“I thank you for your report.” Bonaparte raised a hand as he fixed an intense stare on his much taller subordinate. “And I will remind you again that matters of strategy are not counted among your duties. You will leave that to me.”
“Sir,” Dumas continued undeterred, “my soldiers and this expedition are suffering, and our situation grows worse by the day. Furthermore, it’s suffering that is unnecessary and entirely avoidable. I firmly request—”
“Enough!” General Bonaparte pounded his desk with his fist, his face turning crimson. Dumas stood rigid before him, unmoving. The tension inside the tent was now almost unbearable, and André wondered whether this confrontation would turn violent. After a moment, the commander turned his head and signaled to the assembled officers. “Thank you, gentlemen, that will be all. Now get out. You”—he signaled a hand toward Dumas—“you stay.”
The officers quickly shuffled out of the tent, few daring to speak even after they had exited into the cool evening. As André turned back toward his billet he could hear muffled shouts coming from the command tent. He admired General Dumas for speaking so frankly on behalf of the men but imagined any dissent to be futile at this stage.
He noticed the soft sound of footsteps trailing behind him and turned. “Who’s there?”
A figure approached, concealed by the darkness of the desert night. “So it is you, Valière.” The voice kindled instant recognition. Murat.
André had not seen the man up close during the long march, not since the shooting on the riverbank. He felt tempted now to reach for his sword but suppressed the urge. He took a breath and turned to face his tormentor. “General Murat, good evening.”
The two men looked at each other as the shadows from the surrounding tents and campfires flickered around them. “So, now that you are Major Valière, you attend our commander’s briefings. You’ve always seemed to put yourself into the thick of it.”
André forced a tight-lipped, bitter smile. “Despite being denounced, imprisoned, and losing my family, I am still here, General.”
“I must admit, a very small part of me almost admires you.” Murat rubbed the hilt of his sword. “You’re not easily broken.”
André remained silent; he did not intend to antagonize his tormenter on the eve of a great battle, but he felt a steady surge of painful memory as he stood so close to the man who had taken everything from him. Part of him hoped that the coming storm would be final, for one of them.
Murat shifted his weight, peering out over the vast, darkened landscape. “You think I hate you because of your affection for my Sophie.” For the first time since André could remember—perhaps in their entire acquaintance—Murat acknowledged the woman they both cared for, the woman whose love André would no longer deny.
André crossed his arms before his chest, the sound of her name spoken aloud stirring his blood. “In truth, I don’t know why you hate me, General.”
When Murat leaned close, his gray eyes caught a glint of light, shining with a hatred that disarmed André. “I won’t let another Valière take my loved one from me…not this time. Not ever again.” The general hissed this threat, but his words gave André no further understanding or clarity.
André broke from his commander’s gaze, his mind spinning. He accuses me of taking his loved ones, André thought to himself, utterly confounded. Suddenly, blinking, he saw the faces of those he loved clearly in his mind’s eye: His father, reading in his study, distant and dignified, aristocratic to the very end. His mother, walking with her boys in the orchards behind their estate, her laughter mingling with early-morning birdsong. Remy, smiling, a mischievous shimmer in his eye as he charmed his way out of trouble. Jean-Luc St. Clair, his friend, earnest and steadfast though all the world crumbled around him. Sophie. Always, Sophie. André had no idea where she was or how she fared in this mad world, but if she was alive, then he knew he must somehow find a way back to her. As long as he still breathed, he would fight to return to her, to the only home he had left.
Murat took a step closer, and André’s thoughts clamored back to the present. Murat was just before him, his face inches away. André could smell the odor of the general’s weathered uniform. “Do you have any idea what he did? What your old man did?”
Before André could stammer out a confused reply, both men were startled by the interruption of a third voice. “Everything all right here?”