Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  André could have fallen over. Did Napoleon Bonaparte stand on the other side of this heavy wooden doorway? And if he did, then why was he, André, being admitted to see him? Just the day before he had been little more than a prisoner scrubbing seagull waste. A captain reinstated only today—if, in fact, he had been reinstated at all. And now, a noble lord and honored guest of the Supreme Commander General Bonaparte?

  André tried to stifle the expression of utter bewilderment that he was certain had fixed itself on his features. To his further astonishment, the two armed men guarding the door simply nodded, putting their massive, pawlike hands to the burnished doorknobs and opening the door in a gesture of perfectly coordinated fluidity.

  “Here, take this.” The aide was beside André now, and as they crossed the threshold, the man stuffed a small velvet pouch into André’s hands. “Do not speak until you are addressed.” André looked from the pouch to the aide, confused, but before he could open his mouth to inquire as to the meaning of the small, heavy parcel, the party was ushered through the great door into the adjoining room.

  “My God.” One of their party could not hold back his astonishment upon entering the great hall.

  André looked around, overcome, dazzled, incredulous. Circling the ceiling was a series of colorful paintings marking the great and sacred history of the island, and André felt a brief pang of guilt for traipsing into this place, a storied sanctum, at the forefront of a conquering army. His eyes drifted to the other end of the hall, and he counted thirteen men standing before them. Twelve of them were dressed exactly alike, much like the two giants who had guarded the door to this inner chamber. They stood behind an immense oaken table, their faces lined with age, yet free of any emotion or hint of expression. They wore the same white satin tunics emblazoned with red crosses across their chests. Around their necks they wore golden crucifixes that fell just below the tips of their graying beards. They were armed with bejeweled swords and ancient chain mail, and all appeared somehow alike, as if they could have been twelve brothers. The Knights of Malta.

  André could have studied these twelve men and their otherworldly appearance for hours, but it was toward the thirteenth man that he found his eyes involuntarily drawn. The thirteenth man in the room—a separate figure who looked nothing like the other twelve.

  Napoleon Bonaparte was as André had always heard him described: average stature but appearing smaller as he stood next to these leonine men in ancient mail. He was dressed in a dark blue frock coat with bright red and gold trim on his collar and down the sides. His waist was wrapped in a red and white sash, and a sheathed cavalry saber hung from his belt. On his legs he wore tight-fitting white breeches. His hair, a shock of thick black, fell just above his shoulders. In his hands he held a bicorn hat, removed out of respect, and the other officers entering the room followed his example.

  What had drawn André’s eyes toward Bonaparte felt like some indefinable magnetic pull. It came, André realized, from the general’s facial expression: a look of supreme confidence. He was young, perhaps André’s own age, yet hardened beyond his years. His eyes, dark and alert, surveyed the room, taking in the appearance of the new entrants. When he saw André and his three fellow countrymen at the doorway he smiled, as if they were his oldest friends. André felt strangely buoyed by the smile, as if it bestowed an incontrovertible blessing. By stature, Napoleon may have been the shortest man in the room, and yet, André noticed, every single man in the room, even these somber knights, looked to him.

  “Ah, and here they are now.” Bonaparte spoke with the faint traces of his foreign Corsican accent. He held out a gloved hand, summoning the new arrivals toward him.

  “Your Excellencies.” Bonaparte turned toward the twelve knights. “Allow me to introduce four of my friends. Lords of France. We come bearing a precious gift as a token of our appreciation. And gratitude that you have let us dock in your harbor while we rest and replenish our supplies. Now, my friends.” Bonaparte angled his small narrow frame toward André and his three flabbergasted companions. “Who has the gift?”

  None of them replied, the aide having mentioned nothing about gifts. Or knights. Or General Bonaparte.

  “Well, then?” Bonaparte extended a small, gloved hand, his smile appearing suddenly impatient.

  The aide stepped forward from the shadows. “He does, Your Excellency.” To André’s surprise, the aide had placed a hand on his own shoulder. André turned to the aide, his eyes spelling out his bewilderment.

  “The pouch,” the aide whispered, and André remembered the small, heavy velvet bag in his hands. And then he understood.

  “I do,” André blurted out, holding up the pouch.

  “Bring it here,” Bonaparte said, with a quick flick of his wrist. André stepped forward, his eyes fixed on the general as he handed the velvet pouch forward. Bonaparte took the pouch in his hands. “Thank you, my lord.” He smiled, his dark eyes holding André’s for just a second in a steady gaze. In that moment, André was taken aback and found himself staring, mesmerized, at the short man before him, instinctively aware of the power and will in those dark, vibrant eyes.

  Bonaparte turned abruptly and approached the line of knights, holding the pouch before him like a sacred object. “To the men carrying on the tradition of St. Paul himself.” He bowed his head as he would before an altar. “Please accept this ancient and sacred treasure of our realm.” The general placed the pouch in the hand of the knight nearest to him, offering it with another bow. The man murmured a quiet offering of thanks, his face as expressionless as stone.

  When he revealed the contents of the pouch, an audible gasp rippled across the room, as all twelve knights and each of André’s companions reacted in the same way. It was a cross: a massive cross, but not simply gold, or silver, or even rubies. This was a cross of large, shimmering diamonds, bordered with sapphires that shone with the same brilliance as the Mediterranean Sea below.

  André felt dizzy, knowing that he had held such a precious object in his hands, if only for a moment. He knew, instantly, from where it came: the Bourbon Court. This had been a treasure fit for the world’s wealthiest king. And now it was General Bonaparte’s treasure to give away.

  Sensing the impression his gift had made on the room, the general paused a moment, smiling. “Now you see, Your Excellencies, that we come in good faith.” The knights nodded, their eyes still fixed on the dazzling cross that they now passed among themselves.

  “Please accept this treasure as a token of our humble gratitude.” Bonaparte bowed again. His eyes darted quickly toward the aide. If André hadn’t been watching him—if he’d been distracted, as every other man in the room was, by the glimmering cross—then he wouldn’t have seen it. Wouldn’t have tensed. Wouldn’t have reached involuntarily for the pistol at his waist.

  But then, before he or anyone else understood what was happening, the doors opened with a crash and in rushed scores of soldiers with muskets and fixed bayonets. André turned in their direction, his eyes widening in shock. But it was not a group of Maltese warriors who stormed this sacred chamber, filling it like a flood. They were soldiers dressed in blue coats, his countrymen. The two massive guards at the door looked on, their eyes filled with shock as they saw their threshold breached, and the swords held to their throats rendering them powerless to stop the advance.

  Bonaparte was now disinterested in the cross of diamonds, his four noble visitors, or the twelve Knights of Malta. As armed men descended on the knights, the ancient-looking men reached for their swords but quickly realized that resistance was futile.

  “Do not harm them!” Bonaparte yelled. Strutting through the parting crowd as he crossed the room, he stuffed the bicorn hat back onto his head. “My lords, allow me to offer my most humble apologies for this brief display of hostility. Know that the Republic and people of France hold you and your kingdom in the highest esteem. Consider this the hour of your liberation.”

  With that, General Bonaparte turned to
the French soldiers and officers now flooding the great hall. His hat fixed at a jaunty angle across his haughty brow, his right fist raised high in the air, he cried out: “In the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity, I claim this realm, and all of its treasure, as the property of the French Republic! The Kingdom of Malta is now ours!”

  Spring 1798

  Jean-Luc stretched his hands, straightening his cramped fingers before he drew more ink upward into his quill. The tedium of this day was, mercifully, nearly done.

  “You haven’t looked up once all day, St. Clair.” Jean-Luc recognized the familiar voice of Gavreau as his supervisor approached his desk. “I could have paraded a line of large-breasted wenches in here and you wouldn’t even have seen ’em.”

  Jean-Luc lowered his quill onto the top piece of parchment, his black cursive covering nearly every inch of the paper with names and figures.

  “And have the good bishop’s silverware, silks, and gold plate been properly cataloged for our public records?”

  “I’m nearly done,” Jean-Luc said, rubbing an ink stain from the side of his aching palm. His latest assignment had been an onerous one: a large and wealthy monastery to the northwest of the city had been ransacked by a band of starving farmers. Jean-Luc had spent the past two weeks buried in lists of the property’s riches. Mercifully, the bishop and his household had been spared, but it appeared that, even after the looting party had taken their share of the plunder, the Directory was now owner of quite a few new gold-plated communion dishes and silken robes.

  “I hate to tell you this.” Gavreau leaned on Jean-Luc’s desk, eyeing the lists of inventory his employee had meticulously documented. “When you’ve finished with this, I’ve got something else to show you.”

  “What is it?” Jean-Luc asked, certain that his features betrayed his fatigue.

  “The Saint-Jacques church has been razed.”

  Wordless, Jean-Luc let his expression convey his confusion. Razed?

  “Torn completely to the ground.” Gavreau nodded, folding his arms in front of his broad belly. “All that remains is the bell tower. Seems the looters couldn’t quite figure out how to bring that one down.”

  Jean-Luc propped his elbows on his table and lowered his head into his hands. Yet another church here in Paris, sacked and looted. More priceless relics defiled, more nuns and priests hauled off. He wondered, as he had every time before, what good would come of this?

  “One might have hoped, with the number of rich nobles and clergymen whose estates have been plundered, that the poor folk of this city might at least have a bit of bread. A few spare coins to pay for simple medicines,” Jean-Luc said quietly, so that only his friend might hear. “And yet, I think the poor of this city are worse off than ever before.” His shoulders were cramped; his entire body felt heavy. “At this point,” Jean-Luc continued, rubbing the flesh between his two eyes in slow, circular motions, “I almost hope for one of those men in the Directory, or even one of those generals, to lay down his fist and get this place in order.”

  “You?”

  “Anything to halt this anarchy.” Jean-Luc sighed. “I don’t know how much more of this we can stand, beasts running amok.”

  “They say that Bonaparte fellow is something of a genius—and ambitious, too. At least he’s whipped the army into shape.”

  “Well, I don’t think he’ll be returning today, or anytime soon for that matter.” His thoughts briefly drifted to his friend André Valière, who was somewhere at sea, among Bonaparte’s massive flotilla that had left from the Mediterranean ports. “Or my good friend André. Godspeed, André.”

  His boss heard this and cocked an eyebrow, as if Jean-Luc were losing his wits. Perhaps he was, Jean-Luc mused to himself. “Yes, well…Anyhow, do you have a minute for me to show you what I’m speaking of?”

  “What is it, exactly?” Jean-Luc asked.

  “Some of the spoils of Saint-Jacques; they’ve started carting over the goods. I’ve had them haul it into the basement with the rest of the loot.”

  “Very well.” Jean-Luc pushed himself up from his desk, looking forlornly at the day’s unfinished documents. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The basement was cool and dimly lit, with clerks and commissaries buzzing about to deposit marble statues, leather Psalters and hymnbooks, and altar vases of tarnished silver and gold.

  Gavreau let out a prolonged whistle and shook his head. “These priests lived well. I’m surprised they held on to this treasure this long.” He weaved through a row of marble statues as Jean-Luc followed behind. The seized sculptures—carved figures of angels, saints, and wealthy church patrons—waited in various stages of ruination, each one’s condition depending on the attention it had received from the mob that had plucked it from the ancient church of Saint-Jacques.

  Jean-Luc paused, looking at a marble rendition of what was surely the biblical scene of the sacrifice of Isaac. The figure of Abraham stood, his muscles carved like fine sinewy ropes, his face contorted in the agony and knowledge of his coming sacrifice. Abraham was almost entirely intact, while Isaac, the son whose blood was to be spilled by the father, had been completely battered and smashed. All that remained was the neck resting in his father’s strong grip. “Christ in heaven,” Jean-Luc said, stepping aside so that a worker could deposit the cracked figure of Mary Magdalene beside Abraham and Isaac.

  “Allowed this to happen…I’d say,” Gavreau said, fingering a fragment of burgundy silk that appeared to have been a priest’s robe.

  “God did a curious thing, granting free will to such wild creatures as we are.” Jean-Luc ran his hands through his disheveled hair, gazing around at the growing cache of holy goods.

  In truth, even after years of work overseeing and cataloging confiscated belongings, Jean-Luc had never quite grown comfortable with being in this cellar. He had never been able to separate these ornate treasures from the individuals who had been similarly seized, their own fates forfeited to the new nation. His imagination drifted when he saw a simple maple table and empty chairs, never again to gather a family of parents and children for supper. Food had been scarce in the preceding years, to be sure, and though families of aristocratic stock had once dined like gluttons, it was clear enough to see in this room that not all of these belongings had come from noble houses. Held somewhere within each of these confiscated heirlooms was the story and mystery of a soul that had hoped, wished, feared, and loved; most of them were now departed from this world forever.

  “All this,” Gavreau said, raising his hands to mark the delineation of the day’s haul. “The rest you’ve already seen, I reckon.”

  Jean-Luc nodded, eyeing the rows of new inventory.

  “You can’t get to it all today. Come on, let me buy you a drink.” Gavreau put a hand on his employee’s shoulder. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Jean-Luc nodded, his entire frame shivering in this dark basement. “Hundreds, in fact.”

  —

  Outside the office building the workers still swarmed, carrying armfuls of cloth, stained glass, and prayer books. Jean-Luc paused before a particularly arresting statue. It was an angel, easily twice the size of a tall man, the face wild and windswept as if caught in the current of some great celestial storm. The angel’s arms were thick with muscle, and his hands—giant bearlike paws—were raised aloft. One hand he held out as if in blessing, the other clutched a spear. Whether it was a weapon for battle or a spear of heavenly light was unclear, perhaps intentionally so.

  “Michael,” Jean-Luc said, peering into the marble eyes of the angel, their expression severe, savage even, ready to carry out the Lord’s fierce grace.

  “Pardon?”

  “Michael the archangel,” Jean-Luc explained.

  “Which one was Michael?” Gavreau asked.

  “Come now, you’ve forgotten your catechism?”

  “These days, who hasn’t?”

  “Michael was the archangel who led God’s army,” Jean-Luc sai
d.

  “That so? So we’ve come to that—even the angel of warfare falls before the mob,” Gavreau muttered. “But this one’s not from Saint-Jacques. All this”—the boss gestured at the nearby cluster of statues—“comes from some noble’s estate nearby. Montnoir. Eh, you’re familiar with that old marquis, aren’t you?”

  “Montnoir.” Jean-Luc considered the name a moment before he remembered. “The Montnoir estate. The Widow Poitier! That place?” Jean-Luc looked at his supervisor questioningly.

  “Indeed, the very same. That dreadful old lord you had removed from his castle at the same time you got that old widow put back into her cottage on his estate. Seems she’s been petitioning the government ever since—years—for someone to come out and seize the old nobleman’s riches. We finally got out there, and”—Gavreau let out a snort—“seems the old man had an appetite not only for his women, but for holy art as well. I’d guess this one’s an altarpiece, based on the size of it.” Gavreau gestured back toward the massive statue of Michael the archangel. “Anyway, you’ve got that old woman to thank for passing you more work.”

  Jean-Luc nodded, and yet he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the statue: that stare, those eyes. The archangel Michael appeared alive—even responsive—conveying a judgment, or perhaps a challenge, to anyone who dared look into his face.

  Gavreau fidgeted beside Jean-Luc. “Shame to stick the angel of war in the basement. The Republic might need him yet.” His impatience growing, he gestured to Jean-Luc. “Come now, I need a drink.”

  The days were long and the evening sun pierced the curtained windows in gentle spears of light as they sat inside the café, sharing a bottle of wine. “This Bonaparte will name himself supreme commander of the entire army soon enough. From there, it’s an easy step to king. Or emperor, even. It’s the only way I see of bringing some order back to this madness.”