The General's Mistress (49 page)

“No,” I said. “It’s different soup. The other soup ran out and I made more soup. Twice.”

His face was red and raw from the cold, two days’ beard on his jaw, his hair damp with ice and blood. A powder burn streaked one cheek. He had been firing a musket at some point.

“Oh,” he said, and lifted one hand from the soup bowl, cupping my jaw and pulling my face to his in a kiss, savage and tender with the remains of that passion. Someone hooted and someone else laughed, making a jest I didn’t hear. It made my head swim.

He released me. His expression was slightly sheepish above the soup bowl.

“Michel,” I said a little breathlessly, “eat your soup.”

And he did, sitting down at the trestle table and putting his hat beside him.

“How about bringing me some soup?” a wag across the room called.

“I didn’t get any of that with my soup,” a corporal remarked. “How about some more for me, pretty one?”

I ladled out a dish for the wag and gave it to him with a smile and a flourish. “I’ll give you soup but nothing more. Go get some oak leaves on your shoulders, and I’ll bring you soup to remember!”

A stocky sergeant with his arm in a sling reached for the second bowl I brought. I leaned down and kissed his brow. There was a hooting cheer. “And that’s for you, with your honorable blood. The rest of you, go to work like Jean here and see what you get!” I winked and went and sat by Michel.

His eyes were amused. “When did you get to be the wife of the brigade?”

“Sometime in the last two days I’ve spent feeding them,” I said. “It’s what I can do. There’s not one of them who would hurt me.”

Michel looked around the room, taking its temper in a glance. “No, there’s not. Good fellows all, and you belong to them. They’d kill any man who took liberties with you, whether they think you’re a boy or a girl.”

I followed his glance around the room. “This is where I belong,” I said simply.

He looked up, the spoon halfway to his mouth. “Yes,” he said. “You understand.”

He meant more than this room. He meant the madness that possessed him, the glory that filled and receded like an unconquerable hunger. And he meant the life of the camp, the life of the road, of seeing morning breaking over strange fields.

“I do,” I said, and leaned on his shoulder for a moment.

Then I went back to ladling out soup.

R
ichepanse was sent in pursuit of the Austrians because his men had taken the least damage in the battles. Moreau followed after toward Munich. Michel was left to parole the prisoners and have a day or three of rest, his men having borne the brunt of three days’ battle. We were four more nights in Hohenlinden before we moved out for Munich. Michel spent most of the nights on his feet, what with one thing and another, catching a few hours’ sleep in the early mornings. I cooked, and slept on what seemed to be an entirely different schedule.

On the last night, I woke to find the bed empty except for the big gray cat. She lounged, purring, on my feet. I sat up and
petted her. “Don’t worry,” I said to her, “we’re leaving. And your people will be home soon, I expect. They’ll miss their potatoes and sausages, but they’ll be glad to see you.”

W
e left for Munich on a cold, clear day. The snow had stopped, but it hadn’t been warm enough to melt anything. I rode Nestor at the front of the baggage train, ahead of the hospital wagons and the supplies and caissons, just ahead of the wagon with Michel’s tent and cases. Nestor was in fine spirits, prancing and blowing a bit just to show that he could. We camped that night along the road, and the next day came into Munich.

The city had already surrendered to Moreau long since, with deputations from the city fathers and the Church, Moreau giving his guarantees of safety and nonmolestation. In return, certain public buildings were opened for our troops, and officers and others who would not fit should be quartered in private homes. Moreau, of course, was at the Residence with the sovereign duke, Max Joseph.

Michel and his immediate staff were assigned to the mansion of a wealthy doctor, an eminent man whose anticlerical sympathies were something of a scandal. Perhaps, his peers thought, if he was so fond of the Republic, he should have them in his house, stomping around his polished floors and leering at his daughters. Michel’s response was to behave as an honored guest, greeting his host in perfect German with a grave and thoughtful manner.

I wondered precisely what role I was expected to play here—Charles would in all propriety be quartered with the footmen. Not only would that make it impossible for me to stay with Michel without scandal, but I doubted that I could carry off Charles in a garret with three or four other men.

Uncertain, I went to Michel’s room to unpack his things. There would be dinner with our host and his wife and some distinguished friends, Michel’s best coat needed airing and brushing, since he didn’t have a dress coat with him.

The room was beautifully appointed—clearly the best guest chamber of a wealthy family, with a copper bathtub behind a screen in the dressing room and the walls hung in celadon-green silk. The bed was also curtained in celadon, high and fluffy with goose down. It looked heavenly. My desire for the footmen’s beds in the attic waned still further.

Michel had been one step ahead of me. Laid out on the bed was my sapphire-blue wool dress, the one that had been in his case. I picked it up. It seemed like a very long time since I had worn it in Paris. Had it really been only a month and a half ago? The fabric seemed so soft against my fingers. I held it to my face, smelling the faint scent of leather that clung to it from Michel’s bags.

He opened the door and came in. I knew his step and didn’t turn.

“What’s the dress for?” I asked.

“For dinner,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders. “For Madame St. Elme, my dear companion.”

“You will make the Munichers accept me and greet me in polite society? I’m not sure that’s wise,” I said. Moreau had been careful not to have me in company where my status might give offense. It didn’t in Paris, of course, but France was not like the rest of the world, and Michel was trying to put a good foot forward here. “And what about Moreau?”

Michel swore long and hard. Eventually he paused to take a breath. “You can say you’re Madame Versfelt or Madame St. Elme or Cleopatra for all I care! I’m sick of sneaking around
Moreau! He’s the one who threw you out almost three years ago. If he can’t accept that you have a new lover, he’s deranged.”

“He’s still your commander,” I said, turning in his arms. “And he can still do you great harm.”

“I can think of one name that won’t give offense,” he said, his teeth clenched. “Madame Ney.”

“Michel, you are out of your mind! Don’t you think Moreau will wonder who that is? Don’t you think he’ll expect to meet her? Unless I have some name that isn’t anything he’s ever heard.”

“Maria,” he said. “You look like a Maria. Every third woman is named Maria.”

“Maria Kuller,” I said, thinking back. Berthe had been my nurse in those horrible years after my father died. And she would never begrudge me her name. She had taught me to cook. Maybe I was thinking of her because of all the soup. “Madame Kuller.”

“Good,” Michel said. “Get dressed, Madame Kuller. Dinner is in less than an hour.”

I looked at him. He was smiling at pulling this off right under Moreau’s nose, a silly risk and a dear one. “You’re mad, you know,” I said fondly.

Cease-fire

D
inner was not terribly formal. This was fortunate, since neither of us had any dress clothes. The gown Michel had brought for me was a day dress, not an evening gown, and he didn’t have a dress uniform coat or waistcoat. Also, neither of us had bathed in nearly seven weeks. There’s only so much you can do out of a basin of water. Michel’s long hair was high on the list of things that weren’t fixable before dinner, though he did shave. My hair was decidedly sticky. Also, it was growing out from its Brutus cut, and looked more like a deranged pixie than anything else. It certainly didn’t make me look like a respectable woman.

I went down to dinner on Michel’s arm with some trepidation, clunking on the stairs. Michel had packed a dress for me, but no slippers, so I had to wear Charles’s boots under it or go barefooted. I nearly ran back upstairs in embarrassment.

Michel’s hand tightened on my arm as though he anticipated flight. “Steady, Elza,” he whispered. “Remember, we’re the conquerors, and we can wear boots to dinner if we like.” He didn’t have any shoes either.

My morale was lifted by the sight of the first person at the bottom of the stairs, looking up from a knot of strangers. He wore an elegant red pelisse trimmed in fur thrown over one shoulder. The other arm was supported by a black sling. He grinned at me in unmitigated delight and came forward to kiss my hand with a flourish as though we were in Paris. “My
dear Madame! How ravishing you are! You put the very stars to shame!”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Lieutenant Corbineau! I’m surprised to see you here rather than with General Richepanse.”

Corbineau shrugged. “As you can see, I had some small difficulty at Hohenlinden. I broke my right wrist, and since it is now impossible for me to wield the sword for some weeks, I have been assigned as maid of all work to General Ney. I have some facility in speaking German, and I have had the misfortune before of being put in charge of stabling and feed arrangements. It is no small matter to quarter nine thousand men in Munich without giving offense!”

Michel was greeting our host and his wife in German, and now turned to present me. “May I present to you my dear companion, Madame Maria Kuller? She has traveled in arms with us, and borne every danger and privation.”

Our host, the Doctor, bent over my hand very properly. His wife hesitated, and did not offer the kiss of greeting. “I am delighted,” I murmured, but I felt myself coloring. I looked terrible and I knew it. In the field it didn’t matter, but here in the drawing rooms of Munich it did. I was not a respectable woman, and we were not in the Directory salons of Paris.

I was then introduced to the Doctor’s oldest son, a serious young man in his late twenties, and his plain, thin wife. She didn’t actually speak to the likes of me. There were three other men whose names I didn’t catch, as well as Michel’s aide Captain Ruffin, Colonel Joba of our Fourth Hussars, and young Colonel St. Jean of the Twenty-Third Infantry. All of the latter were quartered in the same house, the rest of the brigade officers being quartered elsewhere.

Dinner was fairly interminable. I was seated between the Doctor’s son and Colonel Joba. Joba ate as though he hadn’t
seen food in a month, and made no attempt at keeping up the conversation. I spoke almost no German, though fortunately the Doctor’s son spoke good French. To his other side, Corbineau carried his assault with the greatest ease, flattering our host’s wife and daughter-in-law in two languages, his dark eyes sparkling and his repartee this side of outrageous, witty and wicked enough to make them feel that they sinned just a little, but not too much. After all, there was no harm in flirting with a handsome wounded cavalry officer. I could see why Michel had brought him, though he was the most junior officer present.