Jo Graham - [Numinous World 05]

by The Emperor's Agent (epub)

  "Madame Lefebvre was a laundress," Michel said stubbornly. "At least you wear shoes."

  I laughed at him. "Says the cooper's son!"

  "Coopers are a good deal above sutlers," Michel said, but he was grinning. "I would never be ashamed of you."

  I took a deep breath, watching the sea breeze ruffle his hair. "I will come back to you," I said, "If you ask me to."

  "I can't ask you," he said, and I saw his eyes glittering with tears. "I can't do that."

  I swallowed hard. "Then say goodbye and let me be."

  "I can't do that either."

  I opened my mouth to say, Michel, you're a pain in the ass, but he kissed me and I kissed him, and it was fire on fire, flesh on flesh, our tears mingling on my face. The world tilted around me, night and wind and Michel.

  He struggled up like a swimmer in heavy seas. "Let me put the lantern down," he said, "Before I set your skirts on fire."

  I started laughing through my tears, and we put our arms around each other and held on for a very long time. There was no need to say anything, or perhaps words were inadequate. There was no need even for a kiss, just to stand like that, holding on, as though all the winds in the world might drag at us unpurposefully.

  "I have missed you," I whispered. "I have missed you so much."

  "I missed you too," he said. "I missed you every day."

  I looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. "Every day? With your wife?"

  He swallowed. "It's not the same."

  "I told you it wouldn't be."

  "It's not that there's anything wrong," he said. "There's nothing wrong. I have nothing to complain of. But she doesn't love me."

  I shook my head and laid it against his chest. "Michel, do you think so well of yourself that you believed that you could simply marry any girl who happened along and have her fall in love with you? It's a bit more complicated than that."

  "I thought she did. I thought she would," he said. "Why else would she marry me?"

  I squeezed him tight. "That's not how aristocratic matches are made. I'm sure she liked you or she needn't have consented. Joséphine would never have pushed her into a marriage she objected to. But aristocrats don't marry for love, Michel. If one is fortunate, one finds someone compatible and pleasant, someone congenial that one can respect. Young ladies of good family aren't supposed to fall in love. At least not until they've been married for some years and take a lover." I looked up at him. "Besides, you don't love her."

  He took a breath and let it out, as though letting go of something tight. "I thought I would. I thought I would learn to. I've tried to."

  "And?"

  He laid one calloused hand against the side of my face. "It's not the same."

  Tears came brimming to my eyes again. "Tell me you love me again."

  "I do," he said. "Always and always and always."

  We walked back to the cottage, our arms around each others' waists, Eleazar walking along companionably behind us. I drew him into my bedroom and he blew out the lamp so that only the moonlight through the thin drapes illuminated us, silver with enchantment. He closed his eyes and bent his face to mine, a kiss long and tender and languid, as though we could simply melt into one another, shadow to shadow, moving in the quiet darkness of the room. We did not even whisper. Any sound might break the spell, undressing in silence, skin to skin still standing in the middle of the room while the sea wind stirred the curtains, body to body entwined. The night breeze raised gooseflesh on his arms and shoulders. Warmth and cool, skin and air, his breath against my hair like a whisper as I kissed his throat, the plane of his chest, hands roving over his flesh. He might have been a statue carved out of marble, pale skin over defined muscles, a statue come to life for me like Pygmalion, the sum of my dreams.

  "You are my dream," he said, his eyes closed and his lips against my hair, as if he had heard my thought.

  "And you are mine," I said.

  He smiled at that, his arms about my waist as I looked up. "Who dreamed who, do you suppose?"

  "I was in your dream and you were in mine," I said. "For what are we but dreams given flesh?"

  He shook his head and bent again to me, flesh to flesh like one of those statues that is never on public display, Mars and Venus carved from marble, lovers entwined, bodies yearning but not quite joining. Three years apart, but still we knew each other. We knew every touch, every pause. There were no mysteries, only sweet returning.

  Tender, yes, but I pushed him as he needed, goading him at the last, and he clutched at me like a starving man, with a desperation I had never seen in him before. "You must," I said, riding him as he lay upon my white sheets, the moonlight making a stripe across the bed and wall, the shadow of the window frame across his shoulder like a brand. "You must."

  His hands tightened, frustration and desire warring for a moment.

  "I will not let you stop," I said, low and dangerous, and that was enough, enough to tip him over the edge at last, his groans loud enough to hear outside, were there anyone to hear them.

  Michel reached for me then, drawing me down blindly against him, his face to my breast and his eyes shut. I could feel his heart thudding against me like the tattoo of distant drums.

  "There, my darling," I said, my hands on his tight shoulders. "There, my dear. It is all right now. It is all mended."

  "It isn't," he said. "It will never be right. There is no choice which is right now. I've broken my vows."

  I closed my eyes. "You were mine first." The sea wind blew in the curtains, cooling my heated skin.

  "I can't do it, Elza," he whispered. "Aglae, my sons…."

  My eyes popped open and I raised up on my elbow. "Aglae isn't here, is she? What she doesn't know won't hurt her."

  "It's still wrong," he said. "And I should not have done it. It's wrong whether or not she knows."

  I shook my head, fresh pain gathering in the pit of my stomach. "And your eventual punishment in purgatory is so much more important than my happiness. The state of your soul is so much more important than I am."

  "You make fidelity sound like nothing but a self-indulgence."

  "Isn't it?" I asked bitterly. "You say you love me, but I don't really see you very concerned about whether or not I'm happy. You married Aglae from ambition, pure and simple. Marrying the Emperor's goddaughter did you a lot of good. All those private conversations with the Emperor, all those intimate little dinners and family gatherings. Spent a lot of time with him, have you? His Hephaistion!"

  Michel flinched as though I had slapped him. "No," he said quietly. "Actually I don't see him very often." He turned his head so that it was in profile to me, harder to read, especially in the moonlight. "I was sent to Switzerland, not that I minded, as it was a job he needed done and he said he could count on me to do it. And then he gave me the corps command here, and the School of War. Which is everything I ever wanted, of course. But I don't see him very much, no."

  I opened my mouth and shut it again. Impossible, but I knew him. Impossible, but I knew how he was with Charles.

  He looked at me sideways, eyes keen and overly bright, furious and pained at once. "What?"

  "Michel, you didn't," I whispered. I couldn't even….

  "Of course not," he said levelly. "You can't imagine such a thing. It would never cross his mind, and anyone who suggested it would be insane, or at least deluded and perverted at once."

  And anyone who did would find themselves with a very honorable and pleasant command far from Paris. Anyone who was his Hephaistion.

  I put my hand to my mouth. Not two weeks ago I had sat in the Emperor's study, receiving orders for Boulogne, orders that he knew would land me in Michel's lap. He had even told me I might confide in Michel if I wished. I had assured him it was over between us, but the Emperor had only smiled. Oh yes, I was here to catch a spy, providentially here to solve Lannes' problem of needing a Dove, but if it killed still another bird with the same stone, was that not to the benefit of everyone? I should be
happy, Michel should be satisfied, and Napoleon would have to see nothing that should prove awkward to see.

  Wheels within wheels within wheels, all the workings of that complex, elegant mind….

  I opened my mouth and shut it again, and for the first time sober and waking really, truly believed. "He is Alexander."

  Michel nodded, a rueful smile on his face. "Yes."

  I bent my forehead against his shoulder, cool and yielding like marble half made flesh. "This is all real."

  "Yes."

  I could count every freckle on his skin, redhead fair where the sun did not touch it. "The witches of England, the rituals, the angels, the gods…." My voice caught in my throat. "It's all real."

  "This is one of the Great Stories, the Emperor's Tale," Michel said, shifting onto his back so that I lay against him, his arm beneath me. "Again and again this wandering Prometheus passes through the world with fire that burns and lights, as much punishment as reward. And we are his Companions, bound by our own wills, by our oaths and our desires, to journey in his train."

  "We?"

  "Lannes and Noirtier and Subervie and Reille, Corbineau and Duplessis and the others. You saw some of us tonight. You know what we are."

  "The Knights of the Round Table. Charlemagne's Paladins…." My voice failed me. I looked up at him, but his blue eyes were perfectly serious, light touched and clear. "You really believe."

  "I know," he said.

  "Not a metaphor. Not a joke."

  "No." He stroked my hair with one hand. "I know. And so do you."

  It was as though the world had turned on its axis, as though vast tides had shifted, as though at last everything fell into place with a great and perfect stillness. It was as though at last I looked at it whole, not fractured pieces in a blackened mirror, a thing so perfect and impenetrable that understanding it was almost beyond me, like looking for one moment into the mind of God, or seeing the world as an angel must see it.

  "If I dare to believe it I will be mad," I whispered.

  "If you dare to believe it you will be whole," Michel said, and cupped my face in his hand. "The world is a numinous place, Elza, for people who dare to see it. There is magic in every tree and stone, and angels walk beside us. We are spirits given flesh, and we are older than the stories they tell about us."

  I blinked as the tears spilled from my eyes.

  He brushed one away with the pad of his thumb. "Say my name," he whispered, as though it were challenge and affirmation both. "Look at me and name me."

  I looked, and in his beloved face I could see the others, shadows beneath the surface, all the things I had tried not to see. Red hair, yes, that rose from his brow, and brown eyes and a broad forehead….

  "Hephaistion son of Amyntor," I said, and felt my voice grow stronger with each syllable, as though an organ spoke below my tone with a deep note on the edge of hearing. "Patroklos of Achaia. Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Jonathan."

  He bent his head beneath my words.

  "Bedwyr ap Griffyth. Hroudland of the Breton March. Flavius Aetius." Too fast, too strong, like a dam washing away in a flood. "Erik Thorfinnson, Khanefernumut, Robert Dudley. Izabela of Falkenau."

  "You are our oracle," he said. "Priest and Companion at once, born in a body with a Dove's power."

  And the Emperor's agent, I thought. Michel did not know all. He did not know what I had promised, that I had knelt knowing I had said those words before, imagined the night garden in Babylon, the King's hands burning with fever. He did not know all. He did not know that Napoleon himself had named me, five years ago in Milan.

  "Why here? Why now?"

  Michel shrugged. "I don't know, but I can guess that it is because the flood has come, that the world is changing as dramatically as it ever did in Alexander's day, in any other day where we have walked. We come when the flood comes."

  "Awaken from sleep in the hollow hills," I said. "Return like bulbs in spring, sprouting underground and clawing upward toward the light." I looked at him, touched his face with compassion. "Oh, Michel. As though you did not already have too much responsibility!"

  His mouth twisted in a rueful smile. "We are what we are."

  "And you have worked this out? You and these men?"

  Michel nodded. "Not all those names you said. I don't know them all. I don't know all the stories. I don't see things for other people, just bits and pieces of things I remember. And until I got here, I didn't talk about them with anyone."

  The sea wind lifted the curtains, blowing in from the Channel, a breath of cool. "Until you were at the School of War, reminding yourself every day. Until you were in this Lodge."

  "Yes," Michel said. "And how not, when we are playing our own battles, reminding ourselves of what we already know?"

  I blinked at him as suddenly another thing became clear. "You're doing it on purpose," I said. "You're deliberately finding Companions by giving men these campaigns to play and seeing what it stirs up. You're watching to see who reacts to what."

  "And to which stories. Corbineau's one of the few who has faced firearms before. He knows what to do with a wheel-lock pistol, too."

  "Of course he does," I began. Snow swirling around us, the snows of Hohenlinden in my memory when I had stood with Corbineau, but not the first time. A heavy man with a dark beard and a scarred face, Polish or Bohemian, a sash of Imperial scarlet over a buff coat….

  Michel was looking at me, and for the first time I deliberately finished the thought. "Of course he does," I said. "He served with Wallenstein, in the Imperial Army."

  Michel took a deep breath. "And before that?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I've never tried to look on purpose, not except in the rituals." I met his eyes again, the wonder creeping over me. "Michel, it's all real."

  "It's real."

  "You never told me you remembered these things," I said.

  "You never told me you did séances," he replied.

  "It was before I met you," I said. "It frightened me, and I'd given it up before we were together. There didn't seem to be any reason to tell you." I looked at him. "You were in a lodge then, weren't you? The last months we were together? I thought it was ordinary Masonry."

  "I am in an ordinary lodge," he said sheepishly, "And this one too. I didn't lie to you. I just didn't tell the whole truth. It's not the kind of thing you're supposed to tell people, Elza."

  I put my head on his shoulder. "So many things I never knew," I said. "So many things for us still to learn."

  He leaned his face against my hair, his lips just brushing it. "It doesn't change anything, Elza."

  I looked up at him. "What do you mean, it doesn't?"

  Michel swallowed, his face pale in the moonlight. "We can't do this. We can't be lovers. I want to, Elza, but we can't. I'm married."

  I closed my eyes. "You are determined, then."

  "I should never have done this," he said. "It was a moment of weakness. I can't help how I feel about you, but I can help what I do."

  I dug my nails into his shoulder, deep enough to hurt, deep enough to draw blood. "Then hear me on this, Michel. Don't do this to me again. I can't do this. Don't come back to me again unless you mean to stay." I choked, and pressed on. "I can't live like this, waiting for you and hoping for you. I will find someone else, and I will be happy."

  He flinched, but he did not move, though my nails drew blood. "You should. You should find someone else. You should be happy."

  "Yes," I said, and lifted my head. "Surely there's another Companion out there. Corbineau's trying to set me up with his friend, Reille, after all!"

  Michel gulped. "I would wish you and Honoré every happiness."

  "Like hell you would."

  He sat up, the covers around his waist. "I will try to," he said. "I will honestly try. I want you to be happy, even if…." Even if he could not be. He had made those decisions, and now he must live with them.

  I took his hand, running my fingers over its familiar contours for what mi
ght be the last time, feeling the shape of every tendon. "Michel, don't go."

  "I have to," he said. "Elza, we have to try to be good."

  "My definition of good is not the same as yours," I said.

  "No," he said sadly. "I see that it's not."

  We dressed and I walked him to the door. Eleazar was placidly dozing, tied up to the post. The wind was blowing off the sea, and in the east the stars of morning were rising, Venus burning brightly ahead of the sun.

  He turned and put his arms around me once more, and I held him for one long moment. "Goodbye, love," I whispered.

  "Well, until Thursday," he said. "We've still got to work together."

  "I know," I said. I felt a strange sense of peace about it, not angry, not frustrated anymore. This was as it was because we were ourselves, and that was what was most precious, companions rather than lovers. "But now maybe we can put it behind us, like a fever that burns away. Now maybe we can see each other without it hurting so much." I hoped so. I should have to see him over and over for who knows how long, until my mission was accomplished. And not much of an incentive to finish, I said to myself.

  Involuntarily, I glanced toward the sea, where Lion patrolled in her endless offshore loop. There was a light bobbing along the cliff.

  "Michel, what is that?"

  He looked about. "A lantern?" The one he had carried had been put out long since.

  "Who would be there with a lantern before dawn?" I asked, but before the words were even out of my mouth the sound of laughter and girls' voices came on the breeze. They came closer, four young girls in bonnets, long aprons over their cotton dresses.

  "Girls who work in Boulogne but live in one of the villages down the coast," Michel said. "They go home at night to their families and come in to work in the morning. Lots of servants who work in Boulogne are from the villages. We've brought a lot of work to the area, good paying jobs in town."

  They were giggling and joking, and as I watched one swung around poking another, who danced away down the path, taunting her with what sounded like a boy's name.

  Now I am ridiculous, I thought. I am seeing mysterious things under every stone.

  "Goodbye," Michel said.