The road to Bayonne wound through the Pyrenees like a scar.
It was narrow, steep, and surrounded by grey cliffs that seemed to lean in, watching us.
Our convoy was long. Fifty heavy wagons, each loaded with chests of Spanish silver and gold. The "inheritance" of the abdicated King.
I rode in the lead carriage. My body was wrapped in blankets, but I couldn't get warm. The Digitalis chills were racking my bones.
"Are we clear of the pass?" I asked, my voice thin.
Charles sat opposite me. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking out the window, his Baker rifle resting across his knees.
"Two miles to the border," Charles said. "But the terrain is bad. High ground on both sides. Fatal funnel."
He sounded like a veteran, not a twelve-year-old.
"Relax," I said. "We have a regiment of Polish Lancers. No peasant mob will attack a cavalry unit."
Charles didn't relax. He checked the priming on his rifle.
"They aren't a mob anymore, Father. They are adapting."
CRACK.
A sound like a dry branch snapping.
Then, the carriage lurched.
SCREEE.
Wood splintered. The world tilted sideways.
I was thrown against the door. Pain shot through my fragile ribs.
"Wheel broken!" the driver shouted.
The convoy halted. The wagons behind us jammed together, blocking the narrow road.
"Ambush!" Charles yelled. He kicked the door open and rolled out, rifle in hand.
I dragged myself up to the window.
Silence.
No screaming mob. No charging infantry. Just the wind whistling through the rocks.
Then, a rock moved.
High up on the cliff face, a boulder the size of a carriage detached itself. It tumbled down the slope, gathering speed.
BOOM.
It smashed into the third wagon in the line. Wood exploded.
Gold coins sprayed across the road like glitter. Millions of Reals glittering in the sun.
"Secure the gold!" a French Lieutenant shouted.
"Ignore the gold!" Charles screamed. "Watch the ridges!"
POP. POP. POP.
Puffs of smoke appeared from behind the rocks.
Bullets whizzed down.
It wasn't a volley. It was sniping. Precise. Deadly.
The French Lieutenant dropped, a hole in his chest. Three lancers fell from their saddles.
"Return fire!"
The Polish Lancers tried to charge up the slope. But horses couldn't climb the scree. They slipped, stumbled.
The snipers picked them off one by one.
It was a slaughter. A mechanical, cold-blooded dismantling of a superior force.
I watched from the carriage.
A gold coin rolled into the ditch near my window.
A Spanish peasant jumped down from a rock. He wore rags. His feet were wrapped in burlap. He held a long knife.
He landed next to the coin.
He didn't pick it up. He didn't even look at it.
He leaped onto a wounded French soldier. He raised the knife.
The soldier held up a purse of money. "Take it! Take it all!"
The peasant slapped the purse away.
Thunk.
He drove the knife into the soldier's neck. He twisted it. He looked into the dying man's eyes with a look of pure, religious ecstasy.
He wanted blood. Not gold.
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the medicine.
My greatest weapon—Economics—was useless here. I could bankrupt a King. I could buy a General. But I couldn't buy him.
He had opted out of the market. His currency was hate.
"Get down!" Charles shouted.
He was kneeling by the carriage wheel. He raised his rifle. He aimed at the ridge.
He breathed out.
BANG.
A sniper on the cliff threw up his arms and fell. A 300-yard shot. Impossible.
Charles reloaded. His hands were steady. Efficient.
"Father, stay inside!"
I couldn't. The carriage was a target.
I kicked the door open. I tumbled into the dirt.
My legs collapsed. I crawled into the ditch, dragging my useless body through the mud.
My hand closed around the gold coin.
It felt heavy. Cold. Useless.
"Administrator!"
I looked up.
On the ridge above us, a man stood.
He wasn't hiding. He wore a peasant's shirt, but he had a British officer's sash around his waist.
El Empecinado. The Stubborn One.
He held a longbow? No. A sling.
He swung it over his head.
Whoosh.
He released the projectile.
It wasn't a stone. It was a small, wrapped package.
It arced through the air and landed in the mud next to me.
I picked it up.
It was a rock wrapped in paper.
I unfolded the paper.
It was a Bill of Exchange. Drawn on the Bank of England.
Pay to the Order of Juan Martín Díez.
Amount: 10,000 Pounds.
Signed: J.R.
Rothschild.
He was funding the guerrillas. He wasn't just paying them; he was organizing them. He had turned the peasantry into a mercenary army.
"Proxy war," I whispered.
El Empecinado shouted something in Spanish.
The firing stopped.
The peasants melted back into the rocks. They didn't take the wagons. They left the gold scattered on the road.
They left us with our dead and our money.
It was a message.
Keep your gold. We want your fear.
"They're gone," Charles said, lowering his rifle. He walked over to me. He looked at the bodies. "They retreated. Inefficient. They could have wiped us out."
"It wasn't a battle," I wheezed. "It was a statement."
I tried to stand.
The world spun.
The yellow halos around the sun expanded. They turned into blinding rings of fire.
My heart gave a massive, lurching thud.
THUMP.
Pain exploded in my chest. Like a spear.
"Hrk—"
I clutched my shirt. I couldn't breathe. The edema was flooding my lungs.
"Father!"
Charles dropped his rifle. He grabbed me.
"Help! The Administrator is down!"
My vision tunneled.
In the center of the light, I saw a face.
Not Charles. Not Napoleon.
Count Cagliostro. The dead wizard.
He was laughing. His face was burned, peeling from the radiation.
"Math," the hallucination whispered. "You thought math could save you, Alex? You traded magic for numbers. But death... death is the only constant. It's the final variable."
"Shut up," I gasped.
"You're bankrupt, Alex," Cagliostro laughed. "Your credit score is zero."
Darkness swallowed me.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Not a hospital monitor. A bird.
I opened my eyes.
I was in a bed. Soft sheets. A breeze blowing through an open window.
Bayonne. The Governor's Mansion.
I was alive.
I took a breath. It rattled. My lungs were wet, but air was moving.
I turned my head.
Charles sat in a chair next to the bed. He was reading a newspaper.
He looked older. The ambush had changed him. There was a hardness in his eyes that hadn't been there before.
"How long?" I asked.
"Three days," Charles said. He didn't put down the paper. "Larrey says your heart stopped twice. He had to use adrenaline."
"And the gold?"
"Safe," Charles said. "We brought it across the border. It's in the vaults in Paris now."
"Good."
I tried to sit up. I couldn't. My body felt like it belonged to someone else. A heavy, waterlogged suit.
"We have a problem," Charles said.
He folded the newspaper.
It wasn't Le Moniteur. It was The Times of London.
"How did you get that?"
"Smugglers," Charles said. "Rothschild wanted us to see it."
He handed me the paper.
I looked at the headline.
THE BRAIN IS DYING.
French Administrator suffers massive heart failure in Spain. Medical reports confirm 'Dropsy' and advanced toxicity.
French Sovereign Bonds downgraded to Junk Status.
I stared at the words.
"They know," I whispered.
"They published your medical charts," Charles said. "Dr. Larrey's private notes. Someone in the camp sold them."
"Rothschild," I said.
It was the ultimate short attack.
He wasn't attacking the Franc. He wasn't attacking the Army. He was attacking me.
The credit of the French Empire was tied to my reputation. I was the algorithm that kept the system running. If the market believed I was dying, confidence would collapse. The loans would dry up. The allies would defect.
"What is the bond price?" I asked.
"Trading at 40," Charles said. "It dropped 30 points this morning. The vultures are circling, Father. They are waiting for your obituary."
I let the paper fall to the bed.
I was weak. I was dying. And now, the whole world knew it.
"We need a counter-move," I said.
"You need a priest," Charles said bluntly. "You can't fight this. You can't bluff death."
"I don't have to bluff death," I said. "I just have to bluff the market."
I looked at my hand. Pale. Trembling.
"Get me a wheelchair," I said. "And get me a mirror."
"Why?"
"Because I have to look like I'm not dying," I said. "I have to look like I'm planning."
I forced a smile. It was grim.
"If they think I'm dead... I'll just have to haunt them."
I looked at the headline again.
The Brain is Dying.
"Maybe," I whispered. "But the Wolf is just waking up."
I looked at Charles.
He wasn't a boy anymore. He was the heir.
"Ready to take the wheel, son?"
Charles looked at me. He didn't blink.
"Not yet," he said. "The audit isn't finished."