CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“WHAT does Uncle Tristan say?” Matthieu’s eyes were trained on his father, Dominic. Dominic’s eyes were trained on the parchment just delivered into his hands, and his lips were set in the straight thin line that signaled anger.

“He says, let’s see...that everyone is fine, and that he is bringing Rosalie and her father back here for a visit.”

“That’s not all!” protested Matthieu. “Look how much he wrote!”

“That’s all for boys,” replied Dominic firmly. He glanced at Solange, tucked into her favorite rocking chair by the fire with baby Sylvain, and shook his head.

“Matthieu, I told you,” Madeleine piped up, exasperated, “you shouldn’t ask. It’s better to be really, really quiet, so they forget you’re there. That’s the only way to find out stuff grown-ups don’t want you to know!”

“A strategy that I have used myself to good effect, many times,” said Solange, smiling. “This time, however, we remembered you.” She reached out her hand for the parchment and read the letter herself—silently.

THE NEWS COULD not be kept from the children for long. Normand, for one, was so outraged by the assassination attempt that he could not have kept quiet about it to save his life. Soon most of Chênier would be buzzing with the news, and so Madeleine and Matthieu were told the contents of Tristan’s letter after all, albeit a glossed-over version.

“He’s a bad man, isn’t he, Mama?” said Matthieu as Justine came to the end of her account, and Solange, overhearing, surprised them with an uncharacteristic outburst.

“There isn’t a word in any language bad enough for that man!” she declared and swept out of the room.

Tristan had been right to suggest leaving Blanchette. Away from the scene of the attack, it was easier to shake off the shadow of what had happened. And even with LaBarque safely imprisoned, Rosalie and André were grateful for the security of the castle. “It’s just nice to go to bed at night and not have to wonder if it’s okay to fall asleep,” explained Rosalie. Justine nodded sympathetically, snugging her sleeping baby tight against her body as if he might be the next victim.

They were in the kitchen, working out the menu for the next day’s picnic excursion into the hills. The outing had been Solange’s suggestion—another surprise—and everyone had welcomed it immediately. “We all need cheering up,” she said. “And high summer is upon us. We should get out into the air and sunshine. It would not please your father to see me shut myself behind stone walls and refuse the gifts of nature.”

THE DAY WAS fair and golden, and thanks to their grouchy but devoted cook they ate very well indeed. So well, in fact, that afterward most of the adults were inclined to drowse in the sun and recover.

Matthieu and Madeleine surveyed the lolling grown-ups with disgust. André sat against a tree, his face covered with a napkin. Their mother lay on a blanket in the shade, baby Sylvain at her breast. Dominic sat beside them, awake but distinctly dopey-looking. Solange, Tristan and Rosalie talked quietly together. Matthieu summed up the verdict with one word:

“Boring.”

He looked at Madeleine, grinned, and launched himself at Tristan.

“OOOF!”

Rosalie let out a startled shriek as Tristan collapsed beside her, propelled by fifty pounds of boy. She watched the ensuing wrestling match with amusement—Tristan was having a hard time holding his own against such overwhelming enthusiasm. At last Matthieu, heaving and giggling, was duly pinned and released, “On your own recognizance, mind.”

“Uncle Tristan,” begged the boy.

“What now, you bundle of trouble?”

“Tell us again how you beat that guy—LaBarque.”

“And Rosalie too,” prompted Madeleine. “She beat him too.”

“She did, indeed!” agreed Tristan. He had never been able to resist a good story, thought Rosalie, as he launched into a re-enactment of the scene.

“So then I dove under the table and grabbed his chair!” Tristan, already on his knees, ploughed into the delighted Matthieu and flipped him over. “And then we wrestled”—great scuffling and grunts—”until finally I hauled him to his feet with his own knife against his throat”—and there he stood, one arm wrapped around the giggling boy’s chest and his index finger tucked under his chin.

Rosalie caught Madeleine’s eye and rolled her eyes. “Boys,” she said, and Madeleine nodded knowingly, though her grin was as wide as Matthieu’s, and her eyes shone with excitement. Then Rosie happened to glance at Solange, and her own smile faded. Solange stared at the horizon as if she didn’t hear, but her distress was plain to see. Her whole body was rigid with tension, her lips pressed together hard.

“Tristan.” Rosalie reached out and tapped Tristan’s calf. He glanced at her, distracted. “Not now,” she said softly.

“Aw, Rosie.” He threw her the devil-may-care grin that she had always found charming—until today. “Don’t be so stuffy. We’re just playing around, aren’t we, Matthieu?” And turning his back on her, he launched into Scene Two of Tristan Saves the Day.

Anger ran so hot at his off-hand dismissal that her cheeks burned with it. You childish, self-absorbed, unthinking, rude... Her mind ran out of words to shout, and all she had done was glare and turn red in the face.

Abruptly she remembered Solange. She turned—but Solange was on her feet. Dashing a cheek with the back of her hand, walking with the dignity she never seemed to lose, she headed over to the “lookout chair” that had been carved into a natural stone formation that offered a view of Chênier and the Avine River.

Rosalie watched her go, helpless, wondering what she should do. She looked around for Justine, but Justine was soothing Sylvain to sleep. Rosalie didn’t know Tristan’s mother well enough to know if she should follow or respect her solitude.

She glared again at Tristan, still goofing with the kids, still oblivious. He should be the one going over there. Oaf, she thought. Firing off one last, withering but completely ignored look, she screwed up her courage and followed Solange.

“I DO NOT think I will ever be able to joke about that,” said Solange as Rosalie approached. Rosalie sat quietly beside the older woman.

“I’m sorry you had to hear it,” she said. “Tristan should have thought—”

“Tristan has his own way of dealing with troubles. But I cannot bear to think of what might have been. For my husband to give his life in battle, and my children to risk theirs, only to be repaid in such kind!”

They sat in silence for a while, looking over the sweep of land, feeling the sun’s warmth and the sweet breezes. Then Solange turned and looked at Rosalie for the first time. “If that man had had his way and taken my son in his treachery, I do not know how I could have continued. There is not enough courage left in me to face such a loss.”

Rosalie’s own eyes stung with tears. Her own awkwardness forgotten, she leaned over and brushed the older woman’s cheek with a quick kiss before returning to the picnic.

Tristan was lying on a sun-drenched rock, chewing on an apple. The kids, apparently, had gone off on an adventure of their own. He hoisted himself onto one elbow as Rosalie came near and squinted across the meadow at Solange.

“What was that all about?” he asked.

“Open your eyes, Tristan!” Rosalie snapped. “Everything is not a game!” Tossing her dark ringlets, she stalked off to join Justine. Tristan stared after her, his face a caricature of baffled innocence.

“And what was that all about?”