A Jester’s Fortune

general had had enough. Four days of marching almost without sleep, all across the foothills of the Ap-penines and the Alps, through narrow passes, along winding tracks in the mountains-horse, artillery and foot. And he'd fought battles so often, he'd lost count, though Berthier had it all written down. Won them all, routed them, stampeded them, slain them or took them prisoner. And still, Victor Amadeus the sleepy-called King of the Dormice for constantly nodding off in public-that vain bigot, champion of a new Bourbon monarch on the throne of France, that vicious old beast who'd revived the Inquisition against his own people, whinnied and shivered in dread of his folly, not a day's march away, and tried to negotiate favourable terms for himself! As if doing France the favour!

General Bonaparte yawned in their faces, then drew out his watch.

'… so you see, Your Excellency, the terms are so harsh,' Signore Costa carped, pausing for a moment when he saw that this young

Frenchman wasn't listening. 'To take the fortress of Cuneo, the key to our whole Alpine frontier, as well… along with the monetary demands-'

'Since drawing the document of armistice up, Signore,' Bonaparte snapped in good Italian, 'I've also captured Cherasco, Fossano and Alba. I've broken your army, broken your line at the River Tanaro and stand on the River Stura here at Cherasco. You ought to consider my demand moderate. It is now one in the morning, signores. I have ordered an attack across the Stura, to begin in one hour. At two, my armies,' he lied most plausibly, looking red-eyed, haggard and remorseless, as unkempt and grumpy as a fiend from Satan denied blood, 'march. And then, with no forces worth the name to oppose me, I will be in Turin tomorrow night. Where there will be no negotiating.'

'Signore general, Your Excellency,' Costa de Beauregard whined with his hands out in supplication. 'Sacred honour was pledged, to the Austrians, the British… to stand by them-'

'Yet where are they, to stand by you, hem?' Bonaparte sneered. 'Hard to stand, on your knees, under a heavier yoke than this I offer. Your answer. Accept my terms now-or nothing later.'

Salier bowed his head, almost in tears. Costa looked at him and nodded his sad assent, as well. 'Very well, Excellency. We will sign.'

'Bon!' Napoleon Bonaparte nodded with them, grunting a tired but satisfied sound. Yet he then sprang from his elegant gilded chair at once, calling for coffee, as if his bone-weariness had been a sham. He went to a farther, smaller salon where his maps had been set up.

He allowed himself a wolfish smile, now his back was turned to those groveling Piedmontese envoys. Piedmont was his, just as he had schemed, their army and their will to fight crushed. The Austrian, Beaulieu, of the much- vaunted but slow-mincing 'best army in Europe,' had been gulled into taking his bait. His demand for free passage in the Genoese Riviera had, naturally, been told to the Austrians by the Genoese, and Beaulieu had come too far south, dividing that mightier combined army into eatable pieces. And Bonaparte had whirled between them, outflanking, out-marching, bloodying their noses in turn, destroying the corps each had sent to aid the other. Now Beaulieu was scrambling, faithlessly abandoning his allies, rushing for fortified Alessandria, taking the fastest roads to end up, Bonaparte was mortal certain, at the Austrian Archduchy of Milan's most powerful border fortress, that brooding monster at Pavia. Without having to enter Turin or force a crossing of the Stura, he could now wheel east and harry his rear and flanks before Beaulieu reached it. Send Massena, Augereau, or Serurier down to demonstrate before Pavia, and hoodwink him again! General Bonaparte had always loved maps, along with mathematics. Precise maps, over which he could feel he soared like an omnipotent bird of prey, feeling every rise, every defile, every spot where troops could be hidden behind a fold, every possible place of ambush, like an eagle might ride an updraft. Pavia was far too strong, would result in weeks of siegework, and he didn't have the manpower or the time for such. A Royalist French Army had broken itself there long before, against an Austrian threat, and a French king, Francois I, had ended imprisoned. But there was a way across the Po River, at a place that would out-flank Beaulieu one more time, catch him wrong-footed, and let him threaten Milan itself. He ran his finger down the line of the Po to Piacenza. Maillebois s French Army had crossed that far downstream, just there at Piacenza, in 1746. A day's rest, a chance for his footsore army to loot more boots, grain and wine from the Piedmontese, and he would be off. Off on another lightning-quick march, and turn the Austrians' flanks, force them off the Ticino River, out of Pavia… or lose the garrison they left behind, after he'd beaten the field armies.

And the way was straight; the ground was good. Lovingly, his forefinger traced the topography, the turns in the roads, the rises of hills and the steep defiles of creeks that fed the Po. Few men had The Sight he knew he did. Very few commanders could form a vision of the ground from a map, as if they'd walked it from a common soldier s level. Not many knew how steep and demanding a hill without ever first seeing it; could spot, as if inspired, where guns should go to support attack; or sweep the only route a foe would have for a counterattack. It was, to General Napoleon Bonaparte, such a simple, instinctive thing, to have this Sight. And he was sure after only a few days' manoeuvring that neither his opponent Marshal Beaulieu, nor any of his lesser corps commanders had it.

'Excuse me, mon gйnйral,' Junot yawned. 'They've signed. Piedmont is ours. And a courier has come from Commissioner Saliceti. He's on his way and will arrive around dawn, the courier estimates.'

'Hah,' Bonaparte grunted, abandoning his map, letting it curl back up like a loose sausage. 'Saliceti.'

The army's chief representative from the Directory was a criminal, a vainglorious coxcomb. His uniform was grander than Bonaparte's, replete with red-and-white sash, bullion-trimmed, and he sported a hat so aswim in dyed feathers he could be seen from a newfangled kilometer away. Saliceti would come, like it was he who was the conqueror, with purse and saddlebags open to scoop up the loot that Bonaparte amassed for him. A part of it, the young general suspected, never made it to Paris's coffers, but stuck to Saliceti's grubby fingers, too! He'd not made things so harsh for the Piedmontese they'd keep their backs up, after all. He'd omitted to list specific paintings, statues and valuables from Victor Amadeus's palace that Paris had wished 'for the enjoyment of the French people.' Or so the Directory claimed. There was sure to be a row over those. Well, then, so be it. He had a war, his war, to fight-his way. Let the civilians squabble over the remains of his victories.

'Anything from Paris?' Bonaparte asked hopefully.

'Nothing, sir,' Junot had to admit. Nothing from the Directory, certainement; but that meant nothing for the general from his wife, the incomparable Josephine, either. Junot almost scuffed the toes of his elegant high boots in chagrin. The general wrote her daily, yet there were entire weeks between her replies.

'All, well,' Bonaparte sighed, not showing his disappointment. 'The envoys have their coffee?'

'Out, mon gйnйral.' Junot brightened. 'Though they might have felt insulted. We only had the poor cups from your portmanteau, with the brass army spoons.'

'A smaller equippage than when I was an artillery officer,' the young general said, feeling full of energy once more. 'A tale to tell them, I think. I've made rough notes for the army's movements in the morning. Flesh them out for Berthier to pass on. A requisition upon Cherasco for eight thousand rations, four thousand bottles of wine, and for every civilians' boots. You must have it copied and passed to the town council at once. Along with the usual warning about resistance from the populace, in any form. Reissue my caution to the troops about rape, pillage I or indiscriminate looting, of course.'

'Oui, mon gйnйral,' Junot sighed, knowing he would be robbed of even a tiny nap the rest of the night and would slave far into a new day.

'… clerks to copy the route-marches for the day after, with a map of the roads to Piacenza for each chief of division,' Napoleon rattled on, striding back towards the larger salon. 'And invent for me a proclamation… to the people of Italy. Of Italy, mind, not the principalities, hein? Mention respect of property, of their religion and customs, and blah-blah-blah. To placate them. And stir up those who dream of unifying the whole peninsula. Even if it will be unified under French rule, Junot' Bonaparte snickered cynically. 'Something about us, uhm… waging war with generous hearts, in there somewhere.'

'Generous hearts, oui, mon general.' Junot scribbled hastily, pacing alongside his shorter bantam-roosterish commander.

'… only against tyrants who seek to enslave us, not the common people… against all tyrants. That