The shadow of the eagle

been stronger, you are safe enough?' She looked up at him, and he saw the effort of will it cost her to set her thoughts in order. 'Or are you seeking my protection and asylum in England?'

She almost laughed. 'Talleyrand ... Protection ... ? Ah, Captain Drinkwater, I can count on nothing further from the Prince de Benevento, nor would I presume,' she paused for a moment, appearing briefly confused. Then she drew breath and seemed to steel herself, resuming in a harsher tone. 'M'sieur le Prince prefers the Duchesse de Courland these days, but I have not come here to beg favours, but to warn you. King Louis may have returned, but his presence in France guarantees nothing; France is in turmoil. Three weeks ago the senate which Napoleon had created passed a resolution which blamed the Emperor for all of France's misfortunes. The Prince de Benevento, as head of the provisional government, has himself resolved to have the Emperor exiled. The Iles d'Azores have been suggested, as has your Ile de Sainte Helene. Caulaincourt has been running back and forth between Talleyrand and the Tsar as an intermediary.'

'And how are you and I involved in this negotiation between the Tsar Alexander and Talleyrand? You did not come here in the middle of the night to tell me what I may read in the newspapers in London? They also mentioned Elba.'

'Pah, d'you think that a likelihood? Why, it is too close to France and too close to Tuscany. Austria will not wish to have the Emperor so close.'

'Your Emperor is the son-in-law of the Austrian Emperor.'

'That counts for nothing. Elba is but a ruse, though the world thinks the matter will rest there ...'

'And you think otherwise?'

'Captain, I know otherwise.' The vehemence in her tone was a warning of something to follow. Drinkwater struggled to clear his tired brain.

'I can think of nowhere better than a more remote island such as you have mentioned if the late Emperor is to maintain some dignity. Otherwise I imagine it is not beyond the wit of your new Bourbon master to find an oubliette for him.'

'But Captain Drinkwater, do you think he will remain long on an island? Have not your English newspapers been saying otherwise?'

'He will be guarded by a navy whom he has compelled to master the techniques of blockade duty. I think your Emperor would find it very hard to escape ...'

'What will your navy employ, Captain,' she broke in, the wine reviving her spirits as she warmed to her argument, 'a brace of frigates?'

The sarcasm in her tone as she guyed the English sporting term was clear. There was a sparkle in the green eyes that suddenly lit her face with the animated and terrible beauty he both admired and feared.

Drinkwater shrugged. 'Peut-être...'

'Perhaps,'

Hortense Santhonax scoffed, 'do you think you can cage an eagle, Captain? Come, my friend, you have more imagination than that!'

'Then, Madame,' Drinkwater snapped back, 'speak plainly. You have not come to warn me in so circumlocutory a style without there being something you wish for ...'

The remark seemed to deflate her. Her shoulders sagged visibly as though the weight they bore was unsupportable. She raised the glass and drained it. 'You are right. I have need of your help ... There, I acknowledge it!'

Drinkwater leaned over and refilled both their glasses. 'Hortense,' he said in a low voice, 'much has lain between us in the past. We have been enemies for so long, yet you can feel easy addressing me as friend. Do you remember when I dug a musket ball out of the shoulder of the Comte de Tocqueville aboard the Kestrel? I can see you now, watching me; I felt the depth of your hatred then, though I cannot imagine why you felt thus. Since that time I acknowledge I might have earned your hate, but I think you have come here because you trust me. And, in a strange sense, despite past events, I find myself trusting you.' He reached out and touched her lightly on her shoulder. 'Please do go on.'

She gave so large a sigh that her whole body heaved and when she looked up at him her fine eyes were swimming in tears.

'Yes, I remember the cabin and the wound ... I remember you drinking brandy as you bent over De Tocqueville with a knife, but I do not remember hating you. Perhaps my terror at escaping the mob, of having abandoned everything ...' She sighed and shrugged, sipping at her glass. 'But I know you to be a man of honour and that you will not abuse the confidence I bear.' She took a gulp of the wine and went on. 'When it was known in Paris that the British ships which would escort the Bourbon back to France included the Andromeda commanded by Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater, I knew also that our lives were destined to touch at least once more.' She paused a moment, and then resumed. 'When we last met in Hamburg, I asked you if you believed in providence; do you remember what you said?'

'I imagine I answered in the affirmative.'

'You said the one word, 'implicitly'.'

'Did I? Pray continue,' he prompted gently.

'I also learned that you had foiled Marshal Murat's plans by stopping the shipping of arms from Hamburg to America ...'[6]

'May I ask how?'

'Captain Drinkwater, you are a senior officer in the English navy, yet', she gestured round her, 'this is only a frigate. And I know it to be an old and ill-used frigate.'

'You are remarkably well informed.'

'It is also known in Paris that you have had much to do with secret and especial services. Is that not so?'

'Yes, it is true. It is also true that I took over from Lord Dungarth, but my present command ...' It was Drinkwater's turn to shrug; he was too keenly aware of the irony to offer a full explanation, and let the matter rest upon implication.

'Your appearance here off Calais is providential not only for myself and for France, but for the peace of Europe.'

Drinkwater was suddenly weary. What had the woman come for? He sensed some mystery but so preposterous a claim seemed to be verging on the hysterical, just when the abdicated Napoleon Bonaparte was to be mewed up on a remote island.

'I see you are growing tired, Captain ...'

'No, no ...' he lied.

'I must perforce beg you, as a man of influence, sir, to grant me a small comptence if I reveal what I know'

'Competence? You mean a pension?' So that was what it was all about! Here before him, one of the most beautiful women in Europe was begging. She was one piece of the human flotsam from the wreckage of Bonaparte's empire. He felt meanly disappointed, as though her presence here on this night should have some nobler motive. 'So, you have come to trade.'

'I have almost nothing, Captain, and I must look to the magnanimity of my enemies and the honour of a man I have always thought of as a true spirit, wherever our respective loyalties have led us in these past years. I should hate you for what you did to my husband, but Edouard would have killed you ...'

'He tried, several times, Hortense ...'

Ashamed of his meanness, he felt a great pity for her. She would not be the only casualty in the fall of France. Though he had been a consistent enemy of his sovereign's enemies, he had often, in the privacy of his own thoughts, admired the establishment of a new order. The regal buffoonery of the preceding day had reminded him of the craziness of the world.

'Pray let us terminate the reminiscences, Hortense, they are painful for both of us. Do I understand you wish me to have you a pensioner of the British government?'

'Please ...' There was no denying the extremity to which the woman was reduced.

'Sadly, you are unlikely to believe me when I say I am of little influence and certainly quite incapable of finding the support which would gain you such a living ...'

'I don't ask for very much, Nathaniel; fifty pounds per annum, enough to keep me from the gutter ... forty