Murat lifted his sword, his arm perfectly framed by stark sunlight, and André blinked. Just then, a gust of wind picked up, whipping the sand like a cloud around them. Murat, facing outward while André was sheltered by the pyramid, paused momentarily, shielding his face. As he did so, André took his sword and slashed at the man’s shins, cutting through leather boots and breeches until he reached flesh and bone. Murat cried out in pain, buckling forward. André raised his sword and slashed a second time, this time tearing across the man’s kneecaps.
Murat, doubled over now, limped backward but his boots slipped on the sand-slicked stone. He fell to all fours, his knees buckling beneath him. He cried out in torturous pain as his wounded legs broke the full weight of his body against the sand and stone.
Unbelievably, however, Murat lifted himself to stand. Disarmed, and with both his shoulder and knees bleeding, he used his last weapon: his body. He threw himself down from the ledge, jumping onto André, his face bent on destruction, determined to destroy André, even if all he had left were his bare hands. As Murat flew down onto him, André lifted his sword so that the flesh of his attacker’s stomach met his steel blade. Murat fell onto André, knocking both of them backward. The sand broke André’s fall; André’s body and upturned sword broke Murat’s.
Stunned, André rolled the general off of him. He clambered to his knees, pulling his sword from Murat’s abdomen. André wiped the red blade clean on his pants and looked down at the general, the man’s mustache twitching as his features contorted in pain. It sounded as if he were trying to speak.
And then, after a few moments of tortured gurgling, the noises stopped issuing from the throat of Nicolai Murat. Those eyes, so cold and determined in life, looked back at André now with no hint of the hatred they had so long held; their gray, the color of the sea, seemed entirely out of place in this parched desert.
André collapsed, breathless, beside Murat. His entire body ached with exhaustion, and his leg throbbed as he tried to stand. Failing at that, he reached for his waterskin, but it had been torn off in the fight. His eyes watered and his vision began to blur. His body was oppressively heavy, and he felt an overwhelming desire to close his eyes and rest. He stared up at the sun and thought of home. As he slipped out of consciousness, he heard the rumble of hoofbeats; they sounded distant, as if in a dream. He could make out voices, unintelligible, but speaking his language all the same.
When André blinked his eyes open, he saw a familiar face hovering over him. “I always seem to appear when something important is about to happen—isn’t that what you said?” Ashar waved over two dragoons, and together they lifted André onto his friend’s horse, racing back toward the French lines, splashing water on him to keep him conscious.
As he bounced in the saddle, his body racked with pain and his mind as battered as the sandy battlefield, André carried one thought: Murat’s final words about Sophie. He cried out, and his companions assumed it to be the pain from his wounds. In truth, it was a pain much worse than any physical ache; was he too late to save not himself, but Sophie?
July 1798
“Answer me!” Jean-Luc paced the small prison hallway, his tone frantic. “Did you see which way the coach carrying Sophie de Vincennes went?”
The guard stared back at Jean-Luc, mute and unobliging.
Driven mad by frustration, Jean-Luc grabbed the guard by the collar of his coat. The man, stunned at this rough treatment, shut his eyes. “I don’t know,” he answered, his voice like a whimper. “Looked like they headed south, in the direction of the Hôtel de Ville, is my guess? But I didn’t get much of a look.”
Jean-Luc released his grip on the man, stepping out of the prison. Outside, the evening was warm. He felt a drop of moisture on his forehead, instinctively looking up. Just the time for the rain to start. He had taken several steps toward Rue Réaumur when a woman in a threadbare gown that barely covered her shoulders approached from the side alley. “All I ask is for enough to get a little something to eat, monsieur. I’ll make it worth your time, I will.”
Jean-Luc shook the woman’s hands away and wove down the narrow street toward the river. He sped up his pace, scowling, as the drizzle grew heavier.
The letter—the wicked, taunting letter—had implied that, whatever Lazare was planning to do to Sophie, he would orchestrate things in such a way that it appeared to be Jean-Luc’s doing. Would he take her from the city? Would he force her to marry him? Would he go as far as to harm her? Jean-Luc did not have any answers, nor did he know how much time he had. Enough time to check one, perhaps two locations. After that, he might be too late.