King, Ship, and Sword

years ago! So everyone can applaud and fawn and simper about what good friends we and the sanglants now are! Within the reach of a dagger to Bonaparte, within a point-blank shot of a hidden pistol!'

'Are they mad?' Fourchette exclaimed.

'Non, Fourchette… deluded by their own foolishness,' Fouchй accused, eyes darting about the room for something he could smash, and not regret later. 'Suddenly, it all makes sense, that this man is a spy, an assassin sent to destroy our head of government, and start the overthrow of the Republic! If the salaud did have a hand in the assassination of the Tsar, last year…! The faithless, perfidious British have sent him to do this.'

'Uhm, citoyen… how might he plan to escape, once the deed is done?' Fourchette pointed out after a brief, quiet moment. 'And would a man, even a mad Anglais, endanger his wife, as well? If she is here in Paris, will she not be presented with him? I do not see how anyone could be ordered to face certain death for both himself and his woman. And for England to envision such an act, hein? Surely, they know it would mean immediate war.'

'Which they might be planning on,' Fouchй hotly rasped. 'Their army and navy might even now be mobilised, just waiting for news of the success of their murder!'

'Have we seen any sign of that, citoyen?' the more practical spy suggested. Fourchette suspected that Fouchй saw plots where he'd put plots were he in their enemies' shoes, and had spent so many years at sniffing out opposition where there really was no opposition, that he had become as fixated as that dйbile old sailor, Choundas.

Despite what Fourchette publicly espoused about the Revolution and the Republic, he was too pragmatic a fellow to give heart and soul completely; such sentiments-for a fellow who held very few sentiments- were the social oil necessary to keep his delightful career, and gain him plum assignments which guaranteed his steady rise in the Police Nationale. The Committee of Public Safety, the Directory, the Triumvirate, and now the First Consul, Hell… they could bring back a king, an emperor, and he could really care less.

Fouchй, though, Fourchette considered; he owed his life to the continued good health and firm grip on power of his master, Napoleon Bonaparte. Fouchй was his man… for as long as it looked like Bonaparte held sway. After that, perhaps he would jump ship and espouse another leader, but… for now, Fouchй would go to any lengths to protect the fellow. Too devotedly, too slavishly, Fourchette thought him. A cool head was needed here.

'This gars Lewrie wishes to present captured swords? Let us ask for them to be held by the Ministry of Marine 'til the levee,' he breezily advised his chief. 'Before the presentation, call the fellow aside and check him for weapons. What can he do after that, leap and try to strangle the First Consul, hein? In the meantime, I will keep him under the strictest surveillance, and look into anyone that Lewrie speaks to… for any connexion to reactionary elements, n'est-ce pas?'

'One to keep watch on will be his former lover, the owner of a parfumerie in the Place Victor, a woman… '

'Well, I should hope so,' Fourchette japed, 'though so many Englishmen prefer boys.'

'This is no laughing matter, Fourchette,' Fouchй cautioned him. 'A Citoyenne Phoebe Aretino. She fled Toulon aboard his ship as our army re-took the city, fled good Republicans with aristos. In fact, assign one of your men to look into her, no matter whether this fumier contacts her or not.'

'I will do so, Citoyen Fouchй,' Fourchette vowed, and, departed, after stubbing his cigarro out on the fireplace surround. And wondering, if the woman had been Lewrie's lover, would she be entertaining enough and pretty enough to interview himself?

BOOK III

Their hearts battered by this din.

Were torn in two and much afraid.

Flightby land, said one…

The sea is better, said another.

GAIUS PETRONIUS,

THE ROAD TO CROTУN, 330-33

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Napoleon Bonaparte, all-conquering general and the First Consul of France, always rose at dawn, when the brain was keenest. After one cup of tea in his bedroom, he spent an hour in the marble bath tub, in water kept so hot that Constant, his valet who read the morning papers to him, sometimes had to open a door and duck out into the hallway to escape the thick, foggy steam.

'… at the levee this afternoon, the First Consul will receive an embassy from Great Britain, represented by chargй d'affaires Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton, escorting Capitaine de Vaisseau Alan Lewrie of His Britannic Majesty's Navy, and his lady…,' Constant intoned.

'A prissy, primping pйdй' Bonaparte grumbled. 'A shit in silk stockings. They send me titled boy-fuckers, not a real ambassador… and how long has it been since the peace was ratified? Even though my man, Andrйossy, has been named to them for months? This salaud's old sword had been found?'

'It has, First Consul,' Constant told him. 'Rustam has it.'

'Well, let me see the damned thing,' Bonaparte snapped. Usually his steaming bath relaxed him immensely and eased his constant problem of needing to pee, yet being unable for long, impatient minutes. But today, it was one vexation after another.

Rustam, his Mameluke servant brought back from his Egyptian Campaign, stepped closer, dressed in magnificent native garb, holding out a scabbarded sword. 'Cleaned and polished, General,' Rustam assured.

A hanger-sword, no grander than the sabre-briquet a Grenadier of the Guard might carry on his hip: royal blue scabbard with sterling silver fittings, its only decorative touches being a hand-guard shaped like a sea-shell, silver wire wound round its blue shark-skin grip, and a matching sea-shell catch on the throat to fit it into a baldric, or a sword belt. The pommel was the usual lion's head, also in silver.

'And where the Devil did I get it? Remind me, Constant,' Napoleon demanded. Young General Bonaparte had always awed his troops with a steel-trap memory for names, ranks, faces, and past heroic deeds… Unknown to them was his preparation, and prompting by officers on his staff to provide those names, ranks, and deeds.

'Toulon, towards the end of our siege, First Consul,' Constant read from notes made in Napoleon's own hand in the inventory of his personal armory. 'The British officer was in command of a commandeered French two-decker, lowered by one deck and converted to a mortar ship. She was shelling Fort Le Garde, quite successfully, until you gathered General La Poype's heavy artillery and shelled her in return, scoring a direct hit and blowing her up.'

'Ah, oui… now I remember.' Napoleon brightened up, enjoying the memory. 'The survivors swam ashore, and we rode down to take them prisoner. The officer…?'

'Lewrie, General,' Constant provided. 'Your note says that despite your offer of parole, he preferred to surrender his sword and go with his men.'