Jo Graham - [Numinous World 05]

by The Emperor's Agent (epub)

  "I see how that happened," Corbineau said.

  "And Michel had to marry someone, didn't he? It wasn't going to be me." I was quite drunk, in that place of utter clarity between careless and asleep.

  "Your past?"

  I shrugged again. "My husband was dead by then, and while my past is bad enough there are more than a few merveilluses who have made good and become respectable. But can you see me a good wife, Jean-Baptiste?"

  He shook his head, smiling.

  "My husband is dead. And I will never put myself in that trap again, my friend. Not even for a man I love. And any man who loves me should know better than to ask. I will not be owned, and trying to own me that way again does not speak of love to me." My voice broke, and I was surprised to hear it so.

  "Did he ask?"

  "He asked if I thought it was impossible to have a happy marriage, a marriage of equals. And I said that it was not, for how can it ever be a marriage of equals when one holds all the cards? How can it be like this, like you and I, Jean-Baptiste, when one of us is a woman?"

  "One of us is a woman," he said.

  "You know what I mean," I replied. "Even Plato says it cannot be. True love, true friendship, can only flourish when no one owns the other. A slave may be grateful to have a kind master rather than a cruel one, but she would rather have no master at all. He should own me, body and soul. And that I will not bear, Jean-Baptiste! I will not."

  Corbineau gave me a rueful smile. "He owns too much of your soul already."

  I blinked, surprised to find tears in my eyes. "He does. I shall love him with all my heart, all of my life. I have always loved him, as much when it brought grief as joy. But I will not give him power over me, to have all my happiness in his hands. Do you see why, my friend?"

  "I do," he said, his arm about me like a brother. "Too many wounds, dear one. And we do not live in Plato's world. We cannot have erastes and eromenos in this time."

  "We are all the prisoners of our birthdays," I said, "Though we try to transcend them. We are creatures of our times, and sometimes our souls peek through the cracks and yearn for the sky. And then we are magnificent creatures."

  "You are magnificent," he said, "For all your scars."

  I blinked at him through tears. "I think you're pretty good too."

  Corbineau laughed and handed me my cravat for a handkerchief. "Dear one, we should clear out of here. It's after three, and I unfortunately have to report in the morning. Some little matter of getting whalloped by Subervie at Cunaxa. But at least I will whallop back next week at Marathon!" He grinned at me. "I'm looking forward to dusting Reille, since he's got the dratted Persians again and I am all Athens!"

  I laughed and let him help me up. The bar was almost empty, and the barmaid with dark circles under her eyes had begun wiping down tables. "Why does Reille keep getting the Persians?"

  "The Marshal keeps giving them to him. Says he does the best job with them. And so he's Mardonias and the overall Persian command next week. The Marshal swears Reille's going to win Platea, though I don't see how."

  "He could keep Mardonias from getting killed," I said. The night air hit me like a cool blanket as we came outside. "That would probably do it."

  "Maybe." Corbineau shrugged. "I haven't done my reading for that one yet. I stake my life that we've got a hundred pages a day assigned, and Xenophon's not exactly light."

  "Surely you're reading in translation?" I asked.

  "Of course. Think we sans-culottes know Greek?" Corbineau steered around a dubious looking puddle. "I'm the son of a horse trader, Elza. I stopped school when I was fourteen. But I know horses."

  "Which is pretty important in a cavalry officer," I observed.

  "Well, yes. But we're new men, and we're hearing about all these historical things for the first time. Half of us thought Alexander the Great was some guy in an opera until we got to the School of War!"

  "Michel was a cooper's son," I said. "He left school at eleven for an apprenticeship, when he'd learned to read and write and figure enough."

  "Subervie's father is a tavern keeper," Corbineau said. "In Lannes' hometown. If Lannes can do it, why not the busboy?"

  "Why not indeed?" I said. "And your friend Reille?"

  "Oh, he's the best of us," Corbineau said, stepping around a puddle in the street. "His father's a merchant with business in the West Indies. His older sister was married to an impoverished Chevalier before the Revolution, his title and her Creole money, so Honoré went to proper school in Paris and learned to be a gentleman. He'd even got a little Latin, enough for an epigram or two, before the Terror blew through like a wind and consigned all to the rubbish heap. He was seventeen and ran off and joined the army. His sister's husband went to the guillotine, helped along by dear old Fouché. There's a man he's got no love for."

  "Interesting," I said. That was one officer at least with reason for a grudge, and ready access to the School of War and headquarters.

  Corbineau shot me a look. "I thought you'd find it so. You and Honoré wouldn't be a bad combination."

  I laughed. Of course I could not tell him I was seeking a spy, so he had assumed my interest was purely prurient. But I could certainly ask more without suspicion. "Really, Jean-Baptiste?"

  Corbineau nodded. "He's a year older than you, not quite thirty, a bachelor, handsome in a very tall and looming sort of way, and clever as a hare. He's a bit too self-conscious about his accent, he studies all the time, and he's lethal quick with a blade. You'd get along like a house on fire."

  "You think I should be seeing a bookworm?"

  "He's quiet, but when he says something it's worth listening to. Even the Marshal listens. He's that steady. You might do very well together." Jean-Baptiste looked at me sideways. "You don't have to always be looking for trouble. You could see someone who would be no trouble at all to you. It might be a nice change of pace."

  "And you will be my fairy godmother?"

  "None other," Corbineau said.

  We stood in front of my lodging. "And you think he'd like Charles?" I found it hard to believe that very many men besides Michel would.

  "He'd find Charles a little strange," Corbineau acknowledged. "But I expect Honoré would get used to him. Good night, dear sister."

  "Good night," I said, and started up the steps, wondering if the door was unlocked. I should have to ring if it weren't.

  It was. I was about to ring when a man's voice called out, "You do not belong on the porch, gentlemen!"

  I looked about, at Corbineau standing in the street.

  "I need to come in," I said.

  "You have mistaken the house," the voice said loudly. "Now be off with you!"

  "I have not," I said. "I need to see Madame St. Elme."

  "Not at half past three in the morning, you don't," he said, stepping into the light, a heavy man with a cudgel in one hand, whom I'd seen yesterday afternoon splitting wood out back. "This is a respectable house, not a brothel. Now clear off!"

  "I…"

  He took a step closer, the cudgel raised. "Off with ye! Or I'll not wait for the gendarmes!"

  Corbineau dragged at my arm. "Come on, Charles," he said. "My friend here is inebriated. Your pardon." He half pulled me down the street.

  "What are you doing?" I demanded. "Jean-Baptiste, that is the right house!"

  "Do you want the entire town to know that Charles van Aylde is Madame St. Elme?" he asked. "Because that's what it's going to take to get in there. If you want to be able to be Charles, you've got to drop it."

  I sighed and sat down on the rim of the public pump down the street. "No, I don't want everyone to know about Charles. But I do want my bed."

  "Well, you can't have it," Corbineau said. "You can't get in there in the middle of the night smelling like drink and dressed like Charles."

  "Wonderful," I said. "I suppose I'll just have to walk around until morning."

  "You could come to my billet," Corbineau said. "No one will care there. Everybody's in
and out drunk when they've had leave anyhow. And then we could both get some sleep."

  "You could just go sleep," I said.

  He laughed. "And leave you on the town? No, thank you! I'd like for Boulogne to still be here in the morning! Come on, Charles. Come back to my billet and sleep."

  "All right." I got up from the pump. It was still hours till dawn, the sky not even beginning to pale. It must be still short of four.

  "The only catch is that I'm billeted in Montreuil," he said. "It's about 15 km."

  "Lovely," I said. "A nice walk to clear our heads."

  We veered off the main road as soon as it left the walls, following a track that led upward along the cliffs and south. Neatly lettered signs pointed to Montreuil and the little hamlets further along the coast, and to the observation pavilion the Emperor had built.

  "It's a good way," Corbineau said. "Usually I'm on horseback, but I didn't want to have to find a place to put her in town while I saw you. She's a menace, and if you leave her with someone she doesn't know, she bites."

  I scratched my head. "That dapple mare you used to have?"

  He nodded. "Pomona. Pomme for short. I hate her."

  "Then why do you keep her?" I asked.

  "She's a good warhorse," he said. "A devil in a fight. She's fast and light, and she's the smartest horse I've ever seen. We just don't get along is all. I'd sell her in a heartbeat if I thought I'd get what she's worth. But everybody I know knows about her and wouldn't buy her on a bet."

  "If you hadn't told me, you might have sold her to me," I said. "I need a new horse before long. I love Nestor, and he's all heart, but he's twenty-three. I rode him down the Loire not too long ago, in nice weather on good roads, and he was feeling it. He needs an easier life at his age."

  "He's gentle as a lamb, isn't he?" Corbineau said. "You might talk to Subervie. He's looking for a horse for his son to learn on. The boy's four, and Gervais wants a well trained horse that will last him a few years, just going around the paddock and park teaching the boy. He doesn't want a hack, because he wants the boy to learn on a good horse with good habits."

  "I might talk to him at that," I said, though my chest ached at the idea of selling Nestor. I couldn't afford to keep two horses, and I had no place to put an old horse out to pasture. Subervie had seemed like a kind man and a responsible one, not the sort to sell an old horse for meat when he got a little stiff, who would appreciate Nestor's steady temperament teaching a little boy to ride.

  "You can buy Pomme anytime you want," Corbineau said darkly. "Special bargain price if you don't look at her first."

  "That bad?"

  "She hates me."

  I burst out laughing. "Hates you? And you the son of a horse trader?"

  "My father's to thank for her," he said. "Palmed her off on me. Swore up and down she was fantastic."

  "What's her bloodline?" I asked.

  "Half Lusitano, half heaven knows," Corbineau said. "My father had a cart horse accidentally serviced by one of his blood stallions. She's eight years old, with a mouth like steel and the temperament of my maiden aunt."

  "I'll have to see this peerless gem," I said.

  We crested a rise, and before us was the ocean. The tide was high, crashing on the rocks below, white spray flying and glittering in the starlight. Overhead, the stars of summer were sinking into the sea, Sirius the dog star rising in the east, herald of the sun. My heart lifted with it, as though its winking faint light held some gift for me, some dream or omen.

  My head was clearing from the drink, leaving me with a small, nagging headache. Corbineau stopped. "Pretty, isn't it?"

  "Beautiful," I said.

  Out to sea I could see lights, a ship cruising northward along the coast, her white sails spread to catch a following wind, Lion about her solitary patrol. Captain Arnold must never get out of sight of France. Lion was the tip of the spear, their first warning of invasion.

  "There goes Lion," I said.

  Corbineau looked at me sharply. "How do you know her name?"

  "Someone must have mentioned it," I said. How could he be slipping someone ashore? The currents must be treacherous around the rocks, and I didn't see how, with a sea like this one, it would be possible to bring a small boat in without capsizing. How was Captain Arnold doing it? And yet he must be, at least twice a week.

  And, like clockwork, we heard approaching hooves. Two chasseurs came trotting along the path toward us, checked when they saw us. "Name and business?"

  "Major Corbineau, VI Corps, attached to the School of War," Corbineau answered, stepping out. "My friend, M. van Aylde. On our way to Montreuil to the School of War."

  "Very well. Pass, major." We went on, walking silently, sometimes in sight of the sea, sometimes not.

  How was Captain Arnold doing it? How was the inside man doing it? Twice more along the heights patrols passed us, once requiring our papers. The coastal route was very heavily patrolled, and a boat coming ashore would be visible for a long time before it reached the beach. The thing this made clear to me was that the inside man must be in uniform, someone who seemed to have a likely reason to go back and forth along the cliffs at night. He must be able to answer the guards' challenges legitimately.

  I was musing, the sea air clearing my head, and it startled me when Corbineau spoke. "The thing I don't understand is this. Why did the Marshal throw you over? All right, he was going to marry Mademoiselle Auguié. What's that to do with you?"

  I sighed. It was on the tip of my lips to say, that's exactly what the Emperor said, but then I should have to explain why I had been gossiping about Ney with the Emperor. "It was complicated," I said. I tilted my head back, looking up at the stars now beginning to pale in the east, the sky dove gray on the horizon.

  Respect for the Flag

  He had gone back to Malmaison a few days later. There was lawn bowling to take advantage of the last of the good weather, though the leaves were off the trees and it was already late in the year. He excused himself early and I was surprised to see him in time for dinner.

  We went out somewhere nice, a restaurant I had been wanting to visit, and said that I hoped he hadn't given offense by excusing himself.

  Michel shrugged. "Napoleon wasn't there. He had business in town, so it was just Joséphine and the girls."

  "The girls?" I nodded absently to the waiter as he put my fish in front of me.

  "Her daughter Hortense and her friend, Aglae Auguié."

  I put down my fish knife. "Joséphine had you all the way out to Malmaison to go lawn bowling with her, Hortense, and her friend?"

  "Her goddaughter, really," Michel said, taking a mouthful of his fish. "Joséphine practically raised her and her sisters after their mother died in the Terror. They came to get her the day Marie Antoinette was arrested, and she committed suicide by jumping out of a window right in front of Aglae."

  "Those little girls." I remembered breakfasting with Therese, the little girls she had mentioned whose freedom had been part of Joséphine's bargain with Barras. "But surely they're young," I said. Too young for matchmaking. Surely.

  Michel didn't look up from his fish. "Aglae will be eighteen in the spring. It's been eight years, Elza."

  "I suppose it has," I said. It had been five and a half years since I had left Jan, since 1796, the early days of the Directory. While I was in Lille I had passed my twenty-fifth birthday. And Aglae Auguié was seventeen. Which would explain why Joséphine hadn't invited me to Malmaison. A reason other than that while I had been Moreau's mistress at the same time she was Barras', she was now a wife and I was still a whore.

  "Is she pretty?" I asked casually. "Mademoiselle Auguié, I mean."

  Michel's eyes stayed on his plate. "Yes, she's pretty. Dark hair, dark eyes. She's very shy, graceful and quiet."

  I felt the ice settle in my stomach. "I see," I said. Sensible. I would be sensible. I took a long sip of wine, proud that my hands didn't shake at all. "I suppose she would make a fine wife."

>   Michel looked up, and it was all written in his eyes, wretchedness and pride, desire and guilt.

  I raised an eyebrow coolly. "I suppose you must marry, and it may as well be Mademoiselle Auguié as anyone. I'm sure she's a very accomplished young lady."

  He opened his mouth and closed it again. "I'm not. I haven't...."

  "Haven't what, Michel?" There was no tremor in my voice. I was very proud of that.

  "Haven't made love to her. Haven't promised anything or said anything. Haven't done anything except lawn bowling and looking at plants in the greenhouse." He reached for his glass and knocked it over, sending wine spilling over the tablecloth. Fortunately, it was nearly empty, and he mopped at it with the napkin, hoping the waiter wouldn't notice. I sat perfectly still and didn't help.

  "But you mean to," I said.

  He looked up, the stained napkin, spotted as though with blood, held to his chest. "No. I don't mean to at all. It's flattering that she's interested. After all, she's the closest thing to a princess. Her ancestors fought for St. Louis in the crusades. They had a chateau before the Revolution that D'Artagnan visited. All that's gone now, but she is who she is."

  "A princess," I said, "the goal of every heroic woodcutter's son." My voice was not acid. Instead it broke. "There's a fantasy you can attain. The hand of the virtuous young princess, a maiden descended from knights and kings. Of course. That's how all the fairy tales go."

  "Elza." He reached for my hand on the table but it was too far.

  "Do you expect me to stop you?" I asked. I wasn't crying. I wasn't. But I felt the tears choking in my throat. "Do you expect me to beg you and plead with you? If so, you don't know me well enough, Michel. I know the extent of your ambition. Hephaistion must have Drypetis."

  He looked confused. "Who's Drypetis?"

  I shook my head. "Michel, for Heaven's sake. Haven't you read Arrian? The Campaigns of Alexander?"

  "No," Michel said shortly. "As you've just pointed out, I'm a peasant. I have no fucking idea who Drypetis is."