The General's Mistress (47 page)

Michel stepped back from the fire, and the gravediggers went to work filling in the graves. Twenty-seven more for his lists.

I fell in beside him as we walked back to the camp, laid out in precise rows in the moonlight. There was none of the disorder I remembered from Moreau’s camp. This was the night after a small battle, with a greater looming on the horizon, a camp at watch, the men catching what sleep they could.

Private Barend had redeemed himself by managing dinner, potatoes fried with a bit of ham with mustard on the side, Maille’s finest seasoned with tarragon. It was the kind Moreau liked best, that I used to order for him on campaign. I didn’t need to ask to know that Barend had traded for it with someone at Moreau’s headquarters.

We ate in silence, and then Michel went back out to go round the sentries. It had gotten very cold. I heard the snow crunching under his boots as he left, the ice on top forming a fine crust. I got out all the blankets, which between us were four, and spread them on the slung camp bed. It was technically wide enough for only one person, but we could both squeeze in if we were close. I left the lamp alight, because it did give off some warmth that the tent trapped, took off only my boots, and rolled up in the blankets.

I must have dozed. The sounds of the camp softened. Michel came back, and I woke when the light changed as he blew out the lamp. He lay down beside me in the dark, curling gratefully into the warm place beside me. His hands were like ice. His face was cold.

His arms went around me and he sighed. “All right?”

“Yes,” I said. And we slept.

W
e expected the Austrians to attack the next day. Before dawn a fresh cavalry screen went out, careful on the snow, spreading out through the woods. All day riders came and went.

And still there was no attack. The temperature rose enough for the snow to begin to melt where the sun touched it, leaving patches of bare ground here and there. Riders came and went. Soon everyone knew what the scouts had said. The Austrians hadn’t moved at all.

When Michel came back to his tent before dinner, I asked him what was happening.

He shrugged, gathering up his map case. “Archduke Johann is young. A more experienced commander would have attacked today. Instead, he’s given us time to prepare for him, and time for General Moreau to think of a thing or two. I’m off to a staff meeting.” He leaned over and kissed my brow. “Don’t wait for me. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“I won’t,” I said. It was the first time in days that he had looked at me as though I weren’t Charles. We hadn’t spoken of the skirmish. There was nothing we needed to say that we had the words for.

Michel ruffled my cropped hair, a half smile on his face. “You know, it’s still disturbing.”

“I imagine so,” I said, smiling back. “More a squire than a maiden fair.”

“You do a fine job of arming me,” he said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that I’m not hungry and frozen.”

“More useful than bedroom arts right now.”

“More to your taste?” He rested his hands lightly on my arms, looking at me.

I shook my head. “Both, Michel. I’m both.” I didn’t know how to say it, so I leaned forward and rested my head against his shoulder. “Squire and courtesan both. They used to be the same word, you know.
Hetaira
and
hetairos,
courtesan and knight companion.”

“Did they?” he said bemusedly. His arms went around me, holding me tight.

“Someone told me that once,” I said, trying to remember who.

I didn’t remember until after he’d left for the staff meeting, his map case in his hand and his cloak pulled close against the wind. It had been Bonaparte.

A
ll the next day we waited. Still the Austrians didn’t move. The day was a bit warmer, and the snow melted in the sun, leaving patches under the trees and on shaded slopes, turning the road to mud. Our provisions didn’t arrive. We hoped it was the mud that had delayed them. Otherwise, the Austrians had cut our supply line.

We made do on boiled potatoes that night.

Moreau ordered that watch fires should be built in advance of our actual lines, outside the camp to the north, all along the perimeter toward the edge of the woods. It gave us light, since the sky had clouded over again and the temperature had dropped. I thought it would snow again.

Michel had added to the plan. He had posted sentries out in
the woods in a sweeping circle, well ahead of the fires where the light would not affect their night vision, with the river at our backs beyond the camp.

I curled up in the blankets and slept, only to awaken in the middle of the night. There was a movement in the tent, and even in the darkness I knew it was Michel putting his boots on. “Michel?” I whispered.

He leaned toward me. “No need for you to get up. It’s four in the morning. I’m just going round the sentries again.”

“Can’t sleep?” Now that I sat up, I felt completely clearheaded.

“No,” he said. “Something’s happening.” He looked out to the north, like a hunting dog scenting after quarry. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “The temperature’s dropped again. And it’s getting ready to snow. It’s darker in here than it was. The clouds have come in.”

Michel nodded. “They’ll come with the snow. Elza, I don’t want you on the front line. You don’t know a damned thing about infantry tactics, and you can’t fake them.” He touched my face with one forefinger. “And I would say exactly the same thing if you were Charles. Promise me you’ll stay back.”

“I promise,” I said. And I meant it. Life was too sweet to have a death wish.

He kissed me lightly. “Good.” And then he pulled his cloak around him and went out.

I sat up in bed, fully dressed. It was too cold to undress. I didn’t think I had for about five days. I had not actually made love to him in three weeks, since we joined his division. I missed it, and I didn’t.

I wondered if Bonaparte was the same in the field.

A strange and fey mood was on me, and I couldn’t sleep. I put my boots and cloak on and went out.

The sky had completely clouded over. The lights of our watch fires were the only bright things in sight. It was dead silent. The river did not even whisper, frozen over between its banks. Not a bough stirred among the massive fir trees. The first flakes of snow began to fall, beautiful and ethereal in the darkness.

Michel stood a short distance away, far enough from the fires to see into the dark. He was alone. I walked up beside him.

“It’s strange,” he began, but we heard the sound of hooves coming up. Three men on horseback were coming along the length of our lines, cloaked figures dark against the falling snow. I knew the first, even shrouded. Moreau.

I had no time to leave. I stepped back into a shadow, hoping that my hooded cloak hid my features.

“Citizen General?” he called, his voice low and calm.

Michel stepped forward. “Here, General Moreau. Everything is quiet. It lacks two hours to first dawn.”

Moreau nodded, still in the saddle. He did not glance in my direction. His eyes were bright, even in the dim light. “Too quiet.”

“I agree,” Michel said. “We’ll stand to colors at dawn.”

What Moreau would have said, I did not know. His horse took a step toward me, and I saw his head began to turn. He had seen my movement, but not my face.

A shot rang out in the woods.

Moreau and Michel both jerked about. There was a shout, and then another shot.

“Bugler!” Michel shouted, his voice carrying about the camp.

A man was running out of the woods, his cloak cast away in his haste. He pounded up at the same moment as the bugler began. “General! The Austrians are moving through the woods en masse. They’re wearing white, but we saw them anyway. Probably about three or four thousand men, my best guess.”

Behind me, the camp was mustering, shouts and swears intermingling as the units formed up.

“They can’t mount an effective charge,” Michel said to Moreau. “The ground is too broken. Underbrush, little streams, banks.”

“They’ll be crack infantry,” Moreau said, “on a night attack like this.” His horse shied at a shot close by, one of the sentries firing down into the woods. He held on effortlessly, his light body molded to the horse. “Shall I move in Richepanse to help hold them?”

“Why?” Eleazar had been led out, and Michel swung into the saddle. “I’m just about to launch a counterattack.”

“Your call,” Moreau said. A full volley fired, the first of our units firing into the woods together. I hoped the sentries posted in the woods had gotten out of there or gotten down. “Let me know what you need. I’ve got to get back to my troops.”

The tent was at my back, and I slipped inside, out of his sight. I could still hear his voice, but couldn’t make out what he said, with all the running and confusion. And then there was another crashing volley. Right behind it was a louder explosion, one of the field guns coming into action.

I stood in the tent, holding the flap shut. I had promised Michel I would stay back. And in truth, there was nothing useful I could do. I didn’t have a musket, and as Michel had pointed out, I knew nothing about infantry drill. The only thing I could do in those dark woods was make myself a target for our own men.

I listened. After a few moments, I parted the flap and looked out again. Moreau was gone. I could see his silhouette on horseback moving down the lines, toward his own troops. On that end, the muzzle flashes were sporadic. I thought that the main attack was this way, but in the darkness it could simply be that the right side of the line had not yet engaged.

Before me, our lines spouted fire in perfect unison, volley after volley crashing into the darkness.

The return fire was dense off on the far left. Our guns silenced suddenly there, and a cheer went up. With a shriek, our men charged forward on foot, engaging bayonet on bayonet as the Austrians reached close quarters. I could hear, but not see. The snow was coming down densely now.

More crashes. The fire to the right was less. Shouts.

To the left the fight had moved into the woods, and I could see nothing. I went back inside and rearranged things, put on my sword just in case. Then I couldn’t stand it and went back out.

The firing off to the right had fallen silent. I could see people moving in the woods, dark uniforms against the snow, our men who were not camouflaged. To the left, I could tell nothing of what happened.

Dawn came. We had captured more than four hundred prisoners. Another hundred or so lay dead in the woods. We had lost a handful, mostly the original sentries.

In the pale light I made coffee and found Michel. He was talking to two infantry noncoms, his hat crusted with an inch of snow. It was coming down so thickly that already it covered my boots in some places. The sky was dead white.

Wordlessly, I put the cup in his hand. He glanced at me and drank, never pausing, but I saw the gratitude in his eyes. When they had finished talking, he turned to me. “The coffee’s good,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“I want you to go to the village,” Michel said. “I’m sending all the nonessentials over there.”

“Moreau. . . .” I began.

“Will be with his men,” Michel said. “We’re striking the
camp. The scouts have told us that the Austrians are still advancing. We threw back the night attack, but there are more coming. That wasn’t really so many. The village is safer, and that’s where our supplies need to be.”

I nodded. “I’ll do whatever you need me to.”