12th July, evening; The washing

"No," Paol responded with a shrug, "Ain't a bad spot, though. You're camped out here as well?"

The big man shrugged. "A sailor likes to be near water."

What a daft remark. Or maybe not, considering. Not that Jérémie truly cared. He glowered impassively at Proulx's shadow, then shrugged and dropped down again to lay back against his pack. That Proulx still had his musket was less of an issue the more he thought on it. Certainly he could employ it better against a real threat than Jérémie himself could.

Paol nodded in mute acceptance of this before lowering himself back to the ground. A sailor also liked to creep up on his fellows unawares, he thought ruefully, setting the axe aside. They had neither of them needed that particular rush of nerves. And of course it would have been Jérémie whom he grabbed.

Paol resisted the impulse to pinch the bridge of his nose and instead tossed another branch on the fire. It was a pine bow and he was instantly rewarded with a crackle and shower of sparks.

There was another stretching silence that, again, Proulx broke. "Running away and hiding is how your kind cope with problems?" He asked in a mildly disapproving tone.

The question brought an immediate frown to Jérémie's face. That sounded far more like a challenge than a query. "What?"

"Well, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Paol said without looking up, his voice flat and deliberate.

This time, the silence felt distinctly hostile. Jérémie drew his legs in, preparing to get to his feet, in a hurry if his suspicion proved correct. But, other than a sharp intake of breath and a brief shifting of his weight, Proulx made no overt moves.

Instead, he scoffed. "Far more than you, for all you are a Blue."

Paol flinched, his body gathering itself as though to lunge to his feet, but he did not leave the ground. "No," he said fiercely, "I ain't."

What the hell was a Blue? And why was it apparently such an insult? Jérémie hesitated, then got to his feet, doing so as quickly as he could in case Proulx took a notion to swing at him. Or grab him again.

"Maybe quit acting like one, then," was Proulx's studiously measured response. "If you have the spine."

Now that was just uncalled for, whatever the hell their previous remarks had meant. Jérémie set his feet and said, "Go on back to your own camp, and take your venom with you."

Paol had gone rigid, but still remained stubbornly in place. "If you think," he said slowly, "I'm goin' to fight over a war what's been lost for more'n ten years, you're wasting your time. Or ain't enough folk been hurt by that already?"

"It was not I who brought it up so pointedly. Nor would you know anything of the hurt it caused." Proulx's shadow turned partially toward Jérémie then. "You are not much of one to speak as if you have any authority, sapling."

His hands balled tightly into fists. "Go away," Jérémie said, simplifying the direction even though it was plain Proulx had understood him the first time. This was just as bad as dealing with Bright. If not worse.

Would he not? Paol was staring hard into the fire, struggling not to blurt out the protest which came rushing to his lips. It was a moment before he finally responded. "Best do as he says."

A sound nearly like a harsh chuckle came from Proulx. "Do you not let him handle any of his own affairs?"

There was no denying it. That stung. Badly. Not the least because it was essentially the same thing Bright had said that morning. Maybe it was true. He could not cope with difficulties of this sort without the aid of another. Much use that made him to anybody.

"Forget it." Jérémie stooped to heft up his pack, then his coat and shako. "Let him stay, if he wants." He would go somewhere else, ideally alone this time. If that was not too much to ask.

That brought Paol to his feet, but it was too late. It had been too late since he'd first opened his mouth.

"No--" Damnit! From Jérémie he rounded on the Vendean, his hands balling into fists. "What the hell do you want, Proulx?"

"Peace. Which is now achieved." The hulking shadow was already turning about away from them.

Jérémie did not hear this exchange, busy as he was retrieving his shoes and stockings from the riverside. Enough was most definitely enough. If he could not find a safe, quiet place to pass the night, he did not know what he would do. What he did know, however, was that this place was not it.

For a moment he considered picking Suie up on his way back past, but decided against it. The kitten would fare much better with Mathilde, back at the wagon, for certainly Paol would take him there.

Peace? Christ—Paol stared helplessly between the two of them, anger and concern fighting for some kind of mastery, with the inevitable result.

Turning away from the lumbering shadow, he started after Blanchard, but managed little more than a few, halting steps. "Rosy, wait!"

What he should do is stop. To wait, as bidden. But he'd had entirely enough of... everything. It was obvious that word about yesterday's events was widespread now, which really was no great surprise. Bright was behind that, no doubt.

The only solution, at least that evening, was to keep walking.


Jérémie appears next here.

Paol stared after him, the initial sting of that silent accusation gradually deepening into something far more permanent and painful. That Blanchard should hold him equally to blame made sense, of course. Though it also followed that he must think no better of Paol than he did of Proulx, and if Paol's current opinion of the sailor was anything to go by....

He sank slowly to the ground and let his head drop into his hands. It was fair. Entirely fair. Everything he'd done, from lighting the fire which gave away their position, to his idiotic chatter, to picking the fight with Proulx, had brought this about just as surely as anything the Vendean had done.

Something nudged his leg and he jerked away, but it was only Suie. Suie? A low, agonized curse escaped him as he stared down at the small creature. So they'd both been left behind. Though the kitten, at least, had done nothing to warrant it. Suie seemed entirely unperturbed by the state of affairs, however, making him, Paol thought, far more sensible than any of them.

"Come on," he muttered, scooping the kitten up, "You can spend the night with your brothers, aye?" He felt his throat tighten and pushed to his feet. It was, at least, not difficult to force his thoughts away from that and back to the argument of a few minutes ago as he retrieved his pack and musket, and doused the fire. What in God's name had possessed him to argue with Proulx in the first place? It wasn't as though the bastard had been wrong.