Read Online For Our Liberty by Rob Griffith - Free Book Online

who we were?”
    “We?”
    “Yes, we. Me, my uncle, some friends. We who fight Bonaparte.”
    “You’re Royalists, but I thought you father was a revolutionary?” Things began to make a little more sense. Just a little.
    “When my father and mother were guillotined I vowed I would see them avenged. I do not know who is responsible for their death but I know the type of man it must have been. I fight against their kind in any way I can. Bonaparte is a tyrant, as bad as the Bourbons, if not worse.” She walked to the window and stared out into the darkness. She turned back and pulled a chair up to the bed and sat down. “We are on the same side, Ben.”
    Even though old fat Louis had been dead a decade there were plenty of Frenchmen who wanted an end to the chaos of the Revolution and a return to the old order, or order of any kind. The Vendée had been in almost permanent ferment for years and was barely under the control of Paris. Princes, Dukes and Counts plotted and schemed on France’s borders and many who were still loyal to the Bourbons had survived The Terror. I was heartened because the Royalists had cause to help me, an English ally, but also wary because I might be getting myself into even more trouble by being associated with them. I looked into her eyes, wanting to believe her, and knowing that I would.
    “How…”
    “How can you believe her?” A man entered the room. He wasn’t tall or short, he was well past his youth and his stomach was beginning to hang over his belt. In a few more years he would be fat and he would have lost more of his greying hair. His face was lined and pale. He was dressed well but somehow without style.
    “If you knew the true horrors that Dominique has endured, you would believe her,” he said.
    He walked over and held out his hand. The grip was strong and his eyes met mine. Some men you trust when you feel their grip, some you don’t. I wasn’t sure about Dominique’s uncle. He had the air of a man who had survived and who had not always been too particular about who else survived with him. I thought that I might be all right if I was valuable to him but if not, well then I might be finished. He let go of my hand.
    “I am François Calvet. I may work for that scoundrel Bonaparte, but my loyalty lies elsewhere, the same as my niece’s.” He placed his hand on Dominique’s shoulder, protectively. Dominique turned to shut the door behind him.
    “Ben Blackthorne, late of the XII th Dragoons, shot, confused, and indignant.”
    “Monsieur Blackthorne, I cannot apologise for your being shot, and as for your confusion and indignation, well if you answer my questions I will answer yours. Now, where did you get these papers?” He grinned and poured a glass of Armagnac from a decanter that had also been locked away in the desk. If I had known it was there then the time would have passed much more easily. I paused before accepting the drink. Unlike me, I know, but I felt I could be crossing the Styx by accepting. He thrust it towards me.
    “Please, I think that you could do with this. Come on, man. If we had wanted you dead then we’d hardly take the time to return you to good health first would we? Nor would I waste fifty year old brandy on you.”
    I took the spirit and downed it in one gulp. It probably tasted very fine but I drank it too quickly, eager for the glow to spread from my lips to my belly and perhaps calm my all-too-frayed nerves. Dominique looked at me from across the room, our eyes met and she nodded almost imperceptibly. There was no point trying to lie any more. I told them the whole story; Wright, the papers, everything.  
    After I had finished, Calvet poured me another brandy.  
    “Very well. It is as we thought. We know Captain Wright well. Once you have recovered your strength we will get you out of the city and to the coast.” He said it so plainly, as if he did this type of thing all the time. Perhaps he did.
    “How?”
    “We will find a