The General's Mistress

by Jo Graham

  “It all depends,” I said, “on what we believe of the nature of man.”

  Michel blinked, looking at me as the other gentlemen looked round.

  I toyed with the stem of my wineglass. “If men are by nature little better than beasts, and the common man an unruly mob trammeled only by the firm hand of Church and state, then his liberty is indeed to be feared, for such men can only spread chaos and destruction in their wake, bringing an end to fragile civilization. But if men are by nature the beloved children of God, made in His divine likeness, then surely the liberty that allows all men to seek the greatest good and happiness will eventually transform civilization for the better.”

  The Doctor smiled broadly. The other gentleman frowned. “Such a fragile hope, Madame, on which to place our safety. Naïve, I believe.”

  “And yet I have placed my safety upon it these last months, and my trust in the good of man is fulfilled,” I said.

  “All men are not saints, Madame,” he replied.

  “No, of course not. There are always scoundrels and villains and venal men who look for nothing but their own treasure. But I will not fear them while there are such good angels as these men here to preserve liberty with both strength and compassion.” I smiled brilliantly at Michel and Ruffin, and at our host.

  The Doctor’s eyes crinkled in an answering smile. “Well said, Madame! Let us toast Liberty, then.”

  “And Friendship,” Michel said, raising his glass. “Liberty and Friendship, gentlemen.”

  Dinner ended early. Our host said that he understood that we must all be greatly fatigued from the road, and so it was barely nine-thirty when we went upstairs. I went ahead of Michel, who had stopped to speak to a servant in the hall. He came in behind me, tossing his coat onto a gilt chair.

  “You can thank me,” he said.

  “For what?” I sat down to take off my boots. Tomorrow I was going to look for a cobbler and a dressmaker. If we were to be in Munich for more than a few days, I should have to have clothes. This was embarrassing.

  Michel looked pleased with himself. “The servants are bringing up water for a bath for you. I thought you’d like it.”

  “I adore you,” I said, laughing. “Adore. Will worship you with slavish abandon. Will do anything in the world for a bath!”

  “I thought you might,” he said, grinning. “But I’d rather have you clean for that part!”

  “And I’d rather have you clean, too. You get the second bath. Michel, you . . .”

  “Stink?” He raised one eyebrow. “Yes, probably.”

  And then we were both laughing. He picked me up and tossed me backward onto the feather bed, where I sank like a stone. He jumped on me, tickling, and we rolled around giggling and poking each other. He had a terribly ticklish spot just under each arm that almost paralyzed him with laughter.

  A soft knock heralded a procession of servants with buckets of hot water. They filed in and out of the dressing room through a hall door, one after the other. It took three trips to fill the tub. When they were done, I went into the dressing room and stripped off every stitch gratefully, hanging up my only dress to let the steam get the wrinkles out.

  There were a couple of bottles of oil on the shelf in the dressing room and a cake of milled soap. I opened one of the bottles. Rose. That would be lovely. I poured some in and sank in the tub up to my chin, then dunked my head and washed my hair twice.

  Michel came in and sat on the delicate boudoir chair, one booted foot against the edge of the tub. He watched me as I scrubbed every limb. It was deliciously sensual to bathe under his gaze, though he didn’t touch me or even speak.

  The water was gray when I finished. Michel held a towel for me as I stepped out, wrapping me in it so my arms were held at my sides and bending to kiss me.

  I took a step back. “Not yet,” I said, dodging his kiss. “You still stink.”

  He laughed. “Give me a few minutes, then.” He opened the door from the dressing room to the hall and called for the servants again.

  I went back in the bedroom and tried to get the tangles out of my hair with a comb. As short as it was, it dried quickly, and in the candlelight shone golden and glossy like a cherub. I put on an old soft shirt of Charles’s that was the cleanest one I had. Its hem came halfway down my thighs, and the lace on the cuffs dangled over my hands. A dandy shirt, not one of the ones I’d bought for the campaign. I turned back the celadon silk coverlet and thick linen sheets and sat on the bed.

  Michel came in from the bath and stopped dead in the doorway, a towel wrapped around his middle. “Oh, God.”

  “Yes?”

  “You look like a demon,” he said. “Like some Renaissance angel up to no good. Corrupting mankind.” He took a few steps toward me.

  “Up to no good,” I said, tilting my head to the side with all Charles’s arch manner. “A succubus?”

  “Nothing that feminine,” Michel said, and his voice was a little strained. Above the towel, the breadth of his shoulders gleamed in the candlelight, slick with rose oil, each red hair burnished and bright. The towel barely went around him, and it seemed a little strained, too.

  “No?” I purred, crawling forward on hands and knees to the side of the bed. I pulled the towel away.

  His phallus strained forward from a nest of red curls, lengthening at the touch of air. He made some muffled noise.

  I knelt up on the edge of the bed, Charles’s shirt open at the throat, and took him in my hand. The lace ruffles cascaded down over my hands, roughened by weeks in the field, a young man’s hands, not a courtesan’s. The lace whispered against his flesh. He closed his eyes.

  “Look,” I said in a low voice, tracing one long vein a little roughly. “I want you to see what it looks like. I want you to see me.”

  Michel looked at me. “You look like . . .”

  “Charles,” I said. I felt him firm in my hand, and I knew this was affecting him as strongly as it did me, wanting him this way.

  He swallowed and said nothing, that hunted and hungry look in his eyes.

  I smiled, a predator’s smile, the smile Charles had used haunting the ballrooms of the spas, had used on Thérèse. “Watch me,” I said, and took him in my mouth.

  He groaned. And he obeyed. His hips shook and he pressed forward.

  I let go. “Not yet,” I said. I had expected this, had known what we would both need.

  “The damn letters,” he said, swaying a little against the side of the bed.

  “Right here.” I produced one from my sleeve like a conjuror. I smoothed it onto him, weighing him with my hand, looking up with a Charles expression that was pure evil, tugging at his hair just enough to make him wince, winding it around one finger. “You’ve always wanted this,” I said, sliding up him, the lace at the front of my shirt against his chest. “Always.” I kissed him deeply, mouthing at his chin.

  He reached for me, but I leaned back out of reach. “Michel,” I whispered, “I know what you want. Do it.” I knelt on the bed, looking back at him over my shoulder, my hands against the soft linen. Charles’s shirt didn’t quite cover my buttocks.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he slid down behind me, his hands running up under the shirt, along the planes of my back, up to my shoulders and back down.

  I nudged back against him, feeling him there, warm and hard.

  With a breath he thrust into me, tight and slick. I rocked forward on my elbows, then shoved back against him, pushing in counterpoint.

  On and on without a word, our bodies moving together, time narrowing to this moment, this yielding cloth beneath me, a rhythm stronger and stronger, like our beating hearts. I put my weight on one elbow, slid my hand down to feel each movement. My pearl was hot and swollen. My hand moved against it in time with each thrust.

  When the change came, it started as the tremors deep inside, rolling outward, my breath catching and my eyes going dark. He made some noise as each spasm curled around him, over and over, deep as night, until I
cried out and put my face against the cool sheets, wrung out as he finished.

  It was a long time before the world stopped moving. He lay down beside me, his face buried in one of the pillows.

  The candles flickered slightly. The celadon silk bed curtains swayed a little, whispering softly.

  I put my hand against his back. “Michel?”

  His face was turned away from me, his long red hair in tangles across the sheets. I stroked it. “Beloved? Was that too much?”

  “I don’t know. No.” He turned his head, and his face looked almost blind with desire, with the separation from self. He put his hand against the side of my face. “Charles.”

  “And Elza,” I said. “It’s me, you know.”

  “God help me, I know,” he said, rolling over and putting his arms around me, drawing me against his shoulder.

  I reached down and pulled up the sheet and coverlet. It closed us in within a cave of warmth. I stroked his cheek. “It bothers you to want Charles. But you do.”

  “You drive me mad,” Michel said, and kissed me. “I have no idea what to do with you.”

  “Love me,” I said, holding him tight. “Love me as I love you. All of me, forever and ever.”

  “I do,” he said, and kissed me again.

  Christmas in the Field

  Michel was up at dawn. There were nine thousand men all over town who had to be drilled and reviewed and disciplined, not to mention fed. He kissed the top of my head before I was really awake and thumped down the hall.

  I couldn’t get back to sleep. After tossing and turning for a little while, I got up, put on my only dress, and went downstairs. The house was very quiet. From one direction came the faint clink of silver and a low voice. I tiptoed across the carpets to investigate.

  Breakfast had been laid out on the sideboard in the dining room, and two bewigged footmen stood ready to assist with the serving. As yet, they had little to do. Michel had presumably been and gone, and only Corbineau was sitting at the table, eating a huge plate of sausage en croute and reading a book.

  I came in and joined him. Coffee was truly a wonderful thing.

  “Up so early, Madame?” Corbineau asked, looking up over the edge of his book. He had it propped in his bad hand, while he tried to eat left-handed.

  “Yes,” I said. “And today I’m going shopping. You may have noticed that the General has no clothes. Where did you get the uniform you had last night?”

  “I brought it with me,” he said. “But if you have a mission, I am happy to assist. I may not be much use at carrying packages, but I do speak German. And the plan seems to be that we shall be quartered in Munich indefinitely.”

  “Then I need clothes,” I said, “and would be happy for your translation assistance, Lieutenant.”

  “Jean-Baptiste,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “You must think of me as your brother, Madame.”

  “My rakehell brother, perhaps,” I said, smiling.

  “Perhaps I should consider you my rakehell sister,” he said. “I’m a mere boy of twenty-two, so I suppose you are my senior.”

  “You might,” I said. With a pang, I realized he was the same age as Charles, as the real Charles would be, had he lived. I missed him still.

  A few days later the news came that Richepanse had defeated the Austrians again, at Herdorf on 24 Frimaire, which people out here in the rest of the world called the 15th of December. The Austrians withdrew again toward Vienna, with Richepanse still in pursuit.

  Ostensibly, it was to celebrate the season, not our victory, that the Duke decided to hold a ball at the Residence in Moreau’s honor. Michel, of course, was to go. I, of course, was not.

  Madame Kuller could have gone and indeed was included verbally in the invitation, but it would be tempting fate for me to go. Moreau would expect to meet General Ney’s lady. Instead, Madame Kuller pled a heavy cold, and I had to spend several days stuck in the house.

  Michel went to the ball. I saw him off with good grace, though admittedly it was with seething resentment that Moreau once again prevented me from doing what I liked. It would have been something to attend a duke’s ball at Michel’s side, in a palace all aglitter for Christmas.

  It snowed in Munich on Christmas Eve. Michel did not want to impose on the Doctor and his family, who had a family dinner planned and would have felt that they must make room for half a dozen semi-welcome guests. Also, there were other officers quartered around town who were at loose ends, so Michel had Corbineau and Ruffin arrange a dinner for his officers at a guildhall rented out for the occasion. I was there, as were nearly all of the women who had traveled in the baggage train.

  The guildhall was gorgeous, decorated with holly and evergreen, not that it needed any decoration over the lovely carvings and bright paint that adorned every inch of wood. There were candles everywhere. The scent of roast pork filled the hall, with apples and plenty besides. There were also several casks of brandy. I had no idea where Michel had found them.

  “Moreau’s contribution to the feast,” Michel said quietly. “He’s at the Residence with the Duke, keeping Christmas.” Hardly a more secular man than Moreau had ever lived, but I’m sure he found it good politics.

  Michel, on the other hand, was in his element, toasting everyone, clapping shoulders, and generally behaving like a feudal lord in his hall. I lurked in a corner with a glass of brandy while Michel led a straggling version of a Christmas song in French and German at the same time. A bunch of Bavarian officers had joined us, and Michel seemed to be making them feel very welcome indeed. Corbineau kept pressing brandy on them.

  Yes, there was something of the brigand chief in him, I thought. He was standing on a chair, waving a glass of brandy and singing, his hair escaping from its tail. It had been nearly ten years since the Church was expelled from France, but almost everyone knew the song except me and a few die-hard Republicans who also lurked in the corners drinking. Even they looked reasonably convivial. As for the rest, perhaps they were happy to have Christmas back.

  The party broke up just short of midnight. Wrapped in my cloak, I followed Michel out into the street. Snow was falling, sticking to roofs and trees, big, puffy white flakes so thick you could almost hear them whispering as they landed. The cobbles were wet but not snowy yet. I felt warm and cheerful from the brandy. Michel was a little flushed. It took a lot of drink to make him unsteady, but his redhead’s complexion showed every glass.

  Michel took my arm. “Let’s go to midnight Mass,” he said.

  I looked at him doubtfully. “Mass?”

  “At the Frauenkirche,” he said. The snow was sticking on his hat, lying across the shoulders of his cloak.

  “I . . .” I began uncertainly. I hadn’t set foot in a church since the day my son was christened. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, or what would happen if I did. “I’m not sure I’m Catholic.”

  Michel blinked. “Dutch Reformed? I should have thought that since you’re Dutch, you’re probably Protestant. I don’t know why it never occurred to me.”

  “Maybe?” I said doubtfully. “My mother was Dutch Reformed. My father was an atheist, and I was baptized Catholic in Italy when I was a baby because they were afraid I’d die, and my mother wanted me christened by somebody. I don’t really believe in anything. Unless it’s the Olympians,” I said, trying to make a joke of it.

  Michel smiled at me through the snow. “It’s Christmas Eve. No one will care. It’s special.” He held out his arm to me again. “Come on, Elza. I promise no one will check your catechism at the door.”

  “If you put it that way . . .” I took his arm. I wasn’t sure it was right to go, but Michel was the one who actually believed, and if he didn’t mind, then perhaps it really didn’t matter.

  Lots of people were making their way to the Frauenkirche. It was the largest church in the city, old and severe compared to many, with their Baroque ornamentation and organs. It was big and plain, and at first seemed almost austere.

  Michel stopped just insi
de the doorway and crossed himself, looking toward the altar.

  One of the several priests waiting about made his way toward us, drawn no doubt by the excess of gold braid Michel wore, and the fact he towered over nearly everyone. He spoke to Michel in good French. “You are welcome in the Church of Our Lady, my son. Would you like to confess before the Mass?”

  Michel glanced at me sideways, then gave the priest a thin, rueful smile. “I’m afraid not, Father,” he said. “You see, I’m not sorry.”

  The priest’s mouth twitched, and for a moment I thought he would laugh. “Very well,” he said. “But you know that if you have sins on your conscience, you may not approach the altar.”

  “I understand,” Michel said gravely.

  We went and waited toward the back for the Mass to begin. Above us the plain walls soared into blackness. The light of the candles did not reach the dim ceiling.

  “Michel, I shouldn’t have come with you,” I said. I didn’t belong here. I was not part of this, part of his life this way. I could only embarrass him. It frightened me.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said, squeezing my hand. “I’m not hypocrite enough to repent conveniently.”

  And then the music began.

  I could almost forget myself in it. Perhaps I had heard the Mass sung before, as a child. Perhaps my nurse had taken me in Italy. It was familiar and lovely at the same time, warm and quiet and sad at once. Michel bent his head and closed his eyes. I wasn’t sure if I should too, so I didn’t, but just waited, listening, letting the music soar around me.

  I stopped being frightened. Somewhere in the words I didn’t understand, in the counterpoint of Kyrie Eleison sung by a boys’ choir, a warm thread ran through me, quiet and still. This, too, is magic. These too, these white walls, belong to the world. The Frauenkirche does not sit in heaven, but in Munich, the work of men’s hands, the labor of their lives. Not separate, but love made manifest. It surrounds Her people like a mother’s arms, sheltering them from the cold, singing to them on a snowy night, the church of Mary, Queen of Heaven, Lady of the Stars, a young mother who had borne a son long ago, strangers sheltering in a barn.