Page 20 of Lord Ramsey's Red-Headed Ruin
“We know why they need forty more workers, don’t we?” she asked him, pulling back.
“They have received orders for increased numbers of muskets and need additional men to make the quota.”
“Don’t they have to be skilled?”
He nodded. “I can’t say. But I tell you one thing—Mauberge is a bigger armory. Which is why Suzanne’s papa has come to advise. He knows what he’s about.”
Amber tsked. “Poor Suzanne.”
“She’ll have to give up her young man in Mauberge.” He tapped Amber on the nose.
“I think she’ll be here for a long while. Ah, can true love stand the test?” she joked.
Love has too damn many tests.
The thought shocked Ram. He’d never been in love. How would he know that?
*
Hammer in hand,Ram joined six men from the town and sidled up next to the mayor. Charles Dejean was sixty and a talker, the type who never failed to tell you about his mother, her foibles, his wife, now gone to her maker—and most likely glad of the silence. In addition, he had five children, grown, talented (weren’t they always?), and all had moved to Paris.Smart of them.Ram smiled. All of that was sprinkled into a lively recital of Dejean’s life story, worthy—the man was pleased to say—of a memoir.
Ram bit his tongue and pretended to admire every word. In between whacks of nails and lifting the thin wood into place (because Mayor Charles Dejean did not lift more than he must), Ram easily measured the man’s pride as bigger than the height of his achievements.
“Your family has lived in Charleville for centuries, then, eh?” Ram asked him, after a recitation of Dejean’s great-great-great-grandfather’s achievements.
“We are recorded in the church records here, in Sedan and in Verdun.” The portly man stood up straight, a hand to the small of his back. “We have fought for every king since Henry, the first Bourbon. Now we work in the new government. Even for Bonaparte. A good man.”
“He has done much for France,” Ram said. Indeed, Bonaparte had fixed corruption in the army and quelled rampant inflation. More than that, Ram knew it was not wise to criticize the glorious new military man who was the first consul.
“He will do more.Pardon,monsieur,” Dejean begged, a hand out. “You are so much younger, and my poor back cannot take more.”
“Oui, I understand.”More than you know.
After a few minutes, the silence could not hold Dejean. “Monsieur Boyer tells me you are a teacher and writer.”
“That is true.” Ram sat on the ground, fitting the stubborn board snugly against the next. He wrote often, not tomes but letters, and he did once teach his butler how to juggle bottles like a jester at a county fair. Ram had learned the talent at Eton, when he should have been studying his letters.
“You write about the land, Georges says.” Was Dejean drawing him out?
“Geological formations,oui.”Best not to become too specific.The subject had appealed to Ram since a child, and he read about natural phenomena whenever he could.
“And you were able to get a passport to come to France when the treaty was signed?”
“That’s correct.”How else would I be here?
“Here in the country, we are usually skeptical of strangers.” Dejean went on to tell tales of Germans and Russians who had come to visit lately. “They were here to learn about our famous Charleville guns.”
“I’m sure they were.” Ram made himself sound uninterested. He knew how inaccurately the musket fired if one aimed at a person over too long a distance. But with a shorter range, the gun did better than many others, as it could maim and kill quite a few who stood in close proximity. “I understand even the new American government likes your guns. You shipped many of them over for the colonists to fight against the British.”
“We won their war for them, too. Those guns are the best in the world.” Dejean was then kind enough to discuss the manufacture of the iron and wood components, and the need for the bore to be made very smooth.
Ram let him run on. An uncle of his had fought with the British in New York. He often talked about the French muskets that were the best of their kind. Even given that the powdercould jam in a hot bore, so that the only way to cool it was for a soldier to urinate down the muzzle.
“Now Bonaparte wants to increase the supply,” Dejean continued, “and we are to lead the world once more with our superb muskets. Bonaparte has ordered two hundred and fifty muskets shipped each month, beginning in October.”
“Is that so?” Ram stood. The act, he hoped, covered his shock at the number. “We need another board for this row,” he told the mayor. “Then you and I can quit and have a glass of wine.”
Dejean liked to drink, Ram had learned yesterday when they worked together. He really did not care what Dejean liked as long as he could keep him talking. After all, two hundred and fifty muskets each month, three thousand a year, was real news. From one factory. To his knowledge, three armories produced this musket. Nine thousand a year was a lot of muskets. The only reason a country needed that many that consistently was because they planned to use them. Bonaparte had pointed his army and their guns at the wily Parisian politicians of the directorate. He’d overcome many in Italy—failing, yes, in Egypt and Palestine, but that did not stop him from rallying and returning still a hero to France. Now he had ordered more guns.
