Miss Jacobson's Journey (13 page)

“But Stilton has blue mould and it... Oh, you are teasing, you wretch.” He grinned. “Is it really made in a cave? A clean cave, I trust.” He tasted a morsel and came back for more.

“You may be able to inspect the cave for yourself. I believe our best route will take us near Roquefort. I regret to say that we shall narrowly miss the Armagnac region.”

“A little detour perhaps?” said Felix hopefully, sipping the Armagnac brandy the waiter had brought with the cheese and coffee. “This is smoother even than the cognac I bought yesterday. Do try some, Isaac.”

“No, thank you. What do you mean `our best route,’ Miriam? Shall we not continue by the main road to Spain?”

“We could.” She hesitated, unsure whether they would accept her argument. “It is the best road, though not the most direct to Pamplona. However, it’s the way all the French troops and artillery and supplies go, all funnelled through the narrow gap between the mountains and the sea.”

“God forbid,” muttered Hannah.

“Lord, I wager we’d be stopping to show our papers every hundred yards,” Felix exclaimed.

Isaac frowned. “It does sound as if there would be a lot of delays, not to mention the danger. What is the alternative?”

“Hannah, have you got the map?”

Hannah peered at the floor between her and Isaac. Felix reached down on her other side and hauled up her faded tapestry bag. “Is this it?”

“Thank you, my lord. Here you are, Miss Miriam.” She loosened the strings and, delving into the depths, pulled out several papers. As she handed them to her mistress, one fell on the table.

Felix picked it up, glanced at it, and broke into howls of laughter. He passed it across the table to Isaac, who studied it with a grin.

“Your work, Miriam? You have a definite talent.” He handed her the caricature she had drawn at Jakob Rothschild’s house, of Felix and himself as fighting felines. “I particularly like Jakob as a fox.”

She covered her crimson face with her hands. “Oh no! I thought Hannah had disposed of that long since. I do beg your pardon.”

“Why? I’d say it was wickedly accurate, would not you, Felix?”

“Superb,” he gasped, still laughing as he took the picture for another look. “You rival Gillray, Miriam. It’s an honour to be subjected to your pencil. May I keep it?”

“No, you may not.” She retrieved the paper and tore it up. “Now you will never take my maps seriously.”

“Certainly we shall.” Isaac started unfolding the rest of the sheets and spreading them on the table, while Hannah and Felix moved the glasses, bottles and dishes out of the way.

“Every time we went off the main highway I drew maps,” Miriam explained, arranging the papers in order. “Uncle Amos often needed to go back to the same place two or three times. They are not at all accurate for distance or direction, but if you follow them you will get where you’re going.”

“And the little faces?” Felix asked.

Again she felt her face grow hot with embarrassment. “Uncle Amos was always forgetting the names of people and places so I drew one or two of our friends in each village to remind him of who lived there.”

“Just like the puff-cheeked winds and the mermaids and sea monsters on old maps,” he quizzed her.

“Not at all. These were useful.”

“There’s Madame Daubigny,” Hannah pointed at the sheet she was poring over. “A fine dance that husband of hers led her, and her half blind, poor woman. The doctor gave her an ointment that stopped the itching in her eyes though there weren’t nothing he could do for her sight. And there’s...”

“Thank you for proving my point, Hannah,” said Miriam. “Now please, let us get down to business. There are lots of passes across the Pyrenees, but very few are suitable for carriages. The two leading to Pamplona, Maya and Roncevalles...”

“Roncevalles?” Felix interrupted. “Where Roland and Oliver died fighting the Moors?”

“Yes, though that will not help us! Maya and Roncevalles are the most direct, but they are therefore the most frequented and the best guarded. We may do better to go farther east and take one of the passes to Jaca. Besides less likelihood of being stopped, I know people in that area. In the mountains inns are few and far between.”

“I am willing to trust your judgment,” Isaac said gravely. “Better to go the long way round than not to reach Pamplona at all. Felix?”

“Jaca it is. What a disappointment! I should have liked to see the spot where Roland sounded his horn and expired. Show us on your map, Miriam.”

She showed them the route, half flattered at their ready acceptance of her advice, half dreading that she had made the wrong decision.

When she and Hannah retired to their chamber and she was brushing her long, heavy hair, she voiced her fear. “I hope I’m right. Suppose it would be better to go by Roncevalles?”

“That’s something you’ll never know, child, so don’t worry your head. If it’s fated, it’s fated. But it seems to me that now those young fools have stopped snapping the nose off each other’s face, if you give them your maps they don’t need you along to hold their hands. Monsieur Ségal could get us back to England, God willing.”

“Oh no, Hannah, I cannot desert them! They still don’t know the country or the people, nor the language once we leave France. Now that they are friends, I daresay we shall have a merry journey. You cannot imagine what a relief it is to me. I could not bear to think that Isaac was so mean-spirited and intolerant as to bear a grudge against Felix. He is everything that is generous, is he not?”

On that happy thought, she tied back her hair with a ribbon and climbed into bed.

“Considering their superb dinners, you’d think the French could produce something other than tartines and coffee for breakfast,” Felix complained. “You must admit that an English breakfast is vastly superior.”

“Indisputably,” Isaac agreed, slathering his fifth slice of bread with apricot jam. “Oh, for an omelette, or some cold beef.”

“Ham and eggs, and I wouldn’t say no to a kidney or two, or some kedgeree.”

“That reminds me,” said Miriam. “Once we leave the main road to Toulouse, we may find the inns poorly provisioned. While you two see to the luggage and the horses, I shall ask mine host to pack us a hamper.”

The gentlemen applauded, so a few minutes later, when Isaac went to direct the loading and Felix the harnessing, she sent for the innkeeper. The round-bellied, cheerful landlord of the Prince de Galles was happy to oblige. He invited Miriam and Hannah to step down to the kitchens to choose what they would like.

Though it was still early, the day’s baking was done, luncheon preparations not yet under way. The huge, snaggle-toothed chef generously stuffed a large covered basket with sausage and cheeses, preserved goose, half a ham, dried fruits, and a bottle each of claret and Armagnac. Miriam paid with the money Isaac had given her and the innkeeper, himself carrying their supplies, led them by the back way to the stable yard.

The door at the end of the passage stood open. Over the innkeeper’s head, Miriam saw a group of eight or ten men in blue uniforms beside the black bulk of the berline.

Isaac and Felix, looking wary, stood with their backs to the carriage. They were watching a short, lean man in a silver-laced bicorne hat and a black coat with a velvet collar and padded shoulders. Miriam could see little but his back and the sheaf of papers in his hands.

“
La police,”
hissed the landlord, stopping short.

She was inclined to go on. Their papers had passed more than one examination already. But at that moment the man in black raised his head and began to speak so she paused to listen.

“
Vous êtes Messieurs Cohen et Rauschberg?
Where is Mademoiselle Cohen?” His voice was high and thin and cold.

“My sister is still in the inn,” Isaac replied in his passable French.

“Good. You two go and find the sister,” his finger stabbed at two of his men, who turned away. Then he gestured at Felix and Isaac. “Arrest them.”

As the gendarmes closed in on their prey, the innkeeper set down the basket and swiftly and silently closed the door. “Come,” he said in a low voice. “They will not expect guests to leave through the kitchens.”

When Miriam, frozen with shock, did not move, he took her elbow and hustled her and Hannah back the way they had come. Few of the kitchen staff even glanced up from their tartines as they passed but the chef grinned and nodded. Miriam couldn’t manage even the faintest smile in return. They hurried on through a scullery, then a well stocked store-room, dodging plaited strings of onions and garlic hung from the ceiling. The innkeeper opened a door. They found themselves stepping out into a narrow, noisome back alley.

He felt in his pocket, produced some coins, and thrust them at Miriam. “Here, you will not be able to take the provisions. I am sorry I can do no more for you.”

The door clicked shut behind them and they were alone.

Chapter 12

 Isaac stumbled after Felix into the dimly lit cell and the door clanged shut behind them. A swift appraisal told him that Bordeaux’s splendid rococo police-headquarters building boasted underground dungeons that would not have disgraced a medieval castle.

It stank, one of the stone walls glistened with moisture, and huge iron rings at shoulder height suggested they were lucky to be merely handcuffed and leg-shackled. Feeble daylight filtered down through a metal grille barring a square hole in one corner of the high, rough-hewn ceiling. The only furnishing was mouldy straw.

In the gloomiest corner, an indistinct figure sat up and peered at them.

Felix, his back turned to the apparition, opened his mouth to speak. As Isaac stepped forward to lay a warning hand on his arm, the chain between his boot-clad ankles snapped tight. He staggered, beginning to fall.

Somehow, despite the handcuffs, Felix caught and steadied him. Isaac’s expression must have warned him for without a word he swung round to peer into the corner.

Limping closer, the creature revealed itself as a man of indeterminate age, dressed in dirty rags, with several days’ growth of stubble on his chin and hollow cheeks. Lank brown hair straggled down to his torn collar.

“Who are you?” he grunted in English.

Again Felix, looking startled, opened his mouth to speak. Again Isaac stopped him. The fellow’s English was excellent yet even those three short words held a faint but unmistakable foreign intonation.

In French he said, “I don’t understand.”

Felix had his wits about him. “
Nous sommes suisses.”
Laboriously he repeated the phrases Miriam had taught him. “I speak only a little French. Please speak slowly.”

“I am not talking in French.” The stranger sounded impatient. “The jailer told me they have seized two English spies and I hoped they will put you here with me. I am English as you. Since three months I am here alone.”

His slightly odd use of words confirmed Isaac’s suspicion. “
Je regrette....“
He shook his head and shrugged, miming incomprehension.

Felix tugged on his sleeve. Together, chains clinking, they hobbled to the far side of the cell and with some difficulty sat down on the floor, their backs against one of the dry walls. In tense silence they waited.

Twice more the man tried to draw them into conversation. Twice more they met his openings with blank stares. At last he gave up. Abandoning his limp he strode to the door and yelled for the jailer in perfect French.

“How did you guess?” Felix whispered as the heavy door clanged shut again and torchlight receded beyond the small, barred opening.

“I cannot recall anything we have done to give ourselves away since we arrived in Bordeaux. Therefore they must have been told to watch out for us, so it seemed possible they had made preparations.”

“That makes sense. Do you... do you suppose they arrested Miriam?”

The breath caught in Isaac’s throat. He had been trying not to picture Miriam in chains, Miriam locked in a damp, dark cell, alone and frightened, or worse still, Miriam interrogated, surrounded by bullying, threatening men. Silently he cursed Jakob Rothschild.

When he said nothing, Felix went on whispering. “If she had any chance to escape, she’ll have taken it. She’s pluck to the backbone. You know, I always preferred the sort of girl who looks up to a fellow and lets him take care of her, but Miriam’s different. She can look after herself yet she is still feminine, and she’s amusing too. I... I can’t bear to think that they might have caught her.”

“If they question you,” Isaac said urgently, “try not to mention her. And if they find the gold, say she didn’t know about it. Say she just came to interpret, that you would not trust a woman with a secret like that.”

“I shall do my best.” His grin was mirthless. “But there’s little enough on any subject I’ll be able to tell them in French!”

Isaac remembered the arrogant lord, so certain of his superiority, with whom he had set out, and he wondered at the change Miriam had wrought.

“That is all to the good,” he assured him. “At least you cannot contradict anything I tell them. All the same, we had best try to work out a believable story to explain the gold.” They ought to have done so days ago, but cooperation had been impossible then.

He might yet come to regard Felix as a friend, if he could be sure that that was how Felix regarded Miriam.

For the present they were co-conspirators. They plotted in whispers until, no more than a quarter hour later, they heard the tramp of feet in the passage. A face appeared at the opening in their cell door. As a key rattled in the lock they struggled to their feet.

The door slammed open, the fat, heavy-breathing jailer stood aside, and their erstwhile cell companion appeared. He was clean-shaven now and decently dressed, though not in uniform, but he still had a cadaverous look and his hair still straggled untidily over his collar. Several blue-uniformed gendarmes waited behind him in the corridor.

He pointed at Isaac. “You. Come,” he snapped.

Isaac almost obeyed before he realized the man spoke in English. Catching himself, he pointed at his own chest and said enquiringly, “
Moi?”