The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

He kissed her again, his hand moving along her belly, touching her lightly. “My golden-haired Maie.” The hand cupped her breast. Her breath hissed inward.

  “Careful,” she said. “I’m very tender there.”

  “I will be nothing but tenderness.” The kisses reached her lips. “I desire nothing but tenderness for you.”

  She turned to him, let his lips brush against hers, then press more firmly. Sensation, a little painful, flushed her breast. His tongue touched hers. Desire rose and she put her arms around him.

  The door opened and Claire came in, chattering of George while she undressed. Mood broken, tenderness broken, there was nothing to do but sleep.

  * * *

  “Come and look,” Mary said, “here’s a cat eating roses; she’ll turn into a woman, when beasts eat these roses they turn into men and women.” But there was no one in the cottage, only the sound of the wind.

  Fear touched her, cold on the back of her neck.

  She stepped into the cottage, and suddenly there was something blocking the sun that came through the windows, an enormous figure, monstrous and black and hungry …

  Nausea and the sounds of swordplay woke her. A dog was barking maniacally. Mary rose from the bed swiftly and wrapped her shawl around herself. The room was hot and stuffy, and her gorge rose. She stepped to the window, trying not to vomit, and opened the pane to bring in fresh air.

  Coolness touched her cheeks. Below in the courtyard of the inn was Pásmány, the fencing teacher, slashing madly at his pupil, Byron. Newstead. George, she reminded herself, she would remember he was George.

  And serve him right.

  She dragged welcome morning air into her lungs as the two battled below her. George was in his shirt, planted firmly on his strong, muscular legs, his pretty face set in an expression of intent calculation. Pásmány flung himself at the man, darting in and out, his sword almost fluid in its movement. They were using straight heavy sabers, dangerous even if unsharpened, and no protective equipment at all. A huge black dog, tied to the vermilion wheel of a big dark-blue barouche, barked at the both of them without cease.

  Nausea swam over Mary; she closed her eyes and clutched the windowsill. The ringing of the swords suddenly seemed very far away.

  “Are they fighting?” Claire’s fingers clutched her shoulder. “Is it a duel? Oh, it’s Byron!”

  Mary abandoned the window and groped her way to the bed. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Bysshe blinked muzzily at her from his pillow.

  “I must go down and watch,” said Claire. She reached for her clothing and, hopping, managed to dress without missing a second of the action outside. She grabbed a hairbrush on her way out the door and was arranging her hair on the run even before the door slammed behind her.

  “Whatever is happening?” Bysshe murmured. She reached blindly for his hand and clutched it.

  “Bysshe,” she gasped. “I am with child. I must be.”

  “I shouldn’t think so.” Calmly. “We’ve been using every precaution.” He touched her cheek. His hand was cool. “It’s the travel and excitement. Perhaps a bad egg.”

  Nausea blackened her vision and bent her double. Sweat fell in stately rhythm from her forehead to the floor. “This can’t be a bad egg,” she said. “Not day after day.”

  “Poor Maie.” He nestled behind her, stroked her back and shoulders. “Perhaps there is a flaw in the theory,” he said. “Time will tell.”

  No turning back, Mary thought. She had wanted there to be no turning back, to burn every bridge behind her, commit herself totally, as her mother had, to her beliefs. And now she’d succeeded—she and Bysshe were linked forever, linked by the child in her womb. Even if they parted, if—free, as they both wished to be—he abandoned this union, there would still be that link, those bridges burnt, her mother’s defiant inheritance fulfilled …

  Perhaps there is a flaw in the theory. She wanted to laugh and cry at once.

  Bysshe stroked her, his thoughts his own, and outside the martial clangor went on and on.

  * * *

  It was some time before she could dress and go down to the common rooms. The sabre practice had ended, and Bysshe and Claire were already breaking their fast with Somerset, Smith, and Captain Austen. The thought of breakfast made Mary ill, so she wandered outside into the courtyard, where the two breathless swordsmen, towels draped around their necks, were sitting on a bench drinking water, with a tin dipper, from an old wooden bucket. The huge black dog barked, foaming, as she stepped out of the inn, and the two men, seeing her, rose.

  “Please sit, gentlemen,” she said, waving them back to their bench; she walked across the courtyard to the big open gate and stepped outside. She leaned against the whitewashed stone wall and took deep breaths of the country air. Sweet-smelling wildflowers grew in the verges of the highway. Prosperous-looking villagers nodded pleasantly as they passed about their errands.

  “Looking for your haunted house, Miss Godwin?”

  George’s inevitable voice grated on her ears. She looked at him over her shoulder. “My intention was simply to enjoy the morning.”

  “I hope I’m not spoiling it.”

  Reluctant courtesy rescued him from her own riposting tongue. “How was the Emperor’s bed?” she said finally.

  He stepped out into the road. “I believe I slept better than he did, and longer.” He smiled at her. “No ghosts walked.”

  “But you still fought a battle after your sleep.”

  “A far, far better one. Waterloo was not something I would care to experience more than once.”

  “I shouldn’t care to experience it even the first time.”

  “Well. You’re female, of course.” All offhand, unaware of her rising hackles. He looked up and down the highway.

  “D’ye know, this is the first time I’ve seen this road in peace. I first rode it north during the retreat from Quatre Bras, a miserable rainy night, and then there was the chase south after Boney the night of Waterloo, then later the advance with the army to Paris…” He shook his head. “It’s a pleasant road, ain’t it? Much better without the armies.”

  “Yes.”

  “We went along there.” His hand sketched a line across the opposite horizon. “This road was choked with retreating French, so we went around them. With two squadrons of Vandeleur’s lads, the 12th, the Prince of Wales’s Own, all I could find once the French gave way. I knew Boney would be running, and I knew it had to be along this road. I had to find him, make certain he would never trouble our peace. Find him for England.” He dropped right fist into left palm.

  “Boney’d left two battalions of the Guard to hold us, but I went around them. I knew the Prussians would be after him, too, and their mounts were fresher. So we drove on through the night, jumping fences, breaking down hedges, galloping like madmen, and then we found him at Genappe. The bridge was so crammed with refugees that he couldn’t get his barouche across.”

  Mary watched carefully as George, uninvited, told the story that he must, by now, have told a hundred times, and wondered why he was telling it now to someone with such a clear distaste for things military. His color was high, and he was still breathing hard from his exercise; sweat gleamed on his immaculate forehead and matted his shirt; she could see the pulse throbbing in his throat. Perhaps the swordplay and sight of the road had brought the memory back; perhaps he was merely, after all, trying to impress her.

  A female, of course. Damn the man.

  “They’d brought a white Arab up for him to ride away,” George went on. “His Chasseurs of the Guard were close around. I told each trooper to mark his enemy as we rode up—we came up at a slow trot, in silence, our weapons sheathed. In the dark the enemy took us for French—our uniforms were similar enough. I gave the signal—we drew pistols and carbines—half the French saddles were emptied in an instant. Some poor lad of a cornet tried to get in my way, and I cut him up through the teeth. Then there he was—the Emperor. With one foot in the stirrup, and Roustam the Ma
meluke ready to boost him into the saddle.”

  A tigerish, triumphant smile spread across George’s face. His eyes were focused down the road, not seeing her at all. “I put my dripping point in his face, and for the life of me I couldn’t think of any French to say except to tell him to sit down. ‘Asseyez-vous!’ I ordered, and he gave me a sullen look and sat down, right down in the muddy roadway, with the carbines still cracking around us and bullets flying through the air. And I thought, He’s finished. He’s done. There’s nothing left of him now. We finished off his bodyguard—they hadn’t a chance after our first volley. The French soldiers around us thought we were the Prussian advance guard, and they were running as fast as their legs could carry them. Either they didn’t know we had their Emperor or they didn’t care. So we dragged Boney’s barouche off the road, and dragged Boney with it, and ten minutes later the Prussians galloped up—the Death’s Head Hussars under Gneisenau, all in black and silver, riding like devils. But the devils had lost the prize.”

  Looking at the wild glow in George’s eyes Mary realized that she’d been wrong—the story was not for her at all, but for him. For George. He needed it somehow, this affirmation of himself, the enunciated remembrance of his moment of triumph.

  But why? Why did he need it?

  She realized his eyes were on her. “Would you like to see the coach, Miss Godwin?” he asked. The question surprised her.

  “It’s here?”

  “I kept it.” He laughed. “Why not? It was mine. What Captain Austen would call a fair prize of war.” He offered her his arm. She took it, curious about what else she might discover.

  The black mastiff began slavering at her the second she set foot inside the courtyard. Its howls filled the air. “Hush, Picton,” George said, and walked straight to the big gold-trimmed blue coach with vermilion wheels. The door had the Byron arms and the Latin motto CREDE BYRON.

  Should she believe him? Mary wondered. And if so, how much?

  “This is Bonaparte’s?” she said.

  “Was, Miss Godwin. Till June 16th last. Down, Picton!” The dog lunged at him, and he wrestled with it, laughing, until it calmed down and began to fawn on him.

  George stepped to the door and opened it. “The Imperial symbols are still on the lining, as you see.” The door and couch were lined with rich purple, with golden bees and the letter N worked in heavy gold embroidery. “Fine Italian leatherwork,” he said. “Drop-down secretaires so that the great man could write or dictate on the march. Holsters for pistols.” He knocked on the coach’s polished side. “Bulletproof. There are steel panels built in, just in case any of the Great Man’s subjects decided to imitate Marcus Brutus.” He smiled. “I was glad for that steel in Paris, I assure you, with Bonapartist assassins lurking under every tree.” A mischievous gleam entered his eye. “And last, the best thing of all.” He opened a compartment under one of the seats and withdrew a solid silver chamber pot. “You’ll notice it still bears the imperial N.”

  “Vanity in silver.”

  “Possibly. Or perhaps he was afraid one of his soldiers would steal it if he didn’t mark it for his own.”

  Mary looked at the preposterous object and found herself laughing. George looked pleased and stowed the chamber pot in its little cabinet. He looked at her with his head cocked to one side. “You will not reconsider my offer?”

  “No.” Mary stiffened. “Please don’t mention it again.”

  The mastiff Picton began to howl again, and George seized its collar and told it to behave itself. Mary turned to see Claire walking toward them.

  “Won’t you be joining us for breakfast, my lord?”

  George straightened. “Perhaps a crust or two. I’m not much for breakfast.”

  Still fasting, Mary thought. “It would make such sense for you to give up meat, you know,” she said. “Since you deprive yourself of food anyway.”

  “I prefer not to deny myself pleasure, even if the quantities are necessarily restricted.”

  “Your swordplay was magnificent.”

  “Thank you. Cavalry style, you know—all slash and dash. But I am good, for a’ that.”

  “I know you’re busy, but—” Claire bit her lip. “Will you take us to Waterloo?”

  “Claire!” cried Mary.

  Claire gave a nervous laugh. “Truly,” she said. “I’m absolutely with child to see Waterloo.”

  George looked at her, his eyes intent. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll be driving through it in any case. And Captain Austen has expressed an interest.”

  Fury rose in Mary’s heart. “Claire, how dare you impose—”

  “Ha’ ye nae pity for the puir lassie?” The Scots voice was mock-severe. “Ye shallnae keep her fra’ her Waterloo.”

  Claire’s Waterloo, Mary thought, was exactly what she wanted to keep her from.

  George offered them his exaggerated, flourishing bow. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I must give the necessary orders.”

  He strode through the door. Pásmány followed, the swords tucked under his arm. Claire gave a little joyous jump, her shoes scraping on cobbles. “I can hardly believe it,” she said. “Byron showing us Waterloo!”

  “I can’t believe it either,” Mary said. She sighed wearily and headed for the dining room.

  Perhaps she would dare to sip a little milk.

  * * *

  They rode out in Napoleon’s six-horse barouche, Claire, Mary, and Bysshe inside with George, and Smith, Somerset, and Captain Austen sharing the outside rear seat. The leather top with its bulletproof steel inserts had been folded away and the inside passengers could all enjoy the open air. The barouche wasn’t driven by a coachman up top, but by three postboys who rode the right-hand horses, so there was nothing in front to interrupt the view. Bysshe’s mule and little carriage, filled with bags and books, ate dust behind along with the officers’ baggage coaches, all driven by George’s servants.

  The men talked of war and Claire listened to them with shining eyes. Mary concentrated on enjoying the shape of the low hills with their whitewashed farmhouses and red tile roofs, the cut fields of golden rye stubble, the smell of wildflowers and the sound of birdsong. It was only when the carriage passed a walled farm, its whitewash marred by bullets and cannon shot, that her reverie was marred by the thought of what had happened here.

  “La Haie Sainte,” George remarked. “The King’s German Legion held it throughout the battle, even after they’d run out of ammunition. I sent Mercer’s horse guns to keep the French from the walls, else Lord knows what would have happened.” He stood in the carriage, looked left and right, frowned. “These roads we’re about to pass were sunken—an obstacle to both sides, but mainly to the French. They’re filled in now. Mass graves.”

  “The French were cut down in heaps during their cavalry attack,” Somerset added. “The piles were eight feet tall, men and horses.”

  “How gruesome!” laughed Claire.

  “Turn right, Swinson,” said George.

  Homemade souvenir stands had been set up at the crossroads. Prosperous-looking rustics hawked torn uniforms, breastplates, swords, muskets, bayonets. Somerset scowled at them. “They must have made a fortune looting the dead.”

  “And the living,” said Smith. “Some of our poor wounded weren’t brought in till two days after the battle. Many had been stripped naked by the peasants.”

  A young man ran up alongside the coach, shouting in French. He explained he had been in the battle, a guide to the great Englishman Lord Byron, and would guide them over the field for a few guilders.

  “Never heard of you,” drawled George, and dismissed him. “Hey! Swinson! Pull up here.”

  The postboys pulled up their teams. George opened the door of the coach and strolled to one of the souvenir stands. When he returned it was with a French breastplate and helmet. Streaks of rust dribbled down the breastplate, and the helmet’s horsehair plume smelled of mildew.

  “I thought we could take a few shots at it,” G
eorge said. “I’d like to see whether armor provides any protection at all against bullets—I suspect not. There’s a movement afoot at Whitehall to give breastplates to the Household Brigade, and I suspect they ain’t worth the weight. If I can shoot a few holes in this with my Mantons, I may be able to prove my point.”

  They drove down a rutted road of soft earth. It was lined with thorn hedges, but most of them had been broken down during the battle and there were long vistas of rye stubble, the gentle sloping ground, the pattern of plow and harvest. Occasionally the coach wheels grated on something, and Mary remembered they were moving along a mass grave, over the decaying flesh and whitening bones of hundreds of horses and men. A cloud passed across the sun, and she shivered.

  “Can ye pull through the hedge, Swinson?” George asked. “I think the ground is firm enough to support us—no rain for a few days at least.” The lead postboy studied the hedge with a practiced eye, then guided the lead team through a gap in it.

  The barouche rocked over exposed roots and broken limbs, then ground onto a rutted sward of green grass, knee-high, that led gently down into the valley they’d just crossed. George stood again, his eyes scanning the ground. “Pull up over there,” he said, pointing, and the coachman complied.

  “Here you can see where the battle was won,” George said. He tossed his clanging armor out onto the grass, opened the coach door and stepped out himself. The others followed, Mary reluctantly. George pointed with one elegant hand at the ridge running along the opposite end of the valley from their own, a half-mile opposite.

  “Napoleon’s grand battery,” he said. “Eighty guns, many of them twelve-pounders—Boney called them his daughters. He was an artillerist, you know, and he always prepared his attacks with a massed bombardment. The guns fired for an hour and put our poor fellows through hell. Bylandt’s Dutchmen were standing in the open, right where we are now, and the guns broke ’em entirely.

  “Then the main attack came, about two o’clock. Count d’Erlon’s corps, 16,000 strong, arrayed 25 men deep with heavy cavalry on the wings. They captured La Haye and Papelotte, those farms over there on the left, and rolled up this ridge with drums beating the pas de charge…”