EpilogueHartwich, June 17, 1815
Joining Tracks
Across the Channel, the forces of two Empires were drawing into battle formation, cannons primed and men tense with anticipation, poised for a duel to the death that must be won by fair meals or foul—but no one would ever know it looking at the streets of Hartwich.
Bees drowsed in the apple blossoms of the Carrington orchard. Within the house, a young soldier stared incuriously out the window while the conversation of his relations droned behind him. Across the orchard, a girl chopped the heads off perfectly healthy roses and bemoaned the hedgerows that restricted her view.
It was still the time considered by most Hartwich inhabitants to be the dinner hour, and so no one happened to be present in the village street to observe the old man d
