Three Emperors (9780062194138)

by Dietrich, William

  I’d rounded out my equipment. My leather cartridge box had wooden shelves drilled with holes to hold fifty cartridges. I was issued three flints, a tin of oil, a screwdriver to repair my 1777-model musket, a greasing cloth, a bullet extractor in case my gun jammed, a knife on a lanyard tied to my waist, an oiled scrap of canvas to cover my gunlock against the snow, and a muzzle plug with tassel to keep rainwater out. Particularly important was a sewing kit to mend my uniform and gaiter straps. A rock in a boot can maim a man in minutes, and an officer who doesn’t give his regiment time to sew risks hobbling a quarter of his force with blisters.

  We were issued two days’ rations, making us guess that battle would come the next day. Why waste more on a man who might die? There were four pounds of bread, cooked into rings and slung on a line over one shoulder, these eaten more quickly than hunger demanded because they got soggy in the snow. There was a pound of salt beef, a quarter-pound of dried peas, and two liters of wine in bottles wrapped with straw, as a precaution against breakage. I transferred the contents of one bottle to my leather canteen. A small vial of vinegar helped make stream water safe to drink.

  The result was more than sixty pounds of clothes, gun, gear, and food. Veterans carry this as lithely as a deer carries its antlers, but I felt I was swimming in chains. Escaping to the infantry was beginning to seem a bad idea.

  Gideon, however, was good company. He didn’t complain and didn’t pry too deeply into my background.

  “You suffered a blow to the head?” he asked when trying to understand where I’d come from.

  “Run over by a horse,” I invented. “I remember very little, except that it’s best not to be run over by horses.”

  “You have a foreign accent.”

  “I lived many years in America and Canada. Then Paris. I had some debts, some trouble with women . . .” That was biography enough in any army, and unlikely to be challenged. “And you, a Jew, fight alongside the Christians?”

  “I’ve yet to find a man in the regiment I’d consider a true Christian. They rut, they blaspheme, they loot, and they kill. I make the best I can of military life, and to not fight back is to guarantee being preyed upon. I was conscripted from a village near Châlons. My opportunistic father took it as a sign from God. He trails the army as a moneylender and pawnbroker. Soldiers curse him as avidly as they use him.”

  “You must have a skeptical view of society.”

  “A realistic one. My father knows soldiers like to lighten themselves of money and belongings before a battle because they regard too much of either as bad luck. So they pawn their loot, gamble what they’ve left, and then ask for loans. If I contrive to survive, I might inherit a fortune. After the war we may visit Prague. It has one of the largest ghettos in Europe.”

  “I wish to visit Prague myself. I’m something of a scholar. A savant, actually, interested in Franklin’s precepts of electricity and Cuvier’s speculations on the age of the earth. Prague is reputed to be a center of learning.”

  “Then God has thrown us together for a reason, my new friend.”

  Our ordinaire included six others, including Henri the cheerful, Thibault the complainer, Duval the leader, Philippe the shirker, Charles the big one, and Louis the scrounger. Within the company were bullies like Cheval, plus brave veterans, sickly men who once had been clerks, and the useful skills that come from scooping up a range of tradesmen, farmers, shopkeepers, and students. The officers were the Big Hats, and the Imperial Guard the “Immortals,” because they were kept in reserve and thus safer than the rest of us. The “stew cookers” were more valued than virgins. Anyone could fight, but it was the rare chef who could turn army rations into a decent meal. A good cook was worth more than two whores, three officers, or four priests, the calculation went.

  The most prestigious and dangerous position in the company was standard-bearer. The flagstaff was heavy, a sail in the wind, and left the holder defenseless. But ah, the glory of carrying a banner that men would die for! It was sublime. It was suicidal. It was brave. I myself wouldn’t touch a flagstaff with a flagpole, but then, I’m sensible, which sets me apart from almost everybody.

  “Half these men were combat veterans before this campaign even started,” Gideon said, to bolster his confidence and mine. “They’ve been training in the camps of Boulogne for three years, and not just as companies but as brigades, divisions, and corps. The emperor has given us the best equipment in Europe, and steers us with the same assuredness with which Murat’s knees steer his horses or his women. We’re outnumbered, but nobody is panicked. We’ve marched the length of Austria, and can march the length of Russia if we have to.”

  “I admire your militant enthusiasm,” I said, “while hoping to live long enough to enjoy our inevitable victory. I’ve actually been in a coffin, and don’t recommend the experience.”

  “A coffin!”

  “Shared it with a young lady with a broken neck. Too complicated to explain now, but the experience is sobering. Especially when they pile the dirt on.”

  He looked at me as if I were mad. People believe me when I lie, and never trust me when I tell the truth.

  “If it will relax you, Digeon, the army has no caskets on hand,” he finally said. “The best you can hope for is a hole, probably a mass burial with a dash of quicklime and a cursory benediction from the wrong religion, after men have picked over your belongings.”

  “I give you leave to pick at my carrion first, my friend. And I’ll take a Jewish prayer as well, just to be safe.”

  “Agreed. Give me a Christian one. Here’s some pipe clay to whiten your crossbelts. Try to make a handsome corpse.”

  “The handsomeness is assured. But dressing well before we die is not unreasonable. A past female acquaintance told me fashion can be more important than wit.” This was Catherine Marceau, who was a useful tutor when she wasn’t betraying my schemes.

  “Certainly we have peacocks among our officers. Our enemies do, too, I expect.”

  “So let’s shoot them instead of being shot,” I suggested. “And contrive to serve a few ranks back, so we can tell our grandchildren about our courage.”

  When to flee? The anticipation of battle had curtailed any foraging expeditions, sentries had been posted in back of the army as well as in front, to discourage desertion, and officers were anxious about fighting at maximum strength. We were bivouacked in a ravine by a stream, keeping me blind to potential escape routes. Cavalry were herding stragglers back, not allowing them out. So I bided my time, as a good gambler should, trusting I’d be held in reserve until battle smoke and confusion gave me cover.

  And then came the most extraordinary evening in Napoleon’s life.

  We were trying to rest as best we could, but anticipation is the enemy of sleep. Fitful snow had blown all day, the stars were hidden, and our only mattress, the frozen ground, was cold as iron. We lay closer than lovers around a final tiny fire, one side cooked and the other icy, turning in unison like spits of meat rotating in a restaurant. Gideon shared the disputed cloak, which was more tangible reward than I usually get. I lay awake wondering if Astiza and Harry were snug in a cozy apartment or trapped in some foul prison. The night was black as pitch. Was this a time to creep away?

  Then a curious rumbling of the kind an excited crowd makes penetrated my fitful doze. I realized the men of our ordinaire were stirring. “Get up, something’s happening!” I stood, muscles stiff, brain groggy, alarmed by the bustle in the dark. There was a glow in the lines to our left, and I wondered for a moment if the enemy had set something on fire. But no, there were no shots or bugles. Then I saw the flames were moving, advancing like a river of fire, and finally I realized that a torch-lit column of men were coming our way, as if on parade.

  We seized our muskets, our officers too uncertain to give orders.

  Then shouts and whispers ran up and down the line.

  “It’s the emperor!”

  Napoleon was coming to inspect.

  Here was c
hallenge! By the luck of Benedict Arnold, the very man I’d crept away from was approaching me. In procession were officers and Imperial Guardsmen, torches lighting plumed bicornes, bearskin hats, and the turbans of Mameluke bodyguards. Strolling in their center, his hat unadorned and his greatcoat plain, was Napoleon, still surprisingly identifiable by posture and silhouette. His head swiveled like a hawk’s, seeming to see into the soul of every soldier. At an hour most generals were snug in their tents, husbanding their energies for battle, he was walking the lines in a flurry of snow, greeting this sentry and that corporal, or picking out a past hero or two with his remarkable memory. His presence had an electrifying effect.

  “Vive l’empereur!”

  The salutation was a roar. A quiet inspection tour had turned into a torch parade. As Napoleon was recognized, infantrymen spontaneously lit brands in their campfires and hoisted them in salute, the flames steadily expanding. “It’s the emperor! It’s Napoleon!” Their fervor was greater than for an opera star. They wanted to assert their readiness for battle. The soldiers couldn’t leave their place in the army’s line, and so the general walked along it, each unit in turn hoisting burning tributes. They illuminated his confident smile.

  I’d seen his calculated act before. He practiced having presence.

  I retreated into the shadows to avoid being seen. Bonaparte’s inspection had triggered a snake of fire a mile long now, sparks flying in the winter wind, the serpent of light a calligraphy of adoration.

  “Vive l’empereur!”

  The great man’s gray eyes caught and held the light. He’d occasionally stop to gently pull an ear, clasp a shoulder, or shake a hand. No man was sleeping now—all were up and all were roaring, except for me. Even my Jewish friend was shouting, and looked at me curiously when I did not. I dared not have Napoleon look my way. Once more I felt isolated and alone, far from home and hollow because of it. Something momentous was happening. The world hadn’t seen this kind of military fervor before. War had traditionally been a desultory royal affair of small campaigns by professional soldiers for incremental gains. Now it involved whole nations, and oceans of men. Napoleon had not just seized power; he had reinvented power, fusing French ambition with his own. He was not just a general, or even a conqueror, but the conductor of a strange new fervor.

  He passed our own ordinaire, slapping the arm of Henri with hearty encouragement and seducing every one of us with a sweep of his eyes. Except me, who knew him better than any man here, all his aspects great and terrible, the titan who represented the best and worst of mankind. When he looked toward me, I shrank back even further into the gloom, so that there was no way he could have recognized me in my uniform. I had to stay absent, lest he turn me over to Pasques and Catherine Marceau and ruin the hunt for my family, which I was desperate to resume.

  And yet I had the distinct feeling he had. Did he wink?

  Then he was past, the next unit cheering, and our own torches slowly snuffed out in the dark. I silently cursed. Any chance to steal away had been ruined by Napoleon’s exciting us as if it were Christmas. Every man was alert and feverish now, and all would see me try to leave. I’d be stopped, questioned, and probably shot.

  So I must wait for the fog of battle. Gun smoke and chaos would be my friends. I’d scramble at the peak of confusion, and go rescue wife and son.

  Napoleon was in the distance now, new torches lighting, old ones burning out, men cheering themselves hoarse. I’ve no idea what the Austrians and Russians made of it. There were no cheers or torches from their side.

  I came back into the firelight. “Digeon, where were you!” cried Henri. “Did you see him touch me? It was magic! It was like being touched by Christ! How I burn to fight for him!”

  “He looked like Caesar,” said Duval.

  “Handsomer than I would have guessed,” said Charles. “And taller.”

  Gideon put his hand on my shoulder. “So we’ve seen history, eh, my friend? Not a man here high enough to enter a palace, but we’re the ones who have seen him in the field. That’s the Napoleon people will remember. And since he’s here, I’ll fight for him cheerfully enough. What do you think will happen tomorrow?”

  “Something great and terrible,” I predicted. “The other side longs for battle.”

  I couldn’t explain how I knew this, but my newest friend accepted my wisdom. “We’d better get what rest we can, then.”

  So we bedded down, once more without sleeping, and I remembered again what the next day was.

  The one-year anniversary of Napoleon’s coronation, the one I’d tried to sabotage and that he had turned into triumph.

  Chapter 16

  Astiza

  The grandly named Golden Lane turned out to be a slit of a street squeezed between the walls of Prague Castle and its in-buildings. I was eager and yet apprehensive when we reached the low, arched gate giving access. Prague Castle is vast, the biggest in Europe, and its complexity is intimidating. There are the guarded royal apartments, the vast St. Vitus Cathedral, the high offices of government, army barracks, kitchens, chapels, sub-palaces, and the galleries where Rudolf kept his bizarre collection. Tucked against the fortress wall in a corner near the Black Tower is the Lane, its row of tiny houses inhabited by goldsmiths, moneylenders, alchemists, and, it appeared, men proclaiming to be warlocks. I don’t believe in witches of either sex, but I do believe that some creatures seek dark magic and selfish power. King Rudolf allowed this tiny slum to encourage alchemy. Now, I guessed, it drew dreamers, madmen, and frauds.

  Fulcanelli smiled reassuringly. “Come, come. Sometimes the oddest people have the deepest insight.”

  The Lane was like a trench, a blank wall on one side and hovel doors on the other. The sky was a ribbon above, and the cobbles uneven and worn. Wise men, vagabonds, whores, chemists, seers, and astrologers loitered there. Horus shrank against my leg as we pushed through a swarm of the colorful and eccentric, and once more I felt guilty at the life I’d given him. What kind of nomadic existence had I inflicted on my little boy? He squeezed my fingers as if being held over a precipice.

  “No worries, Horus,” Fulcanelli assured. “Auric likes children.”

  “I don’t like dogs.”

  “No dogs.”

  There were gypsies, beggars, cripples, black-clad Jews, strutting mercenaries, lovelorn noblewomen looking for potions, and fat merchants in thick fur robes. I felt like I’d gone back in time. While the West abandoned magic, Prague incorporated it. The bishop nonetheless led us confidently, a hand on a sword, his manner unlike that of any churchman I’d known. “Don’t worry, I’ve been here before.” And indeed, the crowd recognized him and parted. He strode like an earl.

  We had to stoop to enter Auric’s hovel, a low-ceilinged room that was smoky, hot, and sulfurous.

  “It stinks, Mama,” Horus whispered. I squeezed his hand back. What a brave explorer he was! With the Brazen Head I might learn of my husband, or bargain for him. I might win us peace.

  The warlock Auric Nachash was as ugly as Fulcanelli was handsome, a squat and warty dwarf with bulbous nose and absent chin. “You brought them! Welcome! Welcome!” His look was a gleam and his laugh a cackle, like a nightmare marionette.

  “This lady needs your wisdom.”

  Ethan, Ethan, where are you?

  The heat came from a stove with boiling pots. Coiled copper tubing led to bowls iridescent with pools of metallic green, blue, and red, the wafting fumes like a preview of the underworld. It was an alchemical laboratory, and I wondered what Auric’s neighbors thought of his experiments. Distillation of exotic compounds was a notorious source of fire. Yet he slept next to his brews like a hausfrau next to her kitchen. Now he bowed to Fulcanelli.

  “She’s a pretty witch.”

  “Not a witch, but a scholar,” Fulcanelli corrected.

  “And a boy as well! How did you find them?”

  “She found me. Everything is fated, Auric, as I’ve told you.” He addressed me. “Is that not so, p
riestess? Were you not meant to be here, at this time, with us?”

  I looked about. The door was shut tight, and the single window to the Lane grimy. Glass jars held dead, hairless animals and organs, all of them colored pus white. I guessed they were used for spells. Harry looked at them with the cautious fascination of a child. I prayed to Isis and Mary. “If we find what we seek. Fate is amended by free will, Bishop.” I turned warily to the warlock. “Can you help us?”

  “Let’s try to help each other.” His grin had no friendship in it, and in fact he couldn’t hold a gaze. His eyes slid away when he talked, to fasten on things that didn’t look back. There was something missing in his character. But he would also cast furtive glances. I caught him looking at my son the way a bird looks at a worm, while Harry shuffled closer to the stove.

  “Horus, be careful,” I said.

  “It’s hot, Mama.”

  “Auric is a seer like you,” Fulcanelli said.

  “Not as pretty, not as pretty,” the dwarf sing-sang. He hopped from foot to foot.

  “But we constantly amend and improve our partnership,” the bishop went on. “Now you’re in our fellowship as well. Our triumvirate is meant to find the Philosopher’s Stone and the Brazen Head together. Succeed or fail together. Learn together. Wield power together.”

  I wasn’t sure what kind of partnership he really wanted. “I have a husband,” I reminded him.

  “No doubt a fine fellow, who, unfortunately, has abandoned you,” Fulcanelli said. “I admire your fidelity, and hope you accept our friendship, too.” He smiled, standing close.

  “Not abandoned. He was detained, perhaps.” Was I being punished for seeking knowledge instead of waiting for Ethan? Should I have submitted to imprisonment at Notre Dame? No, we had to escape to find the automaton.