Jo Graham - [Numinous World 05]

by The Emperor's Agent (epub)

"Good night," I said, and kissed him once more before he mounted up on Eleazar and rode away.

  Patrons and Possibilities

  In the morning Subervie and I went out early to walk along the cliffs.

  "I didn't see anything last night," he said, "But that doesn't mean there was nothing to see. The cliffs are treacherous. I didn't try climbing down to the beach in the dark."

  It was another beautiful day, with the sun glancing golden off the waves and the gulls twisting and twirling in the warm air. I wore my thinnest muslin dress and a straw bonnet, but even so I was hot before we had gone far. Out to sea, Lion was making her way northward, sails set.

  "I take it you didn't see anyone," I said.

  Subervie shook his head. "No, but it took a while to get here. Our man could have been and gone. In fact, he probably was." I appreciated that he did not add "if he were ever here." I thought he believed me, believed what I had seen. It was something of a relief to be taken seriously.

  We walked along the top of the cliffs together. In many places they were not high, only ten or twelve meters, but at high tide the sea came right up along the base. At low tide, as this was, there were stones and occasional strips of sandy beach at their base.

  "You won't see anything down there," Subervie said as I looked over. "Tide's been in and out. Any footprints or places where a boat was brought in would be smoothed out."

  "Yes, I see," I said, leaning over. There were sandy pockets here and there, and even some struggling beach grasses tucked among the stones. It might be possible to climb down to the beach. For a nimble man. I looked at Subervie's feet, clad in their customary cavalry boots with a heel. My little thin slippers were actually more practical for climbing. But how anyone would do it in the dark….

  Subervie shaded his eyes, looking out to Lion's wake. "I just don't see how he's doing it."

  I shook my head. "I don't either. But if he can figure out how to do it, so can we."

  Where the track curved back toward the marshes, toward Montreuil, I stopped. A small sandy path led down two meters or so, curving behind a boulder. "What's down there?" I asked.

  Subervie shrugged. "Nothing. It goes down behind that rock and stops. It's sheer cliffs below that another nine meters or so. It doesn't go anywhere. You can't get down that way."

  "Nevertheless," I said, and began to climb down. Shrugging, Subervie followed me.

  The boulder jutted out above, providing a patch of shade over an area large enough for Subervie and me to stand together comfortably. In the shade was a weather-beaten old blanket, threadbare and faded, wadded up against the stone. I picked it up.

  "A lover's lane?" Subervie suggested. "It is private. You can't see it from the path above. If one of the men is meeting one of the village girls, this would be a good place. It's got a romantic view."

  "It does, doesn't it?" I said. It offered a panoramic view of sea and sky, of Lion with her white sails stretched against the waves. Subervie was right, though, that there was no way down. It was a steep drop to the jagged rocks below.

  And yet it could not be seen from above.

  I clutched at Subervie's arm, and he steadied me as though he were afraid I might fall. "Careful, Madame," he said.

  "Elza," I said. "Please." An idea was forming. "What if no one climbs down to the beach?" Subervie waited, sweat beading on his forehead, and after a moment I continued. "What if nobody ever goes up and down at all? What if they're doing it by signals?"

  "Like flags or a semaphore?" Subervie nodded slowly. "We use the semaphore all the time, and of course their navy has flag signals." He frowned. "Lion can get in close enough to read a signal, especially through a telescope. But somebody wandering around the cliffs with a bunch of naval flags would be pretty obvious."

  "Not flags," I said. "Lanterns." I watched the idea sink in. "People walk along this path with lanterns all the time. I did it last night. I imagine you did too. Nobody would ever pay any attention. It wouldn't look odd at all. And what you'd need would be a place to get off the path easily, a place where the light wouldn't be visible from above when you opened the shutters to signal."

  "A place just like this." Subervie nodded. "You'd never see it from the path. The boulder is in the way. And if I were on patrol and I saw a man coming back from here with a lantern, I'd assume he'd answered a call of nature."

  "Especially if he were in uniform, and were someone who would reasonably be supposed to be here," I said. "Someone who is quartered in Boulogne but attends the School of War? Someone quartered in Montreuil but who has duties in Boulogne?"

  Subervie whistled, wiping the sweat from his brow. "That's a lot of men. Hundreds, probably. But it makes sense. It completely makes sense."

  "We need to watch this spot," I said. "We need to see who comes here."

  "Or just guard it," Subervie said. "That would stop him."

  "For the moment," I said. "Until he found some other place along the coast, or some other way of communicating. Interdicting his communications would be useful if we can't do anything else, but let's try catching him first. After all, if that fails we can always then guard it."

  Subervie nodded. "There is that." He took my elbow and helped me back from the edge, up the steep incline to the top of the cliff. "Let's go report to Marshal Lannes. Watching this place is going to be interesting. Not much cover."

  "We're going to need more men on this," Lannes said. He stood in the stableyard, where a groom was leading out a beautiful white Andalusian for him.

  Subervie nodded. "I hesitate to just detail a company to guard duty. Then everybody in the army will know by tomorrow."

  Lannes stopped sharply, one hand on the reins. "Not that," he said. "We need to catch this man and make an end to it. If you detail a company to guard duty, he'll hear about it and change how he communicates with Lion. No, this has to be handled very, very discreetly. No more than a few people on it, all officers you can trust. And Madame St. Elme, of course." He nodded at me. "Good work, Madame."

  "Thank you," I said.

  "Assign in pairs," Lannes said. "Sunset to sunrise, every day. We'll just have to keep an eye on the place. Though for all we know it may be one of several places he uses. If he gets there and there are other people around, he may go on to another location. Still, if we watch long enough we should catch him."

  "About the only place you can't see from the track is behind the boulder itself," Subervie said. "We'll have to sit there and wait for someone to come. It's the only place entirely covered from the path above that's within sight."

  "Fine," Lannes said. He clapped Subervie on the shoulder. "Patience, Gervais. We'll get our man!"

  Thus it was with a distinct feeling of satisfaction that I left Subervie about this business and went to find an early lunch at one of the cafes in Boulogne. I had slept perhaps two hours between dawn and morning, and thought that if I did not find some coffee immediately I would probably fall asleep in the street. No doubt Michel was in the same predicament, over at the School of War, losing another ancient battle….

  I blinked, sitting in the sun, waiting for the waiter to come. I would not think about Michel. Not until I had some sleep. Not until I had at least scrubbed the scent of him off my hands, washed away every kiss.

  Even now, even this moment, I wanted him.

  But it was not as though he could fail to see me. The Lodge and Napoleon had guaranteed that. For the next weeks at any rate he should have to see me several times a week. And we had much to talk about.

  The waiter came and brought my coffee, which I drank liberally mixed with milk. In the light of day, sitting in a café off the square before Boulogne Castle, the things we had talked about seemed incredible. And yet this time I did not retreat. Each time before I had nearly come to something, nearly said that I believed, I had backed off again in light of day. This time I did not.

  Honoré-Charles Reille had said that one of the basic principles of the work of the Lodge was that everything followed natural
law, whether we understood it or not. Simply because something seemed fantastic was no reason to dismiss it, especially when there were the observations of many. I might be mad. I had admitted that long ago. The things I remembered in flashes, the things that seemed true to me on some inner level, might be no more than the products of a deluded mind. But were these men mad? Sober men, responsible men, leaders of France? They were not drunks and opium eaters or madmen scamming the credulous. They were not bored women with nothing to do or whores and actresses. They were responsible, reliable people, men at the top of their profession, doctors and soldiers and in Noirtier's case apparently scholars. I could not dismiss my own memories and perceptions so easily if they were shared.

  I took another long drink of coffee. Angels and elementals and ancient gods. Were these things any less likely than the teachings of the Church? Of course my father would have said the Church was nothing but folly, and Victor Moreau would have agreed with him. And yet were they more credible witnesses to the universe than Michel or Lannes, than Corbineau and Reille? Should I dismiss my own experiences because long ago my father had taught me that it could not be true?

  I shook my head. In so many ways his memory was sacrosanct to me, my perfect, lost protector. If my father had lived, how different would my life have been!

  But as I neared the age at which he had died, twenty-eight to his thirty-six, I began to wonder if he had indeed had all the answers. Perhaps he had been like me, an adventurer adrift in the world, making his way by his wits and protecting those he loved as best he could. Perhaps we were very alike in ways I had not imagined when I was a child, in ways I could not have understood then. He had done the best he could for me. I knew that. It had not been enough to keep me safe, to save me from life's storms, but it had been his best. For that I would always adore him. But it was possible he had been wrong about some things. It was possible he had made poor decisions, had not understood. He should have listened to my mother when she told him doom waited in Amsterdam, rather than dismissing it as a product of her derangement. She had told him the truth.

  He had died the third day after we came to Amsterdam. It required no curses, no secrets, for a man to be struck with apoplexy, even a young man, when he had drunk too heavily for too long, eaten too richly and well, after a tiring journey when burdens weighed heavily upon him. He collapsed and died. There was no more to say of it.

  I had stood beside his grave wearing black, listening to the unfamiliar words of the Dutch Reformed service, wondering if he would mind that there was no priest. Probably not. There was no God to him, no God who would care.

  My mother did not move or speak. She stood there in her widow’s weeds, still and lovely as a flower stricken by frost. She did not scream or cry or lose herself. She had known this would happen. She believed the curse had claimed her, as she had always known it would.

  All the women in our family are Doves, she had said. Now that I could not ask her, I wondered where she had heard that, where she had found that word. Once again, she had been right.

  I blinked, looking into my coffee cup. I could choose. I could choose what to believe, and in choosing decide who I was. Was I nothing but an adventuress, one blonde among many, a bad actress, sometime medium, former mistress of two generals who was even now losing her looks? Was I one more woman on that progress from respectability to unmarked grave?

  Or was I a Companion, a rare and fabulous thing, an ancient soul on a journey unfathomably strange and wonderful?

  Was I an abomination or a treasure? I had asked that of Napoleon in Milan, and he had only smiled and given me my freedom and said he would see what I did with it.

  And I came back to his hand, sure as a falcon to the sun.

  Companion, I thought, and raised my head. I am a Companion. That is what I choose to be, how I will live my life. It is who I am. I choose to be a treasure. I choose to believe.

  I had almost finished my lunch when Corbineau cleared his throat. I spun about and he dropped into the empty chair opposite me, a critical look on his face. "Don't you look like the morning after the night before!"

  "God, Jean-Baptiste!" I groaned. "Is that all you have to say?"

  "More or less," he said, with a smirk. "But this morning it was not I who crept in at dawn, unshaven and disreputable! No, it was a certain substantial red-haired gentleman of my acquaintance! I trust that all is well?"

  "No," I said shortly. "It isn't. Nor is it likely to be."

  Corbineau folded his hands on the table. "Is he truly that big an ass?"

  "He's married," I said. "And determined to be true to his wife. Tell me, Jean-Baptiste, is she such a naïf that she expects that?"

  He shrugged. "I've only met her a dozen times socially, and I don't know her well, but no, I don't think she's a naïf. I'd say Aglae's fairly astute, actually. She's quiet, but I've never gotten the impression that she's stupid. And remember, she grew up in Joséphine's house during the Directory. I'd say she knows what's what."

  "Then why in the world did she marry Michel?" I asked.

  "Who wouldn't?"

  "I wouldn't," I said.

  Corbineau laughed. "Then you can hardly mind if someone else did."

  "I don't mind that he married her. I mind that he won't have me as well," I said, taking a last vicious stab at my lunch.

  "Ah."

  "Ah what?"

  "Ah that's it," Corbineau said. "He won't come out and make an offer like a gentleman."

  I threw my hands up. "Jean-Baptiste, I don't even mind that! I'd be perfectly happy to be his lover without any financial support at all! I don't need it right now."

  He looked at me, and his eyes were keen. "And I don't suppose you'll tell me how that came about." He leaned forward, dropping his voice. "I think it's time to level with me, Elza. I know that you didn’t come to Boulogne for the Lodge. The first time I mentioned it you didn't have any idea what I was talking about. I've heard four different stories now, and all of them untrue. You're not here with Lannes, you're not here with the Marshal, and you're not here with Subervie. So now's the time to tell me why you're actually here. The truth, Elza."

  I sighed. I should have anticipated this. Corbineau was too smart not to have seen holes in the story, as well as he knew me. I glanced about. It was early, and the tables around us were empty except for an enterprising seagull hunting crumbs under the chairs. If Subervie were recruiting officers to help us watch, one of them might as well be Corbineau. "Jean-Baptiste, you must not repeat this."

  "I am the soul of discretion," he said.

  "I am on the Emperor's business to catch a spy."

  He nodded slowly. "You work for Fouché?"

  "No," I said. "I work directly for the Emperor himself. I had my orders from him, face to face. I report in the field to Marshal Lannes."

  He let out a long breath, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind, things adding up. "This has something to do with Lion, doesn't it?"

  "Yes," I said, and told him the whole story.

  When I was done, Corbineau nodded gravely. "I can help with that," he said. "I'll take a watch. Gervais knows me, and he knows I can keep my mouth shut. Does the Marshal know?"

  "No," I said. "And I don't see any need to tell him."

  "You think it's someone on his staff," Corbineau said. "Someone other than me, I mean. And you think I can help with that."

  "I do," I said evenly. "Jean-Baptiste, when I was in his quarters he had the cipher key lying out on the desk. Anyone who came in while you were at the exercises could just help themselves. You know I love him, but he's completely impossible about things like that. He'd trust the wrong person and there are too many officers with axes to grind, with old grudges."

  "That's why you were asking me about Honoré," he said. "About his brother-in-law who went to the guillotine. You're wrong about that one, Elza. Honoré is as solid as anyone. I'll buy that it's someone on the Marshal's staff. I won't buy that it's Honoré."

  "M
aybe not," I said. "I don't know him. But it's somebody, and it's somebody that seems above suspicion."

  "Not him," Corbineau said stubbornly. "I'd bet my life on it."

  "Would you bet everyone else's life too?" I asked. "Because that's what we're doing."

  He paused for a second, then nodded. "On Honoré? Yes."

  "Why are you so sure?"

  Corbineau shook his head. "I just am. He's a good fellow, Elza. I know that like I know my own name."

  I glanced around again. The waiter was helping people at a distant table, but was not close. "Do you remember things? Things long ago?"

  He looked startled. "The Marshal told you that business, did he?"

  I nodded.

  "No," Corbineau said, and I thought there was something sad in his tone. "I don't. Except that I know how to do things sometimes the first time I try them. I have feelings about people. I'm a good judge of character, they say. I can pick a good one out of the crowd."

  "Like you did me in Bavaria," I smiled.

  "Like that. I knew I liked you when I met you. I knew we were friends." Corbineau spread his hands. "That's all. I'm not a Dove, and I don't see things in mirrors."

  "And your friend Reille?'

  "We haven't talked about it directly," he said. "But he's got to have been Persian, hasn't he, the way he keeps getting stuck with the horse archers? He's the only one who can figure out what to do with them." He looked at me with a little smile. "Why don't you look and see?"

  "Can I just do that?"

  "How should I know?" Corbineau laughed, and signaled for the waiter himself. "You're the Dove."

  "I don't really know what I can do," I said slowly. All of my effort in the past had been put into not doing.

  "Well, now that you're doing it for France, don't you think you'd better learn?" Corbineau asked. The waiter leaned over him. "I'd like the gratin dauphinoise and the ham, if you still have any. And a pot of mustard, please."

  It was a new and strange thought. I waited until the waiter left again. "How does one learn these things?" I asked. "It's not as though one can go to school."