5th August, Afternoon visitation

Charcot stepped carefully into the courtyard, his bruised shins a reminder of its hazards the day before. "Is there anyone here?" he asked Paol in a low voice.

Paol cast his eyes across the courtyard, but there was no one obviously in sight. "No. C'mon."

He started to lead Charcot across the courtyard to the door he was fairly certain was the one through which Martita had come and gone. Part of him wanted to make something up, some excuse to go back to their little room and keep away from the little girl's family and the officer. But Charcot's idea was a good one, however little Paol might have liked it. If he'd been able to write, and had anyone back home who could read, he'd doubtless have done it as well. Maybe it would even help a little...

He paused before the door, hesitating a moment before giving a tentative knock.

For some moments there was no response, and he was about to knock again when the latch rattled and the door swung inward some inches.

Martita's face appeared at the crack. "Paolo! And Domingo!" She smiled, then just as suddenly screwed up her face in an attempt at shrewd suspicion. "What do you want?"

Charcot could hear noise inside the house, but it did not seem like anyone was coming to answer the door.  Maybe they didn't get many visitors to their courtyard entrance.  Maybe they had a front door like the Castillo house.  Maybe their courtyard neighbors simply walked in and shouted their presence.  Charcot was frightened, but really, what did he have to lose?  If the man opened the door with a pistol in hand and killed him immediately, then fine.  It would be over.

But then the door opened, and he heard the little girl's voice. A shaky breath escaped, and he disguised it as laughter. "Buenos di- tardes."

Martita returned Charcot's greeting then repeated her question.

"He – We would like to speak with the officer," Paol told her.

She frowned, no longer feigning suspicion. "Why?"

"We need his help. Help?" he repeated, hoping the word sounded similar enough to the Spanish for her to recognize. It didn't, or else the answer did not satisfy her.

"What do you want with the French officer?" she tried the question a different way.

He was no longer sure what she was asking. "To see him. We want to see the officer," he said, pointing respectively to the two of them, to his eyes, and into the house.

"Why?" she still wanted to know, but the tall Frenchman just looked at her helplessly. She sighed. Poor Paolo, he was not a very smart slave. Then a thought struck her. "You want to see his foot?" She herself had been curious to see the injury when he'd first come to their house, perhaps they wanted to as well; they had said they wanted to look at him.

She opened the door wider. "It is getting better," she told them, sounding chagrinned.

Somewhat relieved by this apparent progress, Paol still hesitated. "Where is your father?" For they could hardly enter the house on Martita's invitation.

"Papa? But you said you wanted to see the Frenchman? What do you want with Papa?"

"Please?"

She seemed to consider this for a moment, then abruptly swung the door closed.

Charcot laughed shakily. "What happened? Did she go?" But almost immediately the door opened again, and this time it was the carpenter standing there. He was frowning warily.

"What do you want?" he asked. Martita's explanation of course had made no sense at all. He looked over their shoulders to see if they were accompanied by anyone, but they were on their own. What the devil? Officers were able to give parole and wander about, but not common soldiers like these. He would have to have words with Doña Castillo.

Paol drew back as the door opened again. "Señor..." He faltered, his already flushed face darkening. "Is it possible to speak with the officer?"

So they did want the officer, just as Martita had said. His frown deepened. "Señor Tibodo? He can't come out here. He can't walk. He's in his room."

Beyond the officer's name, Paol could make out little of the response other than that it was negative. "Please. Just to speak to him. There won't be any trouble, I swear."

"I want to ask him to write a letter to my family," Charcot said, miming the action of writing. "Write to my mother and my father, my maman and papa."

The carpenter narrowed his eyes, still frowning but at least considering the proposition. Finally, looking them over to make sure they weren't armed, he opened the door wider and gestured for them to follow him in.

Keeping his hand on Charcot's arm, Paol followed the carpenter as he lead them through the house. He was rigid with tension and felt impossibly large and clumsy in the civilized, unfamiliar space. Ahead of them, the carpenter drew to a halt, indicating a door; Paol checked as well, glancing warily inside, but it was nothing more than a small, modest room, not unlike their own.

"Gracias," Paol murmured and led Charcot through the door.

A man looked up from the bed in the corner.  He looked mildly annoyed at the interruption (he was reading a book) but he recognized their partial uniforms.  Charcot at least still had his coat, and he had worn it specially for the occasion.  The officer was surprised to see them.

"Who are you and what do you want?"  He asked the carpenter a question in his language as well, but the man simply shrugged and turned away, leaving the Frenchmen to sort it out themselves.

"Sir," Paol straightened reflexively, "Soldat Kerjean and Soldat Charcot, 86e, sir. We-- Charcot--Could you help him, sir?" The question came out in a stumbling rush. "To write a letter, like?" he added, burying his gaze somewhere in the floor near the officer's bed.

Charcot felt Paol straighten beside him and did likewise, turning his head in the direction that the officer's voice had come from.  It seemed like a lifetime since he had been in the presence of a French officer.  The familiarity of the situation was strangely comforting.

"Help him write a letter?" the man echoed.

"To my family, sir.  I'm - I've gone blind.  I can read and write but..."  Well, he used to be able to read and write.  He never would again though.  He exhaled.

The officer's demeanor softened slightly.  "All right, soldat.  Sit down here.  There's a chair beside my bed.  I am Lieutenant Thibaudeau, 3ème artillerie à cheval.  How did you come to this house?  Are they letting you walk freely in the streets now? Are you alone?"  He looked up at Kerjean.

"They quartered us in the house across the courtyard, sir," he told him, leading Charcot over to the indicated chair, "Me and Charcot and one of our mates who's injured. They -- the two women of the house let us go down to the courtyard for water."

"Women?" Thibaudeau repeated, his eyes brightening. "Is one of them a young girl, pretty?"

"Yes," Paol replied guardedly, after a pause.

"That must be the friend that my Maria Dolores goes to visit so often. I've seen her from the window.  Maria is the daughter of that man who brought you in, Don Augustin.  You wouldn't think a mere carpenter could have such a beautiful daughter, but - ahhh.  Perhaps you've seen her?"  The last question was asked in an almost accusatory fashion, the lieutenant looking sharply at Kerjean as if he were hiding her somewhere.

Paol shook his head, feeling oddly relieved that the lieutenant seemed so disinterested in Manuela. "Just the little one, sir."

The lieutenant frowned, but not at Kerjean. "She's always disappearing," he grumbled. "I don't know where she goes off to. All I want is some company. Well, you're here at any rate. Hand me my desk there. There, with the brass straps. Careful with it."

Paol did as he was told, albeit awkwardly. His left arm kept wanting to move to allow for a better hold, but that only served to redouble the pain. It was a relief to hand the object to the lieutenant. "Anything else, sir?"

"No, no, everything's in here." He unlocked and unfolded the case to form a writing slope and began searching inside. He spoke to Charcot, loudly, as if it was his hearing that was gone instead of his vision. "This will just take a moment, soldat, while I sharpen a quill. What did you say your name was?"

"Charcot, sir."

"Charcot, that's right."

There was a sound at the door which was still open. The carpenter had returned to make sure the group of Frenchmen were not planning insurrection in his house. He looked at them with open suspicion, but the officer waved him away.

"It's all right, Don Augustin. Escrivo una lettera. Go away and give us some privacy, man."

"I'll be just outside," Paol told Charcot, withdrawing to the door, "Thank you, sir."

Once in the hallway, he let himself sag against the wall, his eyes slipping closed seemingly of their own volition. He could hear most of what passed in the little room. He'd never meant to eavesdrop; he only wanted to be close by in case... In case something happened. But this was different and he was not remotely prepared for it.

He had heard Charcot speak of his family before, but never to them, and these were the last words he would ever speak to them. He would be dead soon. So would Paol for that matter, but Charcot would go first, because Paol would no longer be able to stop him. His arm would begin to rot and the fever would take him and he'd be helpless to do anything but lie there and watch it happen, and he was scared to death.

He tried to get a grip on himself, but suddenly all he could think of were those he was leaving behind, and those who had gone already, all the times he'd been too late, all the times death had come too quickly. He wished he could have spoken to his father, to Elena one last time. He wished he had stayed with Maugan, wished he'd known enough to stay. He wished he could have embraced Manasse before he turned his musket on himself, wished he had told Baptiste all the things it was suddenly too late to say when he was choking on his own blood the middle of the Portuguese forest. And then he came to Rosy and Mathilde and Foucheaux and Gauvin and all the others, and each overheard word was like a probe, clawing deeper into the wound.

There was a tug on his sleeve and he started so violently he thought his heart must break a hole in his chest. Gasping he looked down and saw Martita shrinking away from him, and the tears finally spilled over. "I'm sorry," he choked, his voice little more than a whisper. "I'm so sorry,"

Martita started nearly as badly as Frenchman and retreated to a safe distance. But her fear transitioned quickly to curiosity and bewilderment. Was he crying? But boys did not cry, at least not grown up ones. And anyways, what was there to cry about?

She regarded him warily as he swiped at his eyes. "You are sick?" she whispered back, for this was the only explanation she could think of, but he only shook his head. "What are you doing in the hall? What is Domingo doing?" she demanded.

She could make out little of his response, other than that the officer was writing a letter to Domingo. Or maybe for Domingo. Someone was writing a letter at any rate. But she was already beginning to lose interest and, taking hold of Paolo's hand, tried to tug him farther down the hall. "This way, slave."

He hadn't the will to resist the invitation. He couldn't bear to listen anymore. She led him down the hallway to another small room, but he balked at the threshold, for it was clearly the room she must share with her sister. Turning, she looked up at him in confusion and seemed to be commanding him to enter, but he shook his head. "I can't."

"Why?" That word, at least, he knew.

"Because your father would be angry. Like El Tigre," he added and saw her face clear in sudden comprehension, only to cloud again.

"But why?"

He could only shrug, for that answer was well beyond his ability to explain, and after a moment she seemed to accept this and turned back into the room, chattering all the while. Returning she presented him with a wooden horse.

"Horse," she told him with the air of one speaking to someone very young or very stupid.

"Caballo?" he repeated awkwardly.

"Si," she said and continued to describe the beast at length, nearly all of which was lost on him, but he enjoyed hearing her talk so animatedly and listened with open interest as she paraded a small collection of toys before him.

When she had finished, she sat for a moment admiring them, then bounced to her feet again, scooping up several under one arm and seizing his hand, leading him back down the hallway with a cheerful, if incomprehensible exhortation.

He ought to have stopped when they reached the lieutenant's room. He would go back in a moment, he told himself, just as soon as he saw what it was she wanted, but she continued back the way the carpenter had led them until they were standing before what he could only assume was the door to the courtyard. Letting go of his hand, she unlatched the door and bounded outside, calling to him impatiently, and after a brief hesitation, he followed her.