The Josephine B. Trilogy (65 page)

Junot jumped to the door of our carriage. “Allow me,” he said, gesturing us in.

“I’m so sleepy!” Lisette yawned, climbing in after Hamelin. “Did you sleep, Madame?” she asked, smiling with her eyes at Junot.

“A little.” I was anxious to join Bonaparte, but anxious as well about leaving the protection of the fort. Nowhere seemed safe.

Junot headed out the open gate on horseback, the dragoons falling in behind. A young dragoon with a pink face jumped onto his horse and trotted to catch up with them. He smiled and tipped his hat at me as he raced by.

“The young men always like
you,
Madame,” Lisette teased, handing me a warm roll lined with a sausage.

“Did I miss something?” Hamelin asked, looking up from his book of Italian phrases.

“I remind them of their mothers,” I told my maid. The freshly baked bread lifted my spirits, restored faith. We’d not had time to eat.

“Would you be offended if I told you that you remind me of my mother?” she asked.

“Not at all. In fact, you remind me of my daughter.” We exchanged an affectionate look.

Our carriage lurched forward. I waved to General Guillaume as we pulled through the gate. He turned away, his hand over his heart. He was frightened for us, I realized, a cold feeling of fear coming over me.

It was cooler along the shores of Lake Garda, the vast water calm, the blue hills in the distance misty. I was relieved not to hear sniper fire.

Lisette and I were playing cat’s cradle when we were startled by the ominous boom of a cannon. The carriage halted abruptly; I put out a hand to keep from falling forward. I saw a flash of light, heard musket fire, cannon again. But it was the sound of a horse’s scream that chilled me—that, and the violent jolting of our carriage. I realized we might tip. I heard Junot yelling, “Get down, get down, dismount, you idiot!”

“What’s happened?” Hamelin hiccupped, pulling down on his hat.

The door to the carriage was thrown open. “Jump!” Junot grabbed Hamelin and yanked him out. A crack of gunfire sent him scrambling.

Lisette leapt into Junot’s arms. He let her down and pushed her toward the ditch. I gathered my skirts. I felt strangely calm; even so, I tasted tears. A sudden jolt threw me off balance. I heard a thunderous boom. “Get out!” Junot yelled.

I jumped, scrambling after Hamelin and Lisette, my petticoat tearing. I rolled down an embankment, coming to rest in marshy reeds. I crawled through the mud to the others. Lisette looked deathly pale. I put my arm around her. She was trembling. Or was I?

“My hiccups are gone,” Hamelin said, blinking.

I heard the sound of a man crying out. “It must be one of the soldiers.” I climbed back up to the top of the embankment.

“Madame, don’t! Be careful,” Lisette hissed. “Come back!”

I peered through the tall grass. Junot was crouched beside a fallen
horse, a big chestnut. It was thrashing, bleeding from a wound in its neck. The other horses were rearing and kicking, trying to free themselves of the entangled harness. It was all the postillion could do to hold onto them while a dragoon cut the traces. And then I saw the young dragoon…

I ducked down, my breath shaky. My hand was covered in mud. I wiped it on the grass slowly, as if in a dream, then slid back down the embankment, trembling.

“What’s going on?” Hamelin asked, holding a limp Lisette in his arms. Had she fainted? I tried to answer, but I could not, for I had seen the young dragoon, fallen from his horse, his foot caught in the stirrup, his face…

“What’s wrong with Lisette?” I said finally, gasping.

Hamelin shook her. “I can’t get her to wake up.”

“Do you have a flask?”

“Oh!” He felt in his pocket, pulled out a leather-covered bottle and handed it to me. “Whisky. There’s a little left.”

I opened it and held it under Lisette’s nose. Her eyelids flickered. I poured some of the liquor over my fingers, wiped it on her forehead, her lips, her nostrils. She moaned. “Sit her up more.” I feared she might retch.

Hamelin slumped her forward. Lisette shook her head, looked up at me. “I feel sick, Madame!”

“Have a sip,” I said, handing her the flask. “But just a little,” I cautioned her, watching her tip back her head. We had to be ready to run.

I heard Junot yell, the crack of a whip, the carriage clattering, horses. We were showered with loose stones. Then Junot came tumbling down the embankment. He cursed when he hit the mud. He crawled over to us, his face frightful with mud and blood. Lisette handed him her handkerchief out of her bodice. “Are you all right?” he asked, pressing her kerchief to his lips.

“It’s uncomfortable here,” Hamelin said, slapping at a mosquito. They were everywhere now. “This pestilent air—”

“Colonel Junot, we heard the carriage.”

“I whipped it on.” He cracked his knuckles.

“We’re stranded?” Hamelin exclaimed.

“The Austrians will assume you’re in it and stop firing. But we’ve got to get into the woods without their seeing us.” Junot started crawling along the ditch. “Can you follow?” I nodded. “Stay down,” he hissed.

Once in a more secluded area, not far, we were able to get up out of the mud. Lisette’s teeth were chattering, in spite of the heat. “Do you know where we are?” I asked Junot. I put my arm around Lisette, to steady her, steady myself.

“Near Desenzano,” Junot said, slapping at a mosquito.

I remembered Desenzano, a village of narrow little streets opening onto the lake. Bonaparte and I had passed through it two nights before on the way to Verona.

I sensed the beat of a horse’s hooves. Cocking his musket, Junot went to the edge of the woods. “A carter,” he said, returning. “He’s stopped to look at the dead horse.”

A creaking wagon pulled by a fat red horse came into view. Loaded on the back were crates of chickens. The carter was wearing a black scarf around his head, like a peasant woman. He pulled to a stop when he saw us, said something in Italian. “Can you understand him?” I asked Junot.

“Just get in,” Junot said, aiming his musket at the peasant. We climbed onto the wagon, sitting down uneasily on top of the chicken crates. “Go!” Junot said to the driver, climbing up beside him, but the carter just sat there.

“Do you have your little book?” I asked Hamelin.

Hamelin felt around in his pockets, put on his spectacles, ruffled through the pages of his book of Italian phrases. “Nohn sahp-pee-AHmon DOH-veh chee troh-vee-AH-moh,” he said (or something like that).

“What did you say?” Junot demanded.

“We are lost,” Hamelin said, blinking. “I think that’s what I said.”

“We’re not lost!” Junot grabbed the peasant’s whip and cracked it, flicking the horse’s rump. The mare bolted forward, setting the chickens to squawking.

We smelled Desenzano before we saw it. The mare balked, tossing her big head, refusing to go forward. “It’s the smell,” I said. I put a handkerchief to my nose, my eyes watering.

“There was a battle here last night,” Junot said, cracking the whip again. But the mare wasn’t budging. Then the driver yelled something at the horse and it pulled forward at last, swishing its plaited tail.

“He said
stupido,
didn’t he? I think he told the horse it was stupid.” Hamelin leafed through his book of phrases.

“
Stufato,
I thought he said.” A feeling of faintness had come over me.

“Stewed meat?” Hamelin read.

Junot glanced back at me. “Cover her eyes.”

I tried not to look as we went through the town, but I could not keep out the smell of gunpowder, burned flesh, faint whiffs of a sweet odour. The soft bump of the wagon over a body. The whimpering sounds, like those of a child. “I heard someone call out. Can’t we stop?” Then I made the mistake of opening my eyes. Everywhere there were bloated bodies. The cobblestones were awash with blood, drying in the morning sun. Two peasant women were pulling a coat off a dead soldier, a boy with a grey pallor to his skin, vacant eyes. The pickers looked up at us and one of them grinned, toothless as a baby. I pressed Lisette to me, my trembling fingers entangled in her sweat-damp hair.

As we approached Castelnuovo there were herds of cavalry horses tethered, loaded munitions wagons, tents pitched, soldiers everywhere. The smoke of numerous campfires gave the landscape an ethereal look. Tears came to my eyes at the sight of the flag of the French Republic hanging from the thatched roof of a peasant’s hut—the temporary headquarters of the Army of Italy.

“What took you so long?” Bonaparte demanded, emerging. “Your escort arrived back well over an hour ago.”

“It was rough going,” Junot said, saluting, red in the face. He glanced at Lisette. She was staring out over the maize fields.

“It was a good thing I was there,” Hamelin said as Bonaparte lifted me down from the wagon.

I fought back tears. “I think I should sit down.” And then the sobs came, overwhelming me.

“Get ether,” Bonaparte commanded an orderly. He grasped me by the shoulder. “Fight it, don’t give in to it.” But I had been fighting it for too long. “The Austrians are going to pay dearly for this,” I heard him say under his breath.

I drank the ether water the aide brought, coughed. It tasted brackish. That smell was with me still. “Give some to Lisette.” She was sitting in the wagon, watching us with a dazed look. Even the chickens in the crates were silent.

“The driver wants a reward,” Junot told Bonaparte, cracking his knuckles. “At least, I think he does. Maybe you should talk to him.”

“Give him whatever he wants,” Bonaparte said, squeezing my hand.

“Are our trunks here? Can we change?” Lisette asked, standing.

Junot put out his hand to help her down. “Careful, she might fall,” I told him, my voice tremulous.

“You should eat—it will give you strength.” Bonaparte led me into the little cottage with a thatched roof.

Inside, it was dark. The floor was just dirt. The hut was hot, airless, smelling of goats. A table in front of an empty fireplace was covered with reports, illuminated by a tin lantern. An enormous map was nailed to the rough plank wall. Bonaparte led me to a straw pallet. He said something in Italian to a peasant boy with a dirty face. “And salami?” Bonaparte asked, looking back at me. I shook my head, no. I didn’t think I could eat.

“The coach will be ready in thirty minutes, General,” Junot said, looking in.

“The harness is mended?”

Junot nodded, cracking his knuckles.

“We’re leaving you, Bonaparte?” I began to tremble.

Nearing Toscane, we were met by a courier mounted on a black horse
slick with lather. “Turn back!” he yelled. “The Austrians are on ahead. They’ve taken Brescia!”

Mon Dieu, I thought,
Brescia
? Brescia was so close to Milan.

“What are we going to do now?” Hamelin asked, taking out his travel book. “We can’t go north, east or west.”

“South,” Bonaparte said, pacing.

“I want to stay with you!”

He regarded me with an expression I couldn’t identify. This man, my husband, wasn’t the man I had known in Paris. Here, in the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of the camp, surrounded by men who regarded him with devoted loyalty, he seemed transformed. Confident, expansive, there was a certain nobility to his movements. Like his men I believed in him, felt an aura of security when I was in his presence. “
Please,
Bonaparte.”

He knelt down beside me, taking my hands in his. His touch calmed me. “You must understand—the Austrians are closing in. We’re anticipating quite a battle. You will be safe in the south.”

His eyes told me I must, that it was for the best. I sniffed and nodded. He kissed me with great tenderness. “You were brave this morning,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, Bonaparte!” I pressed his fingers to my lips. There was strength in him. I could understand why his men followed him with such absolute devotion—he ennobled them, just as he ennobled me.

He stood and addressed his courier, who was standing in the door, twisting the ends of his massive moustache. “Cross the Po river at Cremona,” he told him, tracing the route on the map with a paper knife. “It’s less risky there.” He scratched something on a paper. “My Uncle Fesch is in Parma. He will give you shelter for the night. Then take him with you south. Tell him that’s an order. Head down into Lucques—they are a peaceful people. I’ll send word when it’s safe to return.”

“A kiss?” I said, standing.

“For luck,” he smiled, taking me in his arms.

It is past midnight now. We are in Parma, in the home of Bonaparte’s Uncle Fesch, a jolly sort of man with a ruddy complexion. A maid just came for my tray, the pastries untouched. “I cannot eat,” I told her slowly, in simple French.
Scusatemi.
“I am ill,” I added, not untruthfully.

And terrified, still.

And haunted: by the image of a boy’s face, his thin body on the dusty road, the smell of Desenzano, the cries of the wounded left to die.

Tears, tears. I begin to tremble.
Mon Dieu.
I am the daughter of a soldier, the widow of a soldier, the wife of a soldier. But until today, I never knew what war was.

In which I am surrounded by Bonapartes

October 2, 1796—Milan, a sweltering hot afternoon.

It has been some time, I see, since I’ve written here. So much has happened, and yet so much remains the same. Bonaparte is victorious, against all odds. Yet the enemy is a many-headed Hydra. How many armies can the Austrians raise? Every time Bonaparte vanquishes one, yet another rises up in its place. I fear there will never be peace.

Oh, it is the vapours again, surely. I am overcome with malaise. I feel another attack coming on, a strange shimmering at the edges. Migraine, the doctor told me the last time it happened, a paroxysmal pain in the temple. Pain, certainly, for even laudanum could not touch it. The last time I had an attack, I stayed in a darkened room for three days, daring not move or even speak. This land will be my grave, I fear.

November 23.

Victory! (Relief.) Once again the Austrians have retreated behind the walls of Mantua.