The General's Mistress

by Jo Graham

  Vincenzio lifted his blade and saluted formally, handing off his foil to an assistant.

  I shook out my hand, trying to feel my fingers.

  Michel grinned like a proud papa. “My friend’s not so bad, eh?”

  “I’ve seen worse,” Vincenzio said. “I see the eastern influence. A guardsman’s style, not a nobleman’s. I bet that father of yours was in some keen fights, not affairs of honor. None of the extraneous flourishes the Austrians are teaching these days. Was he foot or horse?”

  “I don’t know,” I said quietly. “He died many years ago.” And I didn’t. I had assumed he was an officer and a gentleman, but an illegitimate son left to make his way in the world might just as easily have been a street fighter. For the first time in years, I felt suddenly close to him. Perhaps he would have been proud of what I had become, little Elza who could deal with the world being a dangerous place. An adventurer, like her father.

  My chin rose. “Will you teach me, Monsieur Vincenzio? I see that I have a lot to learn.”

  “If you’ll work at it,” he said. “And if your friend will pay.” He looked at Michel.

  Michel shrugged. “Once a week?”

  “Three times a week,” I said. “If I’m to learn it, I want to learn it well.” I glanced at Michel. “If you’re paying.”

  He laughed. “I’m paying. And three times a week, if you want it. You’ll be so stiff and sore you won’t be able to move, but I suppose I can deal with that.”

  I found myself blushing with as much embarrassment as if I had been Charles. I nodded and wandered off by the door to put on my coat while Michel dickered about the cost of lessons with Vincenzio, who swore he had a special stop thrust that he would show Michel himself for just a little extra, the perfect lethal move only for a man of his skill, shown only to very special pupils for a very special price. He came over to join me shaking his head. I handed him his hat.

  “Did you pay for the very special stop thrust?” I asked as we went down the outside stairs to the street.

  “I will,” he said. “Sometimes Vincenzio has some good things. And he’s practical. He’ll teach you how to handle people a lot bigger than you are.”

  “You could show me that too.”

  “I could,” Michel said cheerfully. “But I’m not a good teacher. I’d probably lop your ear off in the process.” He threw an arm about my shoulders enthusiastically. “I’ve never seen a woman who was as good as you.”

  “You know,” I said, stepping around a market stand of apples that spilled onto the sidewalk, “he thinks I’m your lover.”

  “You are my lover,” Michel said, jostling me as he avoided the mud splashed by a bottle-green phaeton passing at too quick a pace for the city.

  I looked at him sideways. There was mud on his boots anyway. “He thinks I’m your lover and he thinks I’m a man.”

  Michel stopped. I walked a couple of paces farther before I realized it, then went back. He shrugged, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re not.”

  “No,” I said, linking my arm through his and drawing him to walk down the street, “I’m not. Not physically.”

  “But you think people will think so, when you dress like this?” He kept pace with me now, his voice dropped.

  “They usually do,” I said. “You said yourself how well I passed.” I didn’t want him to decide whatever it was. It was too much to expect that he should love Charles as well. A tentative truce between the parts of my life was the most I could hope for.

  He stopped walking again, stood facing me, one small line furrowing between his brows. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever met who wanted to ride and shoot and fence and talk about interesting things, never mind all the rest of it. That I know what to say to out of bed.”

  “And in bed’s not bad either,” I said, reaching for his hand. I held it. “But if I hold your hand in the street dressed like this, you know what people will think of you and of me.”

  “It’s a masquerade,” he said, but he didn’t sound sure.

  I shook my head. “No, Michel. It isn’t.” I could not pretend, not with him. “This is who I really am.”

  “More than a quirk?” His blue eyes were very serious, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  “Yes,” I said, and my heart sank. “More than a quirk. More than a costume.”

  He looked down. His hand in mine, big and callused, long fingers scarred from too many things; my hand small and tense, a swollen red mark from Vincenzio’s touch blossoming. It didn’t look like a woman’s hand, not emerging from a man’s coat sleeve, the lace cuff falling short of the first joint. Michel looked at it. Then, very deliberately, he lifted it to his lips.

  He kissed my hand in the open street, reverentially, like a lover who has achieved a great prize. His eyes met mine over it as people walked around us, curious or knowing or censorious.

  I looked back at him, and something broke inside me. “I love you,” I said.

  Michel fell into pace beside me, walking down the street, still holding my hand. His steps were light. “I had to know if I could,” he said. “If I’m brave enough.”

  “For what?”

  He shrugged. “For whatever. And I love you, too.”

  I stopped suddenly, pulling him around, and kissed him passionately in the middle of the sidewalk, my arms twining around his neck.

  People jostled past us. I couldn’t have cared less what they said, what they thought, whether they laughed or disapproved or just wished we’d go somewhere private; I kissed him in men’s clothes in the middle of Paris, and he kissed me back. He could live with Charles, and it was more than enough.

  Autumn came in earnest. A cold rain blew in from the north, and the leaves were scoured off the trees and lay in sodden heaps on rooftops and in streets. The nights were cold, and we went to bed early, curling into bed to do soft things under the covers and whisper when it was done. There was magic in our flesh. I felt the binding grow tighter and tighter with each touch, with each secret told in the dark.

  The news told a different story. Britain had paid the Austrians, it said. Sixty thousand pounds had been the price if the Austrians would break the armistice. The peace was ending.

  We knew. We knew the next courier might be for him. Michel bought some small supplies, shaving soap and a few books, new quills and a compass in a leather case to replace one he’d lost.

  We drank burgundy at the table in the apartment out of my two wineglasses, finishing a stewed rabbit we’d brought back from a tavern. Outside, the rising wind made the windows shake.

  “I’ll pay the rent for next month in advance,” Michel said suddenly. “And I’ll have my agent pay it each month while I’m gone. You won’t have to worry.”

  I looked down at my plate, then back up at him. I didn’t want to talk about it, but we had to sooner or later. “I suppose you’ll leave your things here.”

  “If that’s all right with you.” Staking a claim. It would deter other lovers, his things all over the house. How he had got so many things here in only six weeks was something of a mystery.

  “I could come with you,” I said.

  Michel put his glass down. The wine looked like blood in the dim light, an old comparison but an apt one. His eyes met mine across the table. “I’m given a divisional command, nine thousand men. The largest command I’ve ever had.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” I said.

  “I’m under Moreau’s direct command.”

  I took a breath and let it out. “Damn.”

  “Yes.” Michel poured more wine for both of us and took a big drink of his. “If it were anyone else. Or if I wasn’t going to be directly under him, with Moreau in and out of my headquarters all the time . . .”

  “If he sees me, your career will go up in flames,” I said. “You have no idea how vindictive he can be.”

  “I’m getting a pretty good idea,” Michel said. “He already thought I was having a secret affair with you behi
nd his back. If you come with me—”

  “—he’ll decide that he was right,” I said. “And believe me, Michel, he will make your life miserable. If you’re lucky.”

  “If not, I’m Uriah the Hittite.”

  I looked at him blankly. “You’re who?”

  “Uriah the Hittite. David saw Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, bathing and sent him off to the front lines to take a spear through the middle.” Michel took another big gulp of wine. It was rougher stuff than I usually bought, but it had been on sale.

  “Oh, the Bible,” I said.

  “How you managed to grow up a perfect heathen is something I can’t understand,” Michel said, one eyebrow raised. “I can’t bring you, Elza. If Moreau found out, it would be the end of my command. He could do that.”

  “And he would,” I said. “I know he would.” I looked away.

  “I can’t risk it,” Michel said.

  “I know.” I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to plead to go. I knew all the very good reasons. And it would be selfish to ask him to sacrifice his command for me, just so I wouldn’t have to stay bored and safe in Paris, living on his money. That was not, I thought, how a lover should act, how a lover should be. I should love his honor as my own, and be as zealous for his glory as he was. That was what Plato counseled lovers, a counsel far more real to me than Uriah the Hittite.

  “I don’t want to go,” he said. “This . . .” He gestured around the apartment.

  “You do want to go,” I said. “Michel, this is an interlude. It’s not your real life. Your real life is out there, in the field, doing the things you do best. You may wish you had a longer holiday, but you do want to go.”

  He smiled ruefully. “I do. But not yet.”

  I nodded. “And I wish I could go with you. I would go with you on a moment’s notice, except—”

  “—for Moreau,” Michel finished. “And it’s not a very safe place for you. It will be the dead of winter soon, with an army on the march. I don’t know how I can even think about taking you into that anyway.”

  “Women go,” I said.

  “It’s a rough life,” he said. “Always the first to go without food and shelter, the last out in a retreat. The prey of unscrupulous men and scoundrels on both sides. I wouldn’t want it for you.”

  “I would,” I said, raising my chin, “if I could be near you always and see you every day. And it’s not as though I haven’t been in a baggage train before. I can take care of myself.”

  “I know,” he said. He reached across the table and took my hand, just looking at it. The touch from my first lesson had faded to a yellow bruise, but there were fresh ones, and a long scab along my thumb from the flat of the blade on a bad disarm. But I was getting better. “I’ll be back in the spring.”

  “I hope you will,” I said. “Michel, I hope so.” My voice broke.

  And then we both started crying. Which led to kisses and comfort and going in the other room to forget, kissing the tears from his eyes and at last curling sleepily together. I listened to his beating heart. “When?” I whispered.

  “At the end of the week,” he said. “Four more nights.”

  Farewells

  The next day was gray and colorless. It was hard to recapture our carefree mood now that our days together were numbered. I went with Michel to his tailor’s shop to pick up half a dozen new shirts, several pairs of flannel underdrawers, a pair of dress pants, and two pairs of wool uniform pants reinforced with leather for riding. I liked the pants with the leather between the legs and in the seat, and said so. Michel said I should order a pair for myself for riding and put it on the bill, even though I said I didn’t really need them.

  We shopped a bit more. It wasn’t raining, though it looked like it would at any moment. I was officious about what he would need, trying to send him off as I had sent Moreau, with a full kit and a few comforts. Michel took being fussed over fairly well, though he protested that he didn’t need jam or mustard, since he didn’t have a cook, and his orderly wouldn’t remember to put them out with meals anyway.

  Instead of going out to dinner, we went back to the apartment and made love while the rain came down in sheets against the windows and the room was filled with gray light. We went to sleep fitfully in the afternoon while the rain still fell.

  We woke to a knock on the door. Michel swore. I felt the bed give as he rolled out. “Probably a courier. Damn.” He raised his voice. “Just a moment.”

  I curled up in the warm place he had been while he found his trousers and thumped out into the salon. It was morning, but the light was still gray. And it was cold, since no one had lit the stove.

  Michel’s voice and another man’s. Not a stranger—Delacroix. I pulled myself out of bed and was finding my dress when Michel stuck his head in. “Elza? There’s a friend of yours here.”

  I pulled my dress over my head and he quickly fastened up the buttons in the back for me. His face was solemn.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “Let him tell you,” Michel said gently. I felt terror grip me, and I hurried out.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Why—”

  Delacroix looked drawn, and he was wearing his best black coat. With a pang of regret, I thought that I had barely paid attention to him or any of my other old friends since my return to town, so focused had I been on Michel and this wonderful new romance. I hadn’t spoken to him in weeks. “Ida, I . . .”

  Michel’s head rose at the name. He had forgotten about Ida.

  “What’s happened?” I said.

  Delacroix took my hands. “It’s Lisette. She’s dead.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh.” It had only been six months since I’d moved out, since I took the road to Italy with Isabella. It seemed half a lifetime ago. But it had not been long. “What happened?”

  He glanced at Michel, but shrugged when I didn’t seem to mind if he told me in front of my new man. “She was upset. I don’t know about what. She drank half a bottle of laudanum, and then decided that she didn’t want to die. I think that’s what happened. She tried to make herself throw up, but she was drifting in and out. She choked on her own vomit.”

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t feel anything. Nothing but Michel standing behind me, his hands on my shoulders. There was nothing but this chill horror spreading through me.

  Delacroix went on, his voice roughened. “Clemence and I and some others are arranging for the grave in the pauper’s field. I thought you’d like to know and come in with us, or at least come this afternoon. It’s not much, but it’s what we can do, and—”

  “I will,” I said. “I’ll be there. I can give you some money toward it too.” My voice sounded perfectly steady. I was surprised by that. “Michel, where did I put my reticule?”

  “It’s over here,” he said. “On the chair.” He handed it to me, a blue brocade purse swinging on satin strings.

  There was money. We had been shopping, but I hadn’t bought much. I gave Delacroix all that was left. He looked at it.

  “Are you sure? It’s more than your share,” he said.

  I shoved it into his hand. “It’s fine.”

  “I’ll see you this afternoon at two, then,” he said. “I’m going to run by the theater and see if I can catch Dorée before her rehearsal and tell her.”

  Michel went to the funeral with me. He wore his best dress uniform, which I had not seen before, the coat stiff with gold braid, and a tall bicorne with a black plume. It made him look roughly ten feet tall. He wore his saber instead of a dress sword, which I was concluding he didn’t own, and the long tricolor sash of the Army of the Republic with its fringe of bullion. It was quite a show for a prostitute he’d never met.

  It was respect for me and for my friends. I knew it, and it made tears start in my eyes.

  I wore my one black dress and a long cloak, and a black velvet chip bonnet that wasn’t really appropriate but was the only black hat I owned. My wardrobe did not run to somber.<
br />
  Delacroix was there, and Clemence and Dorée, the tall African girl who was now at the Théâtre-Français. There were several young men, bleary-eyed and unkempt, who stayed far away from Michel with his glitter and his sword. I couldn’t remember their names, or if I had slept with them last winter. I might have.

  They had sewn her body into a cheap linen shroud. I didn’t see it. I didn’t really want to remember her face that way. There was no priest. Delacroix said a few words about how she’d been a good friend, and Dorée gave Cleopatra’s lament over Antony while the gravediggers stood about in the cold, sharing a flask and telling each other jokes, leaning on their shovels. Their laughter was somewhat discouraged by Michel’s gimlet gaze.

  They dropped her down in the hole. Beneath her there was a thin layer of dirt over the shrouds of the others already in the pit. Dorée started to walk away as they threw in a few shovelfuls of quicklime. Michel took my arm.

  “See you around town?” Delacroix asked me.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Thank you for coming and getting me. I mean it.”

  He looked up at Michel, who was towering. “See you soon.”

  I nodded. Behind, there was a thunk as the gravediggers started throwing earth. They would just barely cover Lisette over. The quicklime would prevent the stench from being unbearable when they put the next one in on top, today or tomorrow or next week.

  We walked home. It wasn’t raining, though it looked like it would. Michel had my arm and was mercifully silent.

  It was ten blocks before I spoke, the words running round and round in my mind, before I could find the thing that I truly feared. “That’s where I’m going, you know,” I said. “Where I’ll end up. One of these days.” It would be me in the pit with a few shovels of quicklime to keep the smell down.

  He tucked my hand in the crook of his arm. “I’m for a mass grave on a field somewhere,” he said evenly. “With or without all my limbs attached. I don’t particularly mind the idea of dying, but I do mind being carved up first.”