked mass of people. La Marquesa, made of sterner stuff, jumped onto the wet ground. Saumier saw she had a pistol. `Stop them!’
A man was hacking at the silver trace chains of the horses. La Marquesa aimed at him, her teeth gritted, pulled the trigger, and the man screamed, blood spurting from his neck, and Captain Saumier, his own pistol thrust into his sling, finished the man’s Work by hacking down with his sabre. He led the horse from the harness. `My Lady?’
`Wait!’ She had climbed onto the driver’s seat, lifted the coachman’s bench, and now dragged a leather sack from the compartment beneath. She gestured Saumier to lead his horse closer, then, modesty gone and not caring who saw her legs, she slithered across from the driving perch onto the horse’s back. Saumier climbed up behind La Marquesa and shook the long driving rein with his good hand. Behind them, sabres raised, the British cavalry swept towards the road block. The coachman had taken another horse and galloped eastwards.
Saumier kicked back with his heels and the horse, frightened and lively, went into a gallop that took them past the stuck wagons. La Marquesa, mourning the fact that she had been forced to abandon all her belongings and her wealth, saw the soldiers and their women scattering silver dollars on the ground and scrambling at the wagons for more plunder. There were riches to be made here this day, but the British were coming fast from the west, and she would ride eastwards to safety. Saumier, the bandage on his eye flecked with mud thrown up by the hooves, took her to the north of the road and galloped onwards.
Pierre Ducos, in the stables of the French headquarters, had kept a swift, English horse taken from a captured officer. He had mounted it when disaster struck, had taken his precious papers, and was already a mile beyond the blockage on the road. He paused where the road climbed a small rise and looked behind.
A rabble swarmed towards him.
Soldiers, bloody soldiers! Trust the soldiers to lose a country which could have been kept by politics and guile. He smiled thinly. He did not feel any desperate sadness at defeat. He had become used to military defeat while in Spain. Wellington against the Emperor, he thought, that would be a battle worth seeing! Like ice meeting fire, or intelligence meeting genius.
He turned east again. He had planned for defeat, and now France would find its salvation in his plans. The fine intricate machine he had wrought, the Treaty of Valencay, would be needed after all. He smiled thinly, spurred his horse, and rode towards the greatness he had so long planned.
Saumier had chosen to go north of the road, well clear of the panic, but he had chosen wrong. A great ditch faced him, full of dirty water, but without a saddle and with the horse double-ridden, he knew he could not jump it. He slid from the horse’s back. `Stay there, my Lady.’
`I’d not planned on leaving you, Captain.’
Saumier gripped the long driving reins with the fingers of his injured arm and walked to the ditch’s edge. He plumbed it with his sabre and found that it was shallow, but with a soft, treacherous bottom. `Sit tight, my Lady! Hold onto the collar!’