The Eagle and the Viper: A Novel of Historical Suspense

I

NIVOSE

(Month of Snow)

1

This is no work for a soldier, said Saint-Réjant. I joined the army to get out of farming.

Did you gripe this much in the army? Carbon asked.

Only until they made me a general.

You’d enjoy the work better if you’d served aboard ship. Once you’ve survived battle with the enemy, the sea offers you a second chance to die.

It wouldn’t make me any more wet.

The rain had begun at dusk and settled into a monotonous drizzle, icy and glutinous. It dripped off their slouch brims, their noses too, and the ropy mud of the boulevard clung to their boots and made them heavy as sledges. It turned a level stretch into an uphill climb.

The date was 24 December, 1800 (4 Nivose, Year VIII by the Revolutionary calendar). Traffic was heavy, despite the weather. France had cut the heads off priests and abolished religion, but after a dozen years of austerity, Parisians insisted on celebrating Christmas Eve. Twice now, Carbon had almost been run down by carriages bearing drunken revelers toward the Rue Saint-Nicaise. After the second near miss he’d cajoled Saint-Réjant and Limoëlan to step down from the cart and help him lead the lame, wind-broken mare.

Carbon, a naval veteran, and one admittedly inclined toward recklessness for the sheer thrill of it, nevertheless considered his companions bad risks. Saint-Réjant, most recently a common bandit, had found that occupation more to his liking than his late service to the King, at the expense of his commitment to the Cause, and Limoëlan’s lust for vengeance was the very thing that had led the despised regicides to ruination. If this plan had a flaw, it was his partners.

Shit! Limoëlan stepped in a hole, turning his ankle and slamming him shoulder-first against the cart. It lurched. Something heavy shifted under the sodden pile of hay.

Carbon snatched his arm. Watch your step, ass! You want to blow us all to ashes?

A week earlier, on 17 Frimaire (December 17 to the rest of Europe), a grain dealer named Lambel had admitted to his shop in the Rue Meslée a thickset man with a blond beard and a large scar above his left eye. He walked with a rolling gait that spoke of years at sea.

The man paused, breathing in the sweet smell of oats and wheat preserved in barrels; an odor the merchant himself no longer noticed. Will you hear a proposition?

That would depend on the proposition, said Lambel.

I sell textiles. I recently came into possession of a shipment of brown sugar, which I hope to barter for bolts of cloth in Brittany.

You’ll have no problem selling that lot in Paris. The women in the Tuileries would scratch out each other’s eyes for three yards of muslin. For silk they would do murder. I don’t exaggerate.

At the moment I have no way of transporting either the sugar or the cloth. I understand you have a horse and cart for sale.

I have for a fact.

Will you take two hundred francs?

I would.

Lambel was under no illusion that the man was trading in either cloth or sugar: He had been too quick to offer the money without inspecting the horse and cart. More likely his cargo was English Port, or some other product outlawed by government embargo. But the times were too uncertain to quibble over a fellow’s motives, and Marguerite, the mare, was very old and had a cataract. He helped the man with the scar hitch her up and watched him lead her out of the barn behind his place of business.

The man with the scar stopped at a wine shop, where he bought a spare Macon cask large enough to contain sixty gallons. Once again the customer explained that he intended to transport sugar. The proprietor helped him load the cask aboard the cart. From there he went to a shed he’d rented in the Rue Paradis near Saint-Lazare. He drew the doors shut, but they were joined poorly, and neighbors had a largely unobstructed view of what went on inside.

One did not trespass, of course. Was a curious fellow resident no better than a voyeur? But there were few enough entertainments at the best of times, and most of them taxed by the Republic; a free show was not a subject for question.

The spectacle taking place across the narrow street was not without curiosity. When two more men appeared and set to work reinforcing the cask with ten stout iron bands, conversing in whispers all the while, it was assumed they were brandy smugglers, hardly an unusual sight that time of year, when a dram was just the thing to drive the cold from one’s bones, even at black market prices.

The neighbors paid them little attention after that. The mystery was explained, and as for reporting the activity, there was no telling what miseries may follow any kind of contact with the authorities, however civic-minded. Madame Guillotine seldom distinguished between accuser and accused.

François Carbon was neither a cloth merchant nor a brandy smuggler, but a Brittany-born sailor who came by his fearsome scar when a line broke loose during a storm in the Channel and the frayed end struck him above the eye, gouging out flesh like a piece of grapeshot. He had no sugar in his possession. He’d trained in the proper use of firearms and explosives under Georges Cadoudal, a French Royalist who operated a camp for insurgent expatriates in England, on the estate of a British peer in sympathy with the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France. (Where, after all, might it end? George III in exile or executed, and the American parvenu Thomas Jefferson in charge of the Empire? As well a bishop!) Although still in his thirties, Carbon had seen the government of his adopted country change hands three times.

He was determined to make it four.

The two men seen working with him on the cask were Pierre Robinault de Saint-Réjant and a master cooper named Jardin, who’d been recruited to forge and fashion the iron bands. Jardin thought the cask stout enough for its purpose, the storage of wine; but a job was a job, and the man with the scar paid up front and in cash, not in promises or poultry. Saint-Réjant wore his civilian attire with the air of a uniform, snug and tidy and with nothing dangling loose, his handkerchief tucked inside his sleeve. He’d served as a divisional general under Cadoudal, and knew little of casks and cart horses.

A fourth man who visited the shed from time to time was later identified as Joseph Pierre de Limoëlan, an aristocrat who’d seen his father borne, fettered and beaten, past jeering crowds to the Place de la Revolution to have his head taken from his shoulders. Cadoudal, a conservative commander not given toward impulsive promotions, had made Limoëlan a major general after he returned from patrol swinging the head of a Jacobin leader by the hair. Individual initiative must be rewarded.

When the cooper left, Limoëlan stood watch at the door while Carbon and Saint-Réjant drew the sacking off two kegs and poured black powder into the cask, then scooped broken and jagged pieces of stone from a barrow and mixed them with the powder; to slash flesh and pulverize bone, explained Limoëlan, who’d suggested the refinement, and make as many good revolutionaries as possible.

On Christmas Eve, a street musician strummed a mandolin and sang the refrain of a Catholic hymn outlawed in 1789. He frowned at the small collection of coins in his upturned hat, slung it onto his head without spilling them, a gesture perfected through repetition, and trudged off through the drizzle. Behind him, his corner on the Place du Carrousel glimmered in the light of torches struggling against the rain in front of the Tuileries Palace. Through those same gates, eight years before, King Louis XVI’s own gunners had escorted their sovereign to his place of imprisonment, and from there to his execution.

The musician passed three men loitering beside a shabby cart piled with hay, two of them knocking their heels against the wooden wheels to dislodge mud from the soles, a third squatting to feel the fetlocks of a bay mare that didn’t look as if it would last to the end of the street.

Poor buggers, he muttered to himself. All he had to look after was his mandolin.

A patrol of National Guardsmen came along a few minutes later in their blue uniforms and shining oilcloth cloaks, observing the trio still engaged in the same activity. The heightened presence of the sentries suggested that the man in the Tuileries—no king, this, Limoëlan thought; merely a contemptible clerk appointed to govern his betters—was preparing to venture out. The plotters’ intelligence was sound.

The patrol slowed as it approached. Seized with a wicked whim, Carbon gestured with his short-barreled pipe; what the English called a bulldog.

Have you a light?

The guardsman hesitated, shook his head, and continued walking with his companions.

Was that necessary? Limoëlan was the bloodthirstiest of the three and therefore the most cautious.

I judged it so. In another moment he’d have been searching the cart. This way he knows we have nothing to hide.

What if he’d given you the light and searched it anyway?

Have you ever tried to get a spark out of flint and steel on a night like this?

You mistake audacity for valor. It will mean your death.

Sound advice from a highwayman.

Limoëlan did not respond. If this plan had a flaw, the rash sailor was it; but Carbon was in command and so he swallowed his retort. He and Saint-Réjant had spent many such a dismal night waiting to waylay coaches on the stage roads along the coast—an unbecoming pursuit for generals; but even the great causes needed financing, same as mummery shows and ladies’ wardrobes.

For Saint-Réjant, his alliance with Carbon, a sailor-adventurer unhinged from reason by a blow at sea, and Limoëlan, a fanatic who would usher in a new Reign of Terror, only with the executioners and the victims reversed in favor of the monarchy, was far from ideal. If this plan had a flaw, it was they.

The clouds were bottomless. Foul drizzle soaked the conspirators to the skin and chilled them to the bone.

Perfect weather, Limoëlan thought, for a funeral of state.

Moving quickly now before another patrol could appear, the men backed the cart into position, not quite blocking the street, but obliging any passing traffic to slow and swerve round it. Carbon and Saint-Réjant tilted the heavy cask while Limoëlan unwound the oilcloth from a twisted length of twine and inserted it in the hole drilled in the top. The fuse was impregnated with gunpowder: the fast-burning variety intended for muskets.

How much time? Saint-Réjant helped right the cask.

Carbon’s teeth ground on his pipestem. Who’s to say? The cocksucker is always early. Ask the Austrians.

I meant the fuse.

Then say what you mean. Six seconds, give or take.

Give or take what? Limoëlan asked.

Give or take the life of one Corsican more or less.

Saint-Réjant crossed himself, an automatic gesture.

Carbon smiled in the darkness. Careful, my friend. We are surrounded by atheists.

Limoëlan did not smile. In a little while they’ll be surrounding themselves.

2

"It’s Creation. Haydn’s one of your favorites, isn’t he?"

I daresay Haydn is more popular with me than I am with him, since the surrender of Vienna.

You bring politics into it only to confuse me.

Bonaparte scowled at his wife. It was the same expression he wore in Thomas Phillips’ official portrait, and in fact would wear in the hundreds to come.

In any case, he said, the composer must survive without me for one night. I’ve been up since dawn, making laws, with imbeciles to tutor me in the language. They’re essential, but no fit company for a man with even a spark of intelligence. I’ve been wailed at by castratos enough for one day.

But you’re expected at the opera! You can’t disappoint your subjects tonight of all nights.

They’re citizens, like myself, not subjects. You talk like a Royalist. And what night are you speaking of?

Christmas Eve!

Christ is in exile, haven’t you heard? It was in every broadside.

He was only pretending to be annoyed with his wife. She was at all events a pretty little thing, and especially fetching tonight, in snow-white ermine with her tiny hands buried in a muff to match, a creature impossible to hold a grudge against. He himself was in shirtsleeves. Without the high-collared tunic of rank, he might have been a common shopkeeper relaxing in his armchair at the end of a day of trading, and like any common shopkeeper, being badgered by his mate. He was six years younger than she, but looked older for his cares; it was no small thing for a man of thirty-one to govern a country.

Don’t debate with me, Bonaparte. I’m not one of the other Consuls. Your sister and Hortense have been looking forward to this evening for weeks.

Then go, with my blessing. We both know you’re quite capable of entertaining yourself without me.

As are you, my little general; your every movement is an affair of state, and widely reported. But you’ll find this a pleasant distraction.

They were in the drawing room, where he’d retired after bolting supper: Versailles dining, with its endless courses and meandering conversation, broke his patience. Logs chuckled on the grate: Even they were amused by his displeasure at the prospect of leaving them on such a night.

He drained his goblet and brushed uselessly at a fresh crimson spot on his white waistcoat. I see my blunder now. I opened with an argument based on exhaustion, offering my own weakness as a defense. The battle was lost before it was joined. I capitulate.

Must everything be about war?

No. Yet it is. He smiled; knowing full well the perfection of his teeth and the disaster that was hers. Don’t furrow that child’s brow with things beyond your understanding. Be quick with your toilet. I wouldn’t wait for Murad Bey, and I won’t wait for you.

She had no earthly idea who Murad Bey was, but flounced out on the heels of her victory, silk rustling against satin. Women, was there no defense against them after all these centuries? A single petticoat was worth a battery of cannon.

Fifteen minutes in his dressing room, with the expert assistance of Constant, his valet, saw him outfitted from the skin out in cologne, fresh breeches, crepe-soled pumps, Irish linen (pre-embargo), and a scarlet cloak, spun from fleece and brocaded in gold, with epaulets on the shoulders. That excellent servant adjusted his master’s bicorne hat at the preferred angle and stood back to let him regard his image in the cheval glass.

What a peacock I’ve become.

Not at all, sir. You wear your clothes like the Prince of Wales.

You alone could get away with the comparison. I cut a better figure in the rags of a half-pay general.

Shall I ask if Madame First Consul is ready to depart?

Is César ready?

Yes, Citizen Bonaparte.

She’s had a quarter-hour to powder her nose. Tell her I’ll see her in our box.

Constant bowed and withdrew. In the corridor that led to Josephine’s dressing room, he shook his head. While it was certainly true, as had been claimed, that no man is a hero to his valet, he admired his master’s ability to shatter a basic rule of marital accord with neither thought nor fear of repercussion.

César was drunk and disgruntled.

He’d been certain, despite popular expectation, that his master would be too exhausted by his labors on behalf of the people of France to venture out this evening. With no prospect therefore of leaving his quarters, the coachman had commemorated the Lord’s birth with a bottle of wine.

Now, flushed and lethargic, he buttoned himself into his greatcoat and stroked the muscular neck of the white gelding he prized above the other five in the team; above all the other horses in the world, and most men he had had the misfortune to know. (Dumb brutes, he’d found, were more pleasant company than others of his genus; for instance, they never borrowed money, nor argued politics.)

Bad news, old fellow. We go out into the worst of nights.

Mameluk tossed his head and shook his mane. He could be as irritable as his keeper and as imperious as César’s master. The horse seemed to know its own importance in the scheme of things.

The burly driver, who affected the moustaches of an old campaigner, was one of the few men living who could make a horse understand as if he spoke its language, and the only one the gelding condescended to acknowledge the fact. César poured wine from the long-necked green bottle into his palm and let Mameluk drink. After that he took the bit without resisting.

Small enough comfort, said the man, helping himself to another swig.

He dashed cold water into his face from the pump in the stable, breathed into a palm, smelled it, and frowned. He rummaged among his personal effects until he found a small sack of peppermints; a gift from the First Consul, who suffered from dyspepsia and assumed (not without justification) that the affliction was contagious among his intimates.

The coachman himself boasted a cast-iron stomach, but like most men partial to spirits he had a sweet tooth, and accepted the boon gladly. Now he helped himself to a handful, trusting pungent candy to wash his breath in the blood of the lamb.

Not that he ran risk of a sacking. He’d driven an ammunition wagon in the Marengo battle, and the First Consul knew that not a French life had been lost for want of a round in his musket.

He opened his battered footlocker, then changed his mind and tucked the sack under the footboard of the state coach instead. Beside it he placed the green bottle, securely corked. This was no night to enter without satisfactory provisions.

At the thought, César pulled at his moustaches, stimulating the faculties of memory. What was it his master was fond of repeating so often? An army travels on its stomach.

Just so; but it traveled just as far on its liver.

At last, activity took place before the palace.

Shadows crossed in front of the sputtering torches, the clink of a bit-chain and the sonorous snort of a grenadier’s horse registering its opinion of the conditions reached the ears of the three conspirators: The little cocksucker was headed out.

Carbon withdrew himself to a safe distance. Limoëlan crossed to the corner of the Place du Carrousel, leaving Saint-Réjant with the mare and cart containing its seasonal greeting. From there he could see to the end of the street. At first sight of the coach- and-six, he would signal for the fuse to be lighted.

What is the signal? he had asked.

Limoëlan had replied by inserting two fingers into his mouth and blew a note that split the ears.

A killer among killers! Between them, the others hadn’t saliva enough to raise a whistle.

Saint-Réjant, his breath smoking in the cold, stamped his feet and bent to tie the rope halter to—

What? There was no post visible in the darkness or within quest of a groping foot. None of them had thought to bring a picket.

He knew an icy thrill of panic. A fine group of assassins they were! Marguerite, the quintessential old gray mare of lore, surely would bolt when she caught the scent of a sparking fuse: She was not, after all, un cheval de combat, a warrior steed versed in the stink and racket of war. A comic-opera scene unfolded in the imagination of the unfrocked general: a bucking horse towing a burning powder keg the wrong way down the street, capturing the attention of Bonaparte’s coachman and causing him to haul back on the reins while the vessel of destruction veered away.

Quel ridicule! A man could not be expected to strike flint and steel and hold a horse at the same time. Not in broad daylight, and certainly not in a monsoon, with every limb shaking from cold and anticipation. And what of the time necessary to establish distance? He did not aspire to become a martyr to a principle; let that honor fall to the enemy.

Curse Carbon! A true general foresaw everything, and remained on post for what could not be foreseen. Saint-Réjant wondered, disloyally, if this sailor, this Channel pirate, had after taking his leave commandeered a café as his forecastle. He might be swilling buttered rum this very moment, warming his toes before a hearth, while his compatriots shivered in the cold in what were more than likely the last moments of their lives.

At that moment he heard a footfall.

In the light reflecting from a puddle, he observed a gaunt female creature approaching, huddled in a cloak and carrying a basket of coal. The cloak was threadbare, the piddling amount of fuel obviously intended for some poor hearth, witness to a household scraping to survive. Why were palaces always built in the worst neighborhoods?

But one did not question Providence.

Saint-Réjant groped in a pocket, counting coins by touch. When the girl came near, he cleared his throat politely.

"Your pardon, mademoiselle." He lifted his hat.

The girl started, stopped, withdrew into herself, as if to create a smaller target for assault. Saint-Réjant knew that two hours in filthy rain had not made of him a stranger to inspire trust. And he saw then that she was even younger than he’d thought, a girl in truth. He could be her father. Her grandfather, if he were but candid with himself; soldiers had opportunity to spread their seed earlier than most. But surely this scrawny thing could not have sprung from the loins of a