MV02 Death Wears a Crown

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  eventhorizonpg.com

  THE BEACH was bright and wide, even in the darkness. To the captain’s experienced eyes the swirls that hid among the waves in the Channel warned of shallow water and sandbars. It was slack tide, a dangerous time to land, but the men on the British sloop Duke of Cornwall were more concerned about the heavy cover of clouds that added to the darkness of the night than the ocean. Secrecy was needed on this mission more than safety.

  The landing party was a strange one, composed as it was of six officers from the only unit the king could order into action without the precession of Parliament—the Honourable Artillery Company, also known as the Royal Horse Artillery. They were now in civilian dress—all volunteers—and in the company of fourteen nervous and arrogant Frenchmen intent on avenging their martyred King Louis XVI and restoring the monarchy; their first victim was to be Napoleon Bonaparte himself. Even though he had made many such clandestine voyages to the French coast, Captain Wakefield had been nervous about transporting this mixed lot; he could not but notice that every man among them had that fixed light in his eyes that was found only in the gaze of fanatics.

  “We’re going to have to come about here,” the captain announced as he signalled the helmsman. “Beyond this point it’s tricksy.”

  The senior officer, Colonel Sir Magnus Sackett-Hartley, hooked his thumbs into his belt, squinting into the dark. “I hear breakers.”

  “As well you might,” said Captain Wakefield nervously. “This is a bad stretch of coast here.” He watched the jib luff and barked an order to one of his crew. “None of that, not in these waters.”

  “They won’t be expecting us, then,” said Sackett-Hartley, who seemed to be in command of the passengers, with satisfaction.

  “That they will not,” the captain agreed sourly. “And who’s to blame them, I’d like to know? You’ve got no business trying to land, not here at this time of night.” He scowled at the Frenchmen gathered on deck, and said to Colonel Sir Magnus Sackett-Hartley in an undervoice, “I can understand about them, sir, but, you pardon my saying it, this ben’t your fight.”

  Colonel Sackett-Hartley laughed. “I come by it, through family tradition, I’m afraid. My mother was Lady Laetitia Blakeney; her older brother made something of a habit of rescuing nobles bound for the guillotine, back during the Terror. He’s quite old now, retired to the country where he writes execrable verse.”

  Captain Wakefield shook his head. “Sounds right daft.”

  “That he is,” Colonel Sackett-Hartley declared with evident pride. “Which means I shall be hard-put to equal him.”

  The sloop pitched and everyone on deck scrambled for footing as the boom swung ominously. A sailor rushed to secure the sail.

  “We’ll be back here in twenty days,” Captain Wakefield said.

  “Between Dunkerque and Veurne, by road. They call this inlet the Ram’s Head, because of how it’s shaped. Don’t say the name of the place. You don’t want to warn the Frenchies.” He looked uneasily at the aristocrats, waiting for one of them to protest.

  “Ah,” said d’Estissac for all of them. “These are Frenchies to us, as well. They are not true Frenchmen. They have all become Corsican pirates.”

  There were mutters of approval.

  “Well, whatever they are, good luck to you against them.” He exchanged a halfhearted salute with Colonel Sackett-Hartley. “We’ll be back every ten days for six months, unless we’re fired on, and then we will return in the next ten days.” He indicated the two boats being lowered. “Off you go. Try not to get caught.”

  “It is unthinkable,” said La Clouette, the youngest of the group, an angular youngster not quite eighteen.

  “We will succeed because we must,” declared Brezolles, unable to stop his stammer. “We must.”

  “Still,” said Captain Wakefield.

  Four of the sailors were uncoiling the ladders for the landing party, and a young lieutenant was giving their packs one last inspection. Satisfied, he stepped aside for the men to take up their supplies. “The guns are all French, the rest of the supplies have French stamps. Your jackets are from Rouen; say you bought them in the marketplace, if there is a question. The money is French and Dutch.”

  “I know,” said d’Estissac shortly.

  “You will have at the most two opportunities to assassinate Napoleon. The first group has the greater chance; the second is there in case the first is unable to accomplish the task,” the lieutenant went on. “You cannot hope that you will be lucky enough for more than that. You will be on your own. You may not approach the English here officially. Should you be taken, be very sure you are not questioned. No one should attempt to rescue a captured member of this force, but silence him with a leaden ball.”

  The sloop rocked and dipped in the swell, wallowing as the waves struck her athwart her beams.

  D’Estissac held on to the rail, his manner unconcerned. “We have been through this already.” He stared from Captain Wakefield to Colonel Sackett-Hartley, “We are ready, mon Colonel.”

  As he started to salute, Sackett-Hartley stopped him. “From here on, it’s Magnus, remember, Magnus Hartley.”

  “And the d is gone from my name,” said d’Estissac softly. “But we will get it back.”

  “No doubt,” said Captain Wakefield, who thought the whole project was reckless and ill-conceived.

  “Each of you has gold,” the lieutenant went on. “Use it wisely.”

  “We will,” said Cholet. He picked up his pack, the first one to do so.

  This proved a signal for the rest, who now slung the packs over their shoulders and made their way down the ladders into the boat.

  “Remember,” called Captain Wakefield. “Build a small fire at the end of the spit over there, on the west side of the inlet. Twenty, then every ten days.”

  The last of the Frenchmen got into the boats with the officers of the Horse Artillery, and both groups began to row toward the hidden shore, guided by the sound of breakers.

  Captain Wakefield ordered his men to stand off from the coast a short distance where he lingered, the sound of breakers no longer demanding his attention. He listened for shouts or shots or alarms and was satisfied when he heard nothing.

  “Well,” he said softly to the Honourable Artillery officers, “I’ll either bring your coffins home, or transport all your fellows and all your horse-drawn cannon and your traveling smithies to sweep the way clean to Paris.” He smiled at the prospect, his weathered skin showing deep, hard wrinkles although he was only thirty-six. He ordered the Duke of Cornwall to head for home.

  ALL BUT the most expensive inns in Calais were filled and so Inspector-General and Madame Vernet spent the night in Bourbourg, at a hostelry called the Botte d’Or, whose blackened beams had first been set in place while the Spider King ruled.

  “These sheets are musty,” said Victoire as she pulled back the coverlet. “Smell the mildew in them. Thank goodness I brought our own along. I wish I had brought blankets as well.” She sniffed at the bedding and began to tug it off the sagging mattress.

  They had been traveling for more than four days and she ached allover. Ever since her miscarriage of six months before the constant jarring of coach travel had bothered her though she steadfastly refused to admit it. Vernet had been uncertain about permitting her to accompany him, and she wished to provide him no excuse to send her home. “How does the innkeeper continue in business with such a place, and with such accommodations.”

  “Because of people like us. But we cannot afford—” he began.

  She nodded. �
��Yes. And I am the one who ordered this economy, so it is wrong for me to complain. But still.” She sighed and looked at the worn sheets, shaking her head as she heard the soft sound of a tear as she pulled the old, stained linen free. She flung the sheets in a heap in the corner and turned to her own traveling cases to take out her own sheets.

  Vernet came toward her as she took out the clean, embroidered sheets. “Let’s not stay here. Let’s find a decent inn.”

  “Where?” she asked mildly. “In the clouds, perhaps?” She put the sheets down on the bed, then paused to unbutton her capped traveling coat before spreading out the first. “We are already farther from the coast than we ought to be. If we go inland again, you’ll be criticized because you will appear lax, and we ought not to ...”

  Finding her work impeded by her coat, she dropped it over a sagging chair. Immediately a large brown-and-black cat hurtled around the chair—he had been curled asleep behind it—and yowling his protest, leaped onto the armoire.

  “What the Devil!” Vernet burst out, about to throw a pillow at the outraged creature.

  Victoire laughed unsteadily. “Well, at least we can be certain that there are few mice,” she said, and went to open the door to let the cat out. “We ought to be grateful for such consideration. Now it is only a matter of bedbugs and rot.” She continued with her self-appointed task, smoothing the lower sheet and beginning to tuck it under the mattress, feeling unpleasant grit against the rough hemp that supported it.

  Vernet’s eyes were cast down. “I hate it, having to stay here.”

  Victoire recognized that look, and she set about banishing it at once. “If we don’t spend the night here, you’ll not be able to pay for your new uniform. This is inconvenient; the uniform is necessary. Therefore we will remain where we are.” Once the upper sheet was in place she sat on the bed and was not astonished when it sagged alarmingly. “Tomorrow we’ll depart early, and we will look for a proper inn to stay at, one nearer the coast.”

  He nodded. “Yes. As you say.” He regarded her face for several seconds. “You think I don’t know what a treasure I have in you, Victoire. But I do. I would not have advanced this far if not for you. I know that I am a fortunate man.”

  One of Victoire’s many annoyances with her fair coloring—decidedly out of the fashion—was the ease with which she blushed, and never more so than now. She did her best to look sensible while her cheeks flamed. “Now, Inspector-General Vernet, you must not flatter me. It will turn my head.”

  “I’m not flattering you.” He smiled, mischief in the curl of his lip. “I am stating nothing less than the truth,” he declared. “You are more observant than I am—”

  “Because I am not as often under fire,” she interjected calmly, though her disastrous cheeks remained bright. “Bullets are distracting.”

  He would not be deterred. “You are clear-headed, reasonable, and intrepid. And I don’t care a fig that you have yellow hair. Let the others sigh for onyx, I prefer gold and topaz. And more fool they for choosing simpering misses who know only how to sigh.” He opened the door as she began to put the coverlet in place again. Luckily they had brought their own pillows, she thought.

  “I’ll arrange to have the landau ready at seven, if that is satisfactory?”

  She frowned. “I suppose so. We don’t want them to be loading and harnessing in half-light.” While she listened to Vernet descend the rickety stairs, she sighed and stared at the three-candle tree on the commode cabinet. It truly was a dreadful place to stay the night. But Victoire was a soldier’s wife and she had followed the drum to worse places than this. She put her hands in the small of her back and pressed firmly, trying to ease her aching muscles. It offended her that as minor a task as making a bed had the capacity to tire her.

  It was very disheartening, having to travel this way, she thought. Victoire did not want Vernet to know how distressed she felt, as he was already upset at the stringent economies that were forced on them by the high cost of keeping up correct appearances in Napoleon’s Paris. There were missing slates on the roof of their cramped house, and the housekeeper complained that the kitchen was woefully old-fashioned. If it were not for the money her father had left in trust for her, they could not have managed at all. “A few more years,” Victoire said softly to her uncertain reflection in the single, speckled mirror. “Just a few more years.”

  There were hurried steps, and Vernet came back into the room. “All set up. The landau will be ready in the morning at seven. Our cases are to be at the door twenty minutes before the hour.” He took off his hat and held out his hands to her. “Tomorrow we will look early, and then I will go about my work and you can have a day to read.”

  She shook her head, a few blonde strands escaping from the simple knot at the crown of her head. “I am not a porcelain shepherdess, to be cossetted.”

  “I wouldn’t bring a porcelain shepherdess on such a journey,” he said. “Or most of the other places we’ve gone. But I can tell you are weary of traveling.”

  She did her best to make light of it. “And I thought I had disguised it so well.”

  “Oh, you have,” said Vernet. “But I see how you stretch when you think I am not looking, to relieve the ache in your back.” He sat down on the bed and pulled her down beside him, surprised at the sway of the mattress beneath them. “This is terrible,” he protested as he looked around more carefully.

  “We have been in less desirable places, as you yourself admit,” she said quietly. “There is a roof over our heads, no sand, no wounded men, no vermin, no enemy soldiers.”

  He put his arm around her shoulder. “You can’t be sure about the last,” he reminded her. “If the rumors we have heard are right, there are indeed British agents and ambitious Aristos landing in the area to spy on our fleet.”

  “This is a reasonable place to do it,” said Victoire as if it were obvious. “The fleet is accessible and England is very near.” She leaned against him, her short corset pressing against her ribs. “Ah, I will be glad to get out of my stays.”

  “Truly,” he declared, teasing in his voice. “I’ll be glad, too.”

  She looked once around the dark, musty room. “Well, at least we will be warm enough,” she said, making the best of it.

  “I’ll see to that,” he agreed. He touched the lacing at her back. “One of these days we’ll be able to afford a ’tire woman for you.” He unfastened the concealed knots closing her dress. “You should have a ’tire woman, and a butler and all the rest of the staff. But I do not want to give up my job.”

  Victoire shook her head, trying unsuccessfully not to smile. “I’m not as helpless as all that, husband.” She moved so that he could unfasten the rest of the dress, lifting her hands so that he could lift it off her. Sitting in her slip and corset, she was suddenly chilly. “Hurry,” she recommended. “I want to get warm.”

  “Good,” he responded, the warmth in his voice becoming passionate. He fumbled with the fastenings of her corset, and while she removed it, and her slip, he set about tugging off his own garments, tossing them onto the chair over Victoire’s coat. Their nightclothes he would retrieve later.

  They dived under the covers in unromantic haste, then snuggled close together, shivering a little.

  “The landlord would be appalled if he could see us,” whispered Vernet.

  “Then it is just as well he can’t,” Victoire answered. “Not everyone has to wear clothes to bed all the time.”

  “I didn’t unpack my robe,” Vernet pointed out.

  “Worry about it in the morning,” she suggested, and opened her mouth for his kisses. He was as good and necessary as bread and as luxurious as those outrageous emeralds Josephine was sporting two weeks ago. She felt sustained by him, and nourished. Victoire relaxed into his arms, chuckling once as the old bed groaned and sagged. Thank goodness, she thought, that Vernet was not one to rush.

&n
bsp; They made love without haste, concentrating on enjoyment instead of their depressing room and frustrating situation; there would be time enough for such worries in the morning, Vernet insisted as he pressed closer to her, smiling as they kissed more deeply. She urged him nearer still, and moved to the least-lumpy part of the bed with a grin. This insouciance was still a novelty—for some time after her miscarriage they had made love rarely and with such careful attention that in the end they had more comfort than pleasure, and no amusement. Now at last the laughter had come back to their passion, and the sense of fun that had so delighted her from the first.

  Before they drifted into sleep, Vernet remarked, “I have been thinking; I used to condemn every official who ever took a bribe. I thought it was because of them that there was corruption. But now it is clear to me that the bribes were offered, and that was the real perversion, not their acceptance.”

  Victoire, her head resting on his shoulder, asked, “What made you think of that?”

  “Oh, one of Berthier’s staff was caught taking bribes, and he’s to be put in prison. It turns out the fellow has a large family and a crippled brother to care for, and he hasn’t been able to afford ...” He ended in a yawn. “The man who bribed him knew he was in need, and knew also his salary was not sufficient to keep him out of debt. Who is to blame him for taking what was offered?”

  “By the sound of it, Berthier,” said Victoire, more dryly than she had planned.

  “Perhaps,” he allowed. “But I am in sympathy with the poor man. I think he was put in an untenable position.” He rubbed her hair, now loose and tangled.

  “And you worry you could be tempted yourself,” she said, recognizing that tone of self-doubt that occasionally came into his words.

  “I do not think I would do so now. But we know how little money there is, and if we have more expenses, it would be harder to refuse advantage.” He adjusted his arm to serve as her pillow.

  She knew better than to be shocked by his doubts. She kissed his jaw. “You know your situation and you know what you may have to face. You’ve already made up your mind to maintain your integrity, so you are less likely to be persuaded against your will than many another.” She paused, and went on drowsily, “I think most men stumble into corruption. They do it, for novelty and gain, with never a thought to what it means.”