Leopard in Exile (11 page)

where we may get them."

It was purely a bluff, of course, but he and Rutledge were both well-dressed, and French fashion was not

so far from that of England as to render them completely outlandish.

Wessex headed for the
Palais de l'Homme
.

The imposing and dignified old building—nursery to kings—resembled a harlot bedecked to ply her

trade, its upper stories swagged in colored bunting while the Emperor's banners—the crested "N," the

stylized honeybees—belled in the hot breeze created by the clusters of burning torches. Guardsmen in

fantastic uniforms more suited to a Vauxhall rout stood at stiff attention, the blades of their sabres

glittering in the firelight.

"How are we going to get in there?" Rutledge asked hopelessly.

"By behaving as if we belong," Wessex said calmly. "So many freakish things happen in Paris these days

that no one can say what is
convenable
and what is not."

"But what about—"

"As for M'sieur Talleyrand, he is unlikely to be in his chambers at this hour. The man is a notorious rake,"

Wessex said disapprovingly. "Now come! With courage and luck, we will be on our way to the convent

by midnight."

The bluff got them through the gates and into the
Palais
itself. The most Wessex hoped for was to be

given a few minutes alone in a room while the guard sent for someone in authority, but as he and Rutledge

followed a uniformed soldier through the twisting back-passages of the Palais, Wessex found that his luck

was still with him in a most unexpected fashion.

"Here, fellow! Where are you taking those men?"

It was a hussar—one of the
Garde Polonaise
, by his uniform—in full fig and a fiery temper. Ferocious

auburn moustaches and flowing sideburns concealed most of his features, and the brim of his shako was

tipped roguishly forward. His leopard-skin was slung off one shoulder to make way for the enormous

gilded wings that threatened every movable object in his vicinity.

"I—Sir, I—It is a matter of National Security," the guardsman said. "Citizen Vidoq and his

assistant—Citizen LeCarre—are demanding to see Minister Talleyrand. And they have no papers."

"What?" the hussar demanded haughtily. "The insolence of it! Return to your post—I will handle this

matter myself."

"But—" the corporal began.

"Go. You fool, this touches upon the honor of France!"

The guardsman cast one last terrified look in Wessex's direction, saluted smartly, and left at a near-run.

"It helps that they think we are all mad," Koscuisko announced conversationally. "In the devil's name,

man, what are you doing here? Do you know I've orders to see you dead or in London?"

"Interesting," Wessex said noncommittally. He'd known Misbourne wanted to keep him home, but he

hadn't expected to be hunted so ardently by his own people. He cast an eye up and down the deserted

hallway. No doubt Koscuisko was trying to decide where to take them. Well, that was something

Wessex wondered himself.

Koscuisko made a face of dismay. "It's more than interesting—it's a disaster! Whatever am I to do with

you, m'lord? And who the devil is this fellow?" he demanded.

"Allow me to present a colleague of ours from London," Wessex said.

Koscuisko drew himself up very tall and clicked his heels. "Captain Jerzy Kouryagin of the
Garde

Polonaise
, at your service," he said formally, making a short sharp bow. He shot another puzzled glance

at Wessex as he straightened.

"Blackmailed into coming to Paris to rescue his daughter," Wessex explained laconically. "The Black

Pope is getting lazy in his dotage. He asks his victims to come to him."

"And you came along to rescue him. And now I'm to rescue you both. Ah, well, I was getting bored with

Army life," Koscuisko said philosophically.

Freed from the need to blend into Court life inconspicuously, Koscuisko was prepared to provide

abundantly—and been just as appalled as Wessex at the thought of the White Tower's Number Two on

the loose in France.

"Warltawk arranged it, but I don't know how much he knew. I suspect our mole knew I was getting

close and put up Rutledge to lead me off the scent," Wessex said.

"Or to make it look as if you were the garden pest yourself. It's unlike our master to have colleagues who

can be so easily leveraged."

Koscuisko had disclosed the details of the "All Agents" bulletin that had come through Paris Station:

Wessex knew that there would be a reckoning to settle, but not for the first time he blessed the fact that

Koscuisko was something of a loose cannon. The volatile Pole was entirely capable of ignoring orders

from London if he did not feel like following them. Apparently he did not feel like following these, but

Wessex knew he was still in danger from any of the other agents the White Tower might have in France.

Luck had been with him—extraordinary luck, in fact—but now their only safety lay in speed.

"He undoubtedly thought it was a sustainable risk. The girl was safe in holy orders, after all. We'll need

four sets of papers, one set for a girl named Marie Celeste.
Sister
Marie Celeste, of the Convent of the

Sacred Heart."

Koscuisko stared at him. "Wessex, it's bad enough I'm letting you live. Do you actually mean to say we

are on our way to kidnap a
nun
?"

His partner smiled. "You'll manage. Think of England."

"Misbourne would give his eyeteeth to see this," Wessex said a quarter of an hour later.

"Ah, well. I dare say he'll see it in Heaven, for we certainly won't get out of here alive to present it to

him."

The three of them stood in the Holy of Holies—the private chambers of the Black Pope himself. As

Wessex had predicted, it was untenanted at this hour, and it had been easy enough to get in—the

Imperial Guard were convinced that no one without the authority would dare. And considering the death

that would await a transgressor, Wessex supposed that most people would not.

But if they were to reach the Convent of the Sacred Heart they needed travel papers that would be

unquestioned—and the only place they could reach that held the proper stamps and seals was

Talleyrand's own office.

The desk and the safe had been locked, of course. But neither mechanism had withstood Koscuisko's

clever fingers. The Polish hussar had removed the more ornate portions of his uniform and stuffed them in

a closet. They should serve to baffle the Jacks when the break-in was found.

Now Koscuisko labored carefully with pen and inks as Wessex and Rutledge ransacked the files. The

most sensitive stuff would not be here, of course, but even what they could find was a feast for British

Intelligence.

"Hullo." Wessex was mildly surprised. "It says here d'Charenton's been confirmed governor of

Louisianne. Why is that, do you suppose?"

"Court gossip says it is to punish the
Occidenteaux"
Koscuisko said abstractedly. "It is more likely he

will drive them into open rebellion, and we shall have new allies."

"D'Charenton hasn't held a government post in years. He's more valuable to Bonaparte as a sorcerer,"

Wessex said, frowning. He passed the papers to Rutledge.

"There have been rumors about the reason for his posting, but to find them confirmed…" Rutledge said

slowly. "Dear God, I had never imagined things to have progressed so far!"

The tone of his voice caused even Koscuisko to look up from his work.

"Perhaps you had better not say anything more, my lord." He did not know who Rutledge was, but that

he was here at all in Wessex's company argued that he held a high place in the shadow world of political

agents.

"No. I know very well that your duty is to keep me from falling into the hands of the French by any

means. But this information must reach London at any cost, and so I must disclose to you more than it is

good for you to know. For many years there has been a kind of… truce in effect upon the battlefields of

the Continent. Bonaparte's generalship has been terrifying, but it has been wholly mortal. He has never

brought the
Art Magie
onto the battlefield. And so we have refrained from doing so as well, for if by our

arts we were to intrude our quarrel into the Unseen World, the consequences would be destruction on ah

unimaginable scale. But we believe that he now intends to do so."

"How?" Wessex asked. He had only a gentleman's acquaintance with the
Art de Haut Magie
and a

nobleman's knowledge of the Oldest People, nothing more. But even Wessex knew that magic was a

fickle thing, as likely to fail as to work its weavers' will, and that to call upon the Great Powers was not to

command them.

"There are certain… Hallows. Objects that are not of mortal creation, or which have been infused with

Divine power. Their guardianship is a sacred trust; many such are guarded still, in places far from this.

But of them all, the most ancient, the most sacred, is the Holy Grail.

"Hugh de Payens was led to it in 1188. For many years he and his brethren kept it safe, but Philip le Bel,

hearing word of the treasure, desired it for his own, because of the legend that to bring the Grail onto any

battlefield ensures victory for him who wields it. To keep it safe, Jacques de Molay sent the Grail, with

other treasures the Order had in keeping, to safe harbor in Scotland. But the fleet never reached our

shores. It vanished, and the Grail with it.

"When the New World was discovered, it was speculated that those lands might have become the

destination of the Templar fleet instead, and those who succeeded the Templars have searched New

Albion as they were able, seeking the Grail. If Bonaparte is sending his demonolator to the New World,

it must mean he, too, realizes the Grail must be there, and is seeking it out."

"And if he seeks it, he means to use it," Wessex finished slowly. "And that means that if he is balked of

this achievement, he will only move on to another." And if mat were so, this war that had taxed England

for so many long years was about to become terrible beyond imagining.

"Ah. There we are." Koscuisko got to his feet, blowing upon the last of four sets of documents to dry it

"Shipshape and Bristol fashion, as
le mode Anglais
would have it." He held out the papers to Wessex,

and only then took in the expression on the Duke's face.

"Is something wrong?"

An hour later three men in dark cloaks rode eastward out of Paris. There was considerable traffic on the

Lyons road, but the passes they carried had been signed by Talleyrand himself—or at least, would pass

for that under the eyes of anyone but the Black Pope himself. And if that were not enough, they had

brought a goodly number of his personal papers with them as well. It was best Koscuisko had said

wisely, to make things a hanging offense immediately, to save their enemies the trouble of inventing

charges. Accustomed to his partner's fey wit Wessex had not risen to the lure.

They reached the convent just after first light It was an odd thing, Wessex reflected, to see an

establishment of religion here in Imperial France. Hie Revolution had been based upon sweeping all such

institutions away—Church, Crown, even the very calendar—and at the beginning of his rise to power the

First Consul had sworn to uphold the ideals of the Spirit of '89. But the Corsican Beast was a pragmatist

after all, and the Church would make an uncanny enemy. And so Napoleon had ignored the communities

of religious that had survived, and had tacitly resumed communication with Rome. France had been a

Catholic nation ever since the Legions withdrew from the West; her excesses and her perversions were

all cut from that same seamless cloth. She would go atheist, but never Protestant.

The convent building showed the scars of anticlerical feeling—the statue of the Virgin which had stood

outside its gates was chipped and battered, and the high stone walls were scarred by fire and defaced

with paint—but the thick wooden gates were solid and unbroached.

"Now how do we get past those?" Koscuisko murmured quizzically. He had shaved off the sideburns

and moustaches that would instantly betray him as a military man, and his glossy chestnut hair was

clubbed severely back. He looked like a wayward scholar.

"I imagine," Wessex said, "that we knock."

Leaving Koscuisko to hold the horses, Wessex and Rutledge approached the gate. A chain with a

wooden grip fed out through a hole in the wall, and when Wessex pulled on it, he could hear a faint tinkle

far away.

After several minutes, the Judas-window in the door opened. Black eyes in a seamed yet ageless face

bored into his.

"My name is Rupert Dyer," Wessex said mildly. "May I come in?"

"She is not here." The Mother Superior—a serene woman in dove grey robes—spoke simply.

The doorkeeper had been a lay sister, who had quickly brought the Mother Superior to deal with this

strange and possibly dangerous intruder. Wessex had known better than to try a bluff on the Mother

Superior, whose loyalties lay with Rome rather than France in any case. He had simply told her the truth,

omitting personal names wherever possible.

"How—When did they take her?" Rutledge looked like a man in his death-agonies.

" 'They,' m'sieur?" The elderly nun looked puzzled.

Wessex held up a hand to keep Rutledge from saying more. "You say that Sister Marie Celeste is gone.