Horses screamed and crashed, the teams dragging each other down.
Our own coach tilted, balanced on two wheels, and then slid into a ditch and slowly went over. Astiza and I tumbled to one side in the coach. The gypsies leapt clear.
“Imbeciles!” a woman shouted. “My husband could have you shot!” We shakily climbed out of the wreck. Our coach’s front axel was broken, as were the legs of two of our screaming horses. Cavalry who were escorting whomever we’d collided with had dismounted and were moving forward with pistols to dispatch the injured horses and disentangle the others. Shouting at us from the window of her own coach was an impressively fashionable woman—her clothes would beggar a banker—with a frantic look. She had the hauteur of a Parisian, but I didn’t immediately recognize her. I was an American, illegally back in France, still wanted for murder as far as I knew, who had not even obeyed the forty-day quarantine imposed on those traveling from the East. (Neither had Bonaparte.) Now there were soldiers and questions, even though her coach was in the wrong. I had a feeling being in the right wouldn’t matter much here.
“My business is of paramount importance for the state!” the woman shouted in panic. “Get your animals away from mine!”
“You pulled out in front of us!” Astiza replied, her accent plain.
“You are as rude as you are incompetent!”
“Wait,” I cautioned. “She has soldiers.” t h e
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Too late. “And you are as impertinent as you are clumsy!” the woman shrieked. “Do you know who I am? I could have you arrested!” I went forward to head off a cat fight by making a bogus offer of later payment, just to get the harridan on her way. Our gypsies had wisely melted into the trees. Two pistol shots rang out, silencing the worst screams of the horses, and then the cavalrymen turned to us, hands on the hilts of their swords.
“Please, madame, it was just a simple accident,” I said, smiling with my usual affable charm. “A moment more and you’ll be on your way.
And you’re heading to?”
“My husband, if I can find him! Oh, this is disaster! We took the wrong turn and I missed him on the highway, and now his brothers will get to him first and tell their lies about me. If you’ve delayed me too much, you’ll answer for it!”
I thought the guillotine had thinned out this kind of arrogance, but apparently it hadn’t gotten them all. “But Paris is that way,” I pointed.
“I wanted to meet him! But he’s got past us and we were taking this lane to swing back. Now he’ll already be home, and I not being there will confirm the worst!”
“What worst?”
“That I’m unfaithful!” And she burst into tears.
It was then that I recognized her features, somewhat famous in the Parisian social circles at whose fringes I’d moved. This was none other than Josephine, Napoleon’s wife! What the devil was she doing on a dark road with night falling? And of course tears brought sympathy. I am nothing if not gallant, and weeping will disarm any gentleman.
“It’s Bonaparte’s wife,” I whispered to Astiza. “When he heard she was an adulteress, on the eve of the Battle of the Pyramids, he nearly went insane.”
“Is that why she’s frightened?”
“We know how mercurial he is. He might put her in front of a firing squad.”
Astiza considered, then moved swiftly to the coach door. “Lady, we know your husband.”
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“What?” She was a small woman, I now assessed, slim and finely dressed, neither homely nor particularly beautiful, her skin warm, her nose straight, her lips full, her eyes attractively wide and dark and, even in their desperation, intelligent. She had dark hair and finely sculpted ears, but her complexion was blotchy from crying. “How could you know him?”
“We served with Bonaparte in Egypt. We’re hurrying ourselves, to warn him of terrible danger.”
“You do know him! What danger? An assassination?”
“That a companion, Alessandro Silano, plans to betray him.”
“Count Silano? He’s coming with my husband, I heard. He’s supposed to be a confidant and adviser.”
“He’s bewitched Napoleon, and has tried to turn him against you.
But we can help. You’re attempting to reconcile?” She bowed her head, eyes wet. “It’s been such a surprise. We had no warning he was coming. I rushed from my dearest friend to meet him. But these idiots took a wrong turn.” She leaned out the carriage window and gripped Astiza’s arms. “You must tell him that despite everything, I still love him! If he divorces me, I lose everything! My children will be penniless! Is it my fault he goes away for months and years?”
“Then the gods have arranged this accident, don’t you think?” Astiza said.
“The gods?”
I drew my companion back. “What are you doing?” I hissed.
“Here is our key to Bonaparte!” Astiza whispered. “He’ll be surrounded by soldiers. How else are we going to get to him save through his wife? She’s not faithful to him or anything else, which means she’ll ally with anyone who suits her purpose. That means we have to enlist Josephine on our side. She can find out where the scroll is when she beds him, when men lose what little wits they have. Then we steal it back!”
“What are you whispering about?” Josephine called.
Astiza smiled. “Please, lady, our own carriage is ruined but it’s t h e
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imperative we reach your husband. I think we can help each other. If you’d let us ride with you we can help you reconcile.”
“How?”
“My companion is a wise Freemason. We know the key to a sacred book that could give Napoleon great power.”
“Freemason?” She squinted at me. “Abbot Barruel in his famed book said they were behind the revolution. The Jacobins were all a Masonic plot. But the Journal of Free Men says the Masons are actually Royalists, plotting to bring back the king. Which are you?”
“I see the future in your husband, lady,” I lied.
Josephine looked intrigued, and calculating. “Sacred book?”
“From Egypt,” Astiza said. “If we ride we can be in Paris by dawn.” Somewhat surprisingly, she assented. She was so rattled by Napoleon’s reappearance and his undoubted fury at her adulterous ways that she was eager for any help, no matter how improbable. So we left our own stolen coach a wreck, half its horses shot, our gypsies hiding, and took hers to Paris.
“Now. You must tell me what you know or I will throw you out,” she warned.
We had to gamble. “I found a book that conveys great powers,” I began.
“What kind of powers?”
“The power to persuade. To enchant. To live unnaturally long, perhaps forever. To manipulate objects.”
Her eyes were wide and greedy.
“Count Silano has stolen this book and fastened onto Bonaparte like a leech, draining his mind. But the book hasn’t been translated.
Only we can do so. If his wife was to offer the key, on the understanding that Silano must be displaced, then you’d get your marriage back. I’m proposing an alliance. With our secret, you can get into your husband’s bedchamber. With your influence, we can get back our book, dispose of Silano, and help Napoleon.” She was wary. “What key?”
“To a strange, ancient language, long lost.” Astiza turned on Jose-3 0 8
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phine’s coach seat and I gently unlaced the back of her dress. The fabric parted, revealing the intricate alphabet in henna.