He sat down in the cool barn, beside the goat, who nudged him, curious.

“This is not for you,” he told Bluebell.

He scraped the honey from the tin and devoured it. It was so delicious he didn’t think of the stingers in his hands and neck. Then, when he had eaten his fill, he began to feel the sharp pain of the stings. He pulled the stingers out as best he could, then dunked his head in a bucket of water, shivering with the cold. He had figured out the puzzle and found what a thousand soldiers would have never come across, not if they searched for a thousand days. He went inside, and in a kitchen drawer he left the identity papers and a note telling Marianne where her father’s remains had been laid to rest. He scrawled a brief message for his brother as well.

I’m not sure it’s safe to stay. I’ll go to the church. I’m sorry.

He thought it best to leave Monsieur Félix’s farm quickly, in case the soldiers should return. He left Bluebell tied up in the barn with plenty of feed and water. He cleaned off the knife on the grass, and kept it with him. Just in case. He hated to think of Marianne finding the house in such terrible disorder. She would read the note he had left, then go out and stand beside the turned earth where her father lay. He hoped Victor would be there with her. As for himself, Julien was grateful for the air and the sun and for the strength of his own legs. He had kept his one and only promise to Lea. He was alive.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

BELIEVER

VIENNE, AUTUMN 1943

JULIEN FOUND HIS WAY BACK to Vienne through the maze of forests and towns by following the L’s he had carved into trees. He lodged at the church for three days and nights, the limit of anyone’s stay. A stranger’s presence became too noticeable after that, and one never knew when the authorities might come by.

On the fourth day, he had no choice but to leave. He passed the Roman ruins that had once been the temple of Augustus and Livia, and frankly didn’t know where to go next. By now, there were starving people everywhere. The Germans took whatever they wanted from shopkeepers and farmers until there was nothing left. It wasn’t safe to be in the street, so Julien retreated into someone’s garden, his presence camouflaged by the surrounding bushes after he had cut down some branches with his knife. He had no way to contact his brother, and the best he could do was to occasionally check in with Father Varnier, so here he was, sleeping beneath the rhododendrons with their flat, shiny evergreen leaves.