They were standing at the door, on the far side of the room. Now was her chance, under the cover of their conversation, to retreat down the passage. Aurélie forced her sluggish limbs to move. No crime for a man to take a sleeping draught, Hoffmeister had said, as though already preparing his report. No crime.
Max, lying broken beneath the parapets.
Max, dead on his bed, with an empty vial beside him. A miscalculation, too much sleeping powder, a tragic accident, condolences wired to Berlin . . .
How? How was this happening? How could this be allowed to happen? The world had gone mad. They had opened Pandora’s box and let all the demons out, given them uniforms and room to play.
Aurélie paused at the base of the passage, leaning her forehead on the roughly whitewashed wall, pressing her palms against the worn paint, feeling the scrape against her skin, raw and real. It was talk, only talk, but even such talk, that Hoffmeister could consider such a thing, was monstrous. She’d seen the Germans kill before, certainly. She and her people were the enemy, to be exterminated like vermin should they prove inconvenient. That was war.
But Max was one of their own.
This wasn’t war, it was murder, murder out of self-interest and cowardice and greed, and by God, she wouldn’t stand for it. She’d stop them, thought Aurélie feverishly, hurrying through the tunnels with more speed than grace. She’d stop them and Max would see them court-martialed, and it would be two birds with one stone, really. She’d save Max and free her people from Hoffmeister, and, merciful heavens, she couldn’t let him kill Max.
Max’s room wasn’t in the new wing with Hoffmeister and Kraus; it was clear across the courtyard in the old watchtower, above the long unused guardroom. Aurélie had seen his lamp burning long into the night, the outline of Max’s tall form hunched over a desk, his back bent with weariness.
Not that she’d stood in the courtyard and watched him; one wouldn’t do such a thing. But it was hard not to see into a lit window in passing.
There were ways to get to the old watchtower without being seen, through the tumbledown rooms where men-at-arms used to dice and drink, back when there were such things as men-at-arms. Now those chambers were crowded with bundles and boxes, dangerous contraband like coffee grinders confiscated from the people of Courcelles; porcelain plates requisitioned from a neighboring manor and packed into a box marked with the major’s Hamburg address.
It was dark. Aurélie didn’t dare to light a candle, even if she’d had one, which she didn’t. The stairs to the next floor were narrow and twisting, the stones worn in the middle. Aurélie crept up carefully, hugging the wall, her long skirt tangling around her legs. There was a door at the top, made of old oak, studded with nails that had been old when the Sun King was young.
Tentatively, Aurélie pushed the door open and saw Max at his desk. He had taken off his coat and sat in his shirt and braces, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. An oil lamp sputtered beside him, flickering red and gold off his pale hair, hinting at the warmth of the skin beneath the thin linen of his shirt.
Whatever he was writing absorbed him. The coals crackled in the brazier. Max’s pen scratched against the paper. Aurélie watched, reluctant to break the moment, the strange intimacy of it. He was so intent; how could she break his peace? But she must have moved, have breathed, because she saw his head go up, the muscles in his back moving. He reached for his jacket as he turned, a preemptive frown on his face.
And then he saw Aurélie.
He stood, a look of pleasure lighting his face, brighter than any oil lamp. “Auré—”
“Shh!” She didn’t think she had been seen or pursued, but she didn’t dare take the risk. “Draw the curtains.”
He didn’t question her, but rose immediately to obey, drawing the curtains over the pitted, leaded glass of the old window that looked into the courtyard, bolting the shutters of the others, the ones that looked out over the fields and village. The room seemed to shrink around them.
Only when he had made the room secure did Max come to her, his face alert with concern. “What is it? Did the major do something to you?”
“Not to me.” He was still in his shirt and braces, his jacket forgotten, and Aurélie found herself addressing herself to the opening at the base of his collar, where the pulse thrummed blue against his skin.
“To your father, then?” His hands were on her shoulders. Aurélie found it very hard to concentrate.
“You have to leave, you have to go, it isn’t safe for you. Your telegrams haven’t gone to Berlin. The major . . . he means to kill you and make it look like an accident.”
Max stayed where he was, looking at her, his expression strangely wistful. But all he said was, “I had wondered.”
“You wondered? Then why are you still here?” Aurélie looked about, searching for his kit bag. She found it under his narrow camp bed and dragged it out for him with more speed than elegance. “Pack. Go. They don’t mean to strike until . . . well, until something, but how do we know they’ll keep to that? The sooner you’re back in Berlin the safer you’ll be.”
“And you?”
“What about me?” The room was remarkably spare. It had never truly been intended for habitation. This was a punishment, this room. Just a narrow camp bed and a desk, with a coal brazier to warm the old stone walls. Max’s belongings were minimal. Most of them, Aurélie noticed, were books. She began stacking them, haphazardly.
“If I’m back in Berlin, what becomes of you?” he asked.
Aurélie stopped, a pile of books in her arms. “I’m not the one they mean to kill. Not at the moment, at any rate.”
She’d meant it as a joke, but Max wasn’t smiling. “How could I leave knowing you were still here with them? Unprotected?”
“You can’t protect me if you’re dead,” said Aurélie roughly. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt as though she’d been running, her chest going in and out with the effort. She shoved the pile of books at Max. “Here. Take these. I have my father to protect me. I can protect myself. You don’t believe me? Challenge me to a duel. I can outfence and outshoot you.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Max mildly, setting the pile of books down on the desk. “Although I would hope to at least make you work for that touch.”
A touch. The moment of contact in fencing. Something about the way he said it made it sound less a blow and more a caress.
“Well, then,” said Aurélie belligerently, hoping the red didn’t show too much in her cheeks. “What are you waiting for?”
“A duel,” Max said slowly, “is an affair of honor. These men have no honor, Aurélie. They will use whatever means they may against you. And you, you will be powerless against it, because you are not they.”
“I’m half American,” Aurélie protested. “My grandfather was what they call a robber baron. I can be ruthless.”
“Can you? Could you send a man to his death?”
“If there were cause,” Aurélie blustered, but she wasn’t really quite sure. If Hoffmeister were to plummet from a parapet, she didn’t think she would rush to grab his coattails. But could she be the one to push him? Something in her shrank at the thought. She glowered at Max, her voice shaking with helplessness and frustration. “And what of you? If ever there was a man crippled by honor—don’t you understand? He means to poison you. To drug you, that is. To drug you so that you take a fatal fall. If you stay here, they’ll kill you.”