"Of course," Corbineau said.
"Subtly," Michel said.
"Of course!" Corbineau looked mildly offended. Michel was not the most subtle man in the world himself.
"I'm fine," I said to him quietly.
Michel got up and went back to his position. Glancing around the circle now, I saw that Subervie was no longer there. "Where is Subervie?" I asked.
Reille answered. "We cut a gate for him to get out. Marshal Lannes sent him to do something."
I glanced at Lannes, who shook his head almost imperceptibly. Interesting, I thought. He does not entirely trust everyone in the circle, though he sent Subervie out immediately when I said that Captain Arnold had just gotten a message. No doubt Subervie was out on the cliffs now with a patrol, hunting the spy. I did not think he would catch anyone, not because I doubted what I had seen, but it would take Subervie twenty minutes or more to get there, and if the man had been left on shore when Arnold returned to Lion, he would have at least twenty or thirty minutes while Arnold rowed back out. All in all, nearly an hour would have elapsed before Subervie got there, and I didn't think our man would sit about.
Still, I told myself that I would go out in the morning and see if there was any sign, even a boot print that might tell me something about the man I sought. There might be something in the strip of sand along the base of the cliffs that Subervie would miss by night. Though more likely I would only discover what sort of shoes Captain Arnold wore.
"A promising start," Noirtier pronounced.
"Better than anything we've had so far," Corbineau said. "At least Madame is finding some action." He winked at me.
I winked back. Truly, it had been frightening, but also exhilarating. I could still feel the rush in my veins, as though I had actually battled the sky borne by swift white wings.
"Shall we try this again on Thursday?" Lannes asked.
The young man with glasses at east shook his head. "I'm on duty that night, sir. General Larrey will be in town."
Lannes made an annoyed sound. "That means we aren't free either, Michel. We've got to give him dinner."
Michel nodded. "We do have to. After all, he is the Surgeon General."
The chief medical officer in the entire French army, I thought. Dr. Larrey was also Napoleon's personal physician. Like the rest, he too was an innovator, his newest change being the use of modified artillery caissons drawn staffed with trained corpsmen whose job was to fetch the wounded from the field with all speed, and treat them while transporting them to field hospitals. These new Flying Ambulances were like nothing seen in modern warfare, where generally the wounded were tended by one's friends or not at all. The idea of having servicemen whose jobs were to fetch the wounded, provide first aid, and carry them in haste to surgeons was entirely new.
"I have a practicum with him in the afternoon," the young man said, "And I expect I shall see you at dinner."
"Of course, Max," Michel said. I was gathering that Max was one of the surgeons assigned to VI Corps.
"Can we take down before we get into Thursday's social arrangements?" Noirtier asked.
Everyone stood up. "Let's figure out when we can do this," Michel said to Lannes, who nodded.
"Send me a message tomorrow when you've looked at your schedule. I'd like to get another session in before next Tuesday."
"I am at your disposal," I said to Lannes.
I stood, head cast down, in the center of the room while Noirtier stepped back into the position that Subervie had held. Around me the lodge passed in reverse order, beginning with Michel, thanking each of the invoked deities for their regard.
When the last was done, and the final candle extinguished, there was a collective sigh. Max lit the tapers on the mantelpiece and on the side table, bringing light back to the room, and they waited while I went to dress first.
When I came out, having resumed my ordinary clothes, I saw that servants had begun bringing in a repast and laying it out as a buffet. Corbineau had a plate of chicken with mayonnaise, which he was engaging with great gusto. I suddenly realized I was ravenous.
I fetched a plate and stood with him while various gentlemen took turns changing. Reille came and joined us.
"That was very interesting," he said. "Have you done this much before?"
"Not precisely this," I said. "And it was interesting."
"You're very good," he said. "I've been trying to do it the last three times, and I couldn't get anywhere."
"Not your forté," Corbineau said. "Honoré is our technician, if you like. He has the mind for the operational end. He understands how the energy works, and he remembers every correspondence."
"How the energy works?"
Reille shrugged, a difficult gesture for a man with a fork and a plate. "We are a Hermetic lodge, Madame."
"Elza, please."
He smiled, and I thought it was a very nice smile. "Elza. We are a Hermetic lodge, which means we follow in the philosophical footsteps of that ancient sage of Alexandria, Hermes Trismegistus, who taught that everything in the world follows natural law, even those things that seem supernatural. And if it is so, then even things which seem supernatural may be codified and utilized. Just as it is not necessary to understand how to make gunpowder in order to fire a gun, we may find a practical basis for action even if the natural laws which govern the esoteric so far elude us. It remains for future generations to carry on our studies, just as we have carried on the studies of the ancients in every field."
"Have we?" I looked at him over the rim of my glass as I took a sip.
"We have," Honoré said. "The ancients knew five planets, and now we know seven. Copernicus and Kepler have given us ways of understanding them that Aristotle or Ptolemy could not have imagined. And yet we stand on their shoulders. We have sought, these last centuries, to recover lost knowledge, to find our way back to where we got lost. And now we have begun to move on -- to see further than the ancients, to seek more just societies than they built, to build the temple they begun."
"To seek more just societies?"
Honoré looked at Corbineau, as if to ask if he were boring, but Corbineau nudged him with a friendly smile. "Slavery, for example. None of the sages of old could compass a world in which slavery was entirely abolished, in which the majority of mankind rejected the idea that one human being should own another."
"The majority of mankind does not reject that idea today," I observed.
"But many do," Honoré said. "We have reached a point where it is a matter of public debate, where our assemblies argue over slavery and whether or not it should be legal, whether or not it should be abolished. That would be simply unthinkable to Aristotle or Seneca. Throughout most of human history, slavery has been a given. Now it is challenged constantly. Is that not seeking a more just society?"
"It is indeed," I said. I could not help but see what Corbineau saw in him, the fire in this man. "Are you a Jacobin, then?"
Honoré laughed. "Heavens, no. I'm a moderate. The Left unbridled is no better than the Right. I have seen the guillotine, and I have seen the misery that revolution can bring when the downtrodden extract payback from anyone they deem their oppressor." He laughed, but a shadow crossed his face. "I cannot stand with them. It is not progress, to substitute one tyranny for another. For example, I agree completely with the principles of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. I do not think the Church should rule France. Nor do I think that one can wean a people from Catholicism by killing priests, by drowning old nuns who have done no one harm! Freedom of religion means that people must be able to follow their beliefs without danger of censure or harm, whether or not those beliefs are ones I personally agree with." He looked about, drawing Max into our conversation where he had hovered outside, plate in hand. "Max here is a Protestant. He'd have no place in our army in other times. Nor could he serve in England's fleet, unless he were Church of England, not Lutheran."
Max bent over my hand, the one with the glass in it. "I don't belie
ve I've had the honor."
"Madame St. Elme," I said. "Elza to my friends."
"Dr. Maximilien Duplessis, Surgeon attached to VI Corps," he said. "Enchanted, Madame."
"It's my pleasure," I said.
"Also Max to his friends," Corbineau said.
"How is it you come to be here?" Reille asked. "I wondered, when I met you the other day with Corbineau at the fencing salle."
"I am formerly acquainted with M. Noirtier," I said. "And when I heard that Marshal Lannes was in need of a Dove, I was happy to put myself at his disposal." The answer seemed to satisfy all, and in truth it gave a much better excuse for my presence than an imaginary affair with Lannes. That might do for landladies or servants, but it seemed not to work well with anyone who actually knew the man. Only Corbineau looked at me sideways, but he said nothing.
"Well, you did a nice job," Max said. "I tried it myself, and nothing."
"Have all of you tried it?" I asked.
"Pretty much," Corbineau said. "I was the worst."
"No, you weren't. Subervie was the worst," Honoré said.
"It's hard to say who the worst was when none of us got anything," Max said equitably, heading off the race to the bottom. "Let us agree that Elza did better."
"She's a woman," Honoré said meaningfully.
"And that's important?"
"It seems to be," he said. "I don't know why. But the ancients generally employed women as oracles, and most modern cultures that have a living oracular tradition prefer women. It seems logical that whatever natural ability or constellation of abilities make an oracle, it occurs more often in women." He spread his hands. "A fascinating subject of study for someone more inclined to the academic understanding of the esoteric than I am."
"That would be nobody," Corbineau said. "He's our brainy hare."
"Only in comparison to the likes of you," Honoré said good-naturedly. "Next to midgets I am a veritable giant."
Corbineau drew himself up, looking meaningfully at Honore still towering over him by a good six inches. "You are indeed a veritable giant. Outsized, even." It was true that Reille was very tall, the tallest man in the room by a good few inches, overtopping even Michel. "But is your…."
"The lady," Max interrupted meaningfully. "Let's keep it clean."
"Oh yes," Corbineau said, turning and bending over my hand gracefully, his eyes twinkling. "I apologize deeply, Madame. I did not mean to almost make an off color joke in your presence."
"Your apology is accepted," I said, for of course how could I reply suitably as he deserved?
Michel, who had been talking with Lannes, came over and stood at my elbow. "Elza? Would you let me walk you back to your cottage? It's sometimes a little rowdy in Boulogne late at night."
Corbineau looked as though he were going to pop with laughter. And it must be all of ten o'clock.
"Yes," I said. "In a few minutes, if you don't mind." I supposed I could not avoid it. We must try to deal with one another civilly for the good of all, and perhaps we could agree on how. "I will be there in a moment."
Companion
I waited in the courtyard while Michel reclaimed Eleazar from a groom. He had ridden over from Montreuil, of course, as why would he walk? I had not brought Nestor, so Michel walked beside me leading Eleazar, a lantern in his other hand to light our way.
It was a beautiful evening, clear and a little cool, with a brisk wind blowing off the sea. We walked together in silence for a while, through the gates and down the track that led to the cottage.
"I wish you hadn't told me you were sleeping with Lannes," he said at last.
"I didn't tell you I was sleeping with Lannes," I said. "I told you I was here with Lannes, which is true."
Michel glanced sideways at me, his expression impenetrable in the night. "You implied it."
I sighed. I did not want to fight with him. I had hoped we could be civil. "Michel, why does it matter?"
"Because it was very painful."
I stopped. He led Eleazar two paces before he did too. "Please don't start this."
He turned around. "Start what?"
To my horror I heard my voice choke. "You are the one who left me. You are the one who ended it three years ago. You have nothing to say about who I do or do not sleep with. It's not your business."
"You are the one who came to Boulogne." He had dropped the reins, and behind him Eleazar stood patiently, looking perplexed.
"You think I came to Boulogne for you?" I tried to laugh, but it sounded rough even to me. "You think I followed you here in hopes of getting you back? Michel, I did not come to Boulogne for you. I came in spite of you. You are the last person I want to see."
He stood absolutely still, saying nothing.
"If I had wanted to follow you around pathetically, don't you think I would have found you in Paris? Or followed you to Switzerland last year? It's no mystery where you are."
"I suppose not," he said. He sounded sad.
For a moment I was ready to tell him exactly why I was in Boulogne. After all, the Emperor had said he would not forbid me to, because he knew I would. But I would not. I had better sense than to blather to Michel about things that most certainly were not his secrets to keep. I am on the Emperor's mission, I thought, and with that thought my voice was easier to master. I took a step toward him. "Michel," I said more gently, "You ended it. It was your decision, and we both must live with it."
"How could I do anything else, Elza? I was getting married."
"It was your decision to get married," I said. "No one made you do that, Michel."
He threw his head back, the lantern in his hand casting shadows across the track. "What was I supposed to do, Elza? Stand and wait forever? You wouldn't marry me."
"I don't recall you asking," I said sharply.
"After your husband died, when you could have, you said you never wanted to marry again. You said it was slavery, and you would never put your head in the noose twice."
I took a step past him, stepping up to Eleazar's head, walking toward the cottage, my back to him. "I don't know how you could imagine that I would," I said, my face averted from him. "You know what that marriage was like, what it was for me. You know I was twelve when I married him, pregnant before I even bled once. How would you think I would take my freedom and turn around and give it into your hands? That being rid of one master, I would immediately seek another?"
"I never wanted to master you, Elza," he said, and his voice sounded tired.
"Then why would you want to marry me?" I heard myself choke. "We were happy. We were so good together just as we were. Why would you want to change it, except to master me?"
"A home," he said quietly. "A family. Children."
"I never said I didn't want children." He had to follow me, walking up the track, Eleazar at my heels. "I never said that."
He caught up to me with his longer stride. "And what would you have me do? Father children and not marry their mother? Raise children to be bastards on purpose? Only the lowest kind of man would treat his children that way."
I spun around, my face practically against his shoulder. "Michel, you are a Marshal of France. You're not a poor cooper. You can perfectly well support any natural child of yours. And I have no doubt that you would."
"Of course I would!" he shouted. "But that wouldn't fix it. It wouldn't make my sons not bastards. It would mean they would live their whole lives under a cloud."
"A cloud?" I shouted back. "Like who? Like Charles de Flahaut, Talleyrand's son? Everybody knows he's illegitimate, but he's a count and an officer! Tell me what cloud he lives under! Michel, when you have plenty of money these things don't matter at all!"
Michel glanced suddenly about, as though he expected Charles de Flahaut, who was after all Marshal Murat's aide de camp, to suddenly pop out of the sea grass and overhear. "It's still wrong! It's the wrong thing to do, to father children and leave them nameless."
"Fine." I turned around and stalked off. "You hav
e your legitimate children. Happy?"
"No," he said quietly.
I stopped, tears pricking at the back of my eyes. "That is your own doing."
"I know," he said. He had not moved, the lantern in one hand. "Tell me you're happy."
I turned around, took a step back toward him and the patient Eleazar. "What do you want?" I asked him, meeting his eyes. "Do you want me back?"
He drew a breath as though he had taken a blow. "I can't," he said.
"Then why are we having this conversation?" I asked. "Michel, there is nothing good that can come of it. Why are you doing this?"
"So I can see you," he said, and his mouth twisted in something like a smile. "When you're yelling at me I can see you."
I closed my eyes. "You want to see me that much."
"Yes."
I took a step forward, and I knew without looking he would be there, that I would rest my cheek against his chest, my shoulder against his, the smell of his shaving soap and sweat, the feel of his coat against my face. He took a ragged breath and laid his head against my hair, though his arms did not go around me, one being full of the lantern and the other of Eleazar's reins. Eleazar made a horsy noise of contentment, as if to say he preferred this to all the yelling.
"I still love you," he said unnecessarily.
I felt his breath on my brow, his cheek against my hair. "I know," I said. "And I you."
"I can't betray Aglae. I can't." He sounded like a man who was trying to convince himself. "I should have waited. I should have said that it didn't matter if we never had anything normal, if I never had a family or a home to come back to. I should have said it didn't matter and been content with what there was."
"Michel, that's not who I am," I said. "If you wanted a good woman who would stay at home, I cannot be that woman. You know that. And you weren't willing to have what we could." I opened my eyes, looked up at him. "I would have been willing to compromise," I said. "If you wanted children, I would do that. But I can't not be Charles. I can't not be who I am. And I would embarrass you. Can you see me a Marshal's wife, trotting along at court with Joséphine's train?"
Jo Graham - [Numinous World 05] Page 21