Valentina (5 page)

‘Listen to my report on the Polish charmer,' De Chavel said. ‘If, sir, you can bring her back to mind instead of fifteen thousand horses!'

Murat laughed. ‘I know which I'd rather think about, but you needn't be so damned cutting about it. You're just an infantry-man, that's what's wrong with you!'

‘I've served in both,' De Chavel reminded him. His wife's affair with Murat had made it necessary for De Chavel to transfer from the cavalry to the Imperial Guard.

Murat chose to ignore the reference. He remembered De Chavel's wife only too well; pretty little thing, gay as a lark and as faithful as a stray cat. Such a pity he had taken it to heart; Murat couldn't understand this obsession with female chastity; if all the ladies minded their virtue the world would have been an infernally dull place. He changed the subject.

‘You mentioned the Polish charmer. Is she the one?'

‘I should say so, definitely,' De Chavel said. ‘I spent the rest of the time with her after you left last night. There's no doubt they're hoping to put her in your way; that introduction was all part of it; so was the husband suddenly absenting himself and leaving her with you.'

‘Or with you,' Murat grinned. ‘I bet they didn't reckon on your intervention! How did you come out with her? Would you give the little mare a warranty?' He leant back and roared with laughter at his own joke.

‘I didn't try her,' De Chavel said dryly. ‘My object was to prevent you sleeping with her, not to sleep with her myself. I'm sure she's been recruited to spy. I'm also sure she doesn't know the full implications as far as you're concerned.'

‘Really?' Murat raised his bushy brows. ‘An innocent, eh? How damnably intriguing! You know, you intelligence people amaze me. How the devil did you hear about this business in the first place?'

‘We have agents in the Polish Government,' De Chavel said. ‘Our particular source in Danzig said there was a plan to insinuate a woman into the inner circle round the Emperor, and that you, if you'll forgive me, were chosen as being the most susceptible. They had no idea who the woman was, but they had heard the introduction would be made at the reception for the Emperor. And it was, wasn't it? Potocki himself brought the girl up to you.'

‘He did indeed. Talked about how she had worshipped me from afar,' Murat chuckled. ‘The loveliest lady in Poland, he called her, and I thought to myself: Aha, Joachim, old friend, they're going to make you a present. They know you're bored and lonely, far from your delightful wife'—he gave a mock shudder at the mention of Caroline Bonaparte—‘and they've found this Polish blossom to bring the spring back into your wintry life. Instead of which you come in, you damned policeman, and snatch her from under my nose. But not completely, I may say.' He gave De Chavel a sly look and waited.

‘Why not completely? I even warned her to have nothing to do with you!'

‘Was that for her protection or for mine? Don't tell me you've gone sentimental over a woman, De Chavel—I couldn't believe it.'

‘You know what I think of women,' the Colonel said. ‘You know there's only one use I have for them, but not when it's part of my duties. I think the girl is prepared to spy as far as reporting scraps of gossip is concerned, but I wouldn't say she'd play the whore. I'm probably wrong, of course. Find me one who won't, sooner or later.' He gave the Marshal a shrewd look.

‘My official report to you, sir, is don't have anything to do with her. She's a Polish agent.'

‘Her worthy husband has invited me to dinner tomorrow night,' Murat said. ‘All these dismal Poles will be there, pleading Poland's cause as usual, and boring us to tears. I presume this is part of the plot to ensnare me with Madame? I must say, she was a charmer—didn't you think so, eh?'

‘No,' the Colonel said coldly. ‘She made no impression on me at all.'

‘So you say,' Murat shrugged. As a renowned chamberer himself he had a healthy regard for De Chavel's reputation. Once he had been laughed at as the only faithful husband in the regiment, and there had been an undertone of sympathy in the laughter as word of his wife Lilian's repeated infidelities came seeping through. He had discovered her with another officer, long before Murat became her lover for a brief period, and the change in him was quite remarkable. Pain and disappointment had made him a hard and bitter man, and above all a cynic who used women with callous abandon, as the woman he had married continued her useless, shameless philanderings, and then conveniently died. De Chavel never mentioned her; no one mentioned her to him. He lived his solitary life as the principal intelligence officer in the Imperial Army, and few indeed knew how often he saw Napoleon himself and how many of the Emperor's secrets he knew. He had women, of course, but with the same detachment that a hungry man feels towards the meal he has just ordered. Murat sometimes suspected that he had affairs in order to punish his mistresses for having given in to him. The annoying thing was the number who did. ‘Will you make a devilish fuss if I decide to accept the Count's invitation?' Murat asked. ‘It'll seem uncivil to refuse.'

‘It would be wiser not to go. I can't prevent you from accepting. At least you know what to beware of,' De Chavel said.

‘It's a problem,' Murat said. ‘What with Russian agents crawling all over the place, trying to find out our strength—one was caught and hanged the other day, I notice—and the Poles spying on their own account, our men are under constant strain. I'll be glad when we get the order to march. The Emperor doesn't really mean to set up Poland as an independent kingdom, do you think?'

‘I shouldn't think so,' De Chavel said. ‘Napoleon's idea is to counter-balance the power of Prussia and Austria once he's beaten the Russians, but I doubt whether he will make a third kingdom of Poland even to do that. The Grand Duke doesn't know that, of course. Some of these Poles are very astute. Potocki is no fool. He has hopes, but that's all they are.'

‘They're good fighters,' Murat said. ‘Brave as lions, all of them. And some lovely women.' He gave a sigh, and then winked.

‘It breaks my heart to think of that little morsel going to waste,' he said. ‘Eyes like cornflowers. I wonder how she'd look with her hair down …'

De Chavel stood up. ‘I have work to do. Your permission, sir?'

‘Of course, of course. About twenty-three, wouldn't you say?'

‘Twenty-two,' De Chavel said as he reached the door. ‘If you insist on going let me know the developments after tomorrow night. I want to finish my report; it'll have to go to Fouché in Paris at the end of the month.'

He mounted and rode back to his own quarters in the Kutchinsky Square; it was significant that Murat had not mentioned sending the Countess Grunowska white roses. He might have been warned but the danger was not over; De Chavel had no wish to go to Napoleon with his report unless the Marshal refused to see sense and got himself involved.

Murat couldn't resist women; he doubted very much if he would be able to resist the beautiful girl he had spent the evening with, and been so profoundly attracted by himself. She was a pawn, of course, and he had been surprised by her apparent innocence of the whole affair, but that was only momentary. She would sleep with the Marshal because it was in a woman's nature to betray for the sake of vanity, or to satisfy their greedy senses. He knew a lot about the sensual greed of women; he had seen his own wife's frail, dancing body consumed with heat for love, wherever and with whoever she could find it. He had no illusions about any woman. The beautiful girl he had danced with the night before was no different to the rest. Vanity or lust or both. They were the only genuine emotions that women understood. De Chavel put the thought of Valentina Grunowska out of his mind; he had other things to think about. The troops were moving slowly to a thick concentration on the banks of the River Niemen. Artillery and supplies were moving up with them, and a further consignment of horses, Murat's fifteen thousand, would swell the number of livestock animals to a hundred thousand. There was a lot of stealing of supplies at night; and some incidents of agitating by members of the pro-Russian Polish group led by Prince Adam Czartorisky, the friend of the Czar Alexander.

Poland was divided into two factions: those who placed their trust in the Emperor Napoleon's promises to reunite them and re-establish their old boundaries of 1786 under the hereditary monarchy of the King of Saxony, and those, like Czartorisky, who believed that the Czar was a genuine liberal who would reward Poland's loyalty by granting those same privileges if he won against Napoleon. Neither Emperor was to be trusted, and this too was suspected by their unhappy Polish dependants.

De Chavel had a liking and respect for the Poles which was largely the result of fighting beside them in campaigns all over Europe. Geographically their country was in an untenable position, a land mass without natural borders, encompassed like a fat sheep by the three hungry wolves of Russia, Austria and Prussia. It was miraculous that as people the Poles had survived and maintained their national characteristics and culture in spite of constant invasions and annexations over the centuries. They had thrown in their lot with France because they hoped that Napoleon would need them as a buffer state against Russia and Prussia; Poland had sent money and men without counting the cost in either to join the French in their long wars against Europe and England, hoping always for the ultimate reward. As De Chavel had said, he didn't think they would get it, but this was not the time to cast a doubt. France needed Poland; France needed all her allies, those who could be trusted, as she had never needed friends before. The Colonel knew his Emperor very well; he had loved him and fought under him from the days of the old army of the Republic, and he knew that Napoleon was facing the final test of his power in the coming war with Russia. England was the primary enemy, and England was unbeaten; his plan to starve her out and ruin her trade had failed because of Russia and Spain and Holland and Sweden, to name but a few who had ignored their agreement with Napoleon and opened their ports to British ships and goods. The strategy was simple enough, Napoleon could not hope to concentrate his full attack upon the British with a hostile Russia at his back. If he was victorious, then England would be invaded and conquered, and Europe would settle under the domination of France for a hundred years or more. This was the Emperor's dream; its price in fulfilment would be paid by the men massing on the Russian border. The date set for invasion was early June; De Chavel had petitioned Napoleon personally to rejoin his regiment in full fighting capacity; he was restless in his present post, and he had only been appointed because the Emperor didn't trust his official head of the Secret Police, the ubiquitous Fouché. He hadn't been in battle for a year, and ever since his personal life collapsed in ruins he had lived for war and its excitement. At one time, when he discovered the kind of woman he had married, De Chavel had tried to get himself killed; his despair and disgust made living an intolerable burden, but in the heat of every battle men fell to right and left, and he, who so desperately wanted to die, came out unscathed again and again. It had taken some time for his love to die completely; it was a painful, bitter process, the first forgiving, the reconciliation, the second and third and fourth infidelity for which there was no possible excuse except the appetites of an uncontrollable wanton, who bore his name and had enjoyed his love. He hated his wife, and part of his hate was the memory of his love, for love had not come early or easily to him.

Now, he felt confident that it could never come again. He had accepted the situation because he had no alternative except the scandal of divorce, and his was an ancient family with traditions of private pride which forbade him to parade his marriage in the public gaze. He had lived in the same house with Liliane when he was in Paris, but he had never touched her or spoken to her for two years before she died. And when she died, stricken by a quick summer sickness that devoured her in a few weeks, he had covered her dead face and wept. But he wept for his blighted hopes and lost illusion, and nobody heard him speak her name or show a flicker of regret. He was a hard man; he lived hard and fought hard and he prided himself on being proof against all sentiment where women were concerned.

He laid down his papers and in spite of himself his thoughts turned again to the woman he and Murat had been discussing. He had lied when he said he was not impressed by her. He only hoped that the Marshal King of Naples would be able to restrain himself if she were really offered to him, and privately he doubted it. But he had been warned of her true function, and God knew it was odious enough. It fitted into De Chavel's opinion of the female sex to imagine them worming confidences out of a lover while they lay in his arms, and their cunning combined with their sensual skill to trick him. The Countess Grunowska had not come to that pass yet, and this alone had saved her from him in the carriage. He had no desire to ravage innocence, if innocence existed. His greatest contempt, as in similar cases, was reserved for the husband who would prostitute his wife's honour and his own, for any cause, even pure patriotism, and from what was known of Count Theodore Grunowski other, less admirable, motives were involved. He had a dubious political record; at one point his allegiance to the Grand Duke of Warsaw had wavered to the point where he was suspected of dealing with the pro-Russian Czartorisky faction, but nothing had been proved, and he remained in favour. He was a dangerous man, ruthless enough to use his wife in an unsavoury intrigue, ambitious enough to change sides at any moment for his own advantage. De Chavel took out the folder dealing with the whole affair, and ringed the Count's name in red. This would have him under constant French intelligence surveillance, after the troops had crossed into Russia.