The Mercenaries - Book 5

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THE MERCENARIES
Front and Back Cover Summaries

Evil cares naught about suffering
…except to inflict the pain

Early in 1756, Lady Corrinne VanderMeer hiding in Connecticut, with her twin babies and Anamosa, was discovered by agents of Colonel Wilhelm von Kleinfels. She escaped back to Boston, deciding it would be safer living in Boston among friends. For a time, this was true. But the renewed sense of safety was short-lived. First Corrinne’s beloved maidservant Mathilde was poisoned at a flower market in broad daylight on the streets of Boston. Another enemy tried to burn down their house. Lord Charles VanderMeer survived two assassination attempts, one by poison, then a second attack by an assassin armed with a blunderbuss. The second attack left him paralyzed from the waist down. Clearly, Boston would never be safe. 

Lord and Lady VanderMeer flee again, this time to the French fortress-port of Louisbourg on Île Royale, north of Halifax. This was intended to be a temporary haven before going on to somewhere else. Question was, where? Back to Québec City or Montréal? And when? Leave now or a year from now? The occult beast was still in pursuit. Enemies of the House of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel wanted them dead. And while they’d planned to take respite in Louisbourg, the rest of the world began making decisions based upon war. 

Midway in 1756, France and England officially declared a global war. England was confronted with a series of defeats in Europe and America on land and at sea. The Great Lakes and the lands south and west of the Allegheny River were now dominated by the French. The conduct of the war had polarized. It was French troops versus English regulars in the American colonies. And England’s ally, Prussia, versus the Great Powers on the European continent. France’s only objective in Europe, beyond defending its borders and protecting its monarchy, was to invade and capture the English Electorate of Hanover. So important was Hanover to the crown of England, King Charles II sent his son, the Duke of Cumberland, to Hanover with orders to defend it. 

Hanover? The people of England and Parliament were perplexed by this. Hanover was a German state! Enter Lord William Pitt. He was a leading member of Parliament, a great orator and a man of the people. He loathed fighting land wars for Hanover. For what gain, he would argue. He was Secretary of State for the Southern Department, a position of power in England, second only to the prime minister. William Pitt was responsible for the American colonies, the jewel of the British empire. In December of 1756, Lord William Pitt told the Duke of Devonshire, “My Lord, I am sure I can save these colonies, and no one else can.”
Lord William Pitt wanted to defeat France in American war. His primary target was the fortress-port of Louisbourg on Île Royale, in North America. France hired mercenaries eagerly supplied by the feudal German states to defend New France. These mercenaries were soldiers, but they were also assassins for hire. The plentiful enemies of the House of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel had specific targets for them; Lady VanderMeer and her children! 

As The Mercenaries unfolds, Lady Corrinne and her twin children, Marcus and Calypso, along with Anamosa, receive shelter inside the stout walls of Fortress Louisbourg. Ensign Henri Gerrard and a light battalion of Québécois marines are there, too. Scout Captain Philippe Gerrard commands the coureur de bois scout companies in General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm’s army, using Fort Carillon on Lake Champlain as his base. 

Captain LaTour transports the paralyzed Lord Charles VanderMeer to France in a winter crossing of the Atlantic on the Falcon Queen, then further by carriage overland to Amsterdam. He delivers his lordship safely to his father, Louis Ernest, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. 

The deadly vulnax wraith’s pursuit was relentless. Its unsleeping thoughts dwell on the châsse. The ghost eagle does not sleep either. It can “see” the demon and its servants. It is not intimidated. More confrontations will occur.