The Eight

by Katherine Neville

  Suddenly he realized that it was quite some time since he’d heard anything but the buzzing of bees. He bent to tack his marker into the ground, then peering into the foliage called out: “Courtiade, are you there?”

  There was no reply. He called again, louder this time. From the depths of the brush came the sorrowful voice of the valet.

  “Yes, Monseigneur—unhappily yes, I am.”

  Courtiade parted his way through the underbrush and stepped into the small clearing. A big leather pouch dangled from a strap across his chest.

  Talleyrand threw his arm across the valet’s shoulders as they picked their way through the undergrowth back to the rocky trail where they’d left their horse and cart.

  “Twenty parcels of land,” he mused. “Come, Courtiade—if we sell these tomorrow, we’ll return to Philadelphia with sufficient funds to pay our passage back to France.”

  “Then your letter from Madame de Staël bears promise you may return?” said Courtiade, his sober, impassive face breaking into the semblance of a smile.

  Talleyrand reached into his pocket and withdrew the letter he’d carried these last few weeks. Courtiade looked at the handwriting and the flowery stamps engraved with the name of the French Republic.

  “As usual,” said Talleyrand, tapping the letter, “Germaine has leapt into the fray. As soon as she was back in France herself, she installed her new lover—a Swiss named Benjamin Constant—at the Swedish embassy under the very nose of her husband. She’s created so much furor over her political activities, she was denounced on the very floor of the Convention for trying to stir up a monarchist conspiracy whilst cuckolding her husband. Now they’ve ordered her to remain twenty miles distant from Paris—but even there she works her magic. A woman of great power and charm, whom I shall always number among my friends.…” He’d nodded for Courtiade to open the letter. The valet was reading as they continued toward their horse-drawn cart.

  Your day has come, mon cher ami. Return soon, and reap the rewards of patience. I still have friends with their necks in one piece, who will remember your name and the services you’ve rendered France in the past. Affectionately, Germaine.

  Courtiade looked up from the letter with undisguised joy. They’d reached the cart, where the tired old horse stood munching sweet grass. Talleyrand patted her on the neck and turned to Courtiade.

  “You’ve brought the pieces?” he asked softly.

  “They are here,” replied the valet, patting the leather pouch that swung from his shoulder. “And the Knight’s Tour of Monsieur Benjamin Franklin, which Secretary Hamilton had copied for you.”

  “That we can keep, for it bears no significance to anyone but ourselves. But the pieces are too dangerous to take back into France. That’s why I wanted to bring them here, to this wilderness where no one would ever imagine them to be. Vermont—a French name, isn’t it? Green Mountains.” He pointed his walking stick toward the lofty range of rolling green hills that hovered above them. “Up there, atop those verdant emerald peaks so close to God. Then He can keep an eye on them in my place.”

  His eyes twinkled as he looked at Courtiade. But the valet’s expression had again become sober.

  “What is it?” asked Talleyrand. “You don’t like the idea?”

  “You’ve risked so much for these pieces, sire,” the valet explained politely. “They’ve cost so many lives. To leave them behind seems …” He searched to express his thought.

  “That it would all have been for nothing,” said Talleyrand bitterly.

  “If you will excuse my speaking so boldly, Monseigneur … if Mademoiselle Mireille were alive, you’d move heaven and earth to guard these pieces within your care, as she entrusted you—not abandon them to the ravages of the wilderness.” He looked at Talleyrand with an expression of grave concern at what he was about to do.

  “Nearly four years have passed with no word, no sign,” said Talleyrand with broken voice. “Even without a shred to cling to, I never abandoned hope—not until now. But Germaine is back in France, and with her circle of informants would surely have learned if there was any trace. Her silence on the subject bodes the worst. Perhaps by planting these pieces in the soil, my hope will take root again.”

  Three hours later, as the two men placed the last rock upon the mound of earth deep in the heart of the Green Mountains, Talleyrand raised his head to look at Courtiade.

  “Perhaps now,” he said, looking down at the mound, “we may rest assured that they will not surface again for another thousand years.”

  Courtiade was drawing vines and brush over the burial spot. Gravely, he replied, “But at least—they will survive.”

  ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

  NOVEMBER 1796

  Six months later, in an antechamber of the Imperial Palace at St. Petersburg, Valerian Zubov and his handsome brother, Plato, beloved of the Czarina Catherine the Great, stood whispering together as members of the court, dressed prematurely in black mourning attire, filed by the open doors en route to the royal chambers.

  “We shall not survive,” whispered Valerian, who, like his brother, was dressed in a black velvet costume bedecked with ribbons of state. “We must act now—or all is lost!”

  “I cannot leave until she is dead,” Plato whispered fiercely when the last group had passed. “How would it look? She might recover unexpectedly, and then all would be lost!”

  “She will not recover!” replied Valerian, struggling to keep the agitation from his voice. “It is haémorragie des cervelles. The doctor told me no one recovers from brain hemorrhage. And when she dies, Paul will be czar.”

  “He’s come to me with a truce,” said Plato, sounding uncertain himself. “Only this morning—he’s offered me a title and an estate. Not as splendid as the Taurida Palace, of course. Something in the countryside.”

  “And do you trust him?”

  “No,” admitted Plato. “But what can I do? Even if I chose to flee, I should never make it to the border.…”

  The abbess sat beside the bed of the grand Czarina of all the Russias. Catherine’s face was white. She was unconscious. The abbess held Catherine’s hand in hers, looking at her bleached white skin that, from time to time, turned purple as she gasped in the final throes of death.

  How dreadful it was, to see her lying there, this friend who’d been so vital, so alive. All the power in the world had not saved her from this awful death, her body a pale, mottled sac of fluid like a decayed fruit that dropped too late from the tree. This was the end that God designated for all—high and low, saint and sinner. Te absolvum, thought the abbess, if my absolution will help. But first you must awake, my friend. For I need your help more. If there is one thing you must do before you die, it is to tell me where you’ve hidden the one chess piece I brought to you. Tell me where you’ve put the Black Queen!

  But Catherine did not recover. As the abbess sat in her cold chambers, looking at the empty grate she was too weak with sorrow to light, she racked her mind for what she might do next.

  The whole court was in mourning behind closed doors, but mourning for themselves as much as for the deceased czarina. Sick with fear for what might befall them now that the mad Prince Paul was to be crowned czar.

  They said the moment Catherine breathed her last, he’d raced to her chambers to empty the contents of her desk, unopened and unread, into the blazing hearth fire. Afraid there might be among these some final disposition stating what she’d always claimed she might do—disinherit him in favor of his son Alexander.

  The palace itself had been turned into a barracks. The soldiers of Paul’s personal guard, arrayed in their Prussian-looking uniforms with shiny buttons, marched up and down the corridors night and day, shouting commands that could be heard over the clatter of boots. The Freemasons and other liberals whom Catherine had opposed were being let out of the prisons. Everything Catherine had done in life, Paul was resolved to overturn. It was only a matter of time, thought the abbess, before his attention turned to thos
e who’d been her friends.…

  She heard the creaking door of her chambers opening. Raising her eyes hopelessly toward the entrance, she saw Paul, his bulging eyes staring at her from across the room. He chuckled idiotically, rubbing his hands together—whether from satisfaction or from the icy cold of the room, she was not sure.

  “Pavel Petrovich, I’ve been expecting you,” said the abbess with a smile.

  “You will call me Your Majesty—and you will rise when I enter your chamber!” he nearly screamed. Then, calming himself as the abbess slowly got to her feet, he crossed the room to her and looked down with hatred in his face. “Quite a difference in our positions since the last time I entered this room, wouldn’t you say, Madame de Roque?” he said in challenging voice.

  “Why, yes,” the abbess replied calmly. “If memory serves, your mother was explaining the reasons why you would not inherit her throne—and yet, events seem to have taken a different course.”

  “Her throne?!” screamed Paul, clenching his hands in fury. “It was my throne—which she stole from me when I was only eight years old! She was a despot!” he cried, his face red with fury. “I know what you were plotting between you! I know what you had in your possession! I demand you tell me where the rest are hidden!” With this, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and extracted the Black Queen. The abbess drew back in fear but recovered herself at once.

  “That belongs to me,” she said calmly, putting forth her hand.

  “No, no!” cried Paul with glee. “I want them all—for I know what they are, you see. They will all be mine! All mine!”

  “I’m afraid not,” the abbess said, still holding out her hand.

  “Perhaps a stay in prison will jog your conscience,” Paul replied, turning from her as he put the heavy chess piece back in his pocket.

  “Surely you don’t mean what you say,” said the abbess.

  “Not until after the funeral,” Paul giggled, pausing at the door. “I’d hate for you to miss the spectacle. I’ve ordered the bones of my murdered father, Peter the Third, to be exhumed from the monastery of Alexander Nevski and brought to the Winter Palace for display beside the body of the woman who ordered his death. Above my parents’ coffins as they lie in state will be a streamer that reads ‘Divided in Life, Joined in Death.’ Their caskets will be borne through the snowy streets of the city by a cortege of pallbearers comprised of my mother’s former lovers. I’ve even arranged for those who assassinated my father to bear his casket!” He was laughing hysterically now as the abbess stared at him in horror.

  “But Potëmkin is dead,” she said softly.

  “Yes—too late for the Serenissimus.” He laughed. “His bones will be removed from the mausoleum at Kherson and scattered for the dogs to eat!” With that, Paul shoved open the door and turned to the abbess for a parting glance. “And Plato Zubov, my mother’s most recent favorite, will receive a new estate. I’ll welcome him there with champagne and a dinner on gold plate. But he’ll only enjoy it for a day!”

  “Perhaps he’ll be my companion in prison?” suggested the abbess, anxious to learn as much of the madman’s plans as she might.

  “Why bother with such a fool? As soon as he’s settled, I’ll extend him an invitation to travel. I’ll enjoy the sight of his face when he learns he must give up in one day all that he’s earned so hard for so many years in her bed!”

  No sooner had the drapery swung closed behind Paul than the abbess hastened to her writing desk. Mireille was alive, she knew. For the letter of credit she’d sent via Charlotte Corday had been drawn upon not once, but many times—on the bank in London. If Plato Zubov were to go into exile, he might be the one person who could communicate with Mireille through that bank. If only Paul did not change his mind, she had a chance. Though he might have one piece of the Montglane Service, he did not have all. She still had the cloth—and knew where the board was hidden.

  As she prepared the letter, carefully worded lest it fall into the wrong hands, she prayed that Mireille might receive it before it was too late. When completed she slipped it into her gown so she might pass it to Zubov at the funeral. Then the abbess sat down to stitch the cloth of the Montglane Service into her abbatial robes. It might be the last chance she’d have to hide it before she went to prison.

  PARIS

  DECEMBER 1797

  The carriage of Germaine de Staël passed through the rows of magnificent Doric columns that marked the entry to the Hotel Galliffet on the Rue de Bac. Her six white horses, lathered and pawing the gravel, drew to a halt before the front entrance. The footman leaped down and drew out the carriage steps to help his irate mistress descend. In one year she’d brought Talleyrand from obscurity in exile to this magnificent palace—and these were the thanks she received!

  The courtyard was already filled with decorative trees and shrubs in pots. Courtiade paced through the snow, giving directions regarding where they should be placed on the outer lawns against the vast backdrop of the snowy park. There were hundreds of blossoming trees, enough to transform the lawns into a spring fairyland in the midst of winter. The valet looked up uncomfortably at Madame de Staël’s arrival, then hurried to greet her.

  “Don’t try to placate me, Courtiade!” Germaine cried out even before the valet had reached her. “I’ve come to wring the neck of that ungrateful wretch who is your master!” And before Courtiade could stop her, she marched up the steps and entered the house through the open French windows at the side.

  She found Talleyrand upstairs going over receipts in the sunny study that overlooked the courtyard. He turned with a smile as she came barreling into the room.

  “Germaine—what an unexpected pleasure!” he said, rising to greet her.

  “How dare you throw a soiree for that Corsican upstart without inviting me?” she cried. “Do you forget who got you back from America? Who had the charges against you dropped? Who convinced Barras you’d make a better minister of relations extérieures than Delacroix? Are these the thanks I receive for placing at your disposal my considerable influence? May I remember in the future how quickly the French forget their friends!”

  “My dear Germaine,” said Talleyrand, purring soothingly as he stroked her arm, “it was Monsieur Delacroix himself who convinced Barras I’d be a better man for the job.”

  “A better man for some jobs,” Germaine cried with anger and scorn. “All Paris knows that the child his wife is carrying is yours! You’ve probably invited them both—your predecessor and the mistress with whom you’ve cuckolded him!”

  “I’ve invited all my mistresses.” He laughed. “Including yourself. But when it comes to cuckolding, I shouldn’t begin flinging stones if I were you, my dear.”

  “I’ve received no invitation,” said Germaine, glossing over his other implications.

  “Of course not,” he said, his brilliant blue eyes regarding her with docility. “Why waste an invitation on my best friend? How did you expect me to plan a party of this magnitude—five hundred guests—without your help? I expected you days ago!”

  Germaine looked uncertain for a moment. “But the preparations are already under way,” she said.

  “A few thousand trees and shrubs,” Talleyrand sniffed. “It’s nothing compared with what I have in mind.” Taking her by the arm, he walked her along the banks of French windows, pointing down to the court.

  “What do you think of this—dozens of silken tents flying with ribbons and banners, along the lawns and clustered throughout the courtyard. Amongst the tents, soldiers in French uniforms standing in military position …” He walked her back to the study door, where the marble gallery circled the lofty entrance hall leading to a stairway of rich Italian marble. Deep red carpeting was being laid by workmen on their hands and knees.

  “And here, as the guests enter, musicians playing military tunes will move about the gallery, proceeding up and down the stairway as ‘the Marseillaise’ is sung!”

  “It’s magnificent!” cried Germaine,
clapping her hands. “The flowers must all be colored red, white, and blue—with streamers of the same in crepe across the balustrades.…”

  “You see?” Talleyrand smiled, embracing her. “What could I do without you?”

  As a special surprise, Talleyrand had arranged the dining hall so that there were chairs at the banquet tables for only the ladies. Each gentleman stood behind a lady’s chair, serving her delicate morsels from the platters of elaborately prepared foods that were constantly circulated by the liveried servants. This arrangement flattered the women and afforded the men an opportunity to talk.

  Napoleon was delighted with the re-creation of his Italian military camp that had greeted him at the entrance. Dressed in simple attire devoid of decorations, as Talleyrand had advised, he far outshone the directors of the government, who’d arrived in the lavish plumed costumes designed by the painter David.

  David himself, at the far end of the room, was assigned to serve a fair-haired beauty whom Napoleon was anxious to meet.

  “Have I seen her somewhere before?” he whispered to Talleyrand with a smile, looking down the rows of tables.

  “Perhaps,” replied Talleyrand coolly. “She’s been in London during the Terror, but has just returned to France. Her name is Catherine Grand.”

  When the guests had risen from table and scattered to the various ballrooms and music rooms, Talleyrand brought the lovely woman across the room. The general was already cornered by Madame de Staël, who was plying him with questions.

  “Tell me, General Bonaparte,” she said forcefully, “what sort of woman do you most admire?”

  “She who bears the most children,” he replied curtly. Seeing Catherine Grand approach on the arm of Talleyrand, he smiled.

  “And where have you been keeping yourself, my beauty?” he asked when they’d been introduced. “You’ve a French appearance, but an English name. Are you British by birth?”