Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Amazing Grace ❯ The Spy is Captured ( Chapter 1 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Amazing Grace

Chapter 1 - The Spy is Captured

A/N: This story is slightly AU and set in the 1800's in a civil war twist time period. Hope to get some positive feedback! Thanks for reading!

She hated him. And she was sure of it. As they sat atop the black horse in the middle of a deserted road in the mountain town of Oslo, Norway, Relena looked at her husband of one year in amazement, "You want me to stay here?"

"And wait for me. I have to meet someone. Get down."

"Here? In the woods? This early in the morning? I thought we were finding our way to the train station."

Charles Baltair jumped from the rich, leather saddle, pebbles kicking up from his shoes, the gravel making a rough sound in the still air. He looked both ways around him as if he were expecting something--or someone, then helped his wife down.

"We'll get to the train station. Just wait for me here." He ducked under a low branch of a leafy elm, pulling the horse by the reigns behind him.

"Where are we? Charles!" She wondered if they would miss the train. Then she wondered what would happen to their portmanteau. But Relena was not sorry to see him go. She savored every moment without him and had taken a liking to exploration of the strange places he took her on "business", whatever that was. In Brussels, Luxembourg, Nice, Madrid, and the latest being Oslo, Relena had risen early in the morning, before the birds were awake, just to be alone. She loved the outdoors; it inspired her; she reached for it as a flower reached for the light.

Charles never answered and soon disappeared into the woods to her right. With a sigh, she looked around her at the coming dawn. How long would he be? Where had he gone? It was selfish of him to leave her in the middle of a war--and without the horse. But he was nothing if he was not selfish.

Relena Peacecraft had married Charles Baltair because her mother decided it best for her to marry a respectable man--which simply meant a man of her choice.

Charles Baltair had courted her a few times to balls and the like when he was in the area. He owned a business in Hartford, but no one seemed to know exactly what that business was. He oozed money and easily won over her father. A wedding was planned and when Relena was eighteen, she married.

There was no wedding trip and not much of a house into which to move. Charles never let her near his study, saying it was no place for women. They rarely had guests and even more rarely went out. It was as if he had something to hide. And worst of all, he acted as if she was not even there. It was a lonely life for a young woman.

When the war started in 1851, Relena begged Charles to let her help with the relief organizations. He firmly denied her, and suddenly was out of the house more than he was in. She began to get suspicious of him then, but pushed the fears aside. With what fabric she could find, Relena sewed socks and tunics and had a driver bring them to the Christian Commission. And she began to write in a journal. Other than the letters she wrote her few acquaintances, this was her main outlet of conversation.

The early morning, before the sun changed the sky to brilliant blue, was Relena's favorite time because the silver mist of dawn engulfed her, made her a wanderer, a spirit. And thus the words flowed from her pen. So she took out the leather bound book and began to write. She described the road she was on, the trees above her, the small speck of sky that peeked down at her. It all seemed so wondrous--and quiet. No one would know that a war had been tearing apart a nation for over a year.

Relena Peacecraft-Baltair was young, only nineteen, with fair hair, long and flowing, framing her lovely, unblemished face. Even with her fresh, beautiful looks, she had not attracted many men. Her father told her it was because of her stubborn nature and that she should be glad to have Charles' attentions.

More massive trees arched gracefully overhead, forming a thick canopy above her. The dirt road was dark, almost foreboding, but Relena was only a little scared. Moving around with her mother and father had taught her to conquer fear. Though she seemed happiest when she was by herself.

A brook gurgled to her left. It made a path between and over smooth rocks. She paused, and peered into the woods until she could see the glistening water romping its way past the gnarled tree roots. Bending down, she picked up a bulky limb from the ground and dragged it behind her.

Laying the stick down, Relena lifted her skirts and maneuvered her way to the top of a large boulder. Sitting there in the peace and quiet, as she waited for her husband to return, she began in earnest to write.

Rat-tat. Rat-tat, she thought she heard. Then, tilting her head to the right, she was sure of the hollow, popping noise. Once when they were in Madrid, she had seen a newly-formed regiment of young soldiers during firing practice, aiming this way and that to the bellow of the sergeant, and that noise had been similar. Was she near an army?

She looked up again, into the tangle of trees. The sun's arms poked through, drawing a maze of lines on the ground beside her as she continued her entry, 'Charles has made his way through the woods. I don't know when he will return. All is quiet here, but then it is hardly morning.' When she glanced to her right to prepare her thoughts, she could actually see bayonets stacked in an odd line and long, disassembled rows of men.

Closing the journal quickly, she slid off the rock, and leaned forward to peer more closely. A face! It turned in her direction. Relena jumped back. Ahead of her, at the end of the road, was an incline, a small snip of a hill, one more open and safe. Too ridiculously alarmed, Relena laughed at herself and quickly made her way there.

"Halt!" Came a loud voice.

Relena started, heard the gruff tones of a man nearby. But there was no one in sight. She waited a beat, her heart pounding in her ears, then laughed again. She was truly going crazy.

"It isn't a laughing matter!"

She froze. "Who's there?"

"It's me that should be asking the questions, mademoiselle." A short, overweight man in tattered, drab clothing stepped forward. Upon his head was a slouched farmer's hat. A long, scraggly beard covered his pockmarked face and he held a rifle in his stubby, calloused hands. He used the weapon to block her path.

Relena steadied her voice. "You-you scared me!" Her hands went out in an apologetic gesture. "You see, I'm waiting for my husband. It's so quiet here, I thought I would walk. Am I on your property?"

"Who do you work for?" His accent was heavy and thick. As he approached her, she noticed he wore no shoes. His feet were caked with mud.

"I don't understand. I work for no one."

"Whoever they are, I'm afraid they aren't gonna get our position this time around." He roughly grabbed her arm.

"Let go of me!" She raised her voice, indignantly. What was he talking about? "Let go of me! You have no right..."

"I have plenty of right. You walked through my picket line and now I'm going to have to take you to the general."

"What did you say?" Relena squinted, as if that would clear things up. Picket line? General? What was he talking about? Was she actually within the confines of the Rebel Army? Had Charles actually left her alone between the two warring sides?

"Look, I'm sorry. This is just a mistake. Please, put away the gun. I'll leave right now, I promise."

The man did not release her. "I don't know anything about that, mademoiselle; you'll still have to come with me."

Struggling out of his grasp, Relena ran back down the dark road. Within seconds, she fell. Hands and elbows were scraped and dirty, and tears of confusion and fear came to her eyes. She looked at herself. Her off-white floor-length day-dress with green pinstripes and bows along the front was smeared with dirt. The left lace of her boots had snapped--the culprit of her fall. What could she do? She was a Pacifist.

"Please..." Relena began to cry.

The rifle was pointed at her face. She could smell the dank, bitter smell of gunpowder. "Get up slowly, mademoiselle. Don't make any sudden moves and nothing will happen to you."

She struggled to find the ground inside her skirts. He had her by the elbow and brought her to her feet. Relena's head was swimming. She felt dizzy, nauseous, and even though she blinked again and again, she still could not see straight.

"The lady certainly don't look so good." Three other men came out of their tree-top hiding places. "Kinda sickly. Do you think she's the one, Corporal Little?"

"I saw her holding that book, Private. Scouting our position, writing it down; probably inclined to traipse on over to that Alliance camp to give us away. No one's going to say a pretty lady like that is lying."

"Accept you!"

"Accept me." Little was happy with his find. The general would be proud of him, might even go so far as to give him a battlefield promotion. Wouldn't the wife and children back home be happy about that? A little extra money; more food on the table. For one and a half long years he had fought in this war and with no glory. Things would change now.

Relena scrutinized her captors. Four men; all older than her, dirty, each wearing a different uniform, surrounded her. All held rifles and wore arrogant, lop-sided smiles.

"Let's go." Little commanded.

One soldier took off his belt. "Wait! If she's a prisoner, we should tie her hands!" He looked menacingly at their captive. Rotted teeth, peeking through his smiling lips, threatened to fall to the ground.

As the others nodded in assent, Relena closed her eyes, fearfully. She took a step back. "Feisty, are you? They'll beat that out of you in prison camp!" One man, with carrot-red hair, waved his rifle at her. She could see down its long, echoing barrel.

They grabbed her hands and roughly tied them in front of her. Silently, she let herself be towed to a camp not far away. Biting her lip, she stared in amazement: just yards away from where she had been sitting, the hill was crowded with rows and rows of white tents. A small house at one end of the field had smoke wafting from its chimney. Three soldiers ate from tin plates while sitting on wooden crates. One man gave a comrade a shave. Men cooked outside with open pots balanced over large campfires.

"Smell that breakfast."

Relena felt nauseous again. What were they going to do with her? Take her to the general, Little had said. Surely, he would see reason and she would find her husband and meet her train as planned.

As they marched by the endless sea of Rebel soldiers busying themselves for the new day, some stared at her. Their heads turned as the small group of pickets led the young woman away. "Please, I've done nothing wrong."

The leader of the small band of soldiers did most of the talking. "I don't know that for sure, mademoiselle. All I know is that I was doing my job when you came along. The general doesn't take kindly to spies."

"A spy? Is that what you think I am?"

"Think? I'm all but sure of it!"

Relena could think of but one thing to do. It was a long-shot, really reaching, but she had read in a paper about a Rebel general supposedly disgraced on the battlefield. Perhaps it would work. "Where is General Zechs?"

"General Zechs Marquise?"

She breathed. They had heard of him. "Yes. Where is he?"

"Do you think I'm going to tell a spy? What do you take me for?"

"You don't understand..." The rest of her sentence was lost as one man held her head down and another booted her under a canopy. She blinked as the sunshine disappeared. A scratched, roll-top desk sat in the far corner of the large tent, with a partitioned box on top of it. Four or five wooden chairs were unfolded in a semi-circle in the center, and they pushed her in one. She noticed two lanterns hanging from either end of the canopy above her.

"I understand fine, mademoiselle." Little untied the belt that bound her hands, then replaced it with a thick cord of rope. He wrapped it a few times around her wrists and knotted the end.

The other end he tied to one of the tent poles. With a wave of his hands, he dismissed his men.

The shade made her cold. "No, you don't understand." She shivered. "I must speak with him. I'm General Zechs' cousin."

"A cousin with a suspicious accent." He spat the words out with spittle from his dirty mouth.

"That's not so unusual. I'll bet even you have some odd blood in you..." He hit her. It was a slap a father would give a disobedient child. Her face stung; her head jerked to the right. She wanted to scream out that it was a mistake, to let her alone, but knew it was useless.

"Don't tell me I've Royal trash blood in me and don't try to sneak away! I'm going for my superior officer right now."

Relena took a deep breath and blinked back tears when she was alone. She wondered where Charles had gone. Had he not known that he had left her surrounded by--of all armies--the Rebel army!

Somewhere deep in her heart, Relena knew Charles was in trouble. He had left her there on purpose, so he could get away quickly with the horse. Having his wife along would only hinder his journey. But Relena refused to believe he cared so little for her to let her be killed as a spy. Her heart sped up again. How would she get out alive?

General Zechs Marquise was in Powl's Division, from what the Gazette had said. Maybe she could fool someone into believing she was a relative of a Rebel general.

On the oak desk chair she saw the Oslo newspaper with a date in bold type: September 15, 1852...Beneath the date and a headline about the Rebel blockade in the south was a small article announcing the capture of most of a spy ring from England. Her eyesight had gotten worse over the years, but she could make out the name of her husband's company in tiny print: Baltair Enterprises.

He was busy writing up reports for General Treize. Three of them, explanations for three skirmishes, were due at Treize's headquarters the next day. He wanted a full report on how the troops were deployed on the hills. His men were in three key locations.

It was a warm morning for mid-September. He should have been used to it. Usually, he never had trouble writing; the battles played themselves over in his mind. He studied them, learned from the mistakes; then gained tactical expertise. But this time the right words would not come to him and he was getting frustrated. His mind was elsewhere.

After a stretch and a sigh, he began again. The major brought up his men from the rear, forming two obliques. There was a charge, much like the ones in Sweden...Ah, Stockholm--the military academy, Gothenburg--the bridge, Powl and Zechs... "No!" A yell, a growl. Crumpling the paper into a ball, he threw it to the ground, then sat back in his chair, breathing evenly, trying to calm down. When would it end? When would he be able to go back to his only home? Before it was too late and they were gone, too?

"General?"

He turned to his aide-de-camp. Prussian blue met violet. "What is it?"

"A spy. One of our pickets may have caught the spy that's been revealing our position...sir."

"Are you sure about this?"

"She was on the North Road, near Akershus, writing messages in this book." The young braided man handed his superior officer the leather-bound book. Inside was blank, except for a few scribbled lines on various pages. The sentences were in quotes.

"Has she been questioned?"

"Not yet, sir. I'm on my way over to her now. She's been placed under guard; tied up, at least. Is there anywhere special you want me to go with my line of questioning?"

"Find out who she works for. Where she came from. And whose orders these are."

The general slammed the book to his desk. Damn spies. They made his job that much harder. A scout was bad enough, but they did not hurt anyone, merely found out what was ahead, through the trees and sheltered mountain passes. Nothing was left to chance for either side and both armies utilized them. But spies. Just the word brought a bitter taste to his mouth.

They deliberately destroyed important orders--left holes in the chain of command that killed too many indispensable men.

"Anything else, sir?" The aide was waiting patiently.

"Don't go easy on her. We've been compromised too many times because of her and I want answers."

The aide saluted. "Yes, sir."

The general watched the staff officer walk away. He had made his acquaintance on a Stockholm-bound train. He had personally chosen him to be on his growing staff. All the men would gladly give their lives for the cause.

Hopefully, it would never come to that.

It was useless; his mind refused to return to the arduous task at hand. He threw the pencil to the desk and picked up the framed daguerreotype off his armoire.

"It's almost over," he whispered.