Jo Graham - [Numinous World 05]

by The Emperor's Agent (epub)

  "Not in spite of." His arms tightened around me and we stood thus, two shadows made one in the long moonlight. "I don't love you in spite of the things about you that are a bit strange. I love you because of them. When I saw you at Apfing wading into the fight with Corbineau, possessed by that same divine battle madness, I knew I would never be over you. I don't love you in spite of being a Companion. I love you because you're a Companion." He leaned back, trying to see my face shaded beneath the brim of the bonnet. "And I don't know how to stop."

  I closed my eyes and rested by cheek against his chest, breathing in the warmth of him, his familiar scent. "Is it always going to be like this, coming and going? Never stopping needing you? Never stopping wishing we had time?"

  "I am beginning to think so," he said, his face against the top of my bonnet. "Something occurred to me the other night, after Noirtier's operation, when I remembered…you. I'm not even sure how to say it."

  I waited, letting him find the words.

  "I am always sure I know what is best for us. And it doesn't usually work. So I'm asking what you want, here and now, with the mess we have. It may not be something I can agree to, but I'm asking you want you want."

  I took a step back, not quite stepping out of his arms, but able to see his face rendered beautiful by moonlight. When I spoke, it was to put my heart in his hands. "I want you back," I said. "As my lover. I will not be your mistress, living in your house on your money. I don't need that. I have work of my own for the Emperor. And I would not be your wife, not if she suddenly died tomorrow." He flinched. "I want to be your lover, your companion in danger, your female eromenos. As much as we can have, as long as we can have it, Companions together under the eagle, building a new world."

  He took a deep breath, and I saw the lines in his face tighten. "And what about my promises to Aglae?"

  "That is between you and your conscience, Michel," I said. "Do you think your angel will abandon you?"

  Michel smiled ruefully. "My angel says I'm a colossal fuck-up. How can even I make such a mess of something so simple? If I were going to do that, I should not have married, and should have been true to you."

  "You always think you should be true to one alone," I said, "When it is against your nature. Is it kind, do you think, to expect one person to be everything, to be wife and Companion, lover and soldier and intellectual equal and mother and friend and confidant and brother at once? How can any one person fulfill all of the things you are, and not leave you still starving for what they are not? I have not asked you to have no one but me, to need nothing I cannot give you. I see that you need things I cannot give. And I will try so very, very hard not to be jealous when you seek those things, when you go home to your family and your peace. Cannot you give up resenting Aglae for not being me and me for not being Aglae? Is that fair to either of us?"

  He blinked. "You make monogamy seem like nothing but selfishness."

  "How can any one person be everything another will ever need? People break each other, begging and demanding things that can never be, or go through their lives starving for what they might have had. Is it not better to say, this is the place we match, and these are places where each of us matches another better?" I asked. "Whether that is lover or friend, brother in arms or child, to put all that on a husband or a wife is nothing but a modern convention, and not one that works very well. Two hundred years ago no one expected marriages to be made for love, nor resented other emotional connections' depths."

  "Adultery wasn't fine two hundred years ago either," Michel said wryly.

  "No, but two hundred years ago you should not have expected your wife to love you," I said. "Or expected that she would make you happy. Have you ever asked her what she wants?"

  Michel blinked again. "No. I mean, isn't it obvious? I mean, how could you have a conversation about something like that with your wife? It would seem like I was accusing her or something."

  I shook my head. "Even a good woman has opinions. You might find them quite surprising."

  "We don't talk very much," he said. "Not about personal things. If we did, there are too many things she'd be appalled by. I mean, I have to be on good behavior, you know. She…."

  "Would hate you if she knew what you really thought?" I finished.

  He nodded miserably.

  I took a deep breath. "You don't really know that, do you, Michel? Do you actually know what she thinks about anything?"

  "She's a good woman, a good mother. She can't understand…." There was so much unsaid, but I knew what it was, the blood lust, the dark places, all of the parts of his soul that did not bear the light of day. "I don't want to hurt her. I don't want her to hate me."

  I considered my words carefully. "I'm not suggesting you drop everything on her at once. But you could sound her out and see what she thinks about things. Don't you talk at all?"

  "About the children," he said. "We talk about the children. But whenever I try to spend time with them everyone gets very upset about it. I have about ten minutes before nurses are taking them away so they won't bother me. The minute one of them is hungry or dirty they're whisked out of the room. I don't mind. I would be happy to clean them up."

  "Michel, Marshals of France don't change diapers!" I said. "Gentlemen of breeding ignore their children, except properly turned out for ten minutes before dinner."

  "But that's not what I wanted," he said. "That's not it at all."

  I put my arms around him again and held him tight. "I know, dearest. But it's what you signed up for. If you want something different, you're going to have to make it different. You are the master of the house. Stop trying to be good enough for your wife and servants! Stop worrying about whether you have less breeding and manners than your butler! Do as you like. It's not as though your servants can throw you out of the nursery."

  "It's a moot point," Michel said. "I won't see them again before…."

  "Before the embarkation?"

  He nodded but did not meet my eyes.

  I tightened my hands on his arms. "Michel, if you ask me to, I will come with you to England. If you agree to my terms, I will come on this campaign with you."

  His eyes searched my face. "I have to think about it."

  "Think about it," I said. "You asked what I wanted, and you've heard my proposal. Think about it and decide." I took a step back. "But time is not infinite. You know the date you have until, and I don't. That's how long you have."

  Michel nodded gravely. "I understand," he said.

  Subervie came to see me in the morning, which surprised me, as surely with the Emperor in Boulogne he had a great deal to do, and I said so.

  "I do," he said, flourishing a piece of folded paper, "but the Emperor asked me to bring this to you personally. He said to tell you he could not send for you here, as it would be tantamount to advertising that you are in his service, but I should bring you this and wait for your reply."

  "Thank you," I said, and tore it open with trembling fingers. It was short and to the point.

  Madame,

  Nearly two months have passed since our last interview. While I am given to understand that you have provided invaluable service to Marshal Lannes, so far you have not yet secured the identity of the man in question. Time is running out, Madame. You must complete this quickly, or the price in French lives will be very high indeed.

  N.

  I folded it up very tightly, my cheeks flaming. Subervie was too well trained to ask me what was in it, but I saw him glance sideways.

  "He says to hurry up and find the spy," I said. "That time is running out."

  Subervie snorted. "We know that, don't we? Well, you'll have my best shot tonight. The boat drill is scheduled for an hour after midnight. If you and Honoré will be in position, we'll see what we get."

  "We'll be there," I said grimly. "And hopefully this will wrap it up. If it doesn't?"

  "The Emperor leaves next Thursday," Subervie said. He looked at me significantly. "Summer is wearing away."


  He would not give me a date, but his meaning was obvious. We were getting into August. Fall would come soon, and the Channel would be rolled by storms, cool weather and rains coming in. Yes, the south of England had mild winters, but the north? Wales? We should not want to begin a campaign in the fall, knowing it might take many months to fight. That was against all established military wisdom. We must begin by the end of August. I did not need to know the exact date. We only had two and a half weeks left.

  The Eagle

  Reille and I sat side by side in the dark, my shoulder almost against his, our pistols across our laps. Below the boulder we sheltered behind, the sea cliffs dropped away steeply, twenty-five feet to the waves below, breaking white on the rocks. It was very quiet. Orion had risen clear and cool in the sky with his belt of fire.

  "It's well after midnight," Reille said quietly. "The boat drill must have begun by now."

  I nodded even though he might not be able to see me in the clear starlight. "We wait."

  The spy would surely hear of the boat drill. Half Boulogne would hear the commotion. He would take the time to confirm that the landing craft were indeed being boarded and that the troops were embarking before he hurried to report. With any luck, Lion would not be lying directly off the coast and this would take some little time: to hurry out from Boulogne with a lantern and wait for the path of Lion's patrol to bring her within sight of his observation point.

  Where we waited. Hopefully the spy would get a surprise tonight and I would complete my mission.

  Time passed. We could see nothing from here, nothing except empty sea. The port was too far and the shape of the headland hid it from us. Sirius rose, the dog star bright in the sky before dawn.

  "The heliacal rising of Sothis," Reille said quietly, his dark eyes on the sky. "That used to mean something, didn't it?"

  "Yes," I said. "How do you know that?"

  "I read a lot." Reille looked at me sideways. "I've never done the type of operation we did with the Marshal the other night, the Mesmerism."

  "But would you?" I asked.

  "Of course I would," Reille said with a smile, as though it should be patently obvious. "Wouldn't you like to know if you could?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I have spent a good deal of my life trying not to know."

  He shrugged as if he found that inexplicable. "I'd like to know everything." He leaned back against the boulder, the pistol shifting in his lap. "Besides, isn't it fun?" I looked at him dumbfounded, and Reille smiled. "We have good friends and good work, a part in the greatest events of our age. We ought to enjoy it. There will be enough time for regrets later."

  I looked at him, and it was as though I saw him for the first time, tall and lean, dark-haired and dark-eyed, long-limbed and contained, with a sideways smile that was a twist of kindness, not irony. A happy man, I thought, and one whose happiness is a banked fire for those around him. No wonder the world loved Reille. He loved the world.

  And with that thought came an unlooked for rush of desire. His shoulder was very warm against mine, dark blue wool coat blending with the shadows. His thigh was not quite pressed against mine, attired in Charles' black breeches and riding boots. His hands were long and lean on his pistol, beautiful hands with the quick skill of a fencer. He smelled of vetiver and lemon toilet water, and the slightest hint of his own body beneath it.

  I shivered. And what was this, entirely inappropriate and unexpected?

  He looked at me and shrugged just a little. "It takes some people that way," he said. "Danger as an aphrodisiac."

  I felt the blood rising in my face, but there was no censure in his expression. Perhaps he felt it too. Perhaps daring was also arousing for him.

  "It's one of those things," he said. "But I don't think we'd better do anything about it since we're on watch."

  "No, probably not," I agreed. "That would be inattentive." I swallowed hard. The shape of his lips, the tiny nick at the corner where he had cut himself shaving….

  Smiling, he shifted his seat, putting a few inches further between us, his pistol carefully resting over his lap. "So where are you from?"

  "Amsterdam, I suppose," I said. "But it was never home. I never had a home until I came to Paris."

  "There is nowhere like it, is there?" he said. "I could pass my days in Paris in perfect contentment."

  "Are you not more likely to pass them in the field?" I asked.

  Reille shrugged. "As long as I can always come home."

  He would have said more, but I raised my hand and he fell instantly silent. I thought I had heard a sound above.

  A long moment of silence. Perhaps I had imagined it. No, there it was again, repeated. It was the soft sound of sand shifting beneath feet, someone beginning to make their way down the steep path.

  Reille was on his knees now, gathered up like a cat to spring. Not a stone beneath us stirred as I got slowly to my feet.

  No further sound on the path. Had he stopped? Was this nothing at all except some ordinary passerby? I did not hear anything. The wind off the sea whipped away the sound of breath. I was smaller and lighter than Reille, closer to the edge of the boulder. Carefully, I crept forward until I could look around.

  At the top of the path was a man silhouetted dark against the stars. Only a few rays of light shone through the shuttered lantern he carried, and I could see nothing more of him than the shape of his hat against the sky, a bicorn without plume or cockade.

  "Stand where you are!" I shouted, coming from behind the rock to level my pistol at him in the starlight. "Put the lantern down and get your hands up."

  "Oh for the love of God!" Corbineau said. "Elza, put that thing down before you hurt me."

  Behind me Reille swore.

  Corbineau opened the lantern shutters so I could see his face, and just incidentally so he could see the path ahead as he descended. "I came to tell you that Lion is standing off Boulogne. They've come in close enough with the tide that they can see the men disembarking after the drill. There's no need for the spy to show himself to signal to Lion. Those peerless sailors can see for themselves."

  "Bad luck," Reille said, coming around the rock.

  "Bad indeed," Corbineau said. "A high tide, and Lion up at the north end of the patrol circuit by chance. We'll get nothing tonight. I suppose I could have let you sit out here until dawn, but I thought I'd rescue you." He gave me a tiny wink as though to say that he thought Reille probably needed rescuing from me.

  "Many thanks," Reille said, uncocking his pistol. "Then we'd best call it a night."

  "Yes," I said.

  The Emperor would not be pleased that we had accomplished nothing. And I would be the one who would face his displeasure.

  When I returned to Boulogne in the gray light before dawn I was unsurprised to find Subervie waiting for me, a grim look on his face. "Did the boat drill go badly?" I asked.

  "The boat drill was fine," he said quietly. "The Emperor wants to see you."

  I squared my shoulders. "I was afraid he might," I said. Chances were that he would turn me out of his service. After all, what use was an agent who never accomplished anything? Is it not customary to fire someone whose work produces nothing?

  Subervie led me into the fortress by the back way, up servants' stairs that were entirely deserted despite the hour of the morning. Surely the servants should be busy at this hour, lighting fires and bringing breakfasts and preparing for the day? Or perhaps, I thought, Lannes had indeed closed headquarters for the length of the Emperor's stay.

  It was not quite six by the clock on the console table in the hall when Subervie led me to the door of the second floor drawing room that the Emperor was using as an office. Unsurprisingly, he was already at his desk, steam curling up in thick spirals from a cup of black coffee on a leather roundel placed on the fine walnut. He wore a plain chasseur's uniform, and he looked up from the papers before him as we entered.

  "Madame St. Elme, sire," Subervie said, his eyes front and cen
ter rather than on the Emperor.

  "You may stay, Subervie," he said. "We will only be a moment."

  I swallowed. "Sire."

  He looked up from his desk, his tone mild. "You have not yet caught the spy, Madame."

  "No, sire."

  "No excuses? No explanations?" He did not raise his voice or stand. He did not need to.

  "No, sire."

  "Do I need to reiterate the importance of this mission?"

  "No, sire." Beside me Subervie was a model of military stiffness, and I resolved myself that I would do no less. I would not beg and plead and whine.

  "Lannes says that you have made yourself helpful to him." I wondered in which capacity Lannes had meant it…. Surely the Emperor did not know of the Lodge? "You must do better."

  "I will, sire," I said.

  "There will come a time not far off when the die is cast," he said. "If this matter is not laid to rest before that day, it will cost many lives. Secrecy is essential to our plan, and if this spy is still at large…." He shrugged.

  "And many of those lives may be those dear to me," I said. "Sire, if I fail it shall not be through want of effort!"

  "I believe that, Madame," he said gravely. "But let us see your success as well as your industry." He stood up, reaching for another sheaf of papers on the side table. "Subervie, show Madame St. Elme out."

  "Thank you, sire," I said, and went with great relief. He had not relieved me, not yet. I had not yet failed, though I thought I could read in his words just how little time remained before the embarkation, before all was lost or won.

  The Emperor left for Paris that afternoon, putting the lie to the rumor that the embarkation was imminent. Surely if it were he would have remained in Boulogne, the better to have operational control of the invasion himself! There was nothing in Paris so pressing as this war.

  And so, I thought, we have some small amount of time, some few days before we are wakened by the flying hooves of his big Berlin on the cobblestones of Boulogne, his arrival our only warning that the time has come. A few days, or perhaps a few weeks. No more than four weeks, surely. This must come by mid September or not at all.