“Damn,” muttered Wellington. “If the French have her, they'll wring every scrap of knowledge out of her. She knows how to navigate every goddamned mountain pass from here to Bayonne, and what she doesn't know about the partisans in the area isn't worth knowing.”
“We'd better get her out, then,” the colonel drawled as if it were a foregone conclusion, replacing the dispatch on the table. “We can't allow Johnny Crapaud to have information we don't have.”
“No,” agreed Wellington, stroking his chin. “If La Violette's already shared her knowledge with the French, then we'll be at a significant disadvantage if she can't be induced to give it to us too.”
“Why do the French call her that?” inquired the major. “The Spanish call her Violeta, too.”
“It's the way she works, as I understand it,” Colonel St. Simon said, a sardonic note in his voice. “Or rather, plays… the proverbial shrinking violet. She's always to be found hiding behind the activities of the large partisan bands. While the French army is concentrating on guerrilla activities, the little violet and her band are flourishing in the background, causing merry mayhem where least expected.”
“And feathering her own nest while she's about it,” Wellington remarked. “She's said to have no time for the armies of either side, and while she'll assist the Spanish partisans, she expects to be paid for her help… or at least to be put in the way of a little profitable pillage.”
“A mercenary, in other words,” the major said, with a grimace of distaste.
“Precisely. But I gather the French find even less favor with her than our good selves. At least she's never offered to help the French, for any price.” The commander in chief kicked at a falling log in the hearth.
“Until now,” observed the colonel. “They may be offering her the right price at this moment.” He was a big man, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, with a pair of startling blue eyes beneath bushy red-gold eyebrows. His hair was a thick mane of the same color, an unruly lock flopping over a wide forehead. He carried himself with all the natural authority of a man born to wealth and privilege, a man unaccustomed to questioning the established order of things. A cavalry officer's pelisse was cast carelessly over his scarlet tunic, a massive curved sword sheathed in a broad studded sword belt at his hip. He surged with a restless energy, seeming too big for the confined space.
“I've heard it said, my lord, that the name also comes from La Violette's appearance,” the aide-de-camp ventured. “I understand she resembles the flower.”
“Good God, man!” The colonel's scornful laughter pealed through the dingy room. “She's a ruthless, murdering bandit who, when it suits her whim, chooses for a price to put her dubious services at the partisans' disposal.”
Discomfited, the aide-de-camp shuffled his feet, but the major said briskly, “No, St. Simon, the man's right. I've heard it said, also. I gather she's a diminutive creature who looks as if you could blow her away in one puff.”
“Then she'll not hold out long once Major Cornichet starts his gentle persuasion,” Wellington declared. “He's a vicious, arrogant brute with a taste for interrogation. There's no time to lose. Julian, will you take it on?”
“With pleasure. It'll be a joy to balk Cornichet of his prey.” The colonel was unable to hide his enthusiasm for the task as he clicked his booted feet and his spurs jingled. “And it'll be most satisfying to put an end to the games of this shrinking violet. She's played too long, enriching herself at our expense.” A look of distaste crossed the aristocratic features. Julian St. Simon had no time for mercenaries. “I'll take twenty men.”
“Will that be enough to storm an entire outpost, St. Simon?” the major inquired.
“Oh, I don't intend to storm it, my friend,” Colonel, Lord St. Simon said, grinning. “Stealth and trickery – a little guerrilla warfare of our own, if you take my meaning.”
“Then go to it, Julian.” Wellington offered his hand.
“And bring back this flower so we can pluck her petals ourselves.”
“I'll have her here in five days, sir.” The colonel left the room, currents of energy seeming to swirl in his wake.
Five days was no idle boast, as the commander in chief was aware. Julian St. Simon, at twenty-eight, had been a career soldier for ten years, and he was known as much for his unorthodox methods as for his invariable success. It was held as a fact of life in the mess that St. Simon never failed at a task he set himself, and his men would follow him into an inferno if he asked it of them.
The French outpost was a huddle of wooden huts and tents in a small wood outside the walls of Olivenza. The rain poured down from the leaden skies and dripped from the branches of the trees, soaking the canvas tents and streaming through the spaces between the wooden slats of the huts in a relentless torrent.
La Violette, known to her own people as Tamsyn, daughter of Cecile Penhallan and El Baron, sat huddled on the wet earthen floor in the corner of one of the huts. A rope attached to a plaited leather collar around her neck secured her to the wall. She inched sideways to avoid a persistent trickle of water funnelling down a grooved slat and down the back of her shirt.
She was cold and hungry, cramped and wet, but her eyes were sharp with speculation, her ears straining to catch the low-voiced conversation through the drumming of the rain. Major Cornichet and two fellow officers were eating at a table in the center of the hut. The smell of garlic sausage and ripe cheese set her saliva running. A cork was pulled, and she could taste on her tongue the rough red wine of the region. A wave of hunger-induced nausea washed over her.
She'd been held like this for two days. They'd thrown her half a loaf of bread early this morning. It had landed in the mud beside her, but she'd brushed it off and devoured it, tipping her head to catch the rainwater funnelling in the groove above her. At least there was no shortage of water if she was prepared to forage for herself, and so far she had suffered nothing but discomfort and the humiliation of her position.
A little humiliation and a degree of discomfort were nothing. Tamsyn could hear the baron's voice. “Hija, you must learn what can be endured and what must not; which battles are worth fighting and which are not.”
But when would the softening up cease? When would they start seriously? She could simply give them what they wanted, of course, probably even demand a price for it. But this was a battle worth fighting for. She could not aid the French, betray the partisans, without betraying her father's memory. So when would it start?
As if in answer to her silent question, Major Cornichet stood up and strolled over to her. He looked down at her, one hand stroking the curled waxed mustache above a cruel mouth. She met his gaze as fearlessly as she could.
“Eh, bien,” he said. “You will talk to me now, I believe.”
“About what?” she returned. Her mouth was dry, and despite the cold and the wet, she felt hot and feverish. The daughter of El Baron was no coward, but you didn't have to be a coward to fear what she must now face.
“Don't try my patience,” he said almost affably. “We can do this without pain, or we can do it with. It matters not to me.”
Tamsyn folded her arms, rested her head nonchalantly against the wall at her back, ignoring the trickle of water, and closed her eyes.
The rope attached to the collar was suddenly jerked hard, and she was hauled to her feet, the collar pulling tight against her throat as the colonel jerked upward again and she came up on her toes, fighting for breath.
“Don't be a fool, Violette,” Cornichet said softly.
“You will tell us in the end. Everything we wish to know and much that we don't if it will stop the pain. You know that. We know that. So let's spare ourselves the time and the trouble.”