exclaimed: 'There, I don't believe your Highness has rested at all, and you looked so tired…'
Marianne tried to smile at him and, failing, drew an ice-cold hand across her brow.
'Yes, I am tired. What time is it?'
'Gone six o'clock, Madame. And the Emperor is asking for you.'
'Good God! And I've not even combed my hair—'
'That is of no account. His Majesty has something he wishes you to see – something very serious.'
Her heart missed a beat.
'Serious? My friends—'
'Have arrived – quite safely, never fear. But come quickly.'
This time he took her to a kind of antechamber where an extraordinary scene met her eyes. A number of men were grouped about a stretcher on which lay a figure draped in red. The Emperor was standing beside the stretcher and next to him was a distinguished-looking man whom Marianne had never seen before. Reclining on a bench a little way off, enveloped in a dressing-gown several sizes too big for him, was Jolival, a pale-faced Gracchus at his side.
Marianne felt a wave of relief at the sight of them.
'Thank God, you are here—' she was beginning, when Napoleon beckoned her to him.
'They tell me you know this woman. That it was she who tried to kill you. Is this true?'
Marianne's eyes widened. The figure wrapped in red cloth was Shankala, but a Shankala so changed that Marianne could not help feeling a rush of pity. The gipsy's face was very white and there was a trickle of blood at one corner of her mouth. She seemed to have great difficulty in breathing.
'Her chest is crushed,' the Emperor said. 'She will not last an hour, and well for her. It will spare her a hanging. Do you want to hear what she had to say?'
Marianne stared in stunned amazement from Napoleon's stem face to the waxen features of the dying girl.
'Yes, of course… But how does she come to be here?'
Gracchus spoke up timidly from his corner.
'It was Monsieur Craig who found her when he was coming back with a carriage, along by the Yaouza, just as the fire was taking hold. She was still living, so he brought her with him in the hope of learning something about Monsieur Beaufort. He arrived just as the major and I came to fetch them and Monsieur le Vicomte said that we should bring her to you because – because it seemed to be important.'
Understanding came to Marianne and she uttered a strangled cry and clapped her hand to her mouth.
'Jason! Oh, my God! They've killed him—'
'Unfortunately not,' Napoleon said irritably. 'He is alive. Now stop tormenting yourself about him and listen to what they have to tell you. This is my interpreter, Baron d'Ideville. He managed to speak with the woman and make out rather more than this young man here was able to catch. Well, Baron.'
'No, Sire!' Jolival spoke up on a note of entreaty. 'I beg you will let me tell her. It will be less painful. I am most grateful to the baron for his help, but we are strangers to him.'
Baron d'Ideville bowed, indicating that he perfectly understood, and moved away a little. Napoleon went with him and took his arm.
Marianne turned to her old friend.
Well, Jolival? What is it you have to tell me that is so terrible?'
'Oh, nothing tragic after all,' he said, with a little shrug. 'It is not so very terrible – except for you, alas!'
'Explain, please! What is this all about? They said that Jason has not been shot?'
'No. He is in perfect health and at this moment is no doubt travelling serenely on his way to Petersburg. The cossacks took him to Kutuzov's camp outside Moscow and there he was brought before an officer of the staff – a Colonel Krilov.'
'Krilov? But that was the name of the friends he was trying to reach!'
'He was undoubtedly a member of that family. Shankala could not tell us very much about him but she remembered the name and she saw Jason come out arm in arm with a Russian officer. The two seemed on the best of good terms. At that, thinking the danger was past, the gipsy went to Jason. He would have driven her away at first but then he changed his mind and called her back and had this Krilov question her. He asked where you were and why you were not with her.'
'What did she say?'
'That she did not know. That she had lost sight of you. That you had vanished round the corner of the street.'
'And he believed her?' Marianne cried, stunned.
'So it seems. He asked no more questions. He simply shrugged and went off with his new friend, after telling Shankala that he had had enough of her, or words to that effect. But she's a stubborn creature. She stayed in the camp, which was not difficult because there were other women with the army. No one took any notice of her and she was able to learn a little more because the affair naturally caused something of a stir in the camp – an American dressed as a moujik dropping, as it were, out of the blue. Well, she discovered that Colonel Krilov had obtained permission to escort him to St Petersburg himself to introduce him to his family and she hoped to be able to follow them. But when Kutuzov resumed his march, he got rid of all the women and sent them back to the city. Shankala was caught up in the crowd and obliged to return here, willy nilly. There, that's the sum of it.'
'But it's not possible!' Marianne cried, unable to believe her ears. 'Jason will try to find me. He can't have gone already—'
'Shankala saw him mounted before she left the camp. By this time he must be well on his way.'
'It's not true. It can't be. The woman is lying—'
A groan from the stretcher made her turn and she saw that the gipsy's eyes were open. There was even, she thought, a faint trace of a smile on the pallid lips.
'I tell you she is lying!' she cried.
'Those as close to death as she is do not lie,' Jolival said gravely, while Gracchus bent quickly over the woman who was evidently trying to say something.
They heard a murmur ending in a low groan. The bloodless hand which Gracchus clasped in his relaxed suddenly. The face turned to stone.
'She's dead,' Gracchus whispered.
'What did she say? Did you catch any of it?'
He nodded, then looked away.
'She said: 'Forgive me, Mademoiselle Marianne.' Then she said: 'Mad – as mad as I!''
A few minutes later, when Marianne, with a heavy heart and mind a blank, had allowed the Emperor to lead her out on to the terrace and was sitting down to dine with him, Duroc came to say that fires had broken out again in various quarters of the city. Napoleon threw down the napkin he had been on the point of unfolding, got up from the table and made his way to the steps, along with all those present at the meal. What he saw brought an oath to his lips.
Clouds of black smoke, carrying a horrible reek of sulphur and pitch, were being driven before the wind. Eastwards, a long street was spouting flames, while down by the Moskva a huge warehouse was beginning to burn.
Someone said: 'That's the reserves of grain, and there's another outbreak over towards the Bazaar. I think that's where the shops are that sell oil and cooking fat. It's as well there's not much wind, or I doubt whether we could have got them under control.'
'Damned idiocy!' the Emperor growled. 'I see a whole regiment down there running about with buckets and casks. There may be no fire engines left but there's still plenty of water in the river—' He bellowed out some orders and then made his way to where Marianne was standing a little way apart, hugging her arms across her chest and staring unseeingly at the ominous spectacle.
'I'm beginning to think you may have been right – at least in part. These fools are trying to cut off our food supplies.'
She turned sightless eyes to him and shook her head.
'They won't be satisfied with that, Sire, you may be sure. But it doesn't matter about me. It's you we have to think of.'
