Where the Light Falls(125)

“And here I was trying to forgive you.”

Jean-Luc spit on the ground close to the old man’s shoes. “Piss on your forgiveness.”

Lazare sighed, rubbing his gloved hands together, his voice staying calm. “So this is the gratitude I receive? For pulling you up out of the gutter, making you something greater than you were. Bringing you into the company of important men. You’ve thrown away my friendship over a woman and her pitiful lover?”

Jean-Luc gasped out a guttural exhale. “This is madness, and I’ve had quite enough.” He stepped up onto the curb, shoving past the old man. But Lazare had not finished.

“I still want André de Valière’s head. And I’ll have it.”

Jean-Luc paused, hovering outside the tavern door. He turned around, wrestling with the urge to rush toward the man and throttle him. But Lazare’s words cut him short. “I will have it. And then, once I’ve done away with him, I shall begin to tighten the noose.”

Lazare looked Jean-Luc squarely in the eyes now, his steady gaze impervious to the giving or receiving of emotion. His eyes spoke of one thing only: his raw, unwavering determination.

“You see, Citizen St. Clair, I will offer you one last lesson. And then I think I am quite done teaching you. Here it is, so listen closely: Murat sought simply to kill his enemies. He wanted to settle some old grievance, a feud he had with Old Man de Valière, by punishing the subsequent generation.” Lazare waved a hand dismissively. “But I, I told him that that was much too easy. Death ends pain, you see? You do not merely kill your enemies; you must first make them suffer. You must take from them everything they hold dear. So, with that said, I have a question for you, Jean-Luc St. Clair: should I begin with Marie or Mathieu?”





July 1798

André had never truly known thirst before the march through Egypt.

Alexandria had fallen quickly, its sentries caught unaware and ill-equipped to fend off the French cannons and rifles that bombarded the walls of the city.

Their principal objective would be Cairo, which lay almost two hundred kilometers inland, on the southern side of a punishing stretch of barren desert. This desert was Bedouin-controlled territory, inhabited by fierce and dreaded tribes of nomadic warriors who neither acknowledged nor feared these strangely uniformed foreigners. But the most lethal enemy on that march, André suspected, would be the relentless sun. The daytime heat of the first few days was unlike anything André or any of his comrades had ever experienced.

André found Ashar on the beach the day before they were to set out from Alexandria. The Egyptian’s face was blank, an inscrutable mask, as he looked out over the horizon. “Why do you side with us, the French, against your own people, Ashar?” André asked.

Ashar’s dark eyes were steady, without expression, as he turned to face André. After a long pause, he answered André’s question with an evasive statement: “Your general, Napoleon Bonaparte, intends to make war with the Mamelukes.”

“Yes?”

“Tribal warriors, horsemen, who rule the interior of my country.”

“And so I ask you again: why would you fight with the French?” Implicit in André’s question, though he did not say it outright, was: how can we trust you?

“Because the Mamelukes are not Egyptian,” Ashar answered, matter-of-factly. “They are Ottoman, or at least they come from somewhere ruled by them. They are foreign invaders, just as you are. But they rule my country as a wolf would rule a flock of sheep, taking and devouring whatever they wish. From what I have seen of them and of your people, I believe the French would show more mercy to my people than those barbarians have done.”

“You must have never been to Paris,” André replied with a half smile, though it quickly faded as he thought of home and all those who had perished over the previous years.

“Captain Valière!” A horseman approached, offering André a brisk salute. “Sir, you are to report to the command tent of General Dumas immediately. Your promotion orders are complete and the general would like to issue them to you personally.”

“My promotion?” André stared at the man for a moment, wondering whether this was some sort of ruse.

“Yes, sir.” The soldier saluted André, then remounted his saddle.

Ashar looked at him with his typically sly smile. “Perhaps your fortunes have finally begun to turn.”

André ran a hand through his hair and exhaled a long, deep breath. “Major Valière.”

“Yes, sir,” the messenger said. “You’re to be assigned to the cavalry, under Generals Dumas and Murat.”