Page 5 of A Fierce Wind

“Oui, I know. But since the Vendéens’ defeat, the republican army controls Granville. If you are going ashore, you must look the part. Your French is quite good for an Englishman but your disguise must also convince.”

“Very well,” he had told her. “I will do as you say.” He rarely went to such lengths when on his own missions, but she knew none of that. “How many émigrés will you be meeting tonight?”

“At least three, possibly four. Madame de Montconseil, princesse d’Hénin, a guillotine widow and former lady-in-waiting to the dead queen, will bring her two children. There was also mention of a maidservant.”

“An illustrious refugee.”

“Aye. And there’s no guessing when Oncle Jean might return.”

Donet had gone to Paris to rescue two Ursuline nuns from Saint-Denis where they had once led a convent school. Not content with beheading royalty and aristocrats, the leaders of the revolution had become more virulent in their view of the Church, vowing to destroy it. Houses of worship, cloisters and monasteries were gutted and burned, their lands seized. Priests and nuns were attacked, imprisoned and slain.

The two nuns Donet meant to save had been in hiding since the September Massacres two years before when more than a thousand prisoners, including two hundred priests, had been brutally slain by an angry mob. Word had reached Donet on Guernsey that some Ursulines had been sent to the guillotine and he wanted to make sure these two would not face that same fate.

Freddie had considered the plans to retrieve the refugees tonight. “With you, the women and the men to row, the skiff will be nearly full.”

Zoé had given him an angelic smile. “Oui, the boat will be crowded, but if I am successful, four souls will be saved.” He was dismayed at how blithely she dismissed so great a danger. It had made him more determined to accompany her.

The sound of the sails flapping gently as the ship bobbed in the still water drew Freddie back to the present. The damp air carried a chill. He pressed his tricorne down on his head and drew his arms around him, wondering how long he would be venturing into Granville’s cold nights. How long could the Terror continue?

What had begun as a means to strike fear in the hearts of France’s enemies soon became a hunt for anyone accused of disloyalty. Death carts rolled incessantly through the streets on their way to the guillotines erected in every major town. For some revolutionaries, the guillotine was too slow. Hundreds of priests and nuns had been cast into the Loire and drowned. Others had been shot.

After the Vendéens had fled south, retreating back to their own lands, the Committee of Public Safety, now effectively ruling France, had sent General Turreau into the Vendée with orders to “leave nobody and nothing alive”.

Turreau’s colonnes infernales, the “infernal columns”, were still crisscrossing the Vendée, killing thousands of men, women and children and burning all they encountered.

With reports of such horrors reaching him each day, Freddie despaired of the Terror ending anytime soon.

Bequel turned to face the crew on deck, interrupting Freddie’s thoughts. “Éric, Bastien! Rig a cable to the bow. Stand by to pass it off to the skiff when it arrives. Silencieusement, c’est entendu?”

The crew scrambled to comply with the quartermaster’s order, minding the command to do so without making a sound.

Turning back to Freddie, Bequel said, “In this fog, ye understand, we do not exist. The skiff will become our little donkey and tow us out of the harbor and into the Channel.”

Looking toward shore, Freddie brooded into the fog. He hoped the continued disquiet that roiled his stomach did not mean the woman he vowed to protect with his life, the woman he hoped to one day make his wife, was facing imminent danger.

Why had she gone without him?

“Take citoyenne Montconseil to the skiff,” Zoé instructed Erwan. “I will be along shortly.”

Erwan shook his head, about to protest, but then he looked at the children, their frightened faces anxiously gazing up at their mother. He knew as well as Zoé if they traveled to her uncle’s apartment together, the sound of so many feet would attract unwanted attention. Alone, she could move undetected, like a wraith, wending her way through the darkened streets, leaving Erwan to take his charges directly to the skiff.

“Go!” she prodded.

He gave her a last concerned look, then ushered the women and children outside into the foggy street.

Zoé waited until the small group silently moved away before setting off in the opposite direction.

She paused before an inconspicuous wooden door on the narrow street that led to the rooms her uncle had secured a few years ago. Located close to the dockside taverns and supervised by a fierce landlady with royalist sympathies, the location served their purposes well.

Zoé hoped her uncle had arrived, though he would be earlier than expected if he had. Outside the apartment, she looked for the signal that would tell her he was there. Relief flooded her when she glimpsed the small piece of blue ribbon wedged between two stones.

She retrieved the ribbon, knocked twice and the door opened. She slipped in like a shadow to be greeted by her uncle, sword in hand. He was clothed all in black, save for the tricolor cockade pinned to his tricorne.

With a look of recognition, he returned his sword to its sheath and lit a candle, adding to the light from the flames flickering in the stone fireplace. The room had a small area for preparing food along with a table and chairs. Their landlady often left food and wine when she knew to expect them. Two cots were set against the opposite wall, sleeping places for her uncle and Gabe, his former cabin boy and now an experienced seaman, who accompanied him on many of his runs. But this one her uncle had made alone.

Casting her a worried look, he chided, “I was beginning to think you had encountered… difficulty.” Difficulty meant republican soldiers that patrolled the streets in pairs.

“Non. I have just left Erwan. He is taking the ones we met tonight to the skiff. Saints be praised, you are early. Have you recovered the nuns?”