I spun about, flattening against the wall, wrinkling his tapestry. We stared at each other, mutually stunned. He had been in the act of knotting the belt of a satin smoking jacket around his bare chest and legs, his hair an unruly mess, and just as in the ballroom before, I was struck by the ringing of distant bells, even stronger this time. It was something in his gaze, which at this moment looked as if he might like to shoot a hole right through my head. Napoleon saw the bottle of wine at my feet, and took a step toward the bellpull.
“Wait!” I said softly.
He paused, then his dark brows contracted, and he pointed. “You are that woman. Charles’s woman. Are you not?”
There was no time to correct this or explain. He was moving again toward the bellpull. “Your Majesty,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, but the wine …”
He put his hand on the rope.
“It belongs to the empress,” I said desperately. I picked up the bottle and held it toward him. “It’s poisoned!”
“Ridiculous,” he said after a moment, hand still on the rope. But he was holding his voice low.
“Please, listen. Ben … I mean, Charles, he has …” I took a breath. “He has been poisoning the wine.” The emperor’s piercing gaze held me a moment longer, and then, instead of pulling the rope, he went back to the door he’d just come through, calling out something cheerful in German before he shut it. “How have you gotten in here, and what have you been doing to yourself?”
“There is a door, just behind me. I came through …”
“Quiet,” he commanded, whispering. I waited until he came closer to where I was standing.
“A door,” I said, my voice only just audible. “Ben has … I mean Charles, he has been coming through it to …” The empress, or I assumed it was the empress, called out something in French.
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to think how to quickly explain what I knew to be true. I said, “Is the empress well? Has she been sick?” He did not answer. “Has she always been so pale?”
“She is only a little tired, like a woman, but the doctor, he says …” The high voice trailed away.
“Arsenic,” I said. “In the claret. You do not drink it, do you, Your Majesty?”
Napoleon shook his head, eyes on the bottle in my hand. “And why …”
“He was afraid she would give you an heir.” The emperor glanced back at the closed door. “I know he was your son.”
“But … no. He could not think that. That I could …”
“He did think it.”
I could see the doubt in the emperor’s brows, in the way his head was still slowly shaking. He glanced toward the bellpull. I blurted, “And, Your Majesty, he was afraid to tell you, but … secretly, he was a Pisces.”
Napoleon stiffened.
“Replace the wine. I was trying to take this one away because it was unsealed, but I would pour all of it out. And anything that touches her skin: powders, lotions, face paint. I think you will find that she feels better. But … I really must go. Will you let me go?”
“Where is Charles?” he said slowly.
“He’s … he is dead. I’m sorry.”
I watched the play of emotions on the emperor’s face. “How …” he began, but he looked me over again and seemed to change his mind. I’d almost forgotten the soreness at the corner of my mouth, and wondered if he could see the bruising. And then he said inexplicably, “His … mother … she was an actress.”
I think my mouth made the shape of an O, though the sound did not come out. The emperor stared at the thick golden rug, where I had left some horrible footprints, thinking. Was there someone trustworthy he could have escort me out, or would he give me time to find the latch I knew must be there?
And at that moment, almost helpfully, the door behind me opened. The tapestry was pushed aside and Lane Moreau had a hand on my arm, ready to yank me to the safety of the stairs. And then he saw the emperor.
If something in Napoleon’s expression had rung familiar to me before, now it was as if the bells of Notre- Dame were chiming in my head. How had I not seen? The beard, and the rumpled hair heightened the similarity, but it was the eyes, that same gray, unpredictable stare that could bottle up a moment and somehow keep it twice as long. I gasped, as if I’d been struck. The bodies were different, but I saw the same nose, the same mouth, the same shape of the brows. It couldn’t be, and yet it was.
The emperor had taken half a step back, his expression confused, dazed, and then stricken. His own gray eyes sought mine for explanation, and I shook my head, my face possibly more shocked than his. But by the end of this look if we had not reached an exact understanding, we had at least exchanged significant information. I had not known, the emperor had not known, and the man in the doorway still knew nothing. Lane seemed to be vacillating between starting a conversation or a fistfight, or just yanking me straight into the passage and slamming the door. A querulous voice called from the other room.
“Your Majesty,” I whispered, “we must go. Please. Board up the door.”
He nodded. I moved, glancing again at Lane to mouth, “Go!” He began backing slowly down the stairs, out of the emperor’s sight.
“Wait!” the emperor said. I was already down a stair, my hand on the door latch. “Tell me your name. I do not remember. Please!”
I opened my mouth, then shook my head. “Go!” I mouthed again at Lane. Joseph had come up behind him, pulling on his arm.
“Please,” the emperor said, lowering his voice even further, “what is his name? Where does he live?”
I hesitated, looking down the stairs. Lane was fighting Joseph’s pull, beckoning to me.
“Is it England?” the emperor begged. “Please!”
I turned back to Napoleon and shook my head. The empress’s voice was now calling from just behind the other door.
“Here,
“Katharine!” Lane whispered.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and shut the door fast, making the emperor leap out of the way. I knew he would not be able to find the latch.
“What is happening?” Henri asked. We’d come scurrying down the stairs with no explanation other than Lane’s order to run. And so we were, stumbling in the light of one candle down the passage as fast as Uncle Tully could go.
“Oh, nothing much,” Lane replied. “Katharine just decided to run up the stairs and have a little chat with the half-naked bloody tyrant of France!”
Henri’s dark eyes slid to me, as surprised as I’d ever seen them, and Joseph frowned while my uncle panted happily. “I waited for eleven, little niece. Almost twelve!”
I couldn’t answer any of them, for the moment I couldn’t even explain. My mind was still reeling.
“Can we get out?” Henri asked Lane.
“If they get into the tunnel before we get to the end, they will see the light,” he panted, struggling with his grip on the crate. They were carrying it between them. “The passage is a straight line. But if we can get to the end and through, then they might turn the wrong way. I would send men both ways, so I would reckon it depends on whether the emperor bothers to dress himself first.”
I comforted myself with the difficulty of finding that latch. But if we were caught and arrested, the result was going to be very different from what Lane expected. Disastrously so. This would be a blow to him, a blow to his very core. I willed Uncle Tully’s feet to go a little faster. We needed to disappear. All of us.
A distant
