Susan Johnson (7 page)

Scrambling to reach their posts, the Austrian artillery crews sprinted to their cannons and ran them out, the flare of
fuses illuminating the gun portals. Running soldiers became visible on the ramparts, silhouetted like figures on a stage against the fiery blaze of shellfire.

With his army safely out of range of the smaller guns of St. Luzisteig, Duras rested in the saddle, surveying the frantic call to arms and the ensuing melee in the Austrian fort, knowing it was a waiting game now. His artillery would take time to soften up the strongly entrenched position.

Duras was approaching the fort in a standard attack, the artillery first opening long-range fire, the bombardment meant to disorganize; even veteran soldiers found artillery fire the hardest to bear. The great iron balls fell thickly, each carving an instant bloody channel through any ranks of men, smashing them to pieces.

The deadly cannonade persisted, leaving death in its wake, imposing heavy casualties on the Austrians in their confined position and with their opposing fire falling far short of the French positions. All the while Duras’s men waited for the order to attack.

After a time Duras motioned for Bonnay. “See that the gunners adjust the position of guns four and seven,” he directed. “They’re missing the target by a dozen feet.” The powder magazines his spies had reported on were still intact. Sliding his field glass into its saddle holster, he added, “And move another cannon in front of the gate. I want those doors blown away.”

After another fifteen minutes, Duras was visibly restless, his gloved fingers tapping rhythmically on his saddle pommel. He’d discarded his greatcoat and rolled it away on his saddle pack; he’d tested the slide of his saber in his scabbard a dozen times, his pistols were primed.

The munition stores were still untouched.

“Bonnay!” He shouted so loudly his voice was heard above the tumult, his irritation evident. And then as if
on cue, one gunpowder store took a direct hit and blew up in a blaze of fire that illuminated the dawn sky halfway to Chur.

Spurring his horse, Duras immediately launched the attack, his huge charger hurtling forward, the whole north rise suddenly black with men as his army followed him. The
pas de charge
of the drums beat their distinctive rhythm, a sound few men however brave could listen to without a moment of fear—the rum dum, rum dum, rummadum dum, dum a reminder to all of the precariousness of life.

An immense solid block of men carried forward by an irresistible wave of momentum surged up the snowy slope into the belt of smoke, poured over the moat ridge, rolled down into the snow-filled crevasse, accompanied by the shouts, the beat of the drums, the blast of trumpets savage, fierce, rising into the morning sky like the roar of the apocalypse. In what seemed mere seconds to the horrified defenders, the engineers had struggled through the deep snow and were throwing up their scaling ladders against the twelve-foot earthen walls with the precision of a well-choreographed dance and the churning mass of men rolled up the slope and up the ladders in a wave of terror.

Riding across the front lines, Duras urged his men on, a rare bloodlust surging through his veins. And his men answered with a shout and rushed on.

When the first companies reached the walls of the fort, Duras wheeled his bay and forced him up the embankment bordering the main gate. The massive doors had been shattered by his twelve-pounders. His cavalry units waiting stirrup to stirrup for the order to attack, Duras unsheathed his saber, and raised it high, the din of gunshot too intense to hear a shouted command. And spurring his bay, he charged the Austrian gun emplacements. His cavalry thundered behind him, three hundred riders galloping up the narrow avenue into the heavily defended gap. Duras soared over the
barricades first, his men following closely behind, jumping the gunnery emplacements like steeplechasers, flowing over and through the Austrian gunners full charge, slashing and cutting, slaughtering the enemy, the dead and wounded trampled by the next wave of horsemen.

The Austrians began to break as the French cavalry poured into the fort. The charge brought chaos and with chaos came panic; paralyzed by the overwhelming fierceness of the attack, the cannon having left carnage on a grand scale, the will to fight was slipping away. Units were mixed, men lost their officers, there was nowhere to turn. The cavalry was slashing right and left with ghastly cold-bloodedness, the infantry poured over the walls bayonets drawn, and resistance suddenly melted away. Unlike the French who fought for their country and glory, the Austrian soldiers were members of an army where service in the ranks was considered neither honorable nor desirable. The defense ignominiously collapsed and brief minutes later the acting commander emerged waving a white flag. The battalion commander had been killed in the artillery assault and as the colonel in charge handed over his sword, Duras received it with a cursory bow, his mind elsewhere. No Russian troops had been visible in the melee, not a single tsarist uniform amidst the defenders. “Is Korsakov here?” he asked, his voice sharp, his gaze taking in the redoubts behind the officer.

“No.” The Austrian officer stood slightly breathless, his pudgy face pink from his unusual physical exertions. Unfamiliar with combat, he’d arrived from headquarters in Vienna only two days ago.

“Has he been here?”

“Yes.” But the colonel’s mouth pursed in disdain as he took in the simple cavalry tunic Duras wore over his riding breeches. France’s republican officers were considered ruffians by the Austrian command.

“When did he leave?” Duras quietly inquired, his impatience showing in the crispness of his words.

“Yesterday.” A cool haughtiness infused his tone.

“
When
yesterday?”

“In the afternoon.”

“What was his destination?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Fucking martinet, Duras fumed. The Austrian officer corps, aristocratic, unimaginative, and devoted to routine, still operated under the outdated 1769 manual of regulations.
²
The man still thought the quarterings on his family crest mattered. Incompetent old fool.

Motioning for the colonel to be taken away, Duras turned to Bonnay. “Send the prisoners and wounded back with a guard company,” he instructed. “And I want a cavalry detachment ready for pursuit in ten minutes, the best horses and riders we have.”

“The Russian’s twenty hours ahead of you.”

“He could be moving slowly if he’s with his corps.”

“Or moving fast if he’s with his Cossacks.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Duras replied, undeterred. “Continue the advance upstream to Chur. We’ll meet you somewhere in between. And tell Sacerre I’m disappointed in his information. He should have had someone here yesterday.”

“With the attack imminent, all the spies were pulled in.”

“In future that will be remedied,” Duras softly said. “I should have had information on Korsakov’s march.”

“Why not wait? We’re sure to meet him soon.”

“I’d rather not.” Cool, precise words, his eyes utterly chill.

Bonnay had seen him like this only once before—when personal issues had engaged him on the battlefield. Years ago at Guardolia they’d been badly outnumbered, a ragtag army thrown together to hold back the First Coalition
forces in the Ligurian Apennines, and the royalist general with aristocratic arrogance had sent a message, promising to have Duras’s head on a pike by nightfall.

“We’ll annihilate you,” Duras had scrawled in reply.

They had. And Duras had never been underestimated again.

“At least take more than a detachment,” Bonnay pressed. “You’re not well enough protected riding in enemy territory.”

“I’m interested in speed,” Duras calmly replied, “and a modicum of stealth. For that I want a limited number of men.”

“You’re risking too much on a bloody whim,” Bonnay declared.

“Indulge me, my dear Henri,” Duras murmured. “We can’t possibly be reassembled and ready to march in less than two hours. Riding fast, I can be halfway to Chur and back by then.”

“Perhaps Korsakov traveled north to Feldkirch. Rumor has it another Russian corps has entered Galicia.”

Duras shook his head. “Sacerre wouldn’t have missed him at Trubbach had he gone north. Korsakov’s on his way to Chur.”

“Or the Tyrol.”

“You’re wasting my time, Henri,” Duras said with a flash of a smile. “Get me my detachment.”

“Yes, sir,” his aide diplomatically replied, realizing Duras wasn’t to be deterred. “Would you like to send a message back with the prisoners and wounded?”

“The usual dispatch to headquarters informing them of the victory, Bonnay. You know that.”

“I meant to the countess.”

“No,” Duras smoothly replied, “but thank you for inquiring. You needn’t look so relieved, Bonnay. I haven’t forgotten my command or our mission. This is a calculated reconnaissance,” he went on, smiling faintly, “and while
we’re scouting enemy territory for the advance toward Chur, we may possibly run across General Korsakov.”

Bonnay needn’t have worried. Regardless of his personal feelings, Duras was always first a commander. As for Korsakov, should he be found and killed, that meritorious act would serve the French cause well.

The spring forenoon in Paris was pleasantly warm, unlike the weather at St. Luzisteig, and the sunshine streaming through Claudine Duras’s boudoir windows additionally warmed the twined bodies on the rumpled bed. Their pursuit of pleasure was more leisurely this morning, their senses not yet fully awake, and the rhythm of their bodies bespoke a languid, drowsy ardor—much different from their heated passions of the previous night.

“Your mood always matches mine,” the middle-aged man murmured.

“We understand each other,” Claudine answered with a small sigh of pleasure.

“Life is sweet.”

“
Amour
is sweet, dear uncle, which makes life sweet.”

The ex-Bishop of Autun, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, smiled and then he kissed the soft lips raised to his.

They breakfasted late that morning in the secluded privacy of a small balcony adjacent to the boudoir. Protected from the spring breezes by a topiary arrangement of junipers lining the railing, they conversed on a topic dear to their hearts.

“Pierre Collot made another very nice contribution to my bank account yesterday,” Claudine said. “I was able to supply him with letters of introduction to Andre’s quartermaster.”

“How generous of him. But then Pierre understands the rules perfectly. Or he wouldn’t be the richest army contractor in France.” Talleyrand minutely adjusted the position of his coffee spoon. “Which brings Rapinat to mind—another man of financial acumen.” His gaze came up, the spoon disposed to his satisfaction. “He writes me he’s having problems with Andre. I don’t suppose you could put a good word in—”

“You have a droll sense of humor, Charles,” Claudine interjected, one brow prettily arched. “If I endorsed Rapinat to Andre he’d probably have him shot.” Her small shrug was in the way of a dismissal. “
You
put pressure on my headstrong husband and make him listen to the commissioner sent out from Paris. You’re the foreign minister.”

Talleyrand smiled faintly over the rim of his coffee cup. “Perhaps later. At the moment I wouldn’t care to reproach Andre. Your husband is the only general we have who is likely to gain victories in the coming campaign.”

“No one’s inclined to recall Bonaparte?”

Talleyrand shook his head. “The Directory prefers a man of his ambition to be safely in Egypt fighting the infidel.”

“Catherine tells me he sent her a gold necklace said to belong to Cleopatra.” Madame Grand was Talleyrand’s current mistress.

“The young Corsican is a consummate politician. Catherine isn’t the only recipient of his gifts. Half the assembly—the influential half—” Talleyrand sardonically noted, “have been sent mementos from the land of pyramids … along with exaggerated reports of his victories.”

“How long will the Directory last once he’s back?” Claudine asked, attuned to the finite details of power politics.
³

“You’ve been talking to Sieyès, I see,” the ex-bishop said of the former Jesuit who now held the imagination of those political factions ready to move beyond the Revolution to a constitutional assembly. “He’s looking for a ‘sword’ for his
coup d’ état
.”

“But General Hoche is dead and Bernadotte is disinclined to take chances. That leaves Joubert, Macdonald, and Moreau.”

“None of whom are interested, I’m told. Perhaps Andre could be persuaded,” Talleyrand slyly added.

“How pleasant that would be,” Claudine said with a sigh of longing, the thought of ruling France in the role of consort gratifying. Her second sigh was one of regret. “But he detests politics.”

“And he’s perversely honest,” Talleyrand sadly noted. “I’m not sure he’d suit with an agent provocateur like Sieyès even if he were cajoled into the position. In fact, I’m surprised he’s still married to you,
ma chère
.”

“Don’t compare me to a hypocrite like Sieyès,” she lazily protested, a whipped-cream confection halfway to her mouth.

“Of course not, darling,” he instantly apologized, his gift for diplomacy honed in the hotbed of clerical politics. “You’ve always lived with a charmingly frank indiscretion.”

“Have I not been taught by a master, dear Bishop?” she flirtatiously inquired, remnants of whipped cream on her full-lipped mouth incarnately sensual.

“Ex-bishop, thankfully,” he softly said.

She gazed at him for a thoughtful moment, intrinsically shrewd beneath the façade of her glorious blond beauty. “How much do you hate my father for having taken your birthright?” she quietly asked, mildly startled by Talleyrand’s undertone of malice, not having heard that inflection before.
⁴

“Your father was a babe at the time. My enmity falls on the family trustees. And I exacted my revenge too long ago to dwell on that segment of my life,” he casually retorted, his brief revealing malice overcome.

Lounging back in her chair, she cast him a teasing glance. “Revenge? How un-Christian of you.”