'But it's not possible!' Marianne cried, unable to believe her ears. 'Jason will try to find me. He can't have gone already—'
'Shankala saw him mounted before she left the camp. By this time he must be well on his way.'
'It's not true. It can't be. The woman is lying—'
A groan from the stretcher made her turn and she saw that the gipsy's eyes were open. There was even, she thought, a faint trace of a smile on the pallid lips.
'I tell you she is lying!' she cried.
'Those as close to death as she is do not lie,' Jolival said gravely, while Gracchus bent quickly over the woman who was evidently trying to say something.
They heard a murmur ending in a low groan. The bloodless hand which Gracchus clasped in his relaxed suddenly. The face turned to stone.
'She's dead,' Gracchus whispered.
'What did she say? Did you catch any of it?'
He nodded, then looked away.
'She said: "Forgive me, Mademoiselle Marianne." Then she said: "Mad – as mad as I!'"
A few minutes later, when Marianne, with a heavy heart and mind a blank, had allowed the Emperor to lead her out on to the terrace and was sitting down to dine with him, Duroc came to say that fires had broken out again in various quarters of the city. Napoleon threw down the napkin he had been on the point of unfolding, got up from the table and made his way to the steps, along with all those present at the meal. What he saw brought an oath to his lips.
Clouds of black smoke, carrying a horrible reek of sulphur and pitch, were being driven before the wind. Eastwards, a long street was spouting flames, while down by the Moskva a huge warehouse was beginning to burn.
Someone said: 'That's the reserves of grain, and there's another outbreak over towards the Bazaar. I think that's where the shops are that sell oil and cooking fat. It's as well there's not much wind, or I doubt whether we could have got them under control.'
'Damned idiocy!' the Emperor growled. 'I see a whole regiment down there running about with buckets and casks. There may be no fire engines left but there's still plenty of water in the river—' He bellowed out some orders and then made his way to where Marianne was standing a little way apart, hugging her arms across her chest and staring unseeingly at the ominous spectacle.
'I'm beginning to think you may have been right – at least in part. These fools are trying to cut off our food supplies.'
She turned sightless eyes to him and shook her head.
'They won't be satisfied with that, Sire, you may be sure. But it doesn't matter about me. It's you we have to think of.'
'Little fool,' he murmured through clenched teeth. 'Do you think I'd leave you to perish? You're a good little soldier, Marianne, even when you talk nonsense, and I love my soldiers like my own children. Either we die here together, both of us, or we both come out of it alive. But we're not going to die just yet.' He saw that she was looking at him with a smile too sad for tears and added, more softly stilclass="underline" 'Trust me. Your life is not over yet. It is only just beginning. A long and happy life. I know you are unhappy now. I know you think I'm rambling, but the time will come when you will know that I was right. Forget about this Beaufort. He does not deserve you. Think of your child, waking to life without you. He can give you so much happiness. And think, too, of the man whose name you bear. He is worthy of you… and he loves you very much.'
'Are you a magician, Sire? Who can have told you that?'
'No one – unless it is my own knowledge of men. All that he has done, he can only have done for love. Stop trying to catch the star in the bottom of the well. There are roses close beside you. Do not let them fade. Promise me—'
He drew away, but still without taking his eyes from her. Then, with a brief glance at the city, he rejoined the rest. The flames seemed to be dying down now and the smoke was thinning. This had been no more than a warning.
The Emperor paused and turned.
'Well,' he said. 'I'm waiting!'
Marianne sank slowly into a deep curtsy.
'I will try, Sire. You have my word.'
Part II
WINTER
CHAPTER FIVE
Cassandra
The bed was as hard as a board and the blankets smelled faintly of mould. Marianne tossed and turned for a long time without finding sleep. Yet she was very tired and when the Emperor had retired early, immediately after a somewhat frugal and unconventional meal, she had been really glad to seek her own room. She had gone to ground there, as to a refuge, after first assuring herself that Jolival was comfortably installed in the room next door. The day had been an emotional one for her and it had ended so painfully that she could not help a feeling of relief at escaping from even the pale shadow of court etiquette which the Comte de Ségur had managed to inaugurate in the Kremlin.
Asking nothing better than to go to sleep and put off until tomorrow the consideration of problems which were becoming warped and magnified by weariness, Marianne went to bed at once, thinking that her brain would be clearer and her reactions sharper after a good night's rest. But the discomfort of her bed and the remorseless treadmill of her thoughts had given her no rest and the blessed oblivion of slumber still eluded her.
Her mind refused to be put off but went roaming along the road to St Petersburg after the man who had so callously and selfishly abandoned her, without troubling himself to discover what had become of the woman he professed to love. Yet even then she could not find it in her heart to blame him, so great and so blind was her love. She knew the fierce obstinacy of his nature, in its rancours and desires alike, too well not to have started finding excuses for him, even if only in his determined resentment of Napoleon and the passionate urge he felt to get back to his own country now that she was at war. Both sentiments were, after all, quite comprehensible, and wholly masculine.
Moreover, Marianne could not hide from herself that, but for the promise extracted from her by Napoleon, a promise she was already beginning secretly to regret, she would have made every effort to escape from the palace in which she felt herself to some extent a prisoner. How gladly would she have followed the example of Craig O'Flaherty! For the Irishman had not remained with Jolival and Gracchus in the Kremlin. On learning what had become of Jason, through the few words that Gracchus had been able to get from Shankala, he had made his decision at once.
'Now that you are safely back with your own people,' he had said to Jolival, 'I will ask leave to resume my own journey to the sea, in other words, to St Petersburg. I can't breathe on these interminable inland roads. I need the open sea! Once I get there I'll have no trouble at all in finding Beaufort. I'll only have to ask for his friends, the Krilovs. And even if he travels on horseback while I'm obliged to go on foot, I'll catch him up because it's bound to be some days before he can sail.'
The understanding Jolival had released him very readily and so Craig had departed, begging the Vicomte to make his farewells to Marianne, having first paid his respects to the Emperor who had generously presented him with a horse, a royal gift considering the circumstances.
His departure was a perilous temptation for Marianne. The word she had given seemed a fragile thing when every demon of disingenuousness was ranged against it. And, after all, she had not actually given her promise to Napoleon. She had only promised to try. But to try what? To give up once and for all the dream of happiness that she had carried with her for years?