Jo Graham - [Numinous World 05]

by The Emperor's Agent (epub)

  “She’s a sweet, shy girl of seventeen,” he said. “She’s pretty and she’s nice and she flirts like she’s not sure what she’s doing. When I kissed her hand, she trembled as if she stood in a high wind. She has big brown eyes and she cries at sad parts in operas. In a white dress you can see that she has slim little hips and her skin is so white you can see the veins. And I can’t help imagining….” His voice broke and he leaned against me.

  “I know,” I said. I knew what he imagined, her stretched beneath him, ravaged innocence beneath his assault, white gown in tatters, white skin marked where his fingers pressed. Something of that must show in his eyes, no matter how courteous and appropriate his behavior. No wonder she trembled.

  “She’s nothing like you,” he said. “And I love you.”

  “My dear,” I said, “You don’t know her. You may want her, but you can’t love her.”

  “I want her,” he said, pulling back, his mouth set grimly. “And she can have no idea what kind of man I am. She can have no idea what I’m capable of.”

  “I know exactly what you’re capable of,” I said, stroking his hair. “Remember, I’ve seen you in battle. I know what you’re like.”

  “It was better in the field,” he said, turning his head and pressing his lips to my palm. “It was easier.”

  “It was easier when I was Charles,” I said. “Eromenos in all but name.”

  “It was,” he said. His lips brushed at my hand, warm and sensual. When he kissed her hand it was not like this, I was certain. This was as innocent as pillage. “Whatever name you give it.”

  I caught my breath. I shifted on the hearthrug, bending my face to his thigh, corded muscle beneath white evening pants, kneeling like a penitent while he held my hand in his, fingers opened wide.

  “We are twisted people,” he said. “Fallen and twisted.”

  “Yes,” I said. He could feel my hardening nipple against his leg. “Debauched and depraved, the villains of the world. Libertine revolutionaries.”

  “I thought I was a jumped up brute whose pretensions of gentility were only a thin foil covering my inner savage,” he said, lifting my chin with one hand.

  “You’ve been reading Gilray again,” I said, a little breathlessly. “You should avoid the British press whenever possible.”

  “They’re off France for the moment and onto Nelson’s mistress,” Michel said. “I could find it in my heart to feel sorry for the poor fellow and Lady Hamilton.”

  “Do you?” I said. My other hand stole up his leg, following the shape of the muscle.

  “He has a bacchante, but I have a goddess.”

  “And you will make me want you,” I said, meeting his eyes with a feral smile. “Whether I want to or not.”

  He let go of my wrist and took the neckline of my dress in each hand, ripping the fragile muslin in half, baring me to the waist.

  I yelped. “Michel! I like this dress!” My nipples stood out dark and hard in the chill of the room, puckered and erect.

  “Then take the rest of it off,” he said, pulling it down so that I crouched naked in the firelight. “And open your legs.”

  “No,” I said, standing. I reached for the side buttons of his trousers, unfastening the left side while he fumbled with the right. I sunk onto him in the chair, wrapping my legs around his waist and drawing him into me, long and tight and more than ready.

  “My dress uniform….” he gasped. He was still wearing every bit of gold he owned.

  I purred. “It is, isn’t it? I think I have a fetish for gold oak leaves. All that braid. And that lovely sash.” I untied it and pulled it from behind him, the silk tricolor weighted with gold fringe. I trailed the bullion over his belly, just above where his phallus was sunk into me.

  He flinched. I trailed it back again, blue and red and white silk whispering against his skin. My eyes never left his as I tied it around my naked waist, the fringe dripping down over our joined bodies. “Now you can move,” I said.

  “No,” he whispered, “Now you can,” and thrust into me hard and savage. There was no word for it but fucking, moving together, pounding and grasping at each other’s bodies, the sash slick against my waist, the heavy gold fringe slapping against my pubis with every thrust.

  Coming was agony. It seemed to go on and on, half anger and half desire, too much and not quite enough. It took my hand in the end, rubbing just above our joined bodies, feeling him filling me. I screamed. And when I had nearly finished, when I was half fainting, he pushed me further still, hard until it was enough for him, as though it were agony for him too. I leaned forward, feeling the blood rushing from my head, a little dizzy as I was sometimes. I put my head against his shoulder.

  “Here, Elza.” He handed me the brandy glass. It was still full. He must have put it on the table.

  I took a long drink. My head cleared.

  Michel gave me a sideways smile. He looked like a picture of dissipation, his cravat askew, his uniform coat and waistcoat open, his trousers down and his shirt raised. I rode him still, feeling him slack inside me, the glorious tricolor sash around my waist. I took another sip of brandy, then held the glass to his lips.

  “Oh God,” I said, shaking my hair down. It fell to my shoulders now.

  He lifted the fringe. It was very pretty against my belly, against his copper curls. “Do you think this counts as disrespect of the flag?”

  I laughed. “Possibly. If you need another vice. You can add disrespect of the flag to your list of sins.”

  “Why is it that sometimes we’re so good and sometimes we’re so awful?”

  I took another drink of the brandy. “Possibly because sometimes we’re good and sometimes we’re awful. We never stop playing some fantasy or another.”

  “My whole life is a fantasy,” he said. “I’m afraid if I stop playing I’ll wake up back in Saar Louis. None of it will have been real.”

  “It’s real,” I said, and kissed him tenderly. “And if I stop playing I’ll wake up and see that I’m nothing.”

  He put his arms around me and held me close. “Ah, Elza. You’re not nothing.”

  “I’ve made a mess of my life,” I said, “And I have no one to blame but myself. If I had stayed with Jan I would be a respectable widow now, a widow with a lot of money and my children.”

  “How would you know he would die young?” he asked reasonably. “Jan might have lived thirty years more. You couldn’t count on being a young widow.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue. If I were, would you marry me? There was no point in asking about a what if. I was not a respectable widow with a lot of money. I was Moreau’s cast off, and that was as it was. Better to make the best of it.

  I leaned down and kissed him again. “Come to bed,” I whispered, “and hold me all night long.” I could guarantee that he would not think of Mademoiselle Auguié that night. If she dreamed of him, if she lay in her virgin’s bed imagining him, it would not be like this.

  “If you don’t take the sash off,” he said.

  Hephaistion and Drypetis

  Dawn was growing over plowed fields green with grain, an apple orchard beside a farmhouse. We walked down the hill to a little bridge where the road crossed a stream, then led up to the citadel of Montreuil. It was not much of a citadel, some crumbling medieval walls repaired by one of the Louis, looking over this lush valley.

  "I'll show you where my room is. I don't have to share, but it's kind of noisy because it's right next to the exercise yard for the stables. You can get some sleep, and I'll find some coffee and report."

  "I hate to send you to work like this," I said, thinking that I had not done him such a good turn, keeping him out all night.

  "I've done it before," Corbineau said jauntily as we passed through the guardpost for the School of War with a salute. "Some coffee and I'll be fine. As long as I don't run into a senior officer first."

  "Major Corbineau, I would like a word!"

  "Shit," Corbineau hissed, turning about sha
rply, drawing himself up to attention, unshaven and smelling of drink and smoke and sweat.

  I spun about too. Michel was standing in the nearest doorway looking thunderous. And how not? It was nearly six in the morning, Corbineau creeping in the worse for wear, a pretty civilian with him.

  And then his face went entirely blank. I have seen the mortally wounded stand thus, as though only half aware what has happened to them.

  "Good morning, sir," Corbineau began, his eyes front. "I was assisting M. van Aylde here, as he is locked out of his lodging and I thought…."

  "Elza."

  "Michel." His hat was off, but otherwise he was in full field uniform, white breeches and blue coat, gold oak leaves scrolling over cuffs and collar. His eyes were as blue as the lightening sky.

  "How have you been?" he asked, his voice sounding almost normal.

  "Just fine," I said. "And you?"

  His eyes were devouring my face, as though he were memorizing every line, as though he were afraid he had forgotten something. "I've been fine," he said.

  "With your permission, I'll be getting ready for the exercise, sir," Corbineau said, looking as though he wished he were anywhere else rather than in a courtyard in Montreuil-sur-Mer with the two of us.

  Michel blinked. "Exercise? Oh, Cunaxa. You said M. van Aylde was locked out of his room?"

  "Just a misunderstanding with my landlady," I said quickly. "Major Corbineau was kind enough to suggest that I might rest a while in his lodging, and perhaps clean up a bit."

  "I see," he said. All the while he did not stop looking at me, as though Corbineau were suddenly invisible. "You are old friends."

  "Yes," I said. And of course only friends, as Michel well knew, knowing Corbineau as he did. Of course they never spoke of it, but the anger in his voice in the beginning had been for Corbineau putting him in a position where he could not fail to see that which he did not wish to see.

  He glanced at Corbineau then, quickly, as though afraid I would vanish. "Major, you go on and get ready for the exercise. I'll let M. van Aylde use my room."

  "There is no need for that," I protested, but Corbineau knew the time to stand and the time to flee. He had saluted and left before the words had left my mouth.

  And once he had, Michel seemed not to know what to do. He stood in the doorway still, a window box above his head alive with red geraniums, the first rays of the sun washing the stone golden. "It's just this way."

  "I do not want to inconvenience you," I said, my heart thudding in my chest.

  "It's no inconvenience. I will be at the exercise. War games. We're doing the Battle of Cunaxa today."

  "Xenophon's loss," I said, as I followed him in and up an abrupt flight of stairs into a short hall washed in blue paint.

  "Xenophon's disaster," he said. The hall was too narrow for us to walk abreast.

  "Do you like to play disasters?" I asked.

  "You learn as much from disasters as victories," he said, opening the door at the end of the hall.

  The house's main bedchamber was not large, and I should have thought a marshal could do better, though there was a comfortable four-poster by the open windows, an unlit fire, wardrobe and such. We had been better lodged in Munich, or at least more elegantly.

  On the other hand, the view from the window was amazing, out over the street and the houses down hill, over the old medieval ramparts and green fields beneath, all the way to the scrub and marshes that hugged the coast this far south of Boulogne. Summer blew in on a quiet breeze, tugging at white curtains.

  "There's water and things behind the screen," Michel said, stepping aside to let me pass him. "No one will disturb you if you want to sleep."

  I turned and looked at him. I wanted to take that step forward, but I would not. I would not throw myself at him, not after so long.

  "Elza…." He too did not seem to know what to say.

  "It is very nice," I said. "The room."

  "I'm glad you think so," he said. "I'm officially in the Chateau d'Hardelot, but it's much more convenient for me to stay here than be off as far as that."

  "I can see that," I said.

  "What are you doing here?"

  The cover story, not the spy. "I'm here with Marshal Lannes," I said. There was a certain perverted pleasure in seeing the flash of pain in his eyes, but only for an instant.

  "Lannes is a good man," he said, though he sounded a little strangled. "A good soldier. I hope you're happy."

  "Yes," I said. No, I wanted to say. No, I am not happy, and no, I am not with Marshal Lannes. I was being blackmailed by Fouché and now I'm the Emperor's agent trying to catch a spy and I have no idea how to do it and I am in over my head and I do not know how to do this thing, with so many lives resting on me including yours. "Yes," I said. "He's a good soldier."

  Michel nodded gravely and took a deep breath, meeting my eyes. "Well, then. I hope that you and I can be friends. There's no reason for us to avoid one another, is there? I mean, if you're happy and I'm happy…."

  "It's all for the best, isn't it?" I said with a brave smile. "Of course we can be friends. There isn't any reason not to be, is there?" Other than that my heart breaks at the sight of you, I thought.

  "No, not at all," he said.

  "And is your wife in town?" I did not stop myself quickly enough from asking, though it made me sound as if I cared. Obviously she wasn't.

  He looked about as though he suddenly and incongruously expected to see her popping out of the woodwork. "Oh. No. Not right now. She was here a while in the spring, but she and the children have gone to the country for the summer."

  The children. Of course. He had wasted no time, my Michel. Married not quite three years, with a son two and a son ten months old.

  "I'm glad that you are so happy," I said.

  "Yes, very." His brow furrowed, as though he were not sure if I meant it or not, and I knew in that moment he was not. He was no happier than I, and this no easier.

  I could not bear to hurt him further, and I turned away, walking around to the window, my back to him. "You have a beautiful view."

  "Yes," he said. "I do."

  I waited, willing him to close the door, to come closer. Surely….

  "Good night, Elza," he said, and I heard him go out and close the door behind him, his bootsteps retreating down the stairs.

  I closed my eyes.

  It was better, I said to myself. Better if we did not have to see each other. How could we bear this, so close and so far? It was over, and I must accept that, accept that all the decisions had been made. If we could deal with one another courteously in public, well and good. It would be cruel, surely, to throw mutual friends like Corbineau into the midst of it. And I was not here to do this. I was here to catch a spy. The best thing to do would be to snatch a few hours sleep, and then go about the business I was here for. Go back to Boulogne, talk to Subervie about the coastal patrols and their timing, and to enlist him to try to find out how Captain Arnold was getting a man ashore. That was what I needed to do. Michel was a beautiful distraction, but one I did not need.

  I went behind the screen and washed with tepid water from the jug, running my fingers through my hair and taking off my coat and waistcoat. I sat down on the edge of the bed, looking out the window. Below, in the School of War, they must be beginning the Battle of Cunaxa. I could see nothing, of course. This window faced the town and the walls, not the courtyard.

  I took off my boots and lay down, closing my eyes and curling into the down pillows. They smelled of olive oil soap and the scent of his hair. I bit down on my lip and cried, clutching his pillows to me, until in the warm breeze from the window I went to sleep as I had so many times before, when we had still been together.

  Once, curled in bed on a spring night of rain, I mentioned that I was thinking of auditioning, wondering if Michel.would object or think it beneath my dignity as Moreau had.

  Instead Michel curled tighter around me, spooning against my back, squeezing a little
too tight. “If you want,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to think you had to. I would never leave you as Moreau did. I have enough to make a good provision for you.” His voice sounded a little hoarse.

  I turned over suddenly. “What?”

  “If she accepts, I mean,” he said. “I don’t know that she will.”

  “You intend to leave me?” I sat bolt upright in bed, clutching the sheet up over my breasts. “What?”

  He sat up too, tailor style, the sheet covering nothing. He looked confused. “We have to break it off if I marry. What else could we do?”

  “Why?” I was more incredulous than shocked. “I accept that you need to marry. Why should we need to break it off?”

  “Because I’m married,” he said, and there was that dogged sound his voice that told me I had hit one of his bottom-solid Saar Louis facts.

  I pushed my damp hair back out of my face. “But we’re happy. Lots of men keep mistresses. Yes, it’s more inconvenient to work around a wife, but that’s all logistics. Why shouldn’t we stay together?”

  “And be unfaithful to my wife?” Now it was Michel who sounded incredulous.

  “Everyone is,” I said. “You make enough money now for two households, especially since I’m frugal. Everyone is unfaithful.”

  “Not me,” Michel said. He lifted his head, and his mouth was set. “Elza, I have never been unfaithful to you, not since our first day together. Fidelity isn’t a convenience, some outmoded convention like wigs.”

  “That is the most bourgeois patter,” I said. I hardly knew what to say. It was as though he had suggested that he make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

  “It’s not,” he said quietly. “Fidelity and honor are important. I’ve never hidden from you my intentions to marry Aglae, and I’ve never slept with another woman, or even kissed her while I have been with you. Not even Aglae, not even one kiss. I wouldn’t break faith with you, and I can’t break faith with her.” He reached for my hand but stopped when I pulled it back. His voice was very low. “Do you really think that I can marry a girl of eighteen for her money, and then use her dowry to support a mistress behind her back? That I can stand in front of God and her family and promise to honor and cherish her while I keep you on the side? That I can go into this marriage and have it be a sham from the beginning? Is that fair to her? Is it right?”