Red Prophet: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume II (9 page)

They supped at Governor Rainbow’s table, of course, since that was the only table on the canal boat. The governor had sent her regrets that she could not visit the distinguished French travelers, but she hoped her staff would make them comfortable. Frederic, supposing this meant an
Irrakwa chef, had braced himself for another tedious Red meal of tough deer gristle—one could hardly call such fare
venison
—but instead the chef was, of all things, a Frenchman! A Huguenot, or rather the grandson of Huguenots, but he didn’t hold grudges, so the food was superb. Who would have imagined good French food in a place like this—and not the spicy Acadian style, either.

Frederic did try to take a more active part in the conversation at supper, once he had finished off every scrap of food on the table. He tried his best to explain to Bonaparte the almost impossible military situation in the southwest. He counted off the problems one by one—the undisciplined Red allies, the unending flow of immigrants. “Worst of all is our own soldiers, though. They are a determinedly superstitious lot, as the lower classes always are. They see omens in everything. Some Dutch or German settler puts a hex on his door and you practically have to beat our soldiers to get them to go in.”

Bonaparte sipped his coffee (barbaric fluid! but he seemed to relish it exactly as the Irrakwa did), then leaned back in his chair, regarding Frederic with his steady, piercing eyes. “Do you mean to say that you accompany foot soldiers in house-to-house searches?”

Bonaparte’s condescending attitude was outrageous, but before Frederic could utter the withering retort that was just on the tip of his tongue, La Fayette laughed aloud. “Napoleon,” he said, “my dear friend, that is the nature of our supposed enemy in this war. When the largest city in fifty miles consists of four houses and a smithy, you don’t conduct house-to-house searches. Each house
is
the enemy fortress.”

Napoleon’s forehead wrinkled. “They don’t concentrate their forces into armies?”

“They have never fielded an army, not since General Wayne put down Chief Pontiac years ago, and that was an English army. The U.S. has a few forts, but they’re all along the Hio.”

“Then why are those forts still standing?”

La Fayette chuckled again. “Haven’t you read reports of how the English king fared in his war against the Appalachee rebels?”

“I was otherwise engaged,” said Bonaparte.

“You needn’t remind us you were fighting in Spain,” said Frederic, “We would all have gladly been there, too.”

“Would you?” murmured Bonaparte.

“Let me summarize,” said La Fayette, “what happened to Lord Cornwallis’s army when he led it from Virginia to try to reach the Appalachee capital of Franklin, on the upper Tennizy River.”

“Let
me
,” said Frederic. “Your summaries are usually longer than the original, Gilbert.”

La Fayette looked annoyed at Frederic’s interruption, but after all, La Fayette was the one who had insisted they address each other as brother generals, by first names. If La Fayette wanted to be treated like a marquis, he should insist on protocol. “Go ahead,” said La Fayette.

“Cornwallis went out in search of the Appalachee army. He never found it. Lots of empty cabins, which he burned—but they can build new ones in a day. And every day a half-dozen of his soldiers would be killed or wounded by musketry.”

“Rifle fire,” corrected La Fayette.

“Yes, well, these Americans prefer the rifled barrel,” said Frederic.

“They can’t volley properly, rifles are so slow to load,” said Bonaparte.

“They don’t volley at all, unless they outnumber you,” said La Fayette.

“I’m telling it,” said Frederic. “Cornwallis got to Franklin and realized that half his army was dead, injured, or protecting his supply lines. Benedict Arnold—the Appalachee general—had fortified the city. Earthworks, balustrades, trenches all up and down the hillsides. Lord Cornwallis tried to lay a siege, but the Cherriky moved so silently that the Cavalier pickets never heard them bringing in supplies during the night. Fiendish, the way those Appalachee Whites worked so closely with the Reds—made them citizens, right from the start, if you can imagine, and it certainly paid off for them this time. Appalachee troops also raided Cornwallis’s supply lines so often that after less than a month it became quite clear that Cornwallis
was the besieged, not the besieger. He ended up surrendering his entire army, and the English King had to grant Appalachee its independence.”

Bonaparte nodded gravely.

“Here’s the cleverest thing,” said La Fayette. “After he surrendered, Cornwallis was brought into Franklin City and discovered that all the families had been moved out long before he arrived. That’s the thing about these Americans on the frontier. They can pick up and move anywhere. You can’t pin them down.”

“But you can kill them,” said Bonaparte.

“You have to catch them,” said La Fayette.

“They have fields and farms,” said Bonaparte.

“Well, yes, you could try to find every farm,” said La Fayette. “But when you get there, if anyone’s at home you’ll find it’s a simple farm family. Not a soldier among them. There’s no
army
. But the minute you leave, someone is shooting at you from the forest. It might be the same humble farmer, and it might not.”

“An interesting problem,” said Bonaparte. “You never know your enemy. He never concentrates his forces.”

“Which is why we deal with the Reds,” said Frederic. “We can’t very well go about murdering innocent farm families ourselves, can we?”

“So you pay the Reds to kill them for you.”

“Yes. It works rather well,” said Frederic, “and we have no plans to do anything different.”

“
Well?
It works
well
?” said Bonaparte scornfully. “Ten years ago there weren’t five hundred American households west of the Appalachee Mountains. Now there’s ten thousand households between the Appalachees and the My-Ammy, and more moving farther west all the time.”

La Fayette winked at Frederic. Frederic hated him when he did that. “Napoleon read our dispatches,” La Fayette said cheerfully. “Memorized our estimates of American settlements in the Red Reserve.”

“The King wants this American intrusion into French territory stopped, and stopped at once,” said Bonaparte.

“Oh he does?” asked La Fayette. “What an odd way he has of showing it.”

“Odd? He sent me,” said Bonaparte. “That means he expects victory.”

“But you’re a general,” said La Fayette. “We already have generals.”

“Besides,” said Frederic, “you’re not in command.
I’m
in command.”

“The Marquis has the supreme military authority here,” said Bonaparte.

Frederic understood completely: La Fayette also had the authority to put Bonaparte in command over Frederic, if he desired. He cast an anxious look toward La Fayette, who was complacently spreading goose-liver paste on his bread. La Fayette smiled benignly. “General Bonaparte is under
your
command, Frederic. That will not change. Ever. I hope that’s clear, my dear Napoleon.”

“Of course,” said Napoleon. “I would not dream of changing that. You should know that the King is sending more than generals to Canada. Another thousand soldiers will be here in the spring.”

“Yes, well, I’m impressed to learn that he’s promised to send more troops again—haven’t we heard a dozen such promises before, Frederic? I’m always reassured to hear another promise from the King.” La Fayette took the last sip from his wineglass. “But the fact is, my dear Napoleon, we already have soldiers, too, who do nothing but sit in garrison at Fort Detroit and Fort Chicago, paying for scalps with bourbon. Such a waste of bourbon. The Reds drink it like water and it kills them.”

“If we don’t need generals and we don’t need soldiers,” asked Bonaparte condescendingly, “what
do
you think we need to win this war?”

Frederic couldn’t decide if he hated Bonaparte for speaking so rudely to an aristocrat, or loved him for speaking so rudely to the detestable Marquis de La Fayette.

“To win? Ten thousand French settlers,” said La Fayette. “Match the Americans man for man, wife for wife, child for child. Make it impossible to do business in that part of the country without speaking French. Overwhelm them with numbers.”

“No one would come to live in such wild country,” said Frederic, as he had said so many times before.

“Offer them free land and they’d come,” said La Fayette.

“Riff-raff,” said Frederic. “We hardly need more riff-raff.”

Bonaparte studied La Fayette’s face a moment in silence. “The commercial value of these lands is the fur trade,” said Bonaparte quietly. “The King was very clear on that point. He wants no European settlement at all outside the forts.”

“Then the King will lose this war,” said La Fayette cheerfully, “no matter how many generals he sends. And with that, gentlemen, I think we have done with supper.”

La Fayette arose and left the table immediately.

Bonaparte turned to face Frederic, who was already standing up to leave. He reached out his hand and touched Frederic’s wrist. “Stay, please,” he said. Or no, actually he merely said, “Stay,” but it felt to Frederic that he was saying
please
, that he really
wanted
Frederic to remain with him, that he loved and honored Frederic—

But he couldn’t, no, he couldn’t, he was a commoner, and Frederic had nothing to say to him—

“My lord de Maurepas,” murmured the Corsican corporal. Or did he say merely “Maurepas,” while Frederic simply imagined the rest? Whatever his words, his voice was rich with respect, with trust, with hope—

So Frederic stayed.

Bonaparte said almost nothing. Just normal pleasantries. We should work well together. We can serve the King properly. I will help you all I can.

But to Frederic, there was so much more than words. A promise of future honor, of returning to Paris covered with glory. Victory over the Americans, and above all putting La Fayette in his place, triumphing over the democratic traitorous marquis. He and this Bonaparte could do it, together. Patience for a few years, building up an army of Reds so large that it provokes the Americans to raise an army, too; then we can defeat that American army and go home. That’s all it will take. It was almost a fever of hope and trust that filled Frederic’s heart, until—

Until Bonaparte took his hand away from Frederic’s wrist.

It was as if Bonaparte’s hand had been his connection to a great source of life and warmth; with the touch removed, he grew cold, weary. But still there was Bonaparte’s smile, and Frederic looked at him and remembered the feeling of promise he had had a moment before. How could he have ever thought working with Bonaparte would be anything but rewarding? The man knew his place, that was certain. Frederic would merely
use
Bonaparte’s undeniable military talents, and together they would triumph and return to France in glory—

Bonaparte’s smile faded, and again Frederic felt a vague sense of loss.

“Good evening,” said Bonaparte. “I will see you in the morning, sir.”

The Corsican left the room.

If Frederic could have seen his face, he might have recognized his own expression: it was identical to the look of love and devotion that all Bonaparte’s junior officers had worn. But he could not see his face. That night he went to bed feeling more at peace, more confident, more hopeful and excited than he had felt in all his years in Canada. He even felt—what, what is this feeling, he wondered—ah yes. Intelligent. He even felt intelligent.

It was deep night, but the canalmen were hard at work, using their noisy steam engine to pump water into the lock. It was an engineering marvel, the steepest system of locks on any canal in the world. The rest of the world did not know it. Europe still thought of America as a land of savages. But the enterprising United States of America, inspired by the example of that old wizard Ben Franklin, was encouraging invention and industry. Rumor had it that a man named Fulton had a working steam-powered boat plying up and down the Hudson—a steamboat that King Charles had been offered, and refused to fund! Coal mines were plunging into the earth in Suskwahenny and Appalachee. And here in the state of Irrakwa, the Reds were outdoing the Whites at their own game, building canals, steam-powered cars to run on railed roads, steam-powered
spinning wheels that spat out the cotton of the Crown Colonies and turned it into fine yarns that rivaled anything in Europe—at half the cost. It was just beginning, just starting out, but already more than half the boats that came up the St. Lawrence River were bound for Irrakwa, and not for Canada at all.

La Fayette stood at the rail until the lock was filled and the fires of the steam engine were allowed to die. Then the clop, clop, clop of the canal horses and the boat slid forward again through the water. La Fayette left the rail and walked quietly up the stairs to his room. By dawn, they would be at Port Buffalo. De Maurepas and Bonaparte would go west to Detroit. La Fayette would return to the Governor’s mansion in Niagara. There he would sit, issuing orders and watching Parisian policies kill any future for the French in Canada. There was nothing La Fayette could do to keep the Americans, Red and White together, from surpassing Canada and leaving it behind. But he
could
do a few things to help change France into the kind of nation that could reach out to the future as boldly as America was doing.

In his own quarters, La Fayette lay on his bed, smiling. He could imagine what Bonaparte had done tonight, alone in the room with poor empty-headed Freddie. The young Comte de Maurepas was doubtless completely charmed. The same thing might well have happened to La Fayette, but he had been warned about what Bonaparte could do, about his knack for making people trust their lives to him. It was a good knack for a general to have, as long as he only used it on his soldiers, so they’d be willing to die for him. But Bonaparte used it on everybody, if he thought he could get away with it. So La Fayette’s good friend Robespierre had sent him a certain jeweled amulet. The antidote to Bonaparte’s charm. And a vial of powder, too—the final antidote to Bonaparte, if he could be controlled no other way.