Prouder cabins had a real oven, chimney, and even glass windows. Farm animals would be housed in stables either below or above the human quarters, lending heat, and we learned a cow was worth seventy iron nails. Chickens were kept in cages in the living rooms each winter. Dogs sprawled, and cats patrolled against mice. The men fished and hunted while the women weaved, everyone waiting for spring.
In sum it was rustic but surprisingly comfortable. Above and behind each hearth was a brick and clay platform warmed by the constant fire. Here was the master bed, our hosts always surrendering this prized perch to visitors while they took the cold floor. Richer peasants fed us potatoes, pork, peas, sauerkraut, and once some kielbasa sausage. When I gave them a coin or two, their eyes widened as if it were a fortune.
My reflexive greed shamed me.
“Our dreams are so foolish, Ethan,” Astiza murmured one night as we lay under their blankets, our hosts snoring on the other side of the oven. “These people seem more content than all the nobles in Russia. We contend for palaces and they abide with the seasons.”
“I’ve had the same thought. But we also know their lives are brutal much of the year, and that we’d never be content with a life like this. We’ve seen too much. Experience has doomed us to be strivers.”
“Which will be the death of us someday.” She tried it as a joke, and yet we both knew it wasn’t one.
“But what a life we’ll have led!” I rolled atop her, Harry sound asleep beside us. I was restless with desire.
Astiza shifted her hips away. “Easy for you to say,” she said as she pushed me off. “Horus hasn’t had a life yet.”
“He’s had the life of a dozen boys his age. I vow that someday he’ll live the life we dream of. He’ll be a great man.”
“And what makes a man great?” And then she did hug, but only that. By the curse of Casanova, we spend entirely too much time in awkward situations. That’s what striving does to you.
The Baltic clouds were like clammy canvas when we traveled that last day from forest farmstead to Louis’ refuge, and it was early dusk when we reached the still-frozen Lielupe. Like wary animals, we peered from the trees. The palace across the ice seemed as big as a mountain range, lights and lamps glowing in half the hundred windows we could count. “We couldn’t even afford the candles,” I remarked. The snowy lawn was an unmarked white sheet, and on the roof flew both the Russian flag and the fleur-de-lis of the displaced Bourbons. Maybe I could persuade Louis we were fellow exiles.
First I took precautions. We backed into the forest and found a hollow log to hide the swords, Harry cheerfully crawling far inside to secrete them securely. Then we took bearings to mark the spot and returned to the riverbank. Now we’d nothing to tempt our new host with, or arouse suspicion, or rashly trade away.
“Ready for a royal audience?” I asked my family.
“If he consorts with paupers.”
“What’s a pauper, Mama?”
“Us, Horus. People like us.”
We walked cautiously across the frozen river, in full view of the house, and then up the meadow toward the main entry. Armed guards with lanterns came out to challenge us, gigantic in their greatcoats and towering bearskin hats. They had muskets, pikes, swords, and pistols.
“Nous sommes amis! We are friends!” I called out in French.
“Friends are recognized,” their leader replied in heavily accented French of his own. “Who are you, and why do you trespass?” A woolen scarf around his mouth and nose muffled his voice, his eyes sharp and quick as an falcon’s. His companions reinforced his stare.
“We’re ambassadors, come to pay respects from the United States of America to the Bourbon heir to the throne of France,” I said, bowing slightly. Yes, our appearance made this absurd, but best to make an entrance. The art of the bow is to adjust the amount of incline to the station of the person being addressed. Sentries deserve a swift bob, beauties a slow tilt that hovers at their décolletage, and kings a full duck and flourish, fingers out and one boot extended. “I know we look hard traveled, but we’ve been hard used.”
“United States?” He made it sound like the Moon.
“Americans by way of France, Bohemia, and Russia,” I said. “A confidant of President Jefferson and a protégé of Benjamin Franklin. Something of an authority on Bonaparte, as well.”
One of the soldiers snickered at my name-dropping.
Astiza stood taller. “And the Tsarina Elizabeth.”
Their leader looked at her with interest, as men tend to do, and squinted dubiously down at Harry, an unexpected dwarf. What sort of diplomat materializes with a child? “You conduct your embassy in rags?”
“We were ambushed by bandits,” I replied. “We look molested because we were. But I truly do represent my country—or at least I have, occasionally—and it is in all sincerity that I’ve come to the future King Louis for sanctuary while offering insight into his usurper, the dictator Napoleon. Please, sergeant—if that’s what you are—send word that the American diplomat Ethan Gage and family are calling to bring reports from Trafalgar and Austerlitz.” I’d had the bad luck to participate in both battles, and have since tried to turn misfortune to profit by describing them. People love horror.
“Ethan Gage, is it?” Our interrogator actually sounded as if he’d heard of me, but then I do have dubious renown. “Lean closer.” He raised a lantern.
I tried to look dignified while unshaven, rank, and damp.
“You are he? The infamous gambler and spy?”
“None other. Though I would better describe myself as the exemplary sharpshooter and celebrated antiquarian. An electrician. A savant. A consultant on grand strategy.” I attempted the assured tone of the celebrated. Part of notoriety is playing the part.
“You have diplomatic credentials?”
“My knowledge of Napoleon and his schemes is my passport. This is my wife, Astiza, and my son, Harry.”
“Your wife.” His tone was oddly flat. His gaze flickered from Astiza to me in a way I didn’t care for.
“Sergeant, these may be French assassins,” one of the soldiers said.
“Of course they are,” his leader slowly replied. “With woman and child, weaponless in the snow, looking more like scarecrows than human beings.” He turned to his men. “I’ve heard of the rascal Gage. An adventurer with allegiance to none but himself, or so it’s said.” He looked back at Astiza and Harry. “No mention of family, though. Something of a scamp is what I heard.”
“We were married, sir, on an American ship.”
“An American ship? What name?”
“Off Barbary, the Enterprise. During Jefferson’s war with the pirates.” It’s a long story, as all of mine are, but another trick is arousing curiosity.
The man considered still longer, me noticing that it was damnably cold while he did so. Astiza shifted from foot to foot. Harry shivered and barked a cough. Finally the bastard relented.
“Corporal, take this lot inside and get the fleas off them. I’ll consult with his majesty’s advisor, the Count of Avaray.”
“But sir, if these are imposters …”
“Impersonating a rascal? A poor choice. Beggars, yes. Assassins? No. Quickly now!”
So we were marched into the palace, through a high chilly foyer to an anteroom warmed by a ceramic stove and several candles. After being relieved of coats and cloaks and carefully checked for hidden weapons, we were given soup, bread and watered wine while baths were poured by plump Latvian maids. Harry slurped. I spewed breadcrumbs like an exploding bomb. Only my wife ate with restraint, proving again that women are very much a mystery.
“Is this our new house, Papa?”
“We’re just visiting. There’s a better place down the road.”
A mirror confirmed our disarray. We smelled like a stable and I wouldn’t have blamed fat Louis for heav
ing us out. What I was counting on was curiosity. It’s dull to wait in exile and we’d prove diverting. Or so I bet.
CHAPTER 11
The maids brought screens to allow us to strip and scrub, and Astiza supervised Harry. Our clothes were taken for washing and we got presentable substitutes: mine a white guards’ uniform and my wife’s the dress of a lady-in-waiting. For Harry they fetched a sailor suit, which thrilled him. Then a chevalier came to escort us to an audience with Louis.
I complimented the nobleman on his lord’s charity.
“The king has sympathy for all refugees because of his own misfortune at the hands of the execrable Bonaparte,” the chevalier replied. “The king is interested to hear your insights on the usurper and the United States. Royalist France was the father of your country’s independence.”
Interesting that they pretended Louis already had the crown, and gave their aid so much credit, but I figured it was smart to agree. “I hope its not too late to say thank you. We revere Lafayette.”
“An idealist who proved foolishly liberal in our own revolution. I, for one, regret ever helping America. It was the start of all our troubles.”
Like all palaces, this one was a dozen times larger than it needed to be and less comfortable because of it, with drafty corners, echoing hallways, and clattery stairs. The pomposity was made worse by the structure’s emptiness. I knew that erratic Tsar Paul ordered Louis out of Jelgava five years ago when he abruptly tired of his royal guest. The French refugees were already so bankrupt that they’d had to auction off most of their remaining furniture simply to move away. Now Tsar Alexander, who judged Louis a potential pawn, had invited the French royalists back without providing money to buy new belongings. Louis might wish to restore the rituals of Versailles, but he lacked the tables, chairs, knickknacks, or courtiers to pull off such pretense. The palace did shine from French scrubbing, and boasted that upper-class smell of candlewax, floor polish, tobacco, chamber pots, and mildew. By Russian custom, the servant who led our little procession swung a charcoal censor that burned perfume.
A wide corridor absent of carpet, its decorative niches barren, led to a broad double door. Two grenadiers flanked this entry, stiff as statues and wearing antique royal uniforms with tricorne hats. Both had muskets. The exile was taking no chances.
At the chevalier’s nod the soldiers swung the doors to reveal an inviting library with ample furniture and crackling fire. Harry bolted so quickly to the heat that an embarrassed Astiza had to rush to corral him.
“Monsieur Ethan Gage,” the chevalier announced. “And family.” This last was said with disapproval. Then he shut the doors behind us.
The king-in-waiting sat in a shadowy corner on a stuffed leather chair, its arms spotted with crumbs. Did he eat in this hideaway? The library was walled with books, tapestries, maps, and heavy oil portraits of Louis’s royal ancestors. Two of those pictured—Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette—were now headless, but here they gazed with neck firmly attached. The picture frames were scuffed from frequent traveling, I noted, and the chairs looked nicked and stained. Louis had fled for refuge to Holland, Italy, the Duchy of Brunswick, Prussia, Warsaw, and twice to Jelgava, begging for subsidy from other rulers. So long as they pretended he might someday be king, he could pretend to be one.
Astiza and I bowed deeply, Louis regally nodding in reply.
“Harry, take a bow,” I ordered, and my son bobbed as told.
“Are you a real king?” he piped.
Louis was taken aback. “Indeed I am,” he said. “Or will be.”
The “king” had none of Napoleon’s magnetism. His lower lip was plump as a pouting girl’s, jowls hung around his chin, and his complexion was pasty. He was an overweight, sedentary, fifty-year-old conservative still favoring the court dress of the 18th Century, meaning an evening robe atop waistcoat, tight knee-breeches, silk stockings, silver slippers, and a high collar to warm his own neck. His legs looked swollen and his hands putty soft. His gaze was shy yet curious, like my child’s.
Since he didn’t invite us to sit we stood like petitioners. “Monsieur Gage,” he prompted.
“Your… majesty.” Always err on the side of flattery. “Ethan Gage, diplomat and military attaché, at your service. I bring you greetings from America and the best wishes of our president.” I brought no such thing but I could put into Jefferson’s mouth any words that came into my head, since the Virginian was a safe six thousand miles away.
“A diplomat who comes as a ragged refugee, my sergeant-of-arms informs me.”
“We were beset by thieves while on the way to Poland.”
“Poland no longer exists.”
“Unless you ask a Pole.” Since no royal will tolerate boredom, a diplomat needs just enough cheek to remain interesting. Louis chuckled.
“Indeed, indeed. Persistent as lice! And you beset by thieves. The scum of the earth prowls like wolves since the wars of Bonaparte. Renegades, deserters, tramps, camp followers, gypsies, Cossacks, Jews, pirates, peddlers, and mercenaries. Should be hanged, the lot of them. Will be, when order is restored.” He gazed into this elusive future. “Well. I seldom get a diplomat at nighttime in winter, accompanied by wife and child, in garments suited to a Huron or Ojibway.” He smiled thinly. “We are amused.”
“Determination, combined with your reputation for wisdom and charity, brings us here, my lord …”
“I’m not a lord, I’m heir to a king, displaced by a tyrant, and slandered by traitors.” He glanced at my boy. “Oui, the rightful king.”
“Yes, your majesty,” I said again. “The Russian foreign minister suggested you might find me informative. I’ve worked for and against Bonaparte … “
“The usurper.”
“The usurper, your majesty. I know his strengths and weaknesses.”
“You witnessed Austerlitz?”
“Fought in it, on the French side. And at Trafalgar as well.”
“You contrived to be at both battles?” They’d been six weeks apart.
“I’m an energetic traveler.” This, at least, was true. “Terrible struggles, the havoc of hell. I also helped the United States purchase Louisiana after exploring there. Now we’re on a mission for Prince Czartoryski, but barely escaped the criminals who plague the roads.”
“What times we live in.” Louis shook his head. “Me, an exile. You, a diplomat. Baffling, no?”
“We need refuge and supply before resuming our journey. As a protégé of Benjamin Franklin and confidant of President Jefferson …”
“Won’t you introduce your wife?” He peered at her as intently as the sergeant outside had done.
“Her name is …”
“Astiza, your majesty.” She used her serene tone that can be as arresting as her beauty. “A priestess, student, and philosopher of the East, as well as a seer and alchemist.” She smiled, which she can do very well, and performed a curtsey with a grace that emphasized her charms as a woman. Frankly, Astiza is better at this game than I am.
“Alchemy? The art of transformation?”
“Indeed, your majesty.”
“Did you know that the Italian sorcerer Cagliostro once stayed at this palace and astounded the aristocracy of Latvia with his prophecies?”
“I sensed his lingering spirit.”
“Some thought him immortal.”
“Cagliostro?” My heart quickened. I’d run afoul of his sect and put an end to a lieutenant or two of the famed Egyptian Rite. Was Louis tangled up in their intrigues? That would be the worst luck.
“I’d be interested if he left any writings or experiments, your majesty,” Astiza said smoothly. “I’m anxious to learn from remarkable men in our remarkable times.”
“Ghastly times. And you a woman! Astounding, astounding. Well.” He sipped from a goblet. “There were witty women at Versailles, you know.”
�
��There are witty women everywhere, majesty.”
“I suppose. Can’t include my wife, homely as a hound and mindless as a squirrel, bless her troubled heart. Now the Countess of Balbi, she could carry a conversation.” This was Louis’s mistress, as all the world knew. “And are you aware I wrote a biography of Marie Antoinette? Lost times, lost times.” He peered at us in turn. “Well. A most peculiar family.”
“Even Horus here contributes to our search for wisdom.”
“Does he now? And have you met a king before, my boy?”
An ordinary child might be too shy to answer, but mine gabbed as rashly as his Papa. “I saw Napoleon. He’s an emperor!”
“Hmph,” Louis said. “So he claims. But not a king.”
“He’s a bad man,” Harry went on blithely. “I hope you’re a good king.”
In a year of diplomacy I couldn’t have thought of anything to better break the ice with our host. Louis beamed. “Actually, I’m presently the Count of Provence and heir to the French throne. My brother was king of France, and someday I shall be too.”
“I think I shall be President,” Harry said solemnly. And with that the two of them, one five and the other fifty, bonded.
“I approve of your family, American. But mother and son are no doubt exhausted and in need of rest. It is bedtime, is it not, young Horus?”
“I suppose so, king.”
“Your family will be shown to a bedchamber while you and I talk, Gage.” Louis reached to a side table to ring a silver bell and summon back the chevalier, who in turn fetched other servants. In short order Astiza and Harry were escorted to a bedroom. I was finally offered a chair and a glass of wine, although a bowl of raisins Louis plucked at was kept well out of my reach. I was exhausted too, but worked to stay alert during an extended interrogation about America, Czartoryski, the mood of Tsar Alexander, and the terrible battles. The exile’s questions were surprisingly sharp.
The Trojan Icon (Ethan Gage Adventures Book 8) Page 9