The Chevalier

  Wilhelmine smiles at me in regal approval. “And you thought not to disturb us?”

  “Our mission is of the utmost importance. Time is critical,” says Guerchy. “I was going to present my compliments before our departure tomorrow.”

  “That will be satisfactory. I should not like my brother to think we are inhospitable here.” She turns to her husband Friedrich, who hangs back a pace or two behind her.

  Friedrich flinches at this mention of the Prussian monarch. “Not at all, my dear.” I think he even clicks his heels.

  “And you must come to our new castle. You may have heard how my husband burnt down most of the last one.” Her laugh is molten, mocking.

  The unfortunate arsonist twitches again. “A simple accident with a candle, my pet. Could have happened to anyone.”

  If everything is wooden here, I am not surprised; it seems such frolics are commonplace in Germany. Marie and I both turn our gaze upon the self-immolator of Tubingen. Guerchy finds sudden, unsuspected interest in the decor.

  “Anyway, join us tomorrow,” concludes Wilhelmine. “Where are you staying?”

  I answer for the tongue-tied Guerchy. “We are at the Golden Anchor, Margravine.”

  “Splendid. I hear they are most efficient there,” says Wilhemine. “Ten o’clock will suit us well.”

  Now Marie speaks for her so-called husband. “We shall be delighted.”

  * * *

  Wilhelmine, clad in a gown whose shade of brilliant gold I fervently admire, insists on showing us her castle. We wander through the Palm Room, where I imagine we are in a grove of date trees on the fringes of the vast desert, so cleverly does the painter transport us. Next, we take in the Trellis Room, in which we are tossed into the bowers of a garden so fragrant I come near to swooning.

  “Your design is flawless,” I remark.

  “It is my hobby to enrich the architecture of the town,” says Wilhemine.

  Tactless and bored, Guerchy seems anxious to cut the visit short. “The two of you should balance each other quite nicely,” he says. “One builds, the other burns.”

  Friedrich frowns at the slight. His wife ignores it.

  “Beautiful as it is here, I plan to go travelling soon. I should like to see Italy and France before I die,” Wilhelmine goes on.

  “You will have many years until that happens, Margravine,” says Marie, arrayed today in a white bodice with a light blue jacket and gown. The interplay of the two dresses makes me yearn to feel their elegance and richness next my skin. My desires are starting to mount again.

  Wilhelmine closes her eyes and says nothing.

  “And you have created a microcosm of the world here,” I say. This time, she nods assent.

  We pass through a drawing room resembling a grotto, shells and corals painted gold upon the ceiling. I keep a wary eye for bowls of fruit with hidden jets, but unlike the Empress, I estimate the Margravine is not one for practical japes. This is a cave reflecting a woman of very different temperament.

  Lost in contemplation, I almost bump into Wilhelmine when she stops in a doorway. So close, her amber scent a hymn of praise, she looks back at me with sparkling eyes: “Here is my Japanese room.” Gilded birds fly through a pale green garden to rest on golden trellises and branches sprouting with dark green leaves.

  “What a magnificent ceiling,” whispers Marie, nudging my gaze upwards. An Empress from ancient Kyoto reclines upon a golden throne of shells beneath a golden canopy; as I survey her painted court, I hear her summoning her minions for the evening’s entertainment.

  Such reveries evaporate as Wilhelmine continues: “And this is a cabinet with a special mirror – I designed it myself.”

  Prepared to disregard such self-indulgence, I am compelled to admit the cabinet is remarkable, lined from top to bottom with flashing shards of mirrored glass. Broken images of Marie’s face and body collide with glimpses of mine in a most uncomfortable way. I feel put out of joint and so, I see, does she. In this mirror we are intermingled and yet neither of us whole. Guerchy’s lip curls in relish at our confusion.

  But, after losing my senses in the splintered glass, I return to the present and see there is more ornamentation on the cabinet. A stately woman studiously reads a parchment presented to her by an Oriental sage. Dragons, lions and dolphins disport themselves around this central pair.

  “Your Highness, I think you’re the student here,” I say.

  “Why should art reveal itself completely?” She casts down her eyes in coquetry.

  I try to understand her aim. “But if art is a mirror to society, what does it mean? Is it that either society or art is breaking into pieces?”

  She smiles at my allusion. “In the Hermitage, I caused whole walls to be designed in the manner of this glass.”

  Even my fired imagination can hardly compass such entanglement, the stories told by vast broken mirrors. I wish Marie and I could stay and learn more from this Margravine. She is a perfect blend of wisdom and provocative thinking. Moreover, I take back my musings about her inability to tell visual jokes. Yet all the while, Guerchy is making a poor job of concealing his impatience, tapping against the floor with the knob of his cane.

  “It is divine,” I say. “Thank you. I trust that we will meet again. I should love to see this Hermitage of yours.” Marie smiles her agreement.

  “Gone, alas!” she says. Another fire, no doubt. At least Guerchy refrains from making a coarse remark.

  And so we take our leave, the kindly Wilhelmine providing us with a pass to travel throughout Prussian lands on her authority. I am pleased that there is some warming in the frostiness of my relationship with Marie. The shared interests we have in music, art and architecture have brought on a rapprochement, however temporary.

  Our coach rumbles along in the direction of Leipzig, skirting the battlefield of Lützen where ghosts come out to play on mist-filled evenings. Here the Protestant champion of the north, Gustavus Adolphus, breathed his last in victory during the German wars in the last century. A shuddering from Guerchy’s segment of the coach shows he’s asleep. I turn to look at my lady in her pale blue dress.

  “Is he respecting you, Marie?” I whisper.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Now that we’re staying in taverns…”

  “He’s usually too drunk to consider me, as you have seen.” She forces a weary smile. “However, on nights of relative sobriety, I give him an effective warning.”

  “What can you possibly say?”

  “In his insults he forgets that, because the King knows me, I know the King. I’ve told him if he lays a hand on me, Louis shall hear of it. And that Louis would grant me whatever I wish. He’d fall from a great height.”

  There is a jolt and sudden, grinding wrench as the coach bounces off a rock. Guerchy stirs and begins to come awake. He’s not the only man with a dilemma. If Marie were to petition the King, I don’t doubt what he’d ask of her in return. My feelings are raw on that point, although I must again admire her resolution.

  We roll rapidly through Saxony while the winter turns at last to spring. Saxony gives way to Poland; we hurry through the mountains and hasten across the plains. Soon, we are approaching Warsaw. In the corner of a field, we see a well-dressed man cudgel a hunched-up old woman, clad in a shapeless brown smock. At every stroke of his knouted stick, she shrivels further into herself, so that it appears he is knocking her into the earth like a stave of a fence. The cur beats on, relentless.

  Marie cries out at her pretended Lord: “Can’t you do something?”

  “Must be one of his serfs,” says Guerchy. “Best to leave them alone.”

  I give a helpless shrug as Marie turns her eye on me. My sympathy is stirred, but caution bids me to side with him. We must not give ourselves away. Besides, my mind is for the most part elsewhere. The haunting prospect of an unmasking from Count Poniatowski grows closer with each turn of the wheels.

  * * *

  My legs and body aching from my c
ramped position, I waken to hear Monin screech back some news or other to us in the carriage. Blinking my sticky eyes, I peer out the window and see him scampering away from what I recognise as Stanislaus’s mansion. Behind him, I observe his servant, portly yet almost as diminutive as our own, closing the front doors. Monin calls out again.

  Guerchy stands next to Marie, hand cocked to his ear. “What’s that?” We cannot hear the words above the street hubbub.

  “The Count’s away, my Lord,” Monin explains as he capers back towards us.

  “So where the hell is he?” Guerchy demands, with more vehemence than reason.

  Accustomed to his master’s ways, Monin is able to forestall him. “St Petersburg.”

  He is gone! It is as though I have been given the winning numbers of a lottery (so much in vogue at the moment), while at the same time being informed that I shall have my gold coins confiscated within a few weeks and be thrown into jail for fraud. I know it’s only a reprieve, yet often all a man involved in espionage can hope for is delay in the inevitable. Such stays of execution must arouse my gratitude. To be unmasked in France is dangerous, yet not fatal – at least while I have the King’s protection. In a foreign land, proof of my clandestine actions may mean death – and all the evidence is gathering in Petersburg.

  “What are we going to do?” Marie pulls her shawl around her shoulders, and turns to my Lord.

  “Simple – get there as fast as we can.” Guerchy rubs hard at his numb thighs.

  She sighs in bleak exasperation. “I mean for tonight.”

  Guerchy leaves off his warming motions for a second and looks along the street. “Do you think we’re beyond the outposts of civilisation? This is a capital city. Of a sort. We’ll find an inn, Madame.”

  Monin is sent to discover the finest hotel in town. He returns soon enough. The Villiers seems to answer all our requirements. Best reputation, naturally, and it offers good value, we are told – albeit at a price higher than I would deem justifiable for a backwater. After a few misdirections and wrong turns, we find it, a tolerable inn that will pass for the night.

  We are just finishing a supper of pork and fried potatoes, one that I am finding all the tastier after the lifting of the Damocletian sword above my head, when there is a knock at the door of our apartments.

  “Who can it be?” says Marie, looking at the two of us in suspicion.

  “No one we want to see,” I say. However, my fears are not echoed by my Lord.

  “Enter,” calls out Guerchy.

  Four noblemen in pristine military garb march into the room, exuding punctilio and cold formality. They line up at attention, facing us.

  “Welcome to Warsaw,” says the roundest, and probably the eldest of the four. “Prince Jan Sapieha at your service.”

  “I am Prince Stanislaus Lubomirski,” adds the tallest. “Enjoy your stay in Poland.”

  “Count Francis Xavier Branicki bids you good evening,” proclaims the liveliest and most martial, his spurs and all the chains upon his jacket jangling.

  “We are so glad we have found you,” says the smallest and, I would guess, the youngest. “May I introduce myself – Prince Adam Czartoryski.”

  Branicki takes a soldier’s step towards us. “Word goes around town you were unable to stay at the house of Count Poniatowski.”

  Those damned servants.

  “Yes, I fear our friend was not at home,” Guerchy concedes.

  “We are most sorry to hear that two fine gentlemen, and so beautiful a lady, are compelled to put up at a common establishment.” Branicki really does look mortified at our presumed distress.

  “It’s kind of you to say so,” says Guerchy, “but this does us very well for a brief visit.”

  Branicki brushes aside such niceties, as though dealing with strands of thread from his gleaming buttons. “Nevertheless, we should be happy to oblige you. Please start by giving us your name, sir.”

  Sighing, Guerchy stands and bows. “I am Lord Douglas, gentlemen. This is my wife, er, Lady Douglas.” Marie gets to her feet and curtseys. “And with us is our close friend, the Chevalier d’Éon.” I also rise and make a graceful bow, deciding to omit the suffix of de Beaumont in their company.

  Branicki frowns. “This puts a different complexion on the matter.” The four turn their backs on us to confer. After a few moments, Branicki steps out from the group: “We are agreed. It is now certain that we can arrange alternative accommodation for the three of you, at no charge.”

  “Well, really…” Guerchy shakes his head.

  “Please step outside with us,” commands Prince Sapieha. “We’ll do this straightaway if that serves. Perhaps you, my Lady, will be so kind as to wait here for our return.”

  Sensing trouble, I stay close by Guerchy, whose face registers perplexity, even as he strides out into the corridor. The four insistent Polish noblemen escort us through the hall into the stabling yard. All chatter ceases. There is something ominous in their silence after such an elaborate charade of courtesy. With every step the danger seems to be increasing. It is as though we’re being marched to a place of execution. I loiter, without seeming to; even the General starts to drag his pace.

  My misgivings are shown to be prescient. As soon as we are in the open air, Count Branicki draws his sword.

  “A flourish! What is the meaning of this?” cries my Lord.

  “Sir, the last time you were in Warsaw,” says Branicki, “you insulted our close friend. Count Poniatowski has told us of your drunken outrages and how you fled without having the grace to thank him for his hospitality. Now you must make amends. I trust Lady Douglas has brought a black dress.”

  Guerchy, to his credit, utters a defiant snort.

  At once Branicki advances on my Lord. Enraged, Guerchy draws his own sword, touches tips with his aggressor and prepares to fight. It is the first time I have seen the hero of Fontenoy in action and, I must relate, he puts on a very good show. I can see he’s a formidable duellist, blessed with many fine moves. But it is likely to prove insufficient in the end. Branicki is younger, fitter, faster and stronger. The excellent technique shown by my Lord cannot save him forever.

  Making a swift decision, I gamble on the hope the Poles may be gentlemen after all, and, shouting, draw my sword.

  As I do so, Prince Sapieha follows suit. However, once more my intuition is correct. Two must fight two: Czartoryski and Lubomirski, the younger men, both stand aside to watch the entertainment. The torches placed around the yard, their flames reflected in six pairs of glittering eyes, light up what is by now a vivid spectacle.

  We come together in an instant. Prince Sapieha is large but slow, and I find I soon have the measure of him. I am able to slice at both his arms and body, and, at one point, to flick a piece of flesh from his cheek, leaving a dribble of blood to slither its way down and drip on his white shirt. My successes appear to discourage Count Branicki and stimulate my Lord; either way, Guerchy is soon breaching the Count’s previously impregnable defences and leaving long cuts and marks about his person. Sensing triumph, we wish to avoid corpses and further duels: we therefore concentrate our attacks on their right sides. Within a short while, the sword arms of both Branicki and Sapieha are rendered motionless, incapable.

  “A truce,” the Count calls out.

  “Hold, sirs,” I say.

  With admirable detachment, Prince Czartoryski declares that we must be the winners, since both our opponents are wounded and cannot continue. He and Prince Lubomirski usher their fallen champions away to a handy surgeon, leaving us victorious. Pools of blood spatter the stabling yard, glinting in the torchlight.

  The moment they are gone, Guerchy and I glance at each other and smile in brief exhilaration. It is a fleeting accord: at once we rush back toward our chambers before the Poles can discover any excuse or desire for revenge. Pale with worry, Marie greets us as we stumble along the passage.

  “My dear, we must leave town at once,” Guerchy wheezes. “Something’s come up.�
��

  Marie is about to open her mouth in protest, but, seeing our sweat-streaked faces and the rips in our silk shirts and velvet coats, she nods. She calls Monin into swift action and the two of them hasten our departure, making sure we leave full payment for our night’s lodging. In this wild country the Villiers owner might otherwise pursue us with an eight-strong delegation: the Comte de Broglie’s pithy dismissal of the Poles as “lawless beyond measure” appears to be correct. Marie silently tends to our slight wounds in the coach throughout our long night’s ride. It is another ignominious flight from this place: the land where my spymaster would be king.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Plague

  In our crowded, rounded carriage, the sympathy Marie extends us for our injuries can only last for a short spell. It seems that every time she requires us to halt for the demands of nature, her resentment towards her protector and – most unfairly – towards me, multiplies by several notches. Her hostile stare accompanies our groans at the constant buffeting as we hasten north.

  I regret there is precious little chance to see Königsberg and the vivacious Eloise de Tarparon, to whom I have again been commended. Well, make that no chance: our way is blocked by several divisions of the Prussian Army. Perhaps, for Marie’s sake, it is a godsend. The Prince and the King must therefore remain unaware of our progress. Instead, we aim for the nearest point which will take us out of Polish territory without delivering us into the clutches of King Frederick.

  In a few days, we are entering Libau, watching the last floes of ice melt in the Baltic Sea. The streets are empty, so much so that I consider it an omen. The harbourside is quite deserted. Even the birds shun the port, with merely a lone seagull flapping over some detritus on the shore. Vegetables are rotting on the quayside, pervading the town with the rank smell of decay.

  Further along the harbour, we stop at an inn, well-appointed but – from outside at least – displaying no signs of life. Sharing my sense of foreboding, Guerchy makes Marie stay in the carriage, and orders Monin to watch over her. He and I approach the door with circumspection. In the parlour, a fire burns in the grate but no one is warming their haunches. Our protector calls out for service and, after a long wait, the landlord shuffles into view. He stands at the doorway, keeping a distance from us.