Valentina (2 page)

For a moment Valentina didn't answer him. For the past six years, ever since Napoleon's defeat of the Russians at Tilsit, she had been brought up to regard the French as the champions of Polish liberty and the Emperor Napoleon as the saviour of her divided country. Now her husband had committed her to spying upon the men who were so soon to fight a terrible war from which it was hoped Poland would ultimately benefit.

‘If you are hesitating,' he said, ‘may I remind you of the grievous harm a refusal would do my political career in the future? May I also remind you that your half-Russian sister is hardly an advantage at the moment; you might be suspected of treason, instead of mere weakness. You can't afford to disappoint the Count. Or me.'

‘At least you don't pretend I have a choice,' Valentina said. ‘I shall do as I am told. But I find it disgusting.'

‘Think of your country's future,' he said coldly, ‘if you haven't any wifely concern for mine. Regard yourself as yet another martyr in the cause of Poland's freedom.'

‘Surely,' Valentina said, ‘Madame Walewska knows Napoleon's intentions? What better source of information could you have?'

Six years ago the beautiful Countess Walewska had deliberately thrown herself at Napoleon's feet, primed by the same men who were now recruiting Valentina, and she had become his mistress and Poland's most persuasive advocate. She had left Poland with Napoleon's illegitimate son and lived for some years in Paris. The plan had miscalculated, for the unhappy woman had fallen deeply in love with the Emperor, and her reports were too biased to be trustworthy. At the mention of her name the Count laughed contemptuously.

‘I can think of almost any source better than the infatuated babblings of that damned woman; all she does is repeat the politic lies Napoleon tells her for our benefit, and she's stupid enough to believe them herself. It was obvious from the beginning that she was quite unsuitable.' He drew out his little dress watch and stood up quickly. ‘Come, my dear. Let me fasten your pelisse. I told the carriage to be ready half an hour ago.' He took up the sable-lined velvet pelisse and wrapped it round his wife's shoulders; his fingers brushed across her bare throat and lingered as they fastened the silk cords across her breast. The caress made her shudder; the calculated sexual antics disgusted her, and alarmed her. There had been blessed intervals in the last two years when he hardly troubled her at all, and she supposed he had a mistress. She moved away from him abruptly.

‘Come, Theo; we'll be late.'

‘So we will. Never mind, I shall visit you this evening.'

‘As you please,' she said. She had made excuses once or twice but he had always discovered the deception and now she didn't dare to lie.

He opened the door for her and they went down the wide stone staircase to the front entrance where their carriage and an escort of two outriders with torches waited in the street outside. Twenty minutes later they were announced at the entrance of the Grand Salon in the Kalinovsky Palace where the members of the first families of Poland were giving a reception in honour of Napoleon. A crowd of four hundred had assembled in the three enormous rooms which had been prepared for the reception of the Emperor and his staff. The biggest was almost a hundred feet long, the walls were hung with crimson silk and fine ormolu candelabra stood at intervals down the sides of the room, shedding their yellow light on a scene of glittering uniforms, handsome men, and women resplendent in jewels and magnificent gowns. A buffet had been arranged in two smaller rooms where a sumptuous supper was ready, and an alcove was reserved for the Emperor. The ladies of Danzig society had arranged huge alabaster vases of flowers in the French and Polish colours, and Count Potocki himself had provided gold plate for Napoleon's use. An orchestra played at one end of the huge room, raised up on a gallery; the atmosphere was stifling with dozens of different scents, candle grease and beeswax polish which had made the oak floors as dangerous as glass to walk upon.

Many heads turned when the Count and Countess Grunowski were announced. They paid few visits to the city, but Valentina was well known for her beauty. Certainly the Count had the satisfaction of seeing her cause quite a sensation as she stood in the doorway, greeting Count and Countess Potocki, her red velvet dress contrasting vividly with her jet black hair, and rose white skin; Grunowski's heavy rubies glowed round her neck and shimmered in her ears. Her dress was simple compared with many of the heavily embroidered, colourful creations worn by some of the women, but it had been designed with an artist's eye for the tall, slim figure and beautiful breast and arms of the woman who wore it; the long court train fell to the ground from her shoulders and was edged with a band of gold thread embroidery three inches wide.

Potocki himself was a little stirred by her as she stood in front of him that night. She was certainly beautiful enough to turn the head of any man, and probably wise enough to know that her patriotic duty might well entail more than mere eaves-dropping, but he had left that part to the discretion of her husband. He would know how to explain it to her, and when the moment was right. At least they were not going to repeat their initial mistake with another lovely victim, and set Valentina at Napoleon himself. A lesser man would do.

‘My compliments, Madame,' he said. ‘I have never seen such a vision of beauty, and all the fair blooms of Poland are in flower tonight.'

Valentina smiled and thanked him. She decided that this was the moment to do what her husband had ordered. And perhaps it was right; Potocki was a man of honour. He must know that it was vital to spy upon the French, however despicable it seemed in theory. ‘I am happy to be of service, Highness,' she said. ‘My husband told me of your request and I will do anything I can to help our country. You can rely on me.'

‘I'm sure I can,' he said, and he took her hand and kissed it. ‘Poland has always been fortunate in her children.'

They passed on and began mingling with the crowd. The Count paid her the compliment of staying at her side, but he talked politics to his friends and did not trouble to include her beyond the introduction. Valentina occupied herself with exchanging a few words with some of the ladies she knew and otherwise looked round the room. The Emperor was expected soon, and all his staff were there. If she were supposed to make contact with them, then it was surely wasting time to stay rooted among her fellow Poles, but without the Count's initiative there was nothing she could do. After a time she became aware that she was being watched; the eyes of the watcher seemed to draw her to the left, and when she turned she immediately met the gaze of a French officer who was standing among a group of animated ladies and some senior officers in the Polish Lancers. He was tall and he held himself with an air of arrogance that went with the rank of Colonel in the Imperial Guard and the coveted Legion d'Honneur on his breast. There were touches of grey in his dark hair, and he wore it cut short and without the elaborate sideburns affected by many of the French. The eyes that stared so boldly into hers were a curious colour, a steely grey, and they were set in a hard, aristocratic face, tanned by weather in countries all over the world, and marked by a scar down one cheek. Most men watched Valentina with admiration and this man made no secret of his approval. His glance swept over her from head to foot, and he acknowledged her angry stare with a slight smile. Valentina turned to her husband, anxious to move away, but at that moment the double doors at the end of the Salon were opened wide, and Potocki and his wife, followed by half a dozen nobles, hurried out. ‘Napoleon has arrived,' the Count said. ‘Come quickly or we will lose our places in the line.'

The crowd was dividing rapidly, making a lane for the Emperor of France, and because of the Count's quickness they found themselves standing in the front rank on the left. The next moment two trumpeters of the Imperial Guard sounded a fanfare, and the French Court Chamberlain appeared, walking backwards through the open doors. He turned and rapped loudly three times with his Staff of Office.

‘His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Napoleon. The Countess Walewska.'

Valentina had seen his portrait hanging in crude copies in many Polish mansions; she had seen the famous profile, so like a Roman Caesar, on coins and medallions, and she had heard Napoleon described. Nothing prepared her for her first sight of the most formidable soldier in the world, the man the English swore ate babies and who, his soldiers said, was something more than human. He was very small, a few inches above five feet, and he wore a plain dark green coat and white breeches with white stockings and buckled shoes; his only ornament was the Grand Cross of the Legion d'Honneur round his neck, the famous order for gallantry in the field which he had founded himself. Beside him walked one of the loveliest women Valentina had ever seen in her life; she was small and slim, with hair the colour of new minted gold and wide violet blue eyes. There was a look of radiance upon her face which gave it an almost spiritual beauty; her hand was on Napoleon's arm, and the smile on her lips was for him alone. This, then, was the famous Marie Walewska, the virtuous wife of a great nobleman who had agreed to prostitute herself to the Emperor for her country's sake, and fallen victim to a love which was beyond her power to control. It was said that he loved her in return; yet he neglected her for months and he had divorced his first Empress Josephine to marry an Austrian Archduchess who didn't care for him at all. He had a son now too, the little King of Rome, a child he loved as tenderly as any woman. He had seen little or nothing of Marie Walewska's child. And yet she stayed in his shadow, for ever patient, for ever waiting and often forgotten, the woman her own people called the White Rose of Poland, and men like Valentina's husband dismissed as a fool who had let herself be duped by love. As Napoleon came near them, the crowd began dipping in homage; just before she sank to her knee in a deep curtsey, Valentina glanced into the face of Napoleon Bonaparte and the incongruously blue eyes in the oliveskinned Italian face met hers for a brief second. The effect of that glance was like contact with lightning. A current passed out of the man, a magnetism that held and mesmerised even in that fleeting instant, and it was something infinitely greater than the dominance of a man who was supremely male. Greatness was in him, and majesty too, and the unlovely Bourbons, with a thousand years of monarchy behind them, had never possessed it as did this little Corsican General who had conquered all Europe in the span of fourteen years. Marie Walewska was not a fool; the men who had tried to pit a mere woman against such a man were the ones whose wits had given out. It was not until he had passed far beyond them that Valentina remembered how tired and strained Napoleon had looked. The Emperor made a relatively quick circuit of the room, speaking a word here and there to someone presented by Count Potocki, and then disappeared into the smaller supper room. Protocol relaxed immediately and the whisper of conversation became an excited roar while a lot of undignified pushing began round the doorway where the Emperor and his mistress were having supper. Nearly three hours had passed and Valentina had not even had a glass of wine; the big buffet room was impossibly crowded, and as it was obvious that His Imperial Majesty didn't intend to circulate again that night, people struggled for chairs and food and settled wherever they could find a place. ‘Please, Theo, couldn't we go home? I'm exhausted and quite faint with hunger.'

The Count was pale and there were drops of sweat on his forehead; he was as tired and famished as his wife, but he answered curtly: ‘Not yet. Potocki will be with us soon. We must wait here.' They did not have to wait much longer, for soon the Count could be seen making his way towards them. He came up to Valentina and bowed.

‘Come with me, Madame. Marshal Murat, King of Naples, has asked to meet you. Will you excuse me, my dear Theodore? I will return Madame to you as soon as she has been presented.'

‘Make no apology to me,' the Count said. ‘I'm sure my wife will find the Marshal better company than a tired and ageing husband. If I could safely leave her in your care I might commandeer a coach and make my way to bed.'

Even as he said it Valentina knew that it was all rehearsed. This introduction had been planned; this was why they had been told to wait.

‘Rely upon me,' Potocki said. ‘I will take good care of Madame Grunowski for you. Now, my dear lady, follow me. We must not keep the Marshal waiting!'

Joachim Murat was born in Gascony and he had all the conceit and flamboyance of that stubborn French breed; he had begun his real military career with Napoleon in the Italian campaign of 1796 and having joined the young General and attached himself firmly to his rocketing star of fortune, Murat had risen like a meteor. The Emperor had married him to his sister Caroline and given him the little Kingdom of Naples as a reward. As they approached him Valentina identified him easily in the crowd of brilliantly dressed officers. Firstly he was half a head taller than most, and he was wearing a uniform of his own design, coated and breeched in scarlet velvet with a profusion of gold lace and so many decorations that he dazzled the eye. His passion for clothes was a joke which no one dare indulge to his face except Napoleon, who complained that when they appeared together the crowds thought that he, and not Bonaparte, was Emperor because of the gaudy way he dressed. But he was quite certainly handsome, with a bold, engaging smile and flashing eyes; he was reputed to be the most fearless cavalry leader in the world. The bright coloured uniform was always conspicuous at the head of every charge in battle, and his troops adored him. His victories in the boudoir were as well known as those won on the field and he was said to have been one of the Empress Josephine's lovers when Napoleon was away at war. He moved a step forward to greet the Count and the extremely lovely lady he was bringing with him; the introduction had been suggested to him, with the hint that he would find the Countess Grunowski the prettiest woman in Danzig, and Murat had agreed with alacrity. He liked amusement, and at the moment the Emperor was in a bad humour and the lull before the invasion of Russia was tedious and irritating. Nerves were apt to fray at such a time, and he needed relaxation. As soon as he saw Valentina he was only too hopeful that she was one of the devoted band of Polish ladies who considered it an act of patriotism to accommodate French officers.