The Emperor's Assassin (14 page)

The girl behind gave her a push. The line was moving again as another student took her place upon the box and put her eye to the brass-ringed lens.

Lucy's turn came finally. The lieutenant glanced briefly through the lens to be sure it was still focussed on the ship and not some empty blue expanse of water.

Lucy looked, and she heard herself laugh with delight. Look! There it was! Like a little ship caught in a glass bottle. But upon this one she could see men moving about, and all around in the waters crowded the flock of boats, the people all waiting.

“Give another a turn, there's a girl, Hammond.” Miss Cork put a hand gently on Lucy's shoulder. Miss Cork was the youngest teacher at the school and the most well liked by the girls. Lucy stepped down from the box and curtsied to the young lieutenant.

“Did you see the Corsican?”

Lucy shook her head. “But I did when we went out to the ship!” she added.

“You were out to the
Bellerophon
?” the young man asked, bending down a little to be closer to her height.

“Yes. And a woman drowned!”

“My dear—”

“But she did, Miss Cork. Her boat was overturned by the sailors trying to force everyone back from the ship, and she sank down before any could come to her aid. I saw it.”

“Well, it is one thing to see such a tragedy and
another to talk about it. That will be enough.” Miss Cork turned back to the students. “Bell. Step up, now.”

“Did you really see him?” the young officer asked quietly.

Lucy cast a sly glance at her teacher and then nodded quickly. “A chubby little cully,” she said, causing the young man to laugh with delight.

He wiped a tear from his eye. “Do you want to know something funny about him?” he asked.

“Lieutenant,” Miss Cork warned, but Lucy could see that she was charmed by the man.

“He speaks French with a thick Italian accent!” the lieutenant said.

The girls all laughed.

“But he's French,” one of the girls protested. “He was even their emperor once.”

“Indeed he was, but on the island of Corsica, where he was born and raised, the people speak Italian. And so did the ‘chubby little cully. ’ ” He laughed again. “An officer of my acquaintance serves on the
Bellerophon
, and he swears that Bonaparte's French is not as good as his!”

Lucy wondered if this was true, or if it was one of those stories adults told to see how foolish children were. You had to be wary of some of them, who were always up to tricking you and telling you lies—which was somehow not naughty when a grown-up did it but terribly wicked when done by a child. She would ask Lord Arthur or Mr. Morton how Bonaparte spoke. They could be trusted.

A sound hissed over the waters then, and it took Lucy a moment to realise it was a distant huzzah from the people gathered about the
Bellerophon
.

“Oh, there he is! There he is!” cried Miss Cork,
bouncing up and down a little like an excited girl. She shaded her eyes and gazed off over the sound.

“Where?” said Katherine Bell as she stared into the field glass. “Where is he?”

“He's difficult to see,” Lucy informed her. “He's very small.”

B
ut you must at least try
mes petites canetons
!” Marcel Houde entreated him.

Houde was the head chef at Boodle's, which stood on the same street as Westcott's club, White's. Of all the famous clubs in the neighbourhood, Boodle's was the least political and, traditionally, the most resistant to foreign innovation. Its members were mainly foxhunting men, country gentlemen, and landowners who haunted the place on their visits to London, and their tastes, left to their own devices, would probably have run to beefsteak, port wine, and… more beefsteak. But management had decided that Boodle's was not to be left behind by such establishments as White's and Brooks', at least in matters culinary, and had acquired their own Frenchman. Houde's pedigree was good, if not quite so stellar as the famous Carème, who had cooked for Talleyrand and the Russian tsar and now the Prince Regent and was rumoured to be headed for the Pulteney Hotel. But Marcel Houde had learned his art in the employ of Laetitia Bonaparte, the mother of the
emperor, and since coming to England, he had developed a dedicated following. Among whom was Henry Morton.

A Bow Street Runner, of course, was not the sort of man who would ever be proposed for membership at a Mayfair gentleman's club. But Morton had done some services for Monsieur Houde in a matter of some delicacy, involving a female relative of his who had been persecuted by a rejected English lover. An English justice of the peace, at that. And since then Morton's visits to the master-cook's domain, if only through the servants' entrance, were always welcome. Now and again he sat at Houde's plain oaken worktable and, as the clamour and steam of a great club's kitchen swirled around him, sampled some of the most astonishing delights available to the palate of man.

Morton had declined to try the seven or eight courses currently being readied, despite Marcel Houde's vociferous protests.

“Ah, 'Enri, 'Enri, where is your soul? What could be so important, compare to the embrace of a transcendental cuisine?
Allez, mon cher!
”

A plate of roast duckling was being set before Morton even before he could answer.

“Very well, Marcel, very well. But you must sit with me a moment.”

“Deux secondes,”
the chef promised, and went off to inspect the row of burnished copper kettles ranged along the stovetop that ran down the centre of the big room. Morton could hear his voice above the clatter and rattle of plates and implements, exhorting, shouting insults, laughing sarcastically. Other, subordinate voices were once or twice raised in protest, but resignation predominated in their tones. By the time Houde returned a
few minutes later, looking pleased and wiping his reddened face with the sleeve of his open shirt, the Runner had eaten the entire duckling. He pronounced it food for the gods. As his host beamed and turned to call up something else, Morton reached to put a hand on his forearm, restraining him.

“No, no,
mon ami
, we really must have some words. I am pressed, and I am sure you are, too.”

“Ah, if you insist. But
un petit verre.
” Houde poured them both a glass from a bottle of red wine that stood open on the cluttered tabletop.

“I thank you. And this is…?”

“
Un
—let me say it as you poor English do,
un
‘Burgundy, ’ from Beaune, Ropiteau Frères. Good. Not the very best of that
vignoble
, but good.”

And of course he was right. Morton savoured it a moment, then set the glass down.

“Perhaps you can assist me, Marcel. There have been some bloody doings amongst your lot.”

“
Comment?
The chefs, they are killing each other now?”

“You know that I mean your compatriots.
Les Français
. And not in France, but here in England.”

“Ah.” Marcel Houde's manner changed. Morton knew little of his past, but they had occasionally talked on serious themes, and he gathered that the chef had once been a man of passionate conviction—and perhaps of passionate deeds as well. Now he professed to be entirely apolitical and to have brushed such matters from his coat like crumbs, as so many other artists and poets and thinking men had done. All the same, it was apparent that he still favoured the French republicans, and possibly even Bonaparte, at least in his heart. And this
made his knowledge, and his acquaintance amongst the expatriates, quite different from Geoffrey Westcott's.

“In fact, there has been a murder,” Morton told him.

“
Alors
, this is very vile,” breathed out the chef, and sat back. “Who, a royalist? This is why you are coming to me?”

“Yes. We do not know who is responsible, but there are some men we want to have words with. I am in hopes that you can help me find them. Antoine De la Touche. Gilles Niceron. And Robert Guillet de la Gevrillière.”

Houde blew air through his lips and shook his head.

“
Mais
, 'Enri. Men like these. Maybe I 'ave 'eard of them, but you know, these are not my friends, not my
camarades
.”

“I'm sure they're not. But perhaps you can still assist me?”

“Well, well.
Attend.
I think. Guillet de la Gevrillière, now he I 'ave not 'eard to be in England for—what? Two year, at least. In fact, nobody know what become of 'im, except it is spoken that 'e is in prison, in France.”

“The others?”

Marcel Houde sighed. “De la Touche.
Bon.
'E 'as change of 'eart, conversion. This is a great scandal, for some people. 'E become religious, and 'e love King Louis now, and 'e is in France, too, gone to Provence to be acolyte in the Abbaye de Sénanque. Do not smile. This is true, and I 'ave 'eard many people say it. But, now… Niceron.
Oui
, Gilles Niceron, 'e may be in Londres, or near—yes, I think so.”

“Do you know where?”

“No, no, not certainly. But I think 'e once was living with some farmer, some old Huguenot, out in the north of
la ville
, near the Stamford 'ill Turnpike. There is
un petit
village
over there, let me think—
oui
, who is called Walt'amstow. Niceron, 'e live there, on the farm, and 'e work for the Huguenot, but I don't know that man's name. But you find 'im, I think, if you go there.”

“What manner of a man is he? Niceron.”

“Oh, I do not know. I 'av 'eard' he is
grand
, and powerful. Some people are afraid of 'im, but I do not remember why. To me, 'Enri, 'e is just a name.”

“Is he active in French matters? In politics?”

“ 'Enri! I tell you, I do not know about 'im!” Houde was exasperated.

Morton smiled. “No matter. We shall pay a visit to Citizen Niceron. There is another man, too, whose name we don't know. But he is going about saying he is from what I take to be Malmaison, and he is distinguished by a red stain in his skin, a raspberry mark, on the head.”

Now Marcel Houde did not look very happy. He leaned on his elbow and closed his eyes, rubbing his broad forehead vaguely with two fingers. “Ah,
oui, oui
,” he murmured.

“I must take it that you do know him,
mon ami
.”

Houde opened eyes that suddenly looked weary. “You know what Malmaison is, 'Enri?”

“I was hoping you could help me there, too.”

“It is, or it was, a palace of the emperor, west of Paris.

Or
plus précisément
, of his stepdaughter 'Ortense. I forgive
you
, of course, but any Frenchman would know this.”

“So,” said Morton slowly, “this man is a Bonapartist?”

“Let me ask you this, 'Enri. Would you say that a person who loved Bonaparte, in this country, would be wise to go about introducing 'imself this way?”

“Was the name used in irony, then?”

“
Non, non, jamais.
It is ridiculous, yes.
Ironique
, no.
No, 'Enri, I know quite well this man. But listen to me a minute, before I give you 'is name and you go rushing off to
arrêter
'im. Because I can tell you he is an
imbécile
, a nothing, a crazed man who is drunk always. You know, don't you, that these royalists 'ate each other even more than they 'ate the rest of us?”

“I have heard it said.”

“
Bon
. So why don't you think maybe they are killing each
other
?”

“Perhaps they are. But the royalists I talked to seem to hate Napoleon as thoroughly as one could ask.”

“Well, but you are right, of course,” the chef went on. “They 'ate the emperor. They 'ate the ideals of the
république
, too, and they 'ate nine-tenths of the French people. They want to go back to the days when the peasants were made to beat the marshes all night, so the aristocrats could sleep without the sound of frogs. They really did that, you know. If you ask me, they 'ate France herself, although no doubt they did not tell you that.”

“Anything but. And they don't suspect other royalists. They suspect the followers of Bonaparte. Do you really think they are wrong to do that?”

Houde sighed and seemed to consider a moment. “No,
probablement pas
. Probably they are not entirely wrong. But suspicion is one thing. Who knows what the truth is?”

Morton nodded. “It is hard to unravel. I ask myself the same questions. Why would lovers of the republic, or adherents of the fallen emperor, be attacking the émigrés
now
? The battles are over. I am told that most of the agents, spies, and troublemakers have left England.”

“They tell you there will be no more trouble here in England? But it is not true! Not true at all. I don't know
why they tell you such a thing. Perhaps they are
idiots
. The danger has not pass, 'Enri, and surely you, as a man who listens to
le peuple
, surely you know this in your 'eart. The danger 'as not pass. For Angleterre, the danger is just begin.”

Henry Morton smiled grimly. “So our streets will run in blood, as yours did?”