But would she have worried, really? The talisman was insured, and it wasn’t as though her mother had any regard for the saint, anyway. As for Aurélie . . . well, her mother would scarcely notice she was gone, would she? She would be too busy. She’d probably be glad of the extra seat in the salon.
It wasn’t true, she knew, but it made her feel better to think so.
Aurélie rose, dusting the dirt of decades off her skirt—wherever Monsieur le Curé accomplished his devotions, it certainly wasn’t here—and went to go set her father’s affairs in order.
The sound of shelling became a steady accompaniment to the whistle and thump of the scythe. Aurélie rose exhausted and fell into bed exhausted. Her team of harvesters consisted of the baker’s oldest daughter, who was very conscious of her own dignity; two ten-year-old boys; and a sixty-year-old sot. Kilting up her skirts, Aurélie did her best to lead by example.
Unfortunately, she had about as much experience with a scythe as with a plow, so her example was one, she rapidly realized, that no one ought to follow. But with a great deal of error and waste that made her wince, they made some progress, and the pile of bales in the carts began to grow. They weren’t very shapely bales, but they were bales all the same.
It wasn’t just the harvest, although to get even the barest fraction of the wheat in took cajoling and bribing and constant vigilance. No. Everyone looked to the lady of Courcelles for advice and reassurance. With the telegraph wires all cut, Aurélie was the first word from the greater world they had heard for some time. No use to tell them that they were as much in ignorance in the capital as at Courcelles; Aurélie began shamelessly making up stories, reinforcements from England, German spies uncovered, the Kaiser sick with food poisoning. That last was pure wishful thinking, but she certainly enjoyed the image, and she could tell her audience did, as well.
Perhaps saying it would make it so. She certainly hoped so.
Miraculously, the weather held. The only thunder was the constant echo of the guns, sometimes stuttering, sometimes in full volley, but never silent. To the west, the battle raged on and on, but Courcelles, in its valley, might almost have been Noah’s boat in the storm, cut off from the world, bobbing along alone.
“Those are French guns,” said Victor hopefully. “Can’t you hear? It’s our boys, routing the Hun.”
To Aurélie, the guns sounded like guns, and she was so weary, she was about to plant her nose in her soup, but she nodded all the same.
On the afternoon of the sixteenth of September, ten days after her return home if one believed the calendar, a century or so according to her aching muscles, Aurélie was in the village, badgering the baker, when the sound of hoofbeats sent everyone running into the square. A French cavalry division thundered toward them. Chasseurs, cuirassiers, dragoons, cyclists, gunners all thronged the small square, bringing with them shouts of joy. The baker’s wife rushed to bring them loaves of bread; the café owner hauled out bottles of wine.
“It’s over!” called out a dragoon, as his horse reared back, hooves clattering on the cobbles. “You won’t see anything more of the Germans but the back of them!”
“Praise God!” called out old Madame Lemaire, the baker’s mother-in-law, dropping her false teeth in her excitement.
One of the cavalry officers reined in, dropping to his feet. “Aurélie?”
“Jean-Marie?” Aurélie embraced her intended on both cheeks. “Is it true?”
“I thought you’d said you’d go back to Paris.” For a man celebrating a great victory, Jean-Marie didn’t look joyful. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes haunted.
“What does it matter if the Germans are really gone?”
“I—” Jean-Marie cast a furtive look over his shoulder. “I’m not so sure they are, not really. It’s—it’s not what I thought war would be like.”
Poor Jean-Marie, thought Aurélie with affectionate toleration, just like her father, caught in a chivalric dream of an era long ago.
“Who cares so long as it’s over?”
“But it’s not. We’re still fighting. We’ve pushed them back, but . . . Do you think they’ll give up that easily? The things we’ve seen . . . the things we’ve done—”
Aurélie squeezed his hand. “It’s war,” she said comfortingly. “The priest will shrive you.”
“I suppose,” said Jean-Marie doubtfully. “But—”
“Come to the castle,” urged Aurélie. “My father would be glad to see you. He’ll want to hear all about your battles.”
“But I’m not sure I’d want to tell it,” said Jean-Marie, with unwonted resolve.
He did not, realized Aurélie with alarm, look at all like the same man she had dropped at Haudouin ten days ago. It wasn’t just the gray cast of his skin. It was something more, something behind his eyes. But that was silly and fanciful.
“Come,” said Aurélie again. “Our hospitality isn’t up to my mother’s standard, but we can offer you a good, thick stew and a soft bed—with fresh sheets.”
“It sounds like heaven,” said Jean-Marie, and he sounded more like himself again, more like the boy she had always known. “But that’s the signal. We’re moving on. I can’t stay. I—”
“D’Aubigny!” barked his commanding officer.
“You should be proud,” said Aurélie, trying to raise his spirits. She stood by his stirrup as he mounted. “I always said one Frenchman was worth twenty Huns!”
Jean-Marie gave her a wistful smile. “Then it’s a pity there are so many of them.”
“Wrap up warmly,” Aurélie called after him as he cantered away. He was probably sickening from something, that was all. But a vague feeling of gloom lingered, all the same, all through the festivities in the village that night, through the feasting in the castle, the bonfires and songs. Aurélie found herself feeling vaguely annoyed at Jean-Marie. He’d never been so faint of heart before. If they’d pushed the Germans back, well, then. Even if the war wasn’t done, it meant it would be.
The talisman was at Courcelles and France could not fall.
There was no getting her workers into the field the next morning; there had been too much genièvre consumed the night before, the fierce, local gin that could send men mad—or at least give one a very bad head.
Rumors percolated around the village. Le Catelet had been liberated. The Germans were running away. The sounds of the fighting became louder and closer. French machine gunners dug in at a farm the next village over, holding off a squadron of Uhlans. Aurélie thought her father would go mad with the strain of inactivity, standing on the parapet with a telescope, scanning for uniforms, trying to figure out which way the fighting was going.
“Skirmishes,” he said disapprovingly. “Skirmishes.”
“It has to be over soon,” said Aurélie fervently, thinking of the talisman in its hiding place. “It has to.”
But when the troops came, they were the wrong sort. It was her father’s shout that alerted them. Holding her skirts, Aurélie ran up the twisting stairs to the parapet. Her father handed her his telescope. His hands were shaking. Without comment, Aurélie snatched it from him, holding it to her eye.