As soon as they passed the last house, the company left the road and followed the pilgrim trail that wound through the hills between La Robla and León. The path, faint in places, meandered between stands of chestnut and beech. The riflemen spread out, two moving ahead under Lieutenant Goulding’s direction, their green jackets blending with the shadows beneath the trees. Elizabeth felt the landscape change around them: the valley fell away behind, replaced by broken ridges and abruptescarpments. Here and there, stone crosses marked the way, moss-covered and ancient, reminders of the countless feet that had trodden this route. Georgiana, pale but resolute, pressed on beside Lydia, who clung to her arm as the track grew steeper. Darcy and Fitzwilliam kept a steady pace at their rear, ever alert, eyes sweeping the hillside for any flicker of movement that might betray a hidden threat.
The sun, now fully risen, broke through scattered clouds, throwing moving shadows across the trail. The riflemen’s boots scuffed against loose shale, and the occasional cough of a rifle sling shifting was the only sound to disturb the hush. It felt to Elizabeth as though the world had narrowed to this ribbon of earth, this fragile party threading its way through a wild and ancient land.
After an hour’s march, Don Mateo called a halt beneath a stand of pines. “From here,” he said quietly, “the trail climbs to the pass. We must keep to the ridges—French patrols are less likely to venture there. If we are seen, do not run. Keep together and move quickly, but quietly.”
Elizabeth looked to Georgiana and Lydia, reading the fatigue on their faces but also the stubborn resolve. “Can you continue?” she said softly, and received two determined nods in return.
The party pressed onward, the ground rising ever more steeply. Once, the sharp crack of a distant shot startled them all. The riflemen melted into the brush, tense and ready, but the hills swallowed the sound and no enemy appeared. They waited, hearts pounding, before Don Mateo signalled that all was clear and they hurried on.
As the afternoon lengthened, the trail curved along a shoulder of bare rock, giving them, for a moment, an unbroken view of the vast plain stretching toward León. Smoke from distant villages rose in pale columns. Somewhere out there,French columns were on the march. But for now, in the high country, the small party pressed on.
At last, as the sun dipped behind the highest ridge, Don Mateo pointed to a cluster of ruined stone buildings half-hidden in a fold of the hillside. “We’ll rest there,” he said. “It was once a pilgrim’s shelter. Tonight, it will serve us well enough.”
They stumbled into the broken walls, grateful for the chance to drop their packs and share the bread gifted to them in La Robla. Elizabeth found herself smiling at Lydia and Georgiana, pride and relief mingling in her breast. The worst, she hoped, was behind them—though she knew, as she met Darcy’s thoughtful gaze, that the journey was far from over.
* * *
It was late afternoon when they came to the high ridge above León. Below them, the city sprawled, its ancient walls casting long shadows. But it was not the city that held their eyes. It was the smoke rising from the low ground beyond, where the French had made their camp.
Colonel Fitzwilliam shifted at Darcy’s side, his boots scattering dew from the tufts of grass. He stood rigid, his jaw set, the lines of his face deepened by fatigue and unease. He was not a man given to nerves, but this evening he stared at the French fires as though they were an omen.
Don Mateo, the partisan leader, crouched on his haunches near the edge of the ridge. His eyes, dark and sharp as a hawk’s, missed nothing. More partisans had joined them during the morning. They now waited below, scattered among the boulders, their muskets primed and their faces wary. Will Goulding’s riflemen took what rest they could, lying out of sight just beyond the ridgeline. Elizabeth came up to stand beside Darcy, staring down at the town, flinching when she saw the French camp.Soldiers in blue coats clustered about the fires, pickets posted along the roads, cavalry horses stamping and steaming in the chill.
“Damnation,” muttered Colonel Fitzwilliam. There were more soldiers than he had expected. Far more. Tents stretched in ragged rows, musket stacks gleamed, pennants fluttered in the wind. Caffarelli’s division—the damnedArmy of the North—was not supposed to be here at all.
“By rights,” Fitzwilliam muttered, “he should be to the east, guarding the road to Burgos. Not in León.” He spat, an angry, frustrated sound. “What in God’s name is he doing here?”
Don Mateo shrugged, a typically Spanish gesture—shoulders up, palms spread, as if to say the world was a fool’s game and none could know its rules. “They are foxes, Colonel. They come where they like. Perhaps they know you are here.”
“Not likely, though I take it as a compliment that Napoleon has sent an army to catch just three English ladies. Perhaps, Darcy, we should send for Aunt Catherine—if Georgiana and Miss Bennet require a division to be taken, perhaps Lady Catherine would rout the whole of Napoleon’s armies in Spain.” Fitzwilliam laughed, but his voice held no mirth.
Darcy said nothing, watching the French. He noted the artillery pieces, lined up outside the city wall—he counted fifty guns. He saw the wagons, the endless lines of shivering conscripts, the officers striding among them.
“It is more than just Caffarelli,” he said, “there are too many guns for one division. Is that not Bonnet’s pennant also?”
Fitzwilliam cursed again. “Pardon, Miss Bennet, I did not see you there.”
“It is nothing, Colonel,” said Elizabeth, “but would two divisions be tasked with fighting Santoclides’s army in Galicia? Even I cannot think that is the purpose of the French.”
A flock of crows rose from a copse near the river, startled by some movement below. Darcy followed the line of the road, saw a patrol of French dragoons picking their way through the ruins of an orchard, muskets slung, swords loose in their scabbards. They looked cold and sullen, but alert. They had not come here to rest.
Fitzwilliam cursed again, louder this time. “This is wrong,” he said. “It is all wrong. The last intelligence we received in England was that Bonnet was content to stay in Santander and leave the fight to Marmont’sArmy of Portugal.”
Don Mateo grinned, showing broken teeth. “The French are clever, Colonel. But not clever enough to keep their heads when the knives come out. My men can harry their supply lines, strike at their foragers. We can make them bleed for every loaf of bread. I do not fear these armies, for they will surely starve, for there is little forage in the plains around León.”
Fitzwilliam scowled. “You are correct, Don Mateo. They cannot remain here for very long. I feel there is some trickery that Lord Wellington has not anticipated.”
“They are here for a reason,” muttered Darcy. “We must find out what it is.”
Below them, the city stirred. Church bells rang, thin and tuneless. Darcy saw women at the wells, children darting through the streets. The French moved among them, not quite at ease—occupiers, not conquerors. There was a tension in the air, a sense of something about to break.
Don Mateo rose, brushing dirt from his knees. “Give me a day, Colonel. I will send my best men into the city. They will learn what Bonnet and Caffarelli are about.”
Fitzwilliam hesitated, then nodded. “Do it, Mateo. But be careful. If the French catch your men, there will be no mercy.”
The Spaniard’s grin widened. “There is never mercy, Colonel. Not in this war.”
Darcy watched the French camp, his mind racing. Caffarelli’s presence at León was a puzzle, a piece out of place. The French were not fools—they would not have sent an entire army here unless there was something worth defending. Or something worth attacking.
