3rd August, a conference below

"What?"

"Spanish army's leaving town, heading north to join up with ours. We have to go."

The goddamn Spanish. Mittestaedt swore. "What about the prisoners and the women and everything?"

Kaufmann shook his head. "Not our problem, and no time to be our problem. We have to leave now! As soon as the Spanish move out, the French are going to move in and we'll be the ones who are prisoners. Get your kit!"

"Shit." That seemed to sum it up. Hurrying over to the table, Mittelstaedt grabbed his pack, slipping his arms through the straps and shrugging it on to his shoulders. "Ain't you going to tell the old woman or nothing?"

Kaufmann looked up toward the stairs. "She awake yet? Or the girl?"

No, or they would have shouted at him for stealing food. "I ain't seen them."

Kaufmann waivered. It did slightly wound him to leave without a word of thanks and one of warning. They had, after all, been very kind to him, especially in those first few days of pain and clumsiness. But what would he say? He still did not speak their infernal tongue, nor did they understand his, and it would have been an unhappy scene, the women growing fearful and begging him not to abandon them. Well, they had managed to survive one French occupation, and they would probably manage another. And perhaps that big Frenchman...

Quietly, hoping that Mittelstaedt would not observe it, Kaufmann slipped the knife out of his belt and laid it on the table. "Well never mind them then," he said, turning around to face the door. "They'll know soon enough. Ready?"

"Aye," Mittelstaedt, casting a last longing look towards the stairs in hopes that that Spanish girl had happened to hear them and come down. She had not. Swallowing a sigh, he turned back. "Ain't you taking the knife?"

"It's for Manuela," he lied.

"Oh. Good thinking!" He briefly considered leaving something as well, but he really had nothing that would be of use to her, except his bayonet, and the two of them would need that in the coming days. He wished he had some trinket to leave for her, at least, but anything he might have acquired had long since been traded for food or alcohol. Ah, well.

"Ready," he said, nodding to Kaufmann.

With a last grim glance up the stairs, Kaufmann turned and walked out the front door.