Free HS02 - Days of Atonement by Michael Gregorio Page B

handcart loaded with steaming intestines to a rubbish dump in the corner. The stench of boiled horse-meat and rotten cabbage was nauseating.
    ‘Somebody will have to go to Kamenetz,’ I said, my bones still aching from the chill of the woods. Lavedrine had raised the question as we returned to town. ‘The father must be told.’
    ‘Make sure the task falls to you, Hanno!’ Dittersdorf urged. His voice was a hoarse whisper as he issued this command.
    I wanted to speak, but he prevented me, laying his hand on my arm.
    ‘Not now,’ he hissed, barely moving his lips. His gaze shifted to Mutiez and Lavedrine, who were talking by the door. He squeezed tightly on my arm. ‘For the love of God, they must be kept away from that place!’
    I glanced towards the Frenchmen. ‘That will not be easy, sir,’ I whispered. ‘Mutiez may send his own men. Lavedrine might want to go himself.’
    Dittersdorf’s other fist beat impatiently against my imprisoned arm.
    ‘General Katowice is there,’ he growled. ‘
You
will go, Hanno! Do I make myself clear?’
    The Count’s ferocity startled me.
    ‘Hasn’t he been put out to grass?’ I asked. ‘Katowice, and others like him?’
    ‘The French are not so stupid,’ Dittersdorf replied,
sotto voce
. ‘They have left a number of minor fortresses under our jurisdiction for the moment, but only to avoid swelling the ranks of the rebels, or pushing them into the open arms of Russia.’
    He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sooner or later, the French will want to extend their dominion to every forgotten corner of the kingdom. GeneralKatowice hopes that it will be as late as possible. We should humour him, Hanno.’
    ‘I’ll do what I can,’ I said, though I could not imagine what argument might be used to deflect Lavedrine if he had already made up his mind to go to Kamenetz.
    ‘You must do better. Swear to me on the heads of your children.’
    He broke into a sudden fit of coughing as Lavedrine left Mutiez alone and turned in our direction.
    ‘If you’ve finished telling the Count what we saw in the woods,’ the Frenchman said, ‘we should interrogate the prisoner.’ His gaze shifted to Dittersdorf, then drifted back to me. He half-closed his eyes, and smiled uncertainly. ‘Unless you have both been inventing plots to frustrate the French oppressor? Was that the subject of your hushed conversation?’
    Fearing that the pallor of Count Aldebrand’s face might give the game away, I searched desperately for some distraction. ‘We were just talking about Kamenetz, and the dangers of travel,’ I said. ‘The East is swarming with Prussian rebels. From a diplomatic point of view, it would be most embarrassing if an accident were to happen to a French officer on such a mission, don’t you agree?’
    A cloud seemed to darken Lavedrine’s features.
    ‘How long will the journey take?’ he asked.
    ‘Two days, if the roads are clear. Maybe more. Out there in the frozen wastes,
monsieur
, the difficulties are rife,’ Count Dittersdorf replied vaguely, waving his hands in a gesture of helplessness to suggest the unseen dangers.
    ‘He must be sent for!’ Lavedrine exclaimed.
    ‘
Brought
,’ Count Dittersdorf insisted. ‘Someone must go and fetch him. You cannot think to entrust such news to a messenger?’
    I addressed myself to the Count, affecting an air of thoughtful concern for the Frenchman’s benefit. ‘If Durskeitner tells us nothing, what option do we have?’
    No one spoke for some moments.
    ‘I don’t know how you’ll take this, Stiffeniis,’ Lavedrine began slowly, ‘but you are Prussian. You’ll be able to move more easily through Prussian-controlled territory than I could ever hope to do.’
    Though his voice was flat and toneless, I detected a trace of a smile on his lips. Dittersdorf wanted me to go, and Lavedrine, for reasons of his own, was clearly of the same opinion.
    ‘There may be advantages to the arrangement,’ he added smoothly. ‘The father will