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She folded her hands behind her back and contemplated the nearest cannon. Apparently she had sisters.

The streets grew more crowded as they descended toward the lower town. Staff officers rode past carrying dispatch cases. Orderlies waited outside doorways. Wagons creaked toward the river. The army seemed less like an organization than an enormous creature whose separate organs had occupied the town and were now trying to remember how they fitted together.

Gérard pointed to the infantrymen ahead. Their blue coats were dusty from the road. The great bearskins lacked the plumes and cords that would have made them magnificent on parade. Scarlet epaulets marked their shoulders. White crossbelts cut across blue wool. Some leaned against their muskets.

One soldier said something to another. The second man laughed without opening his eyes.

"The Old Guard," she breathed.

Gérard nodded. "La Garde est là. La victoire est à nous."

The Guard was here. Victory was theirs. Louise looked down the line of battered bearskins and weathered faces. These were the men her father kept until the end. The last reserve. If the Old Guard was still standing, Napoleon had not lost. Around them stretched an army gathering for battle, Prussians somewhere ahead, Wellington somewhere beyond them, Europe once more arranging itself against her father.

Let it. The Old Guard was here.

They arrived at a house large enough to belong to a prosperous man. Staff horses crowded the street before it. Two grenadiers stood sentry outside.

Gérard paused. "Château Puissant. The Emperor's headquarters."

The street continued around Louise. Horses stamped. Spurs struck stone. Somewhere a man shouted for an orderly.

Behind that door was Napoleon Bonaparte. Every mile she had traveled had contracted into that one door. Louise's heart struck against her ribs. She had walked twenty paces when a voice struck across the street.

"D'Arc, Diable! Where do you think you are going?"

Louise stopped so abruptly that the heel of her boot scraped over stone.

De Brissac bore down upon her through the crowd. He clapped one hand across her shoulder with enough enthusiasm to drive Louise half an inch into the ground.

Louise brought her heels together, as Gérard did, and straightened. "You requested to see me, sir?"

De Brissac blushed. The man actually blushed. She had watched him curse artillery, threaten quartermasters, and discuss the possibility of being shot with less visible distress.

"Lieutenant d'Arc. Morbleu, there you are. Wipe that damned look off your face. I have just come from Marshal Soult's headquarters, and by all the saints and devils, your name came up."

Louise gasped. Her head turned toward the crowd. Rodrick. She searched shakos, cavalry green, dark heads, broad shoulders. She could not find him. Had someone discovered her?

"Me?"

"Yes. You, you reckless, flag-snatching lunatic. And before you open your mouth—don't. I have no patience left for whatever noble nonsense you plan to dress your idiocy in."

"…Sir, I—"

"I said not a word, unless you fancy testing how far my temper stretches today. A most curious conversation, I assure you. As I was saying before you interrupted me, your name came up like a bad smell in a closed room."

Louise's palms began to sweat inside her gloves. "I accept full responsibility, sir."

"You had better, because I refuse to carry it for you. Soult asked me for a name. One officer. One man in this entire pack of magnificent idiots who might be worth more than the boots he's wearing. For the Légion d'honneur. And may the devil choke me for it, I gave him yours."

Her heart gave one enormous beat and then disappeared altogether.

Her mouth had fallen open. She knew because the afternoon air touched her tongue. Yet she seemed to have lost control of her lips.

The Légion d'honneur. Her father had created it to reward service and courage.

De Brissac's scowl deepened. "Stop staring like you've been struck by lightning. You will present yourself tomorrow. To the Emperor. He will pin it on you himself—provided you manage not to disgrace me between now and then."

De Brissac turned on one heel and stalked away.