The Emperor's Gold

by Robert Wilton

  She shrugged. ‘They’re men, and they’re French; they’re much more interested in my sex than my nationality. Besides, Tom: France is crawling with rogue Britons – merchants, deserters, adventurers. They have receptions in Paris just like this one, the nationalities and the loyalties just as mixed; I move between them.’ She lifted her jaw and smiled at him, enjoying herself. ‘You’re going to lecture me about the dangers, and comment on my unladylike behaviour.’

  Roscarrock shook his head mildly. ‘I’m a Cornish orphan who’s spent more time at sea than on land; gentility doesn’t mean anything to me. Besides, most of us’ll die before we’re fifty from one sickness or another; you might as well make yourself useful.’

  ‘Exactly!’ She lifted her shoulders and chest in a great open breath. ‘I… I crave this excitement, Tom, this work of ours.’

  ‘That I understand less.’

  ‘I want to live!’ She threw a glance around the room, the murmurs and the fine clothes. ‘Don’t you feel so much more alive than the rest of these people?’

  Roscarrock spoke quietly, tolerant of her energy. ‘On the contrary; I feel more dead every day. This world of yours is killing me with its deceptions and shadows.’

  She pouted. ‘You’re one of Kinnaird’s, after all. Just an old Puritan.’

  ‘Lord, no. Life’s too short to wait for your pleasures. And I’m looking forward to getting back to life.’

  ‘And what are your pleasures?’

  She watched him thinking, enjoyed the rough lost smile, the prospect of his honesty. ‘The silence of the sea,’ he said after a moment, looking into her face again. ‘The wind on my face, a hot mouthful of rum in the rain, hair spread on a white pillow.’

  She breathed out a connoisseur’s satisfaction. ‘A royal duke gave me the finest silk dress in London. A French count wrote me a concerto. But I think that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘That’s just your unhealthy taste for adventure talking. Besides, we’re a long way from the sea.’

  ‘I’m sure there are pillows nearer at hand.’

  An upstairs room: a snatched candelabrum twinkling in a mirror and glowing in the fabrics of curtains and a fat bed, two glasses of wine, a trail of shoes and skirts, and Tom Roscarrock undoing the laces of her corset with deft fingers, face full of the shine and scent of her hair.

  ‘You’re the first man I’ve known who could do that. I should have spent more time with sailors.’

  The corset fell away with a whisper, and he turned her to face him, eyes firm in hers. ‘You should see me with a knife.’

  Rokeby Harris had turned down the evening’s invitation, and so had missed the opportunity to observe and comment again on Tom Roscarrock’s performance in high society. Instead he had enjoyed a pleasant supper with a pair of like-minded men – careful, serious ideas and old, complacent jokes – and it was past midnight when he reached for the front door of the house where he lodged.

  It opened before he could touch it, wide and sudden, and the widow who was his landlady gazed out at him. ‘Oh, Mr Harris sir, I’m so glad you’re here at last.’ She wasn’t prone to fluster; it told him immediately that something was wrong, and the compassion in her eyes told him that he was the victim. ‘A burglary, sir, and we’ve never had one, not in twenty years. I… there’s a…’ and then confusion overwhelmed her again.

  ‘Very well, Mrs Dunn.’ Through the open door Harris could see the flight of stairs leading up to his rooms, and he gave them a last baleful glance of regret. Then he looked at the old lady and said, quiet and brisk, ‘Mrs Dunn, I’d be obliged if you’d have an eye to my books.’

  Then he turned, stepped into the street and, with his former landlady staring after him, walked quickly into the darkness.

  Roscarrock, naked, walked to a table, poured a full goblet of wine and sank half of it.

  Lady Virginia Strong was enthroned in pillows, one arm thrown wide and the rest of her limbs stretching the sheet that dusted the rolling waves of her body, watching the play of muscles in Roscarrock’s back.

  He turned to the bed again, taking the rest of the wine more slowly.

  ‘You’re looking at me like a horse you might buy. No’ – she tilted her head back, and the blue eyes narrowed and glittered – ‘like a horse you’ve just… ridden… to a victory you didn’t think was possible.’

  ‘No, I’m just… intrigued. Your timing.’

  She frowned, and then the fine bones opened in amusement. ‘You mean: why now? Why not that night in Bury St Edmunds?’

  He grunted. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Breathless maiden, new-delivered from deadly peril, not to mention a bracing ride on that terrible horse of yours?’ She breathed a soft giggle. ‘Poor Roscarrock: I believe that you could make all Napoleon’s secrets an open book; but you’ll never understand women.’

  5th August 1805

  CONVERSATIONS OF ADMIRAL P. C. J. B. S. DE VILLENEUVE, RECORDED THE 1ST DAY OF DECEMBER 1805

  On the 5th – we were still in Vigo, of course – the women were ugly as sin and desperately bad-tempered, but I had a charming villa there – I sent out a frigate. The Didon, it was. She went north, towards your Channel, looking for Zacharie Allemand and his fleet.

  I may tell you that I prayed. The good revolutionary, he is not supposed to pray, but in Napoleon’s France there is a god and that god is success. I had my dreams of glory – who would not, on a warm Spanish morning, with a plump little maid bringing breakfast and the greatest of fleets down in the harbour ready to move at one’s command? Mostly, to be very sincere with you, I prayed for freedom. I hadn’t seen much of it, you know? There was not much égalité in the distribution of the liberté, and no fraternité that a civilized man would care to mention. I prayed to the great god success, because success would free me of the constant irrational interference of the Corsican.

  I knew what he thought of our navy. I knew what he thought of me – let me have no false pride on the subject. Now, at last, it was me, and the sea, and Allemand, and together we would show what we could do without all these peasants and clerks with their envy and ignorance and meddling.

  All very simple: the Didon will find Allemand and his fleet; I will follow on her signal, with my grand fleet. Your poor Nelson, he is nowhere still at this point, and together the fleets of Villeneuve and Allemand will cruise into the English Channel, pick up the Corsican and deliver him to England for his imperial triumph. Then we will be calling it the French Channel – perhaps even the Villeneuve Channel. Ah, the dreams of a sunny Spanish morning!

  Then too there is this plan of the butcher Fouché. I must tell you that I had found out enough about it by this point. The man is a swine, of course, but brilliant, and this plan – my God! Still you do not comprehend it, I suspect. Me, I had pushed, and hinted, and bribed, and made the logical deductions, and I know I didn’t have everything because Fouché is like that, but I had enough. Astonishing. The extraordinary events in France, the extraordinary events in England – my God!

  Dangerous knowledge, of course. To know these secrets of France – especially the secrets of this Fouché – is like a weak heart: it can kill you at any time, you understand me? But on this day, ah, what do I worry? I will escort the Emperor onto English soil – perhaps myself step onto English soil first to hand him down from the boat. Ah, glory!

  [SS G/1130/14]

  Joseph was shivering all the time now. Sometimes he was gripped with a violent shake at the back of his neck that frenzied his head and arms, as if a big wet dog had snatched him up for sport; mostly his limbs and chest were weak, his muscles like water, his hands somehow distant and unable to grip.

  He was lost in England. He guessed he was in England, but he had no way of telling. He could only assume that the Captain was English and had landed in England, but he did not know what English sounded like or what England was supposed to look like. All he knew was an alien landscape. The buildings were built differently, the
fields were laid out differently, and the few people – whom he’d avoided as much as possible – dressed differently. There were more dogs around the houses. Usually they barked; once he’d been chased.

  No, he must be in England, because several times he had gripped himself, walked hesitantly up to some other lonely traveller, and muttered helplessly, ‘Lun-dern?’ and the traveller had nodded and pointed down the road. But the road was muddy and never straight like French roads, and there was no way to know whether London was a few leagues over the hill, or only to be reached in a far future by some immense voyage over the seas.

  This morning the sun shone, at least, and he felt better in its light and warmth. He had allowed himself a few minutes’ rest sitting against a tree by the roadside – the bark was familiar, so maybe they had some of the same trees in England. In his left hand he cupped a precious pile of scraps, begged from the back door of a tavern – a humble, open face and hand, and a dumb mime to his mouth. The fat man had scraped the remains from a plate into his surprised hands, a few lumps of meat, he didn’t know what kind. Then the fat man had looked at him as if considering a death sentence, before handing him a piece of cheese.

  He was only guessing that it was cheese. It tasted hard and dull. But that would maybe fill him up better, and it felt good to be chewing. The Captain had given him coins, but he didn’t know what they were worth or what he should do with them. It seemed better to protect them for an emergency, and not risk being tricked.

  He had walked such a long way. The whole world seemed to have walked such a long way. Once there had been peace and the big house and the old Master and his Lady, and Lady Sybille teaching him his letters and the young Master and all the other servants, and then there was so much blood, and they were all gone, just the young Master teaching him, but the young Master was frightened and unsure as well, and now there was just poor Joseph, escaped across the sea, lost and feverish and begging for hard, dull cheese.

  The thin satchel, strapped over his shoulders and flat against his back, was a cold slab that was pressing in towards his spine. Sometimes he flinched at its chafing, tried to escape its grip. Sometimes it felt like it was all that was holding him together.

  Inspector Gabin knocked at the Minister’s door, and unconsciously pulled himself to a soldier’s straightness and took in a deep breath. He’d had uncomfortable interviews before; perhaps he would have them again. But a man had to die sometime.

  A single word from inside. Another breath. He’d made a point of breakfasting well; one never knew.

  ‘Minister, I asked for this meeting because I considered it important to report failure as promptly as I would do success.’

  Minister Fouché watched him from under the pale eyebrows.

  ‘Minister, it remains possible that our many precautions have kept the spy Joseph Dax contained in France. But I must draw to your attention the chance that after this time he has somehow escaped France.’ Bayonet-straight. He tasted the morning’s meat on his teeth. ‘Minister, I acknowledge this as my failure alone.’

  Distaste worked its way around the Minister’s lips. ‘It is not your failure, Gabin. I judge my men carefully, and I did not select an imbecile. Your industry, your precautions, and your ruthlessness have been appropriate.’ A thin smile, wholly without life, crept through the face. ‘You must endeavour to become a little… luckier.’

  Gabin nodded once and slowly. There would be another dawn or two after all.

  But there was a new, vicious energy in the Minister’s face. ‘I think that’s enough of your laboured humilities for one day, Inspector. I need your energies, not your apologies. This game has barely started.’ Fouché stood, and Gabin stiffened instinctively. ‘Our little fiction about an assassin may yet neutralize the spy. In any case, his papers will tell the British nothing.’ The Minister stepped towards him, and made as if to prod at him, but stopped. The Minister didn’t seem to like physical contact. ‘Adjust your perspective, Gabin. Observe, and learn. Tomorrow we will see… a little bit of theatre in London, an outrage to paralyze their Government. Then the Emperor’s Sharks will deal with their Royal Navy, and he will cross to England at his leisure.’

  ‘I hope that I may be of some small service in this, Minister.’

  Fouché settled back into his chair, and looked up cold at the policeman. ‘I know you will, Inspector. Have no doubt in the matter. For our success to be complete, part of this game must be played here in France. You will deploy all of your abilities, Inspector. I trust we will see a little… luck, on this occasion.’

  It invited no comment, and Gabin gave another formal nod.

  ‘The heart of our ambitions, Gabin, is a man called’ – the Minister took the name one unfamiliar syllable at a time – ‘Ros-car-rock.’

  For a week they had been on the road, travelling in fives and tens, slowly, cheaply, and on the 5th the men from Suffolk began to arrive in London. They were no more than two hundred, the most inspired or the most desperate of the thousands who had swarmed around Bury St Edmunds, those with no master, those with a master who was unusually tolerant or unusually hated, those whose only master now was a cause. In London they found the dirtiest places to lodge, begged or bartered for new boots, slept. They found sympathetic landladies who would give them hot stew for free. One or two had friends in London, or contacts in radical circles, or a link through their guild. London’s reforming politicians visited the more civilized of them in fuggy city taverns. London’s loose young men – the dockers, the apprentice boys in weaving and tailoring and half a dozen other trades – clustered after the day’s work to the places where the petitioners were staying, hoping for a fight or a girl.

  Jessel passed the 5th of August bustling backwards and forwards across the city, co-ordinating investigations and searches, sending agents out among the radicals, the tailors, and the Irish, meeting Government spies and men of the shadows who would tell a good story for the price of a drink. Roscarrock was with him sometimes, or in meetings or visits of his own, or back in the coffee house, chair tilted and head solid against the wall and staring into the storm as a half-finished mug went cold in front of him. He was watching Chance in his head, the Chance he’d seen and heard and the Chance he had to imagine, listening to what he said and watching him move and trying to follow him into the restive mass of humanity that was London, the greatest city on earth.

  The men of the West Suffolk Militia, from Colchester, were quartered six to a room in Battersea, south of the river where the lodging was cheap but close enough to where they might be needed. Their officers were delighted at the possibilities of London, and glad of the chance to escape their surly troops, and so orderlies were kicked and uniforms brushed and boots polished and the officers hurried across the river into town for dinners and assignations and the preening pleasure of a night on the town. They left the troops in the care of the Sergeants, confident that they would drink and whore themselves into docility as cheaply as possible, and so make no trouble.

  So, by and large, they did. But for two platoons the evening of pleasure – pouring watery beer into themselves and taking turns with the world-worn riverside tarts – had the desperate abandon of a last night on earth. After years of stagnation and passivity, tomorrow the world would be turning a little and they would be part of it. They had talked each other up into the dare, as men will. Now they exchanged poses of courage, phrases of earnestness and defiance, playing magnanimity with their pennies and conquest with the bored whores.

  An Irishman had sauntered among them this afternoon, earnest and conspiratorial and respectful of the uniform and bearing that set them apart among their fellow men. He had patted a couple of men on the shoulder, looked deep and hard into some of the faces, and had huddled conversations with two. In the taverns, no one talked of what they would be doing tomorrow; in truth, no one knew exactly. So in their little groups they stood each other drinks and spoke as men of action are supposed to speak, and in their moments of solitude they faced
their apprehensions and their dreams. Many looked forward to nothing more than an act of companionship, a grumpy protest in which they would follow their friends and their seniors as usual. That couldn’t really be wrong, could it? They’d be all right together. Some picked at the scars of past wrongs, family sufferings and personal humiliations that would be avenged on the cruel world tomorrow. Some clutched at futures. The barracks politician listened to his speech to the mob, the cheers and the brilliant future. A young man with schooling looked at the Admirals and Generals listening soberly to his arguments and nodding at a hard-won compromise. A poet heard his song of liberty, first on his own bold lips and then echoing around the streets. Men saw their inner heroism enacted at last on those who had kept them in impotence. At least one man dreamt of blood – anger and violence and blood that would wrench him clear out of the shame and frustration of his world. No one saw the dragoons.

  Jessel strode into the coffee house ready to make up a day’s lost food and drink. Hours of dynamism across London had put a little swagger in him, and as he walked between the tables towards Roscarrock, he snatched at a servant and began to list his requirements with a wolf’s pleasure. Eventually released, the servant hurried away, and Jessel grabbed a chair and swooped into it and launched into an aggressive pleasantry.

  He stopped still at Roscarrock’s raised hand and distant eye.

  ‘He’s met Plummer.’ Roscarrock spoke as if surprising himself, and at last focused on Jessel.

  ‘So have—’

  ‘Gabriel Chance has met Plummer. Poor old Reverend Forster said that Plummer had visited him and some of his local acquaintances, and he used a phrase: “Liberty is a fire inside us, and it’s up to us to… to give it fuel” or something; it was obviously a line Plummer had used, anyway. Then Chance used almost exactly the same line in his speech at Bury St Edmunds. No way they could each have made that up independently. Chance and Plummer must have met when Chance was coming south and Plummer was on one of his tours of the provinces.’