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Chapter 27

Besançon

December 1636-January 1637


By first dark, after his fourth shot of whisky, Hamilton was snoring, his head on the table.

“I can see why his tutor doesn’t let him have it,” Con commented. “Shall we load him up and be on our way?”

Dan nodded. They shouldered him between them, two friends walking another who had imbibed a bit too much in the way of holiday spirits to his bed. They were shortly joined by a half dozen other County Down men who had come on this little expedition with them, flopped Hamilton over a saddled horse, and left town. They wouldn’t get far that evening, but the day after Christmas would be a great day for riding, since most of the rest of that part of the world that might come after them would also be recovering from more than a bit too much in the way of holiday spirits.

The next morning, Traill reported that Hamilton’s bed was empty.

Rohan sent footmen out to find him. They returned, their hands also empty.

Ruvigny and Bismarck went to find Con and Dan, who somehow had never, they now realized, given their surname or the location of their lodgings. They also returned empty.

“The lying rascals,” Ruvigny said.

“They agreed to take him for a couple of whiskies,” Bismarck said. “I don’t recall that there was a single word to the effect that they would bring him back. So perhaps ‘lying’ is not the correct term.”

They eventually located the lodgings. The bill was paid up, so the landlord hadn’t taken any particular interest in his renters’ departure.

When the grand duke sent soldiers out on the hunt, they looked for a party of three, two of them Dutch officers who spoke English well and one a Scotsman, not a party of nine wild geese making their way back toward winter quarters, all the while chatting merrily in Gaelic. For, as one of the grizzled old non-coms now serving as a footman for Rohan said to another, “Well, the girl told me not to say whatever I was thinking. If they don’t want to hear me say that for my part, I think those boys were Irish, then they won’t hear it.”

James Traill’s reaction was serious apprehension about Clanboye’s reaction to the fact that he had misplaced his valuable charge. Bismarck advised him to write a letter to Ulster and then, given that he was probably correct in feeling deep concern about the consequences that would ensue if he returned to Ireland, inquire whether or not the church the Scots soldiers had founded in the Quartier Battant would be interested in having a full-time minister.

* * *

“It’s too late to be having second thoughts,” Con Oge O’Neill—Constantine, or Con the Younger—said.

His older brother Daniel frowned. “How long will he stay tractable? The boys did sort of put the fear of God in him, but still . . . ”

“Make sure he doesn’t get his hands on any money. Traill took care of all the practicalities for all of the Grand Tour, if I understand what he said. He has no idea how to survive on his own.”

“What will Uncle Owen think of this? For that matter, what will the Stadhouder think of this?”

“You might as well ask what the king and queen will think of it? Or Archduchess Clara Isabella Eugenia? We knew from the start that this little enterprise would be one of those situations where it’s a lot better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

“Well, what are we going to do with him once we get him back to the Low Countries? We could send a really flowery letter to Clanboye, I suppose.”

Con shook his head. “I’ve come to admire the terseness of radio style. Forget the flowers and flourishes. How about: ‘You have our lands. We have your heir. Shall we talk?’”


Paris

December 1636-January 1637


Henry Gage and Lion Gardiner got into town as Rohan’s observers, delegated to monitor what his brother and sister were up to beyond what Raudegen could observe from inside the household.

They soon encountered Sandrart, who was monitoring what the duchess and Candale were up to and had come back to the city for a few days for consultations with said siblings of the duke.

“What are they all up to, for that matter?” Gardiner asked. “Not just the specific Huguenots we’re being employed to watch. What is the court doing? What is Turenne doing? Is anyone doing anything about Queen Anne’s baby? What’s the latest rumor that Richelieu may have survived the assassination? Who is doing what to whom or with whom in general?”

“It might be more efficient,” Sandrart answered, “if we pooled our information and only sorted out what needs to go into the different reports to different bosses once we’ve collected it all.”

Gage laughed.

But it wasn’t such a bad idea.


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