The General's Mistress

by Jo Graham

  I closed my eyes, reaching for that presence I had felt in Lebrun’s rituals. I knew the words, I had been taught them. Archangel Michel, Guardian of Battles, of the South and of Fire, Patron of warriors and all those who fight for others, watch over your namesake! Guard him with your sword. Keep him safe.

  And then I felt better. Not wild with the ecstasy of battle as I had before, but just better. Not buoyed up by divinity, but calmer, as though my heart was now the mirror of my face. I got up to wash my soup bowl.

  With a roll like distant thunder, the guns opened up.

  The front of the Austrian advance had come out of the woods straight into the field of fire of Moreau’s guns. Caught between their advancing column and the French guns and infantry ahead and the dark forest, the Austrians did the only sensible thing. They charged.

  I ran outside and looked, but I could see nothing. There was too much smoke from the batteries, too many men rushing about, and the buildings of the town blocked my view. I glanced up. Even from the second-story windows of the house, I should see nothing. The church stood between it and the road, as well as other houses on the other side. The tower was filled with our men, no doubt, spotters who could send messages to Moreau. The church itself had been made ready as a hospital, the priest and several nuns who normally tended the town’s sick waiting for the wounded of both sides. As yet, the town was safe. We were not in range of the Austrian guns.

  From the sound of the batteries crashing, I doubted that many of the Austrian guns were in play yet. They would have to be dragged clear of the woods and unlimbered, and I had seen what a laborious process that could be. To do it under fire in fourteen inches of snow would take quite some time, if they did it at all.

  I wanted to go nearer, but I didn’t. If it was an artillery duel, or the rush on guns by infantry against our infantry, there was nothing useful I could do. Here, at least, there was. I went back in the house and started making a sausage soup.

  The sun flirted with the clouds, now coming out for a few minutes, then disappearing again.

  For a few moments near noon it seemed the battle was over. The Austrians had backed off to the edge of the woods, unable to make any headway, and the field was covered with the dead and dying. They could not advance and get their wounded, while ours fell near our lines and could be pulled to relative safety. It was only a respite. The young Archduke rallied his men again and charged. From the street I could see little, save that the left was fully engaged.

  I would have heard if Michel had fallen. Someone would have said. Messengers were coming and going, and the wounded were being brought back to the church. If something had happened, I would know it.

  I chopped up onions and fried them in butter, making a base for the soup. I fried the sausages and found plenty of sage, some barley to go in the pot that would plump up and give it all some body as it cooked.

  The snow began again.

  I went back out in the street. Now there was something new. Men in the uniforms of the 103rd were escorting prisoners, dozens of them, back away from the town and across the river. Tired and bloody, there were scores of them. No, I thought as I got a better look, hundreds. Hundreds of prisoners were sheltering in the byres across the river, guarded by our men, their paroles given. Hundreds.

  It couldn’t be long. And it wasn’t.

  The snow changed into sleet. There was a new sound. Far away, just on the edge of hearing, the answering booming of guns. Richepanse was somewhere in their rear, and his guns marked his position.

  The Austrian front collapsed. Pullback became retreat became rout. By the end of the afternoon, Ney’s nine thousand men had taken ten thousand prisoners and eighty-seven guns, and the Austrian army had completely disintegrated. Units fled into the forest, while a small number retreated in order. All in all, we had more than twenty thousand prisoners.

  Our losses were comparatively small, by military standards—a few thousand, a few hundred of whom were Ney’s. He would count every one.

  He did not come in until midnight. The sausage soup was gone. I thought that I had seen every hungry man in the division. I’d made onion soup with some bacon in it. When that ran out, we were back to potato soup again.

  Michel came in from the dark, ice glittering on his hat from the sleet that still came down. The kitchen was full of men, most of them grabbing something to eat before going back out.

  He looked at me and I looked at him. I could see the shadow of that exaltation on his face, the last bit of that passion that transported me beyond myself, that had lifted me on the wings of eagles.

  I ladled out a bowl of soup and brought it to him with a wooden spoon.

  He took it as though I had handed him the Host. “Isn’t this the same soup?” he asked, his eyes meeting mine over the steaming bowl.

  “No,” I said. “It’s different soup. The other soup ran out and I made more soup. Twice.”

  His face was red and raw from the cold, two days’ beard on his jaw, his hair damp with ice and blood. A powder burn streaked one cheek. He had been firing a musket at some point.

  “Oh,” he said, and lifted one hand from the soup bowl, cupping my jaw and pulling my face to his in a kiss, savage and tender with the remains of that passion. Someone hooted and someone else laughed, making a jest I didn’t hear. It made my head swim.

  He released me. His expression was slightly sheepish above the soup bowl.

  “Michel,” I said a little breathlessly, “eat your soup.”

  And he did, sitting down at the trestle table and putting his hat beside him.

  “How about bringing me some soup?” a wag across the room called.

  “I didn’t get any of that with my soup,” a corporal remarked. “How about some more for me, pretty one?”

  I ladled out a dish for the wag and gave it to him with a smile and a flourish. “I’ll give you soup but nothing more. Go get some oak leaves on your shoulders, and I’ll bring you soup to remember!”

  A stocky sergeant with his arm in a sling reached for the second bowl I brought. I leaned down and kissed his brow. There was a hooting cheer. “And that’s for you, with your honorable blood. The rest of you, go to work like Jean here and see what you get!” I winked and went and sat by Michel.

  His eyes were amused. “When did you get to be the wife of the brigade?”

  “Sometime in the last two days I’ve spent feeding them,” I said. “It’s what I can do. There’s not one of them who would hurt me.”

  Michel looked around the room, taking its temper in a glance. “No, there’s not. Good fellows all, and you belong to them. They’d kill any man who took liberties with you, whether they think you’re a boy or a girl.”

  I followed his glance around the room. “This is where I belong,” I said simply.

  He looked up, the spoon halfway to his mouth. “Yes,” he said. “You understand.”

  He meant more than this room. He meant the madness that possessed him, the glory that filled and receded like an unconquerable hunger. And he meant the life of the camp, the life of the road, of seeing morning breaking over strange fields.

  “I do,” I said, and leaned on his shoulder for a moment.

  Then I went back to ladling out soup.

  Richepanse was sent in pursuit of the Austrians because his men had taken the least damage in the battles. Moreau followed after toward Munich. Michel was left to parole the prisoners and have a day or three of rest, his men having borne the brunt of three days’ battle. We were four more nights in Hohenlinden before we moved out for Munich. Michel spent most of the nights on his feet, what with one thing and another, catching a few hours’ sleep in the early mornings. I cooked, and slept on what seemed to be an entirely different schedule.

  On the last night, I woke to find the bed empty except for the big gray cat. She lounged, purring, on my feet. I sat up and petted her. “Don’t worry,” I said to her, “we’re leaving. And your people will be home soon, I expect. They’ll miss their potato
es and sausages, but they’ll be glad to see you.”

  We left for Munich on a cold, clear day. The snow had stopped, but it hadn’t been warm enough to melt anything. I rode Nestor at the front of the baggage train, ahead of the hospital wagons and the supplies and caissons, just ahead of the wagon with Michel’s tent and cases. Nestor was in fine spirits, prancing and blowing a bit just to show that he could. We camped that night along the road, and the next day came into Munich.

  The city had already surrendered to Moreau long since, with deputations from the city fathers and the Church, Moreau giving his guarantees of safety and nonmolestation. In return, certain public buildings were opened for our troops, and officers and others who would not fit should be quartered in private homes. Moreau, of course, was at the Residence with the sovereign duke, Max Joseph.

  Michel and his immediate staff were assigned to the mansion of a wealthy doctor, an eminent man whose anticlerical sympathies were something of a scandal. Perhaps, his peers thought, if he was so fond of the Republic, he should have them in his house, stomping around his polished floors and leering at his daughters. Michel’s response was to behave as an honored guest, greeting his host in perfect German with a grave and thoughtful manner.

  I wondered precisely what role I was expected to play here—Charles would in all propriety be quartered with the footmen. Not only would that make it impossible for me to stay with Michel without scandal, but I doubted that I could carry off Charles in a garret with three or four other men.

  Uncertain, I went to Michel’s room to unpack his things. There would be dinner with our host and his wife and some distinguished friends, Michel’s best coat needed airing and brushing, since he didn’t have a dress coat with him.

  The room was beautifully appointed—clearly the best guest chamber of a wealthy family, with a copper bathtub behind a screen in the dressing room and the walls hung in celadon-green silk. The bed was also curtained in celadon, high and fluffy with goose down. It looked heavenly. My desire for the footmen’s beds in the attic waned still further.

  Michel had been one step ahead of me. Laid out on the bed was my sapphire-blue wool dress, the one that had been in his case. I picked it up. It seemed like a very long time since I had worn it in Paris. Had it really been only a month and a half ago? The fabric seemed so soft against my fingers. I held it to my face, smelling the faint scent of leather that clung to it from Michel’s bags.

  He opened the door and came in. I knew his step and didn’t turn.

  “What’s the dress for?” I asked.

  “For dinner,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders. “For Madame St. Elme, my dear companion.”

  “You will make the Munichers accept me and greet me in polite society? I’m not sure that’s wise,” I said. Moreau had been careful not to have me in company where my status might give offense. It didn’t in Paris, of course, but France was not like the rest of the world, and Michel was trying to put a good foot forward here. “And what about Moreau?”

  Michel swore long and hard. Eventually he paused to take a breath. “You can say you’re Madame Versfelt or Madame St. Elme or Cleopatra for all I care! I’m sick of sneaking around Moreau! He’s the one who threw you out almost three years ago. If he can’t accept that you have a new lover, he’s deranged.”

  “He’s still your commander,” I said, turning in his arms. “And he can still do you great harm.”

  “I can think of one name that won’t give offense,” he said, his teeth clenched. “Madame Ney.”

  “Michel, you are out of your mind! Don’t you think Moreau will wonder who that is? Don’t you think he’ll expect to meet her? Unless I have some name that isn’t anything he’s ever heard.”

  “Maria,” he said. “You look like a Maria. Every third woman is named Maria.”

  “Maria Kuller,” I said, thinking back. Berthe had been my nurse in those horrible years after my father died. And she would never begrudge me her name. She had taught me to cook. Maybe I was thinking of her because of all the soup. “Madame Kuller.”

  “Good,” Michel said. “Get dressed, Madame Kuller. Dinner is in less than an hour.”

  I looked at him. He was smiling at pulling this off right under Moreau’s nose, a silly risk and a dear one. “You’re mad, you know,” I said fondly.

  Cease-fire

  Dinner was not terribly formal. This was fortunate, since neither of us had any dress clothes. The gown Michel had brought for me was a day dress, not an evening gown, and he didn’t have a dress uniform coat or waistcoat. Also, neither of us had bathed in nearly seven weeks. There’s only so much you can do out of a basin of water. Michel’s long hair was high on the list of things that weren’t fixable before dinner, though he did shave. My hair was decidedly sticky. Also, it was growing out from its Brutus cut, and looked more like a deranged pixie than anything else. It certainly didn’t make me look like a respectable woman.

  I went down to dinner on Michel’s arm with some trepidation, clunking on the stairs. Michel had packed a dress for me, but no slippers, so I had to wear Charles’s boots under it or go barefooted. I nearly ran back upstairs in embarrassment.

  Michel’s hand tightened on my arm as though he anticipated flight. “Steady, Elza,” he whispered. “Remember, we’re the conquerors, and we can wear boots to dinner if we like.” He didn’t have any shoes either.

  My morale was lifted by the sight of the first person at the bottom of the stairs, looking up from a knot of strangers. He wore an elegant red pelisse trimmed in fur thrown over one shoulder. The other arm was supported by a black sling. He grinned at me in unmitigated delight and came forward to kiss my hand with a flourish as though we were in Paris. “My dear Madame! How ravishing you are! You put the very stars to shame!”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Lieutenant Corbineau! I’m surprised to see you here rather than with General Richepanse.”

  Corbineau shrugged. “As you can see, I had some small difficulty at Hohenlinden. I broke my right wrist, and since it is now impossible for me to wield the sword for some weeks, I have been assigned as maid of all work to General Ney. I have some facility in speaking German, and I have had the misfortune before of being put in charge of stabling and feed arrangements. It is no small matter to quarter nine thousand men in Munich without giving offense!”

  Michel was greeting our host and his wife in German, and now turned to present me. “May I present to you my dear companion, Madame Maria Kuller? She has traveled in arms with us, and borne every danger and privation.”

  Our host, the Doctor, bent over my hand very properly. His wife hesitated, and did not offer the kiss of greeting. “I am delighted,” I murmured, but I felt myself coloring. I looked terrible and I knew it. In the field it didn’t matter, but here in the drawing rooms of Munich it did. I was not a respectable woman, and we were not in the Directory salons of Paris.

  I was then introduced to the Doctor’s oldest son, a serious young man in his late twenties, and his plain, thin wife. She didn’t actually speak to the likes of me. There were three other men whose names I didn’t catch, as well as Michel’s aide Captain Ruffin, Colonel Joba of our Fourth Hussars, and young Colonel St. Jean of the Twenty-Third Infantry. All of the latter were quartered in the same house, the rest of the brigade officers being quartered elsewhere.

  Dinner was fairly interminable. I was seated between the Doctor’s son and Colonel Joba. Joba ate as though he hadn’t seen food in a month, and made no attempt at keeping up the conversation. I spoke almost no German, though fortunately the Doctor’s son spoke good French. To his other side, Corbineau carried his assault with the greatest ease, flattering our host’s wife and daughter-in-law in two languages, his dark eyes sparkling and his repartee this side of outrageous, witty and wicked enough to make them feel that they sinned just a little, but not too much. After all, there was no harm in flirting with a handsome wounded cavalry officer. I could see why Michel had brought him, though he was the most junior of
ficer present.

  Michel, meanwhile, was engaged in serious discussion with the Doctor and his friends. I could hear a bit of it over the thunderous silence from Joba. Politics. The Doctor and the dark-haired man to his right favored liberal ideas and were staunch supporters of the Duke, Max Joseph, who wanted friendship with France rather than enmity. The other two gentlemen seemed of the other party.

  “Is it not true,” the elder of them said, “that the ultimate outcome of unbridled liberty is chaos? Why should any man feel safe in his property or person when the mob may break free, as it did during the Terror? It behooves me to ask, General, how many innocents you led to the guillotine.”

  Silence fell over that end of the table.

  Michel shrugged almost negligently. “For my part, sir, none at all. I had never so much as set foot in Paris at the time. I was a lieutenant with the Army of the Rhine, and my whole occupation was fighting Austria. Surely you have no love for Austria?”

  “Indeed we do not,” the Doctor said. “I think any true Bavarian will say as much.” He glared at his guests, daring them to disagree.

  “I do not deny,” Michel said evenly, “that some tragic events occurred. I think we all can admit the truth of that. But the men who did those deeds are for the most part dead, or fallen from power. The First Consul had no part in those events, nor any man here who now defends France.”

  I thought of Moreau and his profiteering off the homes of the condemned, and wondered if Michel might be stretching the point a little. Or perhaps he simply knew nothing of how Moreau’s wealth was founded. We were neither as bad as they feared, nor as good as Michel believed.

  “But what is the line,” the gentleman said, “between liberty and libertinage? Men follow their worst instincts, given the freedom to do so.”