"Why wouldn't I be?"

"It just seems like an odd name. For someone from Signy-sur-vaux."

We walked along some more.

"So he is a Paul to be buried in Signy."

"Oui."

"With which family?"

"What?"

"I may not have known that Paul, but I ought to know his family."

The man, Alexandre, stared at me for a long moment. "There's a certain sadness I feel about this whole death. Do you mind not speaking of it?"

"Oh. Non. Non. I'm a bit sad myself."

It was several miles before the man even said anything at all. And then it was about stopping to relieve himself. I took advantage of the opportunity and joined him in the wood. "I was posted to the customs officer at the border, but now I'm being sent to Signy-sur-vaux."

The man buttoned up his breeches.

"I'm being sent there because I couldn't find any lace."

"Lace?" His head snapped toward mine at the word.

"It's being smuggled into France. By Frenchmen. Not that I ever noticed any." I had to speak over my shoulder to make sure he heard me. He was already walking back toward the coffin. "That was the problem. I never found any." I'd raised my voice so he could hear it.

He'd started up the ox and was down the road a ways before I was able to catch him.

"Why do you think people would do that?"

"Do what?"

"Smuggle lace. The King has strictly forbidden it."

He shrugged.

"I don't understand why they would do it." I took off my hat and scratched at an itch behind my ear.

"People do many things even they themselves don't understand."

"What about you?"

"Me? What about me?"

"What if you were going to smuggle lace? What would make you do it?" I gave my head a final scratch and then put my hat back on. Much better! Cecille's mother would have picked out my nits tonight, along with the rest of the family's. Another bad thing about leaving. Ah well. I'd just have to suffer until I reached my own mother at Signy-sur-vaux.

"Honor."

"What?"

"Honor would make me smuggle lace."

"You would do something dishonorable in the name of honor?" That didn't make much sense. "You know, if you were smuggling lace, I could shoot you. Or have you arrested. That would be very dishonorable indeed. And the magistrate could fine you."

"But what if someone had asked me to do it because his very life depended upon it?"

"Why would his life depend upon it? And how could you respect someone who asked you to do something dishonorable?" That's what the lieutenant had asked me to do: the dishonorable. And what had I done? I'd walked away. To Signy-sur-vaux. The reward for good works didn't always come in this life. That's what the priest in Signy had never tired of saying.

"What if I owed my very life to that person?"

"As if he...saved your life?"

"Oui. As if he rescued my life."

"If he rescued your life..." I thought on that for a while. Just how much did someone owe a person who had rescued their life? Very much. Quite a bit, in fact. "So...if you were going to smuggle lace, then it would have to be at the request of someone who rescued your life."

"Oui."

"But if that person rescued your life, if they considered you were valuable enough to save, then why would they treat you so poorly?" There was something in all of this I didn't understand.

"So poorly as...what?"

"They must not value you very much at all if they asked you to do something so bad."

"Bad?"

"They would be asking you to disregard the King's law."

"Non. Not really. The man would be asking a favor for me in return for the one he bestowed upon me. That I should rescue him."

"By defying the King?" That made no sense at all. "How?"

"How what?"

"How would smuggling lace allow you to do that?"

"What if he needed to do a favor for someone else?"

"A favor." There were too many people involved in this conversation. I had wanted to know what would make him want to smuggle lace. Not him and...two other people. There were three of them now.

"Oui, a favor. And what if this favor would lead that other person to stop some action that would have ruined the man?"

"Which man?"

"The man who had rescued me."

"A piece of lace? Would keep some man from ruin?"

"It might."

A piece of lace. A piece of lace that was contraband. A piece of lace that was so insubstantial you could see light pour through the spaces between its threads. "And why should you entrust your reputation to some man who's a smuggler?"

"Some man who's a smuggler? Is that not supposed to be me?"

"Is it?"

"That's what you asked me. What would make me do it."

"Ah. Oui." That was so. I had asked him. But I still didn't understand his answer. "So you would smuggle lace for some man's honor."

"I might."

"But what about your own honor?"

"What about it?"

"You would exchange your own honor for the sake of someone else's?"

He frowned. "I suppose...is that what I am saying?"

"Isn't it?" Isn't that what he had been saying? I thought it was. And that's why it made no sense. But then, maybe he didn't really understand it himself. As he said, I was the one who had asked the question. I had asked what might make a person smuggle lace. He didn't smuggle lace, so how would he know? Definitively?

As the sun began to sink, I began to hurry my pace. It wouldn't do to be found along the road, far from a village, as night fell.

The man with the coffin, however, seemed to feel no such urgency.

"Orchies is ahead of us. And it's not such a very great distance. If we hurry, we can reach it before nightfall."

"You hurry. I don't intend on sleeping anywhere but with the coffin."

"Bien sur. With the coffin in the village. Some innkeeper will let you sleep in his stable." Though why would he want to? It wasn't as if anyone would steal a dead body.

"Non. No villages for me. I intend to just stop along the road. Or maybe even keep on walking."

"Along the-? But it's dangerous. Treacherous! There are bandits who lurk in the woods."

"And which of them would want to bother a man sleeping beside a coffin?"

Any one of them. But then...he had said he was overcome with sadness. Perhaps grief had stolen his good sense. "Truly, we should speed our pace. I must insist."

Alexandre gestured to the beast pulling the cart. "This old ox won't move any faster."

I eyed the animal. He rolled his own eye back and took a look at me. Non. He probably couldn't move more quickly. Not even if he'd wanted to. "Then..." I clutched my musket more tightly as I eyed the trees surrounding us. "I'll stay with you."

"What? Non! I mean, why should you be made to suffer for this animal's great age?"

"It would be like having your own private guard. I am, after all, a soldier."

"And a soldier deserves better than a piece of hard ground on which to spend the night. I don't even have a blanket to spare you."

A soldier didn't need a blanket. "It's not necessary."

"But you can go into the village and demand someone house you for the night."

I could. It was a right granted any of the King's soldiers. But I wouldn't. I never had. It didn't seem very polite. "Non. My place, as a traveling companion, is by your side."

"There's not room enough in the cart."

And I wouldn't think of sleeping in it. Not beside a body! "I shall sleep beside it."

"In the mud?"

I eyed the countryside around us. The dog's face suddenly appeared once more. "Perhaps I can find some shelter beneath a tree in the wood." Where the outlaws slept. And lived. And practiced their thievery. Perhaps I wouldn't sleep tonight. Perhaps I'd stay awake. That seemed like the wisest thing to do. "I'll stay awake for both of us. I'll stand watch."

He shrugged. "As you wish."

He didn't seem very grateful for my company. And truly, I was sacrificing quite a bit to stay with him. Hot food. A place on a dry floor somewhere beside a warm fire. But then, perhaps, he was stricken by grief. A man overcome by such emotion couldn't be depended upon to look after himself.

We continued on for a while, and when we found a widening in the road, we pulled the ox off to the side. The sky went gray then blue then black. The stars flickered like distant candles, too far away to provide any warmth, too distant to shed any but meager light. The moon, though, was resplendent in all of her glory. A pretty, plump maiden smiling down upon us. A breeze rattled the trees and startled shadows from the wood.

I woke with the cold blade of a knife pressed against my neck. I was astonished I had fallen asleep.

"Your money." The voice that spoke was hoarse and smelt of beer.

"I don't have any."

He turned the blade. I felt a sharp prick from its point.

"Not much of any."

"Not much sounds like quite a bit to me."

"Please. I don't have very much." And what I had, I meant to keep.

"Your money."

"If you would let me rise, then I would get it."

"Just tell me where it is."

"It's...well...it's..." Did I truly want him to go digging around in my pack by himself?