Page 27 of A Fierce Wind

Freddie wished he had prevailed upon her to remain behind though, from the start, he’d doubted his arguments would be successful. She was headstrong in her pursuit of a royalist victory. For that, he admired her, but she could be reckless, too. With her a part of his mission, he must be cautious.

They had walked some distance when he looked up to see a patch of blue sky above the dark treetops of the tall Scots pines around them. Not much light filtered down to the forest floor except in areas where the trees thinned.

Notwithstanding his counsel to his companions to tread lightly, their heavy footfalls snapped twigs and fallen branches, sounding to Freddie like a family of wild boar hoofing it through the woods.

He wondered if he should be sounding the cry of the tawny owl. Perhaps that is what the Chouans expected, why they waited to reveal themselves. He’d not seen any of the birds nor heard their distinctive cry, but that didn’t mean they weren’t guarding nests hidden among the foliage. He stopped, let go of Zoé’s hand and leaned his musket against the tree. Cupping his hands, he gave the cry of the female owl. Retrieving his musket, he proceeded forward, holding his breath.

With a suddenness that made him start, a half-dozen figures clothed in the colors of the forest soundlessly emerged from the trees to stand before him.

Zoé gave out a small gasp and Freddie placed himself in front of her, his hand lifting his musket, poised to fire.

“Are you le pêcheur, l’Anglais we were told to expect?” asked a leathery-faced man of great height who took a step toward him. Thankfully, the man had spoken French and not Breton.

Zoé came alongside Freddie, her brows rising as she turned to look at him. “Le pêcheur?”

“‘The fisherman’,” Freddie muttered. “D’Auvergne’s attempt at humor. ’Tis a reference to my friendship with the oystermen on Jersey. A code name, if you will.”

Freddie returned his attention to the Chouan spokesman. “Oui, I am the one you seek and these are my companions.”

The tall Chouan casually stood his musket on end and laid his forearm on the muzzle while he examined Freddie. With the bayonet rising above the muzzle, the man and the weapon were of the same height, taller than Freddie’s nearly six feet and that before one counted the Chouan’s wide-brimmed felt hat.

He cut a striking figure. Long chestnut hair hung to his shoulders encased in a woolen jacket of dark green over a linen shirt and green woolen waistcoat. His breeches were buckskin and around his waist was a white sash into which he had shoved two pistols with wooden handles. Displayed on his chest was the sacred heart patch of the Catholic and Royal Army. But unlike his men, whose shins were encased in gaiters splattered with mud and their feet shod in wooden sabots, the Chouan leader wore fine black boots and pinned to his hat was the white cockade of the Bourbons.

“And you,” the Chouan inquired of Zoé, “might you be the friend of Monsieur Henri?”

Freddie was not surprised the man’s discerning eye had recognized Zoé as a woman. Though, from a distance, some might judge her a young man, to Freddie’s mind, even in breeches, her delicate features and female curves made clear she was no boy.

“I am,” Zoé replied, her voice laced with pride, her chin rising slightly. “Mademoiselle Donet. And who might you be?”

Amusement danced in the Chouan’s dark eyes. Inclining his head, he said, “Georges Cadoudal, à votre service.”

Freddie had heard the name for it was one d’Auvergne had mentioned. A Breton politician of some consequence and a royalist who had been rescued from the Vendée. He now fought with the Chouans. Clearly no peasant by his dress, speech and manners.

Gesturing to Erwan and Gabe, Cadoudal asked Freddie, “And these two?”

“Erwan is a Breton. Like yourself, he is a surviving soldier of the Vendéen army.”

The Chouan chief’s brows rose with Freddie’s indication that he understood something of Cadoudal’s past.

“And Gabe,” Freddie went on, gesturing to the seaman, “is a trusted member of Monsieur Donet’s crew on the ship that brought us to Lorient.”

“Eh bien!” exclaimed the Chouan. “I am aware of M’sieur Donet. Your father, peut-être?” he asked Zoé.

“Mon oncle.”

Cadoudal smiled. “Votre oncle is of one mind with us. A friend of the royalists. Très bien, we go.” Tossing a glance at his men, but apparently judging it unnecessary to introduce them, the Chouan leader took his musket in hand and set off into the forest, his long legs setting a fast pace.

Freddie followed with Zoé close behind him. Erwan and Gabe guarded their backs and Cadoudal’s men brought up the rear.

They wove their way single file through the dense woods of pine, birch, oak and beech. The world around them became a sea of green. At one point, Freddie spotted a tawny owl peeking out between branches of an oak. If the circumstances had been different, with no republican soldiers to worry about, he might have enjoyed the excursion. Frequently, he glanced back at Zoé to see if she was tiring and to offer her a drink from his waterskin. His spirited companion drank the water, never pausing or complaining.

As the trail narrowed, Freddie looked back over his shoulder and saw no trace of their having traveled the path.

After what seemed to Zoé like hours of trudging through the woods, the tall Chouan suddenly stopped. Glad for the pause, however brief, Zoé removed her hat and wiped her forehead. The sun was high overhead but its light was diffused among the oak trees where they stood.

Lifting his cupped hands to his mouth, Cadoudal made a sharp “kew-wick” sound.

Freddie shot her a glance as if to confirm what he had told her before they left Guernsey, that the Chouans used an owl’s call as a signal.