"Hollow...?"

"The crutches."

"Oh. Oh!"

I approached the old man and held out my hand.

He fumbled in his coat pocket and then pulled out a document.

"Non. I mean-I need to see your crutch."

"My crutch?"

I nodded.

He leaned against the wall, puzzlement etching his brow, but he handed the crutch to me.

I glanced back toward the lieutenant. He put his fists together and wrenched them apart, as if he were breaking something.

Ah! Now I understood. I put one end of the crutch to the ground and then came down on it hard with my foot. It cracked but didn't quite break clean. I gave it another stomp.

"My crutch!" The old man had come away from the wall and attached himself to me, trying to pull me away from the crutch, though he couldn't quite manage it.

I fished it out of the mud and looked at the broken ends. Nothing but splinters. I examined the piece that fit under the arm. Nothing there, either. It was just a crutch after all.

"What have you done?"

"I'm sorry."

"What am I supposed to do now?" He was looking down at his foot, which was wrapped in a rag. A very dirty, very bloody, very holey old rag.

"I don't know. I'm very sorry...I-"

"How am I supposed to walk?"

I backed away from the man, apologized once more, and then went to look for the lieutenant. I found him, finally, on the other side of the line. He was looking at me, and he was laughing.

"A word of advice, Denis Boulanger." He linked his arm with mine. "Come with me. Let me show you a trick." As he walked us to the front of the line, all the people grew silent. He marched us up to a hunchbacked old woman who was leaning on a cane.

I had a bad feeling. At the very bottom of my stomach.

"All you have to do is-" He grabbed the cane away from her without warning. Her hands flew up as she gave a cry and landed face-first in the muck. "See there? That's the trick. The smugglers won't fall. They're only pretending to be crippled or lame. They've still got their balance. Those who fall? Well...they're not the ones. This old hag isn't one of those we're looking for."

"But-"

"That's how it's done."

The woman was churning in the mud like a windmill. The harder she tried to free herself, the more she seemed to swim in the filth. And now the crowd was laughing at her.

"If that's the way it's done, then I don't want to do it."

"Don't be a fool." He had already started up the steps to his shack. "You've work to do! Lace to confiscate. Besides...it's all in fun."

I might have held out a hand toward the old woman, but I felt too guilty. And then someone in the crowd hissed at me. At least, I think they did. Shamed, I ran to catch up with the lieutenant. As I jogged up the steps, cartridge box slapping at my side, I thought of those poor children. Of the man I'd left without a crutch. Of that old woman having nothing but clothes soiled by mud to show for her encounter with me. Finally, I caught up with him. "I'd rather have my orders."

"Your orders?"

I squared my shoulders. "Oui, chef." If the job entailed torturing the good citizens of France-and Flanders-then I didn't want to do it. I'd rather do...anything else.

"Fine, then." The lieutenant strode before me into the room and came out with my orders in hand. He shoved them into my chest so hard I nearly fell off the step as I grabbed at them. "You know what your problem is?"

"Non, chef."

"You've no imagination."

No imagination. I saluted and turned to leave.

"Last chance, Denis Boulanger. That's your last chance to become a real soldier. Don't squander it."

I left the lieutenant and walked down the steps. Held up the orders so I could read them.

Signy-sur-vaux. I was being sent to guard a gunpowder manufactory.

I felt heat rise to my cheeks; my heart sounded as if it were beating in my ears. I was being sent to Signy-sur-vaux? Not many people even knew that village existed. Still fewer even knew its location, nestled as it was to the east against a bend in the river Vaux. Signy-sur-vaux was in the exact center of nowhere at all. It was a pimple on a flea's ass.

Pimple on a flea's ass.

That was one of my father's favorite phrases. My father in Signy-sur-vaux, the village where I was from. The village where I had been born and had lived until just six months ago. How was I going to explain to my father I had been sent straight back home? It had taken me a year to convince him I wasn't meant to follow in his trade. Now, I would have to tell him I wasn't good enough to be a soldier, either.

No imagination?

The lieutenant was wrong. I could imagine exactly what my father would say. Every word. Every gesture. Every look.

Signy-sur-vaux.

The lieutenant might as well have sent me to purgatory.

I spat at the shack then watched as it splatted against a board and rolled over itself all the way to the ground. I spat again. Then I turned to watch the border.

A farmer was leaving Flanders for France. Was he smuggling lace? He didn't look the type. I heard him speak. Not his words, I was too far away. But I heard the sound. It was guttural. Flemish, then. And the Flemish didn't smuggle the lace in. Not according to the lieutenant. The French did.

It was all so confusing. Why didn't people just do what they were told? Why did they have to lie and cheat and steal? And smuggle? What was wrong with obeying the King's law?

The guard pointed to a chest that was sitting in the cart. The man shrugged. Said something. The guard climbed onto the cart and gestured for the farmer to open the chest. Once the clasp had been unfastened and the top lifted, the guard began to empty it. A sheaf of papers. A silver cup. A packet of what turned out to be seed.

A purse.

The Spanish guard seized it. He loosed the strings and emptied it onto the straw that lined the bottom of the cart. Stared at the coins that fell out, and then dove at one.

Two.

Three.

Bastards. That's what those Spaniards were. The Flemish I'd come to know were nice enough, in spite of what the lieutenant thought. It wasn't their fault they were ruled by Spain.

The guard jumped down from the cart and then dropped the three coins into his own purse. They were probably French, coins that were forbidden in the Spanish Netherlands, but coins a man might need if he were to journey to France...where Spanish coin was forbidden.

What a mad world this had become. How was the man supposed to do business in France if he had no French money?

I spit again.

I shoved off from the wall as the man walked toward me, toward the lieutenant's shack. With the smell of herring and the sound of the sawing of bread coming from the shack, I knew he'd be waiting a while. The lieutenant relished his morning meal.

Chapter 18.

The Dog Rural Flanders It had happened, just as I had dreamed it would. I had been muzzled, lace had been wrapped around my body, and now I was dressed in Legrand.

I was almost free.

"Run fast, Chiant. Run hard." My bad master opened the door before me, shoving a foot beneath my behind.

I sat down hard upon it.

There was something out there. I could smell it. Something lurking in the forest just beyond the path.

The master lifted his boot so swiftly it plunged me out into the dirt beyond the doorstep, onto my nose. "Run! Vas-y!"

I took one step forward. Stopped. Lifted an ear. Took a listen...and...yes. Just there. By that big tree. Under the hoot of the owls there was a cough. A whispered word.

"What do you wait for? Go!"

I took another step forward. Lifted an ear. Heard...talking. Footsteps. People advancing through the night. I whined.

"So now you do not wish to leave me? Now, with the most expensive lace you have ever carried? I should have beat you more! I should have fed you less!" His foot glanced off the tip of my nose.

I had not seen it coming! I yelped.

Cries came from the forest, and then the shadow of something emerged from the trees. Two shadows. Two men. "Stop!"

The bad master picked me up. "C'est foutu!" He began to withdraw back into the house, but then he stopped. Set me down. "Run, Chiant. Run like a brook. Make it to France. Go!" He pushed me away with a shove.

"The dog-stop him!"

The shadows separated, one running toward me, the other toward the bad master.

"Stop!"

"What do you need, friend?" The master spoke even as he kicked at me. "I am but a poor farmer."

I stumbled away, beyond the reach of his foot.

"You're a smuggler!"

I cowered. I could not see the color of his clothes, but his intent was unmistakable. I had been freed. I would not be taken. I would not be put back into the box.

"Where is your dog?"

"What dog?"

"Find the dog!"

"Where is he?" The shadow man held up a long gun and pointed it at the bad master's chest.

"I do not know what you-"

"The dog!"

"I have no dog."

The shadow coming toward me walked on past. I slunk away, my belly close to the ground.

"There! Along the edge of the house!"

"Run, Chiant!" The master started toward me.

I would not be taken. I sped away from the side of the house, taking one last look over my shoulder as I did it.

A flash of light erupted in the darkness. It was followed by a great roar.

I barked.

The bad master lurched and then fell to the ground, hands outstretched toward me.

I paused. Lifted an ear.

Heard one long, soft sigh fall from his lips. It was not followed by another.

But now...I lifted my nose...the scent of blood. The odor of death. I whined. It was everywhere, that scent. Behind me, before me, on top of me.