Three Emperors (9780062194138) (7 page)

“But fame attracts ladies, no?” Murat went on companionably. “I remember you flirting at Mortefontaine and rutting the emperor's sister.”

“I do recall meeting Pauline,” I conceded, grateful I'd never flirted with Caroline. “Whatever happened was her idea. And I'm married now.”

“I've tasted that peach myself, as have half the men of Paris. Pretty Paulette is insatiable. My wife is, too, but more judicious.”

“She chose you, Marshal.”

“Not that Caroline is saintly. We've both had opportunities to stray. We have the same birthday, you know, and are much alike. Napoleon says I need women the way other soldiers need food.”

This kind of talk offered nothing but peril. “My wife is faithful.”

“You hope.” He laughed. “Where is she?”

“I'm not quite sure.” It sounded rather hapless.

“You've misplaced her! You're no saint, either.”

I was annoyed. “Nor have you struck me as a serene highness.”

He waved his hand. “Men compliment me with titles I can't keep straight. But I'm a knight, not a butcher. Do you know why I charge with riding crop?”

“To lash your horse to the front of a charge?”

“I don't want to kill anyone.”

I blinked.

“Yes, the terrible Marshal Murat, winner of a dozen victories, cut by a saber, hit by a ball, cavalier extraordinaire, prefers the slaying be left to others. This is my secret, Gage, but rogues like us are practiced at keeping secrets. I did study for the priesthood, I remind you. I remember the Commandments.”

“You keep taking me by surprise, Serene Highness.”

“I've yet to kill, and I sleep better for it. I sleep serenely.”

“Is that a boast or a confession?”

He laughed. “And now you magically appear in Vienna, again the hanger-on.”

It was time to be honest, lest I find myself harnessed to this glorious fool. “On the contrary, there's been some confusion. I'm not working for Napoleon, Talleyrand, or anyone else. I've become a neutral and independent scholar. Our meeting was odd coincidence. My only mission is to reunite with my family. We were separated during my earlier work for the emperor, and duty has kept us apart.”

“What duty?”

“Scholarly. Historical.” Talleyrand's sword hilt dug at my back.

He shook his head. “Gage, I've watched you since the war in Egypt. ‘There goes a clever man of vast longings, negligible ambition, and no understanding of the realities of life,' I said to myself. ‘The fellow who tries everything, and accumulates nothing.' ” He sat back, feigning disappointment. “I'm dismayed you're not working for our foreign minister. It would be an easy way to get rich. You've a chance to tie your fortunes to the glory of France, and yet you never admit your need for a patron and mentor.”

“I just don't want to be kept.”

Murat thumped his boots down on the plank floor and leaned forward. I could smell his cologne. “In truth, you've betrayed Bonaparte as well as helped him. Am I not right, scoundrel? Did you not oppose us on the ramparts at Acre?”

What was this interview really about? “Only after your commander tried to execute me at Jaffa.” The memory still rankled.

“Look at me, Gage. An innkeeper's son, a failed priest, not a prospect to my name, and now I'm a prince of France. Do you know how much money my wife and I will earn this year, beyond whatever I steal on this campaign?”

“More than you need, I'm guessing.”

“A million francs! Maybe two! When a laborer makes a few hundred! Why? Because I'm brave, yes. Handsome enough for the emperor's sister. But more than that, because I ally with Napoleon and stay loyal to his cause.”

This was true. The cavalryman had fetched the cannon the young Napoleon needed to crush a revolutionary mob in Paris, starting Bonaparte's meteoric rise. Murat had then attached himself to Napoleon's staff, fought in three major campaigns, and courted Caroline. He was a very astute fool.

“While your allegiance is to yourself, mine is to my country. As a result, I have a quarter-million men marching behind me. You have nothing. You're like a man strolling between two volleying armies, expecting not to be hit. So listen to my advice, wandering American. It's not too late to make something of yourself! You can ride with me into history, and when we crush the emperors Francis and Alexander, you can search for your family as a conqueror instead of as a supplicant. How does that sound?”

Dangerous. I'd had my fill of armies. Conqueror or not, a soldier was still subject to orders, gunfire, and the disastrous whims of officers and fate. The last place I wanted to be was at a final showdown between three warring emperors.

But how to get away when French troops galloped on the south bank of the Danube, and Austrian and Russian troops guarded the north?

“I've no cavalry training,” I said, stalling. “It takes years to make a good one.”

“But you have a diabolic mind. Don't deny it! You studied with the wizard Franklin and chased ancient secrets. Your skill is improvisation, imposture, and scientific trickery.”

“What is it you want, Joachim?” I desperately used his first name again, because I was entirely in his power.

Now his face fell and he looked embarrassed as a schoolboy. “My brother-in-law has insulted me.” The transformation from boastful warrior to worried subordinate was astonishing. “Here, look at what he sent me upon word of my capture of Vienna.” He pulled out military correspondence and shoved it at me.

I recognized the seal and signature of Napoleon. “My cousin,” it began, the salutation Bonaparte used with all eighteen of his marshals. “I cannot approve of your way of proceeding. You go right on in an empty-headed way without weighing the orders I have sent to you. You have thought only of the trifling glory of entering Vienna. There is no glory where there is no danger, and there is none in entering a capital which is undefended.”

This did seem rather irritable, and ungrateful to boot. “What were you supposed to do instead?” I asked, trying to sound sympathetic.

“Harry the Austrian army. But ignore Vienna? Ridiculous. Nonetheless, I have to prove myself to him again, as I have countless times before. I am his faithful squire. There's just one small problem, and this is the problem you will solve for me.”

“What problem is that?”

“The enemy holds Tabor Bridge, which we both want to cross, preventing you from looking for your wife and me from chasing the Austrian army.”

“Tabor! Napoleon fought near a mountain of that name in the Holy Land. Sent the Turks running, he did.”

“Well, the Austrians have mined this Tabor with gunpowder.”

“Because you wasted time taking this city. Because you didn't cross the Danube when you had the chance to flank the enemy.” Yes, I piled on. It's more fun to fault others than yourself.

“Because I recognized opportunity!” He slapped his thigh. “History will remember me as the liberator of Vienna. But that was yesterday, and today we need the Tabor Bridge.” He leveled his finger. “It is guarded by cannon, a thousand muskets, and fused with enough explosives to blow us all to hell. So you, Ethan Gage, are going to capture it.”

I blanched. “Me? How?”

“That is what you must think up.” He took out a pocket watch. “The emperor is in a hurry. Succeed, or I will shoot you.”

Chapter 8

N
apoleon allowed his marshals much discretion, but little error. If Murat had done what he was supposed to do, his cavalry would be harassing the emperors of Austria and Russia. Instead he'd stayed on the south side of the Danube River for the glory of entering Vienna. Now the Austrians had turned the long wooden Tabor Bridge, which crossed the river across marshy islands, into a gigantic bomb.

My lies would defuse it, or at least that was the plan. “You've had more practice, given that you are a professional man of guile,” Murat reasoned. I'm actually honest to a fault, but strode down the wooden planking with deception rehearsed, using a cavalry lance to carry a white flag. I've found the occasional lie a useful social lubricant, along with the harmless compliment or the well-rehearsed joke. Given that most conversation is tedious and predictable, we should all practice adding spice by lying.

Murat initially judged my idea as dishonorable and then, when I explained that subterfuge was the only easy way to get across the river, brilliant. He added trickery of his own. The floodplain of the Danube is thick with trees; so, while my boots thumped the planking, French soldiers threaded into the brown foliage behind me, ready to rush. Accordingly, there was a line of Austrian muskets and cannon ahead, the French behind, and beneath me a hundred kegs of gunpowder. If things went poorly and shooting began, my plan was to hurl myself into the river. The last autumn leaves rafted its current, and daylight was so brief, it seemed on loan. If I weren't blown to atoms, I'd likely freeze and drown.

Still, one of the attractions of war is how natty it all is, giving men a chance to preen. I'm a poor leader—too much responsibility—and a worse follower, shying from all uniforms and flags if it means I have to take orders. My cause is my family and me, which usually implies careful neutrality and staying out of battle. If everyone were as incorrigible as me, wars would snuff out from lack of fuel. Still, to take my mind off the fused gunpowder, I studied the fashion of the opposing army. The French use blue or green coats, go mostly clean-shaven, and are ordinary-size men fond of song and wit. The Austrian grenadiers, by contrast, were strapping, big-booted, flamboyantly mustached, and stern-faced farm boys in white uniforms with yellow facings, their black leggings buttoned to mid-thigh. They leaned on their muskets to study me with narrowed eyes, puffing on clay pipes. The officers wore white, too, with tricorne hats, red and blue sashes, gilded scabbards, and gray capes.

White isn't as impractical as it appears. It is bright in battle, cheaper than colored cloth, hasn't been weakened by harsh dyes, and can be dressed for parade with chalk or pipe clay.

The Austrians watched my approach, in brown civilian clothes, with disbelief.

“This bridge is about to be blown!” one called out in French. “Are you a simpleton? Get back to town!”

“An emissary! A word, please, as sweet to your ears as mine!” I hoisted high a bottle of champagne. “A French gift to celebrate with, my new friends!”

Much of war consists of waiting, and because I provided relief from boredom, I knew they wouldn't immediately kill me. An officer's hunting dog was loosed to race, bark, and sniff, but I didn't flinch or break stride. Bravado is necessary during a ruse. “Call off the hounds—I'm not a boar!”

This earned a rough laugh.

There were three regimental battle flags at the northern end of the bridge, sporting the Austrian double-headed black eagle. A cavalry colonel trotted forward to confront me. I quickened to get past the mouths of their cannons, which always look gigantic from the front end. Then he stopped me.

“Halt! What are you doing here?”

I raised the champagne higher. “Drinking to the miracle of your health, as your good wife will as well, once she learns you survived the war.” I made my voice carry to the ranks.

“I have no wife. Who in Hades are you?”

“A neutral emissary from the celebrating French. It's been a wearying campaign. But now the fighting is done!” I shouted this last, throwing my arms wide, and soldiers straightened in consternation and hope.

“My name is Ethan Gage,” I continued, “protégé of the late Benjamin Franklin and confidant of Jefferson and Bonaparte. I am a friend of all nations, and a lackey of none. My studies brought me to Vienna, and French acquaintances enlisted me for this pleasurable duty.”

“Acquaintances?”

“I was an adviser at the pyramids and Marengo. Murat and his fellow marshals asked that I, as an American neutral, share the good news so we can begin negotiations.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“The war is over!” I shouted this as loud as I could, since a lie needs emphasis. There was a murmur as my rumor rippled up and down the riverbank. Men stirred like trees in a wind. The colonel looked at me suspiciously.

“What do you mean ‘over'?”

“An armistice has been signed. And your name, sir?”

“Franz Geringer.”

“Marshals Lannes and Murat would like to confer with you. Can you guarantee their safety if they cross the bridge?”

“I've heard nothing of an armistice.”

“Which is why I'm telling you. I'm a skilled diplomat, having negotiated the Treaty of Mortefontaine, the sale of Louisiana, and the surrender of Cap-François.” This was a slight exaggeration, but
Half a truth is often a great lie
, Franklin told me, and thus useful, in my experience. “Your general Mack has surrendered, your capital has fallen, and your Russian allies are retreating to their own country. Surely you can understand why the wise emperor Francis has agreed to end hostilities. To friendship!”

It's a wonder that any officer would swallow such nonsense, but history books confirm that the Austrian did. We believe what we want to hear, and I'd tempted him with survival. I could see the mental debate on his face.

“What harm to listen to what the French have to say?” I coaxed.

“Because you're roughly dressed and have no retinue or credentials. You look like a rascal, a knave, a rogue, and a trickster.”

“But completely unarmed.” I opened my coat. Talleyrand's broken antique sword was still in the small of my back, since I dared not show it to Murat or his men, but I had no real weapons. “The French generals will be at the mercy of your cannon. They ask only that you share their good news.”

Geringer hesitated an agonizing minute longer and finally gave a reluctant nod. “I guarantee their safety.”

I turned and waved the white flag and walked back to meet my conspirators at mid-span, Murat cocky and Lannes smooth. Lannes had also been with Napoleon in Egypt, a bullet wound at Acre giving him a permanent crick in his neck. I'd been on the other side, but soldiers don't hold such things against each other. We were comrades for having been tormented by the same heat and flies.

Accompanying the two marshals were Murat's chief of staff, General Auguste Belliard, and several aides. Lannes and Murat chatted, Belliard had his arms clasped behind his back, and the entire group gave a holiday air. I peeked down. There were gaps in the planking, and I could see French sappers crawling on the timbers beneath, making for Austrian explosives.

The French paraded with me back past enemy barricades, crowded the artillerymen away from their guns, and smiled upward at the still-mounted Geringer, whose horse backed a nervous pace. The dog growled.

“The American has given you the good news?” Lannes asked.

“He said an armistice has been signed.”

“Negotiations are proceeding for a complete end to the war,” the boyish-looking marshal bamboozled. “There will be no more slaughter.”

“How do I know you're telling the truth?”

“Would we put ourselves at the mercy of your guns if we weren't? Go get your general. Maybe he's received a dispatch.” Any delay was in our favor, since we needed to defuse the gunpowder. I decided it might help to uncork the champagne.

“A celebratory drink,” I offered as it popped and foamed. “For your mistress, if you don't have a wife.” His officers looked at my bottle greedily and, at my urging, began passing it around.

“Fetch General Auersperg,” Geringer said.

The French marshals were as skilled as the actors in the Comédie-Française. Their relaxed friendliness spread like contagion among the Austrians, who, after all, had been badly beaten to this point. Without being told to, some of the infantry began to stack arms, jabbering in German. Lannes suggested that it violated the spirit of the occasion to have cannons menacingly pointed. The Austrian colonel, who had taken three swigs from my bottle, agreeably ordered them turned around to point toward his own lines.

Karl Josef Franz Graf von Auersperg, the Austrian corps commander, came galloping up. Their general was suspicious, but also confused. “Why are you drinking with the French? And why are those soldiers on my bridge?”

Murat bowed, sweeping off his plumed cap. “Marshal Joachim Murat at your service, General Auersperg. Greetings from the emperor of the French. The war is over. We are celebrating.”

“That doesn't mean your men can just walk across!”

“They are stretching their legs to seek new friends. If hostilities are at an end, it might be more convenient to have us out of Vienna and camped on the north bank. Your citizens are anxious to reopen their shops. If your regiments could make room?”

“The French infantry hope to exchange souvenirs of the campaign with your own men,” I put in. “Perhaps soldiers on both sides can make money. All should profit from recent hardships.” Always appeal to greed. “Care for champagne?”

Auersperg turned to his colonel. “How do you know there's an armistice?”

He pointed at me. “This civilian said so.”

“And who is he?”

“Ethan Gage, the famed American diplomat,” I said.

“It's true, general,” Lannes smoothly insisted. “This Gage has the ear of our emperor and his own president, the esteemed Thomas Jefferson. A toast to peace.”

“American? He's on the wrong side of the ocean!”

“I was pressed into service while on my way to be reunited with my family,” I explained. “My heart soared when you opened this bridge.”

“Where are the documents attesting to this armistice?”

“On their way, surely. It takes time to write them up.”

The general's head swiveled like an owl's as he took in his troops busily disarming themselves, the French two-thirds across, the swollen river, the spires of the capital. “This is a trick, damn it!” he suddenly roared. “Colonel, arm your men!”

It was too late. Even as he shouted, the French aides seized Geringer and hauled him from his saddle, muffling him. Murat seized the general's bridle. “Don't shoot, don't shoot, there's a misunderstanding!” the French officers cried out in French and German. Some Austrians snatched up their guns and tentatively pointed them at our tangled group while others hung back, confused by the tumult. There was no clear line of fire. French artillerymen ran forward to man the Austrian cannon that had been turned.

“Don't shoot, don't shoot!” Both sides were crying it.

Geringer bit the hand held over his mouth, a Frenchman howling. “Light the fuses!” he cried. “Blow the bridge! Kill the damned American!”

Prudence suggested I absent myself. I shoved through the churning crowd to the bridge railing and swung over to drop to the beams below, leaving the two forces to their tangle. I looked back toward the Vienna side of the river. The French sappers had reached the first explosives, methodically cutting fuses and disarming the kegs of powder. Yet most still remained, and the French above could still be killed in an eruption of fire and splinters.

I found a fuse and grabbed it like a vine, taking out Talleyrand's stub of sword to cut it.

Then someone gave me a great clout in the back of my neck and I fell toward the river, gasping in surprise.

One of my arms managed to grasp a beam before I fell in. My feet splashed the surface of the water, I hung on desperately, and then a boot stomped on my forearm, trying to make me drop. I yelled, fell further, and grabbed a lower timber, cold water surging around my waist.

An Austrian sergeant loomed over me, glowering. He aimed a pistol.

I threw water at him as he pulled, the spray making him jerk enough that the bullet went into the river, leaving his pistol empty.

My assailant grunted in frustration and reached up to the fuse I'd just grasped. Taking a smoldering match from a cartridge box, he lit it. The cord puffed and sizzled as merrily as frying bacon.

I leaped for his boot, grabbed, and yanked. He lost his balance and fell with me. We landed hard on a lower beam, wrestling, the current swirling inches below. He clawed for my throat while I punched him in the eye.

“Help, he's trying to blow it!” I shouted. The cry was lost in the rush of the river and the clamor above. The burning fuse was nearing the nearest keg.

The bastard's hand closed on my throat. He was a damned hero, I realized, determined to take himself, me, his general, and a hundred Frenchmen to hell in one great fiery explosion.

So I used the palm of my hand to ram the underside of his nose. The Austrian's head snapped back, eyes crossing and blood spurting, and then I heaved up and let a knee come down on his hand.

He howled, and his balance was gone with his grip. He hit the river with a splash and was gone.

The fuse was spitting and smoking toward the keg. The nearest sappers were shouting warning. I bounded like a squirrel, reached the keg of gunpowder, and hacked with Talleyrand's broken sword.

The fuse sputtered out, sparks falling into the water.

Shaking from relief and exertion, I made my way to the gunpowder kegs on the other side of the bridge and cut that fuse, too.

The sappers cheered.