to him. If he looked at his current situation as a mathematical equation, taking into account that there were fifteen men and boys in one line, twelve in the other, it was clear that it was best to be at the end of the longer line, an uneven number the police might fail to factor into their accounts. If nothing more, being last gave Julien more time to think of how to escape, and it made his presence less noticeable.
They walked all that day, without food or water or protection from the elements. In the afternoon it rained buckets and they slogged through a field where the mud was past their ankles. Julien continued to think of the maze. He closed his eyes as they walked. He saw the world inside of his head, at the backs of his eyes, in a lace of logic where everything was made up of numbers and everything made sense.
It was dusk when they reached a village. The night was cold and the prisoners were shivering. By then Julien’s clothes were soaked from the rain, and mud-splattered, and his bad leg was throbbing. Still, he was focused. Time was growing short. The lines of men would be herded into the town hall ahead of them and locked inside for the night. He was lagging behind by now, using his leg as an excuse, when a police officer came to shout at him.
“Keep up,” the milicien demanded.
“Of course.” Julien was warily polite. “No problem.”
It was dark and therefore difficult for anyone to see when he once again slowed his pace. As they entered the village, Julien leaned down to scoop up a handful of rocks. It was a trick often used when navigating a maze. He dropped the rocks as they walked on, marking the path so that he could retrace it or avoid it, depending on what was best in order to escape. When they reached the center of the village, tiny cobbled streets led out in all directions, like the petals of a flower. Julien grinned and felt his heart lift. The village was clearly a maze, and that was something he could manage. He mustn’t overthink, he had to act quickly and leap into the labyrinth as if throwing himself into a well. He made certain to fall back on his heels as soon as the soldiers threw open the doors to the town hall. Right then, without taking a breath, he dashed into the closest alley. It was narrow in the alleyway, and pitch black, so he used another trick of running a maze; he kept his right hand on the walls of the buildings to lead him forward. He heard a shout behind him and a shot fired, but he continued to navigate the alleyway, faster now, as fast as he could go, as if his leg was perfect and no longer throbbed with pain.
The village was circular; many of these mountain villages were built to surround a château, in this case one built in the twelfth century. Julien dodged off as fast as he could. He felt a surge of nerves as he heard more shots. To calm himself, he imagined his father waiting for him. He had always been there at the end of the maze in the gardens at the Château de Villandry, where he’d been blindfolded, forging on when he heard his father call his name.
Finally, he came to the last street in the village. He slipped past a tumbledown house, then jumped over a low stone wall. His leg didn’t matter. He was unwilling to think about it or feel any pain. He was flying now. He had left the village of stones, where everything was made of the local gray granite, all of the houses, and the stairs that led from one tiny street to another, the maze he had been through. He had not come upon a single stone that he had left to mark his path into the village. Here was the solution to his problem right in front of him. There was a stretch of woods, and he dove into the trees in the pitch black, cutting his face and hands on some thorny branches, and not giving a damn. He was glad there was no moon. That was a bit of luck. He ran even though breathing was coming so hard it hurt his chest. The forest was a maze as well, but he saw the North Star and knew