'Take her,' he said. 'Put her in the coach. Her companion may travel with Constant. The horse can be unhitched and led but don't waste time on the cart. Push the wretched thing into the ditch and let's be on our way. We could all catch our death standing here.'
Rustan lifted Marianne without a word and set her down inside the coach. There was a man there already and Marianne's lips twitched involuntarily when she saw that it was Caulaincourt. He was staring at her in blank astonishment.
'We two seem fated to meet in unusual circumstances, my lord Duke,' she murmured, but then a violent fit of coughing shook her and she could say no more. At once, the Duke of Vicenza slipped a hot brick under her feet and reached for a travelling case from which he took a bottle of wine and a gilt cup. He poured some and held it to the girl's lips.
'You are ill,' he said sympathetically. 'This is no climate for women—'
He broke off as Napoleon climbed back into the coach and settled himself inside his bearskin once more. He appeared to be in a very bad temper. His movements were brusque and he was frowning heavily, but Marianne was feeling somewhat restored by the wine and she risked saying softly: 'How can I thank you, Sire? Your Majesty —'
'Be quiet.' He cut her off short. 'You'll make yourself cough again. Wait until we get to the inn.'
They reached Kovno in no time and drew up outside a house on the outskirts. It bore evidence of having been badly damaged at some time and only half of it was left standing. The rest of the town offered a similar picture, for Kovno had been largely destroyed in a disastrous fire some ten years before and had not yet recovered. Nor had the arrival of the French on this side of the Niemen improved matters. Except for the old castle, some of the churches and about half the dwelling houses, the whole place was in ruins.
The building in front of which the three carriages had stopped was an inn of a sort, kept by a young Italian, a cook who had come there with the army the previous summer. He seemed to be making a success of it because, although he had received no more than a few minutes' warning from the outrider Amodru, who had already ridden on again, he had worked miracles in the time. When Marianne entered the coffee room on Caulaincourt's arm there was a bright fire burning and she saw a table laid ready with a white cloth, white bread, roast chickens, cheese, preserves and wine and she felt as if she had walked into paradise. The room was warm and bright as a new pin and there was a delicious smell of omelettes in the air.
To Guglielmo Grandi, as he came forward bowing, cap in hand, Napoleon said bluntly: 'Have you a good bedchamber?'
'I have three, Imperial Majesty. Three good bedchambers. Does your Majesty wish to honour my house by staying to rest here?'
'Not me, I've no time. But this lady needs a bed. Have a room made ready. I see you've maidservants there. Have them light a fire and make some supper for her.'
He beckoned curtly to Barbe who had just come in, along with the occupants of the other carriages. These proved to be Duroc, General Mouton, Baron Fain and Constant. The latter, recognizing Marianne, came hurrying towards her, his face alight with joy.
'Princess! Good God! This is a miracle!'
Napoleon checked him sternly.
'That will do, Constant. See to it that the lady has everything she needs. And you,' he added, speaking to Barbe who had been staring at him with big, anxious eyes, 'go with her and help her to bed.'
'Sire!' Marianne begged. 'At least let me speak to you, explain—'
'No. Get to bed. You can scarcely stand. I will come up in a little while and tell you what I have decided.'
With that he turned away, as though she had ceased to exist, and began divesting himself of his great overcoat and peeling off numerous woollen garments that enveloped him like the layers of an onion. That done, he went to the table, sat down and began without further ado to demolish the omelette set piping hot before him.
As was his way, the Emperor did not dawdle over his meal. Only about ten minutes after packing Marianne off upstairs, Napoleon followed her. She had just got into the bed, which was so heaped with mattresses that it looked like a ship on the high seas, and was sipping with cautious enjoyment at the first cup of scalding hot milk she had seen for a long time.
She paused when the Emperor appeared and would have handed the cup to Barbe but he stopped her.
'Finish it,' he said, in his most peremptory tone.
Not daring to disobey him or risk trying a temper she knew to be short, Marianne swallowed it down heroically, then, flushed to the roots of her hair, she handed the empty cup to Barbe who curtsied and withdrew. Marianne waited with unaccustomed humility for what the Emperor might have to say to her. It was not long in coming.
'I had given up hope of finding you again, Madame. Indeed, I can scarcely believe even now that it was really you I found shivering in the snow beside the wreck of that pathetic cart.'
'Sire,' Marianne ventured timidly, 'will your Majesty permit me to tell you now—'
'Tell me nothing. I've no time for your story, or your thanks. My coming to your assistance was a matter of common humanity. Thank God for it.'
'Then – may I ask what your Majesty means to do with me?'
'What do you expect me to do with you?'
'I don't know, only – since your Majesty went to the trouble of having me sought for – and even of putting a price on my head—'
Napoleon laughed shortly. 'A price on your head? Don't exaggerate. If I did offer to pay for news of your whereabouts it was not in order that I might have the pleasure of shooting you, nor did I expect you to imagine anything of the kind! I am not, let me tell you, either a tyrant or a madman, nor is my memory so short. I have not forgotten what service you have rendered, or that it was for my sake alone that you thrust yourself into this hornet's nest of a country.'
'But I helped your prisoner to escape—'
'Allow me to finish. I have not forgotten that you once loved me and that, when your heart is involved, you are capable of behaving with the utmost folly, like this escapade of yours in rescuing that contumacious cardinal. And finally, I have not forgotten that I have loved you and that you will never be indifferent to me.'
'Sire—'
'Be quiet. I told you I was in haste. If I sought for you, it was because I hoped to save you first of all from yourself, by preventing you from running after your American's coat-tails, and then from the unbelievable perils of that country – perils which I have been able to measure fully since your disappearance and in comparison with which you seem to me very frail. Has it never occurred to you that I might have been afraid – God, how afraid, that you had perished in the fire? No, I'm very sure you did not give a thought to it!'
'How could I have guessed that? I thought—'
'It was not for you to think. Your duty was to obey. Of course I should have been angry with you – but I have been angry before and you have taken no harm, I think? Then I should have sent you back to your own house in France as soon and as expeditiously as possible.'
Moved to tears by this, Marianne murmured huskily: 'Do you mean, Sire, that – that you are not going to punish me for my disobedience?'
'By no means. But the very fact that you are here, and in this condition, is the best possible proof that you have not betrayed the promise you made me, by which I mean that you did not take the road to St Petersburg, easy as that would have been for you. Because of that, I shall inflict no worse penalty on you than I have done.'
'And – that is?'
'Your house in Paris is yours no more. Just as you have long ceased to be Mademoiselle d'Asselnat de Villeneuve. Your family's mansion shall belong henceforth, as of right, to your cousin, Mademoiselle Adelaide d'Asselnat.'
There was a lump in Marianne's throat and she lowered her eyes so that he should not see the sudden pain in them.
'Does that mean – that Paris is closed to me? That I must live in exile?'
'That's a funny word for an
