Across the Endless River (22 page)

As he and Theresa stepped back inside, he looked over his shoulder and saw the sentry at the near end relax his stance and exhale in relief.

In those first days, they walked together in the mornings under the pretext that Theresa was helping Baptiste improve his German, but once they were alone they spoke French, and told each other about their different ways of life. Baptiste looked forward to these meetings, and to the new companionship that came with Theresa's easy manner. She was unlikely ever to visit North America, she told him, and was hungry to know everything about it. How long was a canoe? What was it made of? What did they eat in the morning? How did they hunt? She felt an engaging attraction to the particulars as she tried to visualize what was so distant and so unknown.

One morning in that first week a persistent drizzle soaked the grounds of Ludwigsburg, so they couldn't talk in the outdoor room, as they had on previous days. They sat instead in one of the small salons in a distant wing of the palace. The room was a study in green, yellow, and brown: the walls were covered in light green watered silk to match the drapery, and the couches and side chairs were upholstered in a deeper emerald shade. Dark brown walnut tables, chairs, and desks swam on a lake of blond parquet, their surfaces laden with crystal bibelots that picked up the floor's fiery sheen. An elaborate gilt clock sat on a ponderous side table, two swooning female figures flanking the large white enameled face that told the passing seconds with a sharp-edged tick. Theresa stood at one of the long windows looking out on the gardens, their green a suffused luminescence that held the wet and reflected it into the room.

After he had described how
voyageurs
set their line of traps, Baptiste asked about Theresa. “Is all of your family from Württemberg?”

“My father was King Friedrich's brother—that is how Paul and I are cousins—but my mother was a French countess. She left Balleroy in
1787
, just before the Revolution, and was lucky to be out of France when it erupted. I was born here three years later. Her parents and brothers all went to the guillotine.” Baptiste thought of Picard's strange stories about the Revolution.
Everyone in this closed world of
privilege seems to have been directly affected,
he thought.

“And have you lived here all your life?”

“Heavens no!” Theresa exclaimed, turning from the window. “I married when I was sixteen. I thought you knew.”

“I knew you were a widow,” Baptiste murmured, “but I thought your husband was from here.”

“That's something else for you to learn about our tribe, Monsieur Charbonneau,” Theresa said. “The job of a titled woman is to take her dowry and marry elsewhere, cementing bonds of blood and treasure with another royal household.”

“It's not so different among the Indian tribes,” he told her.

Theresa nodded, then continued in a softer voice. “My husband was a Russian prince, a cousin of the czar. We lived in Saint Petersburg. He died at the Battle of Borodino, and I returned to Württemberg.” She paused and ran her fingers across the drapes. “Suppose you tell me how you came to live in St. Louis. Are your parents there?”

Baptiste sat on one of the long couches that flanked the interior walls of the room, and Theresa saw a vacant look in his eyes. When she said his name softly, he gave a start, as if he had just been awakened. “My parents aren't in St. Louis,” he said, and then added, “My story is very different from yours.”

“Yes, of course it is. No one chooses his parents, or his family, or where he'll be born, or any of it, really. We each have our circumstances; my cousins would call it God's choice for us, though I prefer the idea of destiny.”

Baptiste didn't respond. He stood abruptly, walked over to the clock, and grabbed its exposed pendulum. The ticking stopped and only the sound of the rain on the trees could be heard in the room. He turned to Theresa. “Why must there be so many clocks? I've counted thirty-four in this place. The sun tells you the hours without making noise. Even in the gardens, the bell tower in the courtyard makes sure you know the time.”

Theresa laughed. “My mother hated the clocks, too. Everywhere she went in the German states, she railed against them.” She crossed to the couch where he had been sitting, sat on the far end, and continued. “Thank you for stopping this one at least. Now we can enjoy the quiet. Come sit with me.” She motioned for him to join her. “Tell me about your family,” she said.

Once he was beside her, Baptiste felt less guarded. “My mother died when I was eight. Before that, I lived with her until my parents sent me to stay with Captain Clark's family in St. Louis. We were together every summer in the Mandan villages, and sometimes I made a trip there in the spring. It was her idea for me to live in St. Louis, so that I could go to a proper school and live like the white man.”

Theresa wasn't sure whether bitterness or plain regret colored Baptiste's words. “That is an extraordinary sacrifice for a mother to make. Not every woman would be capable of it.”

“Her name was Sacagawea. It means Bird Woman in Shoshone.”

“How did she come to have a name from a different tribe?” Theresa asked.

“A Hidatsa raiding party stole her from the Shoshone when she was twelve, along with several other young women and a dozen horses. They took them to their tribal lands on the Missouri, where she was traded to the Mandan.”

“Was she a slave?”

Baptiste flinched. “No! She was raised as a Mandan. Indians don't have slaves the way the white man does. If they let their captives live, they are usually well treated. You're not really an outsider, but you're not like everyone else in the tribe, either. You're always between two tribes.”

Theresa looked at him intently, captivated by what he was telling her, then asked, “Did she ever go back to her own family or tribe?”

“No,” he continued, “but when I was a baby, she and my father crossed the Rocky Mountains with Captain Clark and Captain Lewis. They bought horses from the Shoshone and my mother was their translator. Captain Clark told me he had never seen a person happier than when she was with her tribe again and found that her brother was the chief. Captain Clark asked her why she didn't return to her tribe after the expedition. She told him, ‘The path of my life has turned forever.' ”

“You went with her when she accompanied these explorers?” Theresa asked.

“Yes,” he told her. “I was born at the beginning of that expedition, and she carried me on a cradleboard for eighteen months.”

Theresa was astounded. “You mean to say that your mother carried a newborn baby across the wilds of North America and back again?”

“Yes.”

“What an extraordinary destiny for you, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau!”

They sat together quietly for a long moment. For the first time since he had arrived in Europe, he felt close to someone. With Maura, he had been excited, elated, and intrigued. With Theresa, he felt understood. Finally she asked, “Did your mother give you a Shoshone name?”

“It's Pompy. It means firstborn, or Little Chief.”

T
WENTY-TWO

“W
hy is it called La Favorite?” Baptiste held the reins of the surrey lightly in one hand and let the chestnut mare find her own pace. The sunlight streamed through the trees and dappled their faces as they rolled along the forest path.

“That depends entirely upon whom you ask.” Theresa laughed. “The official version is that this was the sovereign's favorite retreat from the cares of state. The more popular version is that our grandfather came out here for more than pheasant.”

Baptiste met Theresa's gaze. “You mean he kept a mistress right here?”

“Heavens no. She couldn't actually live here. But as a place for safe liaisons, a hunting chalet possesses every advantage that a palace does not.”

“But everyone at the palace would know.” Baptiste thought about the servants perpetually watching as they waited on him. “They're aware of every time I sneeze or go out the side gate or don't come down for breakfast.”

Theresa twirled the ribbon of her sunbonnet in her fingers as she spoke. “Everyone did know, but as long as it happened out of sight, they could pretend not to know. The fiction of the perfect king and the perfect father was maintained, and life went on as usual.”

“And nothing could change that?” Baptiste asked.

“Within boundaries. King Friedrich, my uncle and Paul's, was an effective king. In a time of terrible peril and almost constant war, he strengthened the duchy's finances, built a respected army, forged alliances to secure his borders, and even made common cause with Napoleon when it suited his interests. The result was a prosperous, secure, and respected domain. The grand duchy was transformed into a small but important kingdom when Bonaparte reorganized the German states. Friedrich made a brilliant marriage to a German princess, produced an heir, and saw him married to a daughter of the czar of Russia. He gave his daughter in marriage to Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia. After his first wife died, he married one of the daughters of the king of England. He was an astute ruler and a respected head of his family.”

“Prince Franz told me he was eccentric and intelligent,” Baptiste said.

“That is true,” Theresa responded, “but he had another side, which would have been unacceptable to his subjects had it been known. He had a passionate attraction to men, and throughout his adult life he had a series of male lovers.” The surrey rolled along soundlessly now, as if they were swimming through green-gold water. “Everyone at court knew of Uncle Friedrich's secret arrangements, but it never went beyond his closed circle. It was regarded as strictly private and it never caused a scandal.”

“So the king can do as he likes in his private life. Is that the basic rule?”

“As long as the monarch marries and produces an heir, builds a strong army, and makes his domain prosperous, no one cares who he invites into his bed.”

“So why does Paul feel constrained by this arrangement?” Baptiste asked.

“Because the court has expectations,” Theresa said. “All members of the family are expected to do their duty and fulfill their role. And Paul? No marriage, nor any prospect of one. He resigned his commission; he squanders the money he has inherited; he spends more on his travels and collections than his family is willing to pay. He doesn't abide by the rules. They call him ‘the gypsy duke.' Believe me, that is no compliment.”

The carriage emerged from the woods into a grass-covered clearing. A cobbled road led up a gradual rise to a symmetrical three-story structure. Its dark orange stucco was startling, set off with bright yellow detailing and bone white statuary. Broad staircases led to both sides of a terrace that ran the width of the second floor, whose facade was entirely made up of tall glass doors. Four squat towers loomed overhead, statues and scrollwork adorned the windows, and elaborate carved vases and finials made the structure look to Baptiste like a toy. It was as if someone had carved off a piece of the palace, added whimsical details and riotous colors, and set it down in the forest. He reined in the mare at the top of the drive.

“It looks like that dollhouse you showed me in the royal nursery,” Baptiste said.

Theresa narrowed her eyes doubtfully, inclined her head to the side, and pursed her lips for an instant. “It does, rather, doesn't it? My ancestor who built it had spent time at the court in Naples and couldn't bear to leave the colors of Italy behind. This is the result. Come, let me show you the inside.”

Baptiste tethered the horse to a bench flanking one of the staircases and they went in to the ground floor. The main hall was devoted to hunting and its paraphernalia. Two walls and parts of the ceiling were covered with racks of antlers, each mounted on an identical plaque with an engraved silver medallion listing the particulars of the hunt. Baptiste followed Theresa up a broad staircase to the main floor. The rooms here were grander, like those in the palace, intended for entertainment, with dining tables, a piano and a harp, and several gaming tables arrayed about an airy expanse. Baptiste passed over the familiar opulence of the chandeliers, the statuary, and the wall paintings to look across the dining room to a bank of windows. They gave an unparalleled view across the top of the forest, as if the room floated above the tops of trees.

Theresa motioned for him to follow. “Come,” she said over her shoulder as she disappeared through an adjacent doorway, “I'll show you something truly special.” He followed her up another staircase, which grew narrower as they climbed. He could hear the rustling of her skirts above him, but she managed to stay just out of sight until he emerged, bathed in light, into a small room that rose above the roof. They were at the top of one of the towers: the walls were made of glass, and the forest looked like a carpet you could tread upon, luxuriant and inviting.

Theresa stood at one of the windows, facing the trees. Baptiste crossed the room and stood behind her. Without thinking he put his hand on her shoulder, and it rose and fell imperceptibly with the rhythm of her breathing. His heart raced with fear and longing.
Will
she allow this? Will she turn and laugh at me?
He opened his mouth to speak, when Theresa put her hand on his and slowly turned. She raised her fingers to his cheek and drew him near. They breathed together, face to face, then their lips met. Lost in her scent, he held Theresa gently, trembling a little. She kissed his fingers, one by one, then turned to the window where they stood side by side, as if they were looking at the forest.