The Barbed Crown

by William Dietrich

  “I have only moments,” she said breathlessly. “Tell me I won’t be damned.”

  “Only if you fail. Can you get access to the crowns?”

  “Presence is everything. I act important, and thus I am.”

  “You’d make a fine marshal for Napoleon.”

  “For the true monarchy, once it’s restored.” She leaned closer. “Did you pack the pistol as I asked?”

  “Loaded and primed.”

  “We shouldn’t need it but must brace for the worst. Now, I’ve tried to improve your seating—” She looked over my shoulder to someone behind me, eyes widening. “Oh!”

  A hand gripped my shoulder, tight as a vise. I turned. It was the policeman Pasques, a black hangman in a sea of peacocks. Had we been caught?

  No, he was only a messenger again. “The Grand Chamberlain Talleyrand requests your company, Monsieur Gage.”

  “Talleyrand? Today?”

  “It makes no sense to me, either. Come this way, to avoid the line.”

  People gave my family a glance of both resentment and respect as Pasques bulled us into the church. I was apprehensive. Half the princes of Germany were here, and Talleyrand had time to see me? Pasques steered us through the throng like a barge cracking ice, and we stopped by a pillar. It was still cold enough that we could see our breath. The cathedral echoed from the theater buzz of assembling spectators and tuning instruments. The timber cribbing of temporary spectator stands broke the usual soaring sightlines of Notre Dame.

  “Your wife must wait for you in the choir behind the thrones,” Pasques said. He frowned. “You brought your little boy?”

  “We avoid separation. They both must stay with me.”

  “Not to see the Grand Chamberlain. They can wait to take their seats with you together when we return. You’ve been moved next to great dignitaries.” He shook his head.

  “I fear we’ll be separated in this throng.”

  “I’ll watch them,” Catherine said, pulling Astiza from my grasp. “Don’t make a fuss that calls attention.” Her eyes signaled warning.

  I nodded. “Papa will be back in a moment,” I told Harry.

  “The Grand Chamberlain is waiting at a bell tower,” Pasques said. He cocked his head. “Why does everyone want to talk with you, American?”

  “I suppose I’m affable.”

  Catherine pulled Astiza and Horus into the shadows. We’d been in Notre Dame only moments and already were altering our plan. Astiza looked worried.

  “Talleyrand is impatient,” the policeman said.

  “As am I.” A quick meeting, and then reunion. “Lead on,” I told Pasques.

  We passed from behind the spectator stands to the central nave. Notre Dame was almost unrecognizable. A broad green carpet covered the stone floor, overlain by a narrow blue one embroidered with Napoleon’s golden bees. To each side, in tiers between the nave’s pillars, temporary viewing stands narrowed the church’s width, giving the ceremony crowded intimacy. Each bank of benches was backlit by stained-glass windows and curtained at the base by fabric panels painted rose and gold. Banners, flags, and white tapestries hung everywhere, turning Gothic grandeur into operatic riot, the cathedral as overwrought as a bordello. And why not? Life today is performed as if onstage: desperate conspiracies, impassioned trysts, dramatic speeches, and doomed charges. Dignity has disappeared. The church pews were gone, confessionals hidden, and the regular altar and its gate obscured.

  Pope Pius, I guessed, would not be pleased.

  In the transept of the cathedral’s center, where the side arms join the main axis, a triumphal arch had been built out of wood. Steep steps led up to twin thrones canopied with scarlet. To one side was a temporary elevated altar with a throne for the pope.

  If the hangings were grand, people’s costumes were grander. Ushers wore black and green; pages purple. A choir the size of a regiment was in pious white, and a full orchestra in black glittered with polished brass instruments and lacquered violins. Officers among the assembling spectators wore the distinctive uniforms of grenadiers, fusiliers, chasseurs, dragoons, voltigeurs, tirailleurs, carabiniers, hussars, cuirassiers, and the Imperial Guard. There were turbaned Mamelukes, high-ranking gendarmes, naval marines, ladies-in-waiting, jeweled duchesses, counts, abbesses, Turkish ambassadors, a Polynesian potentate, and society matrons. No doubt they’d have thrown in some vestal virgins if they could have found any in Paris. The poles of battle flags, regimental standards, and silver pikes jostled and clinked. Swords rattled. Ten thousand female throats bore diamonds that glinted like white flames. I saw foreign uniforms of yellow, pink, orange, turquoise, and ivory. I was dressed shabbily, in clothes meant for escape, and felt as conspicuous following Pasques as a fly on a wedding cake.

  The policeman led me to a door giving access to the north bell tower, guarded by a quartet of grenadiers. I hesitated. Was I going to be charged with the theft of bell rope at the scene of my crime?

  “Inside, American.”

  No, the “limping devil” was truly waiting, his own plush coat cardinal red, his white silk sash as wide as a saddle blanket, and his silk stockings, lace cravat, and tricorne hat outdated but dignified, reflecting his affection for traditional royalist fashion. He took my cold hand with his own white-gloved one. I hesitantly half bowed, wary, curious, and calculating.

  “Monsieur Gage! We’re flattered by the attendance of a representative of the United States.”

  “Hardly that, Grand Chamberlain. A citizen of America, yes, a Franklin man for certain. But representative? No one from my country knows I’m here.”

  His smile was shrewd. Talleyrand, like Réal and Fouché, always gave the impression of knowing all. “But consultant to the emperor! Which is what I want to discuss. These ceremonies take aeons to unfold, and Napoleon will be late getting through the narrow streets, so come up for the view. I’ve also reserved you better seats inside. The whole affair will be gaudy as a circus and longer than the opera, but well worth remembering.”

  With surprising energy he stumped his way up the circular stone stairway. I followed, retracing my steps with Harry. I half expected the grand chamberlain to pause dramatically at the bells, point at a sliced rope, and accuse me of high treason. But no, we didn’t go that high; instead, we came out on the walkway and parapet between the two Gothic towers, this grand balcony putting us directly over the main doors to the church.

  The view was magnificent.

  Not only had the flurries stopped, the clouds had lifted like a rising curtain. Low December sun cast golden light across Paris. The Seine glinted, and rooftops sparkled from their coating of snow. There was a haze of smoke past the Louvre, where celebratory cannon batteries kept firing. Napoleon, the gunner, would have a battle just to hear their music. Church bells pealed, though not the ones directly above us yet, and the snaking admission lines twitched as people shuffled forward. What must it feel like to have hundreds of thousands standing in the cold merely to glimpse your arrival? What power! What vanity!

  “Paris is extraordinary, is it not?” the grand chamberlain asked.

  “I’m drawn as if by a woman.”

  “The feminine beauty we see today is one of the joys of life. Do you remember my theory of the feminine and masculine cycles of history?”

  “Yes. And that men and Mars are triumphant now.”

  “So in autumn I seek the last leaf, and in spring the first crocus. I frequent the Louvre, Monsieur Gage, and not just to gaze upon the wonders brought back from Italy and Egypt.” The old palace, not lived in since the 1660s, had become Europe’s first public presentation of great works of art. It was usually so jammed it was tiresome. “I go for art, yes, but also for the visiting women. Sometimes I sit discreetly in a shadowy corner and watch beauty circulate around the statuary. They’re as exquisite as the pieces idealizing them. It’s a respite from negotiating the fate of na
tions.”

  “Then we have something in common, Grand Chamberlain.”

  The papal procession of coaches rolled through the square below and Pius VII emerged to walk the gallery to the waiting Cardinal Belloy. The pope looked small from this height, slightly bent, plain dressed, and yet dignified. His spiritual realm required him to deal with temporal and temperamental royals, and I suspect he saw the day’s ironies more clearly than anyone. His humility made me feel guilty about our subterfuge.

  Then cheers rolled toward us like waves to a shore. In the far distance there was a glint of gold from the slowly approaching coaches of the imperial family. The hedge of infantry on each side of the parade route was a silver ribbon of bayonets, quivering as the men snapped to attention. The preceding dragoons and lancers had plumed golden helmets and bobbing spears with tricolor banners. Every home on the route seemed to have hung celebratory decoration, from tapestries to evergreen boughs. From the crowds, little flags waved like leaves in a tree.

  “This is power made manifest, is it not?” Talleyrand’s habitual tone was cynical, but even he sounded impressed.

  “This many people never turn out to see me.”

  “And yet you’ve attained a curious importance, consorting with the mighty and conferring with their ministers. Do you ever wonder at the oddness of life?”

  “All the time.”

  Then there was a lull in the conversation, dragging on forever, which I finally broke. Silence is a weapon, and Talleyrand used it to control dialogue. “I’m flattered by your company, Grand Chamberlain, but puzzled as well. Surely you should be in the procession. Or have more significant guests than me to attend to.”

  “Grander, but none more important.” Talleyrand could caress with flattery or bite with harsh insight. “I’ve no interest in being displayed for public spectacle like a guillotine victim in a rolling tumbrel. I accomplish more by waiting here. I’ll talk to many important men this morning. All are rascals, highborn and low, and all potentially useful through banal self-interest.”

  He did not exempt me from this assessment.

  “My goal is to retire.”

  “Yet once again you’ve been recruited to a mission for Bonaparte.”

  “I wasn’t given any choice.” I felt vastly outnumbered, on the wrong side of history. “He uses us all.”

  “Yes. Even his wife, to keep his own rapacious family at bay. Do you know the two were hurriedly remarried last night to satisfy the pope before blessings could be given at the coronation? Only a civil ceremony united them before. Josephine, the scheming widow, who by all accounts participated in orgies before fixing her talons on the rising Corsican. And Bonaparte, inexplicably in love, even while keeping a chain of mistresses he mounts like a relay of horses during his inspections of France. And simple Pius to sanction it all! No wonder a million have come to this comedy. Life is far more droll than the theater.”

  “We’re all trying to reform.” I followed the line of the river. Though I couldn’t see it, I could judge where Fulton’s steamboat floated half a mile away. My Jaeger rifle was hidden there.

  “I’d be mystified why the police tolerate you, Monsieur Gage, if I didn’t know it was on the orders of Bonaparte. Just what is your assignment again?”

  “Ask him yourself.”

  He looked annoyed. “But of course I have, and of course he’s not completely answered. He trusts no one, not me; not Fouché; not Réal; not Savary, who commands the city’s military guard; nor Moncey with the gendarmerie; nor Dubois, chief of police. A dozen people spy on you, Gage, but a dozen spy on each of them as well. In a modern state, all are watched, all are rewarded, and all can fall at any moment; birth is no longer a protection, and achievement buys reward only until tomorrow. Bonaparte has made manifest what has always been unstated: daily existence is a struggle for the high as well as the low.”

  “Napoleon just finds me useful at times.”

  “Yes.” He stared out over the crowds. “Suffice to say, Ethan, that I believe the mission you’ve been given is extraordinarily significant, and I thought I could help you.”

  “Grand Chamberlain, despite your rank, you know I’m not at liberty to discuss my assignments from the emperor. Again, should you not ask him yourself?”

  Talleyrand ignored this. “Men like you are dangerous to political stability, unless expertly guided. Bonaparte is brilliant but lacks a certain . . . subtlety. That’s what I provide. I have my own spies. So I know that your mission will take you to Bohemia and other parts of the Austrian Empire. And if you find the android that men are seeking, you must not drag it back to Paris.”

  I felt uneasy. Did his political omniscience make him friend or foe? “I’m ordered to bring the Brazen Head to the emperor.”

  “No, you’re not. His armies will come to you.”

  “But Napoleon is marching on London.” Once more I was playing the spy for the British, worming out strategic clues. But who was I, really? Why was I standing with the French Machiavelli when I should be sitting with my family? Each time I tried to provide for or avenge my wife, it seemed to result in separation.

  My only salvation was my secret belief that somehow, at some time, I’d win the chance to do something truly good and make up for all my sins.

  “Napoleon will march in many directions before he’s finished. And he will be finished someday, as will we all. So look ahead, Gage, look ahead.”

  “I’m better at looking into the past. Old tombs and ancient rubbish. Often what we seek doesn’t exist at all.”

  “This automaton does.” Talleyrand still watched the golden carriages, crossing the Seine now onto the Île de la Cité, crowds roaring and rippling. “You must find the android first. At the end of the sixteenth century Rudolf II, Holy Roman emperor, established his capital in Prague. It’s a learned city and a mysterious one, tucked away from the main avenues of armies and attracting alchemists, wizards, astronomers, and numerologists. Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler mapped the planets while at his court. Composers performed. Artists painted. Necromancers drew magic circles on cellar floors. Rudolf was mad, but he was also brilliant, and he built a wing at Prague Castle that had cabinets full of strange curiosities. They included a bowl of

  agate he believed to be the Holy Grail, a unicorn horn, gemstones, magical swords, clocks, astrolabes, telescopes, and stuffed exotic animals. His gardens had plants from around the world.”

  “My boy would like to see that.” It never hurts to remind the powerful that you have a family, in order to encourage mercy should you need it.

  “The cabinets have been lost, as have the laboratories where Rudolf’s alchemists such as Edward Kelly and John Dee sought the Philosopher’s Stone. There was parchment of indecipherable writing, peculiar art, intricate mazes, and religious trinkets from lost kingdoms.”

  “Now that my wife would like to see.”

  “Rudolf never married but had lovers, male and female, who held power over him. They ranged from Ottoman temptresses to a prince of Transylvania. But more than anything he was seduced by knowledge.”

  The wind was cold, the sky that lovely robin’s-egg blue of winter, and the procession dazzling as it approached. Napoleon’s golden coach had reportedly cost a million francs. It was paneled in glass to allow people to glimpse him, and was festooned with medallions, coats of arms, allegorical figurines, and enough sculpted eagles to stuff a nest. The coachman was César, who’d saved Bonaparte’s life from the Infernal Machine. Roustan the Mameluke rode protectively behind. The team was eight gray horses decorated with braided manes, bronze-colored reins, and red Moroccan harnesses.

  Facing the emperor in the coach were the only two brothers who consented to attend, Joseph and Louis. Brother Lucien, the hapless politician who’d helped Napoleon seize power in 1799, was sulking in Rome because the emperor found him incompetent. Brother Jerome had joined him, smarting from Nap
oleon’s insistence that he annul his marriage to the American beauty Betsy Patterson and disown his child by her. With them was Napoleon’s shrewish mother Letizia, who’d chosen needy Lucien over hardheaded Napoleon.

  How far we’d both climbed—Napoleon to royalty, which made him resented by a dependent family; me to games I wasn’t prepared to play. Instinct suddenly told me to be anywhere than where I was standing.

  “I always enjoy a history lesson, Grand Chamberlain, but again am surprised you’ve time to share it. Why are you telling me all this?”

  “To guide you, because it’s imperative you succeed. I’m going to suggest you look for the Brazen Head that Napoleon wants you to find amid the castles and caves of central Europe. You want to head east. I’m going to give you the hilt of a broken sword that may prove a clue. I’m doing so because I want to examine this marvel myself. Napoleon would use it for conquest, but I for peace. So I brought you up here to propose a partnership.”

  “East is away from England.”

  “Exactly. It’s just as well that Sidney Smith begins to forget what you’re up to. Make more money working with me.”

  “Money?”

  “Ten thousand francs if you find a machine that foretells the future. A castle, if you want it. I suspect we’ll conquer dozens in the years ahead.”

  Now my heart beat faster. Investments in England, a fortune from Paris, and a castle in Bohemia . . . my horizons were expanding as rapidly as Napoleon’s. What was my purpose? Payback for the trials my family had endured. I was a puppet, yes, but strings could pull both ways. Perhaps it was I who was in charge! I’d manipulate these greedy, grasping men as they manipulated me, and save the world in the process. I felt a flush of confidence. I didn’t need to flee, I was where destiny demanded.

  “My quest seems improbable. A lost automaton?”

  “That was my reaction. Napoleon meets a thousand people, of course, and more than a few get his attention by spouting nonsense. But then I remembered an old Jewish legend from my religious studies, a tale of an artificial man made from mud called a golem. It made me wonder if your quest might not have a grain of truth.”