“Neither can I, madame, I honestly cannot. But tell me this: If you cannot get your boy back without destroying his welfare, then what do you intend?”

“In pondering this very question I have hesitated, and in hesitating I have only made matters worse. Soon I shall act.”

“And what is the end you have fixed on?”

“I mean to end up, in some sense, with my boot on the neck of Lothar von Hacklheber, and him looking up helpless into my eyes.”

“Well. Well! Let me just say that the last bloke who had me in such a fix was the Earl of Upnor, and-”

“My powers of organization exceed those of the late Upnor by a significant margin, and so I intend to arrange matters so that I will not end up being beaten to death with a stick by an Irishman.”

“Ah. That is good news.”

“Tell me everything about what is being prepared around Cherbourg, Sergeant Shaftoe, whether you intend for it to be relayed to Marlborough, or not.”

“Very well. But how will this intelligence be of any help to you in your machinations against-oh, never mind. You’re glowering at me.”

“You speak so knowingly of my machinations, as if I were some ridiculous figure in an Italian opera, who does naught but machinate; yet if you could follow me about, you would observe a tired mother who follows her husband from Versailles to St.-Malo, and suckles her infant, and occasionally throws a dinner party, and perhaps once or twice a year fucks a cryptologist in a carriage, or a sergeant in a haystack.”

“How will this lead to your boot on Lothar’s throat again? Never mind, never mind. I’m certain I’d never understand it anyway.”

“You are in good company. If I do it right, not even Lothar will understand it.”

Chateau d’Arcachon, St.-Malo, France

11 APRIL 1692

“THE ENGLISH HAVE DEVISED an extraordinary scheme for the military defense of their homeland, which is that they have no money,” said Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, controleur-general of France and (now) Secretary of State for the Navy.

This curious gambit was meant for Eliza, for Pontchartrain was gazing directly into her eyes when he came out with it. But others were privy to the conversation. Five were seated around the basset-table in the Petit Salon: besides Eliza and Pontchartrain, there were Etienne d’Arcachon, who was serving as dealer; a Madame de Bearsul, who was the very young wife of a captain of a frigate; and a Monsieur le chevalier d’Erquy, who was from just down the coast. These latter two were, of course, unique souls, precious in the eyes of God, endowed with any number of more or less interesting personal quirks, virtues, vices, amp;c., but Eliza could scarcely tell them apart from all of the other people who were at this moment seated around card-tables in her Petit Salon, playing at billiards or backgammon in her Grand Salon, bowling outside on her damp lawn, or noodling around on her harpsichord.

This was St.-Malo in the spring of ’92. An invasion force was massing. It would quite obviously be departing from Cherbourg, which was only half as far from the shore of England as was St.-Malo; but facilities there, at the tip of the peninsula, were not adequate to sustain so many ships and regiments during the weeks it would take for them to gather and draw up into a coherent force. The regiments-ten thousand French and as many Irish, the latter evacuated from Limerick-were obviously not as mobile as the ships, and so they had first claim to the territory, food, fuel, whores, and other military musts in the immediate vicinity of Cherbourg. By process of elimination, then, the ships of the Channel fleet, and the galleys of the Mediterranean fleet that had lately passed the Gates of Hercules and voyaged north to take part in the invasion, were stationed in Channel ports within striking distance: most important, Le Havre and St.-Malo. Of those, Le Havre was twice as close to Paris, and a hundred times easier to reach from there, since the Seine joined them. So, much larger and more fashionable parties must, at this moment, be going on in noble chateaux around Le Havre. St.-Malo, by contrast, was hardly connected to France at all. A doughty pedestrian like Sergeant Bob Shaftoe could get to it, but such a journey was not recommended for normal people; everyone came to St.-Malo by sea. The family de Lavardac had for a long time maintained a chateau, which looked out over the harbor to one side, and had farms and an excellent potagerie out back. As the fortunes of that family had waxed, this had become the grandest house in St.-Malo, and the former duc d’Arcachon had loved to come here and pace to and fro on the terrace with a golden prospective-glass gazing down upon his privateer-fleet. Eliza had heard much of the place. Having spent most of her married life pregnant at La Dunette, she’d never laid eyes on it until a month ago. But she’d loved it immediately and now wished she could live here year-round.