One was a half-frozen drummer boy, kept afloat by his drum. He lived.
Another was Napoleon’s bicorn hat.
Every soldier in Boulogne applauded the emperor’s courage. And every soldier muttered that the disaster was a bad omen for an invasion.
For me, the event had a different outcome. “It is even more imperative that I see you and your wife,” Napoleon wrote two days later. “My pavilion, at ten o’clock tomorrow, very precisely.”
I decided not to be late.
CHAPTER 12
The Big Box had a floor of black enamel, silver wallpaper, and an azure ceiling painted with a golden eagle hurling thunderbolts at England. No wonder the French were interested in flying machines; Napoleon could be inspired by the idea every time he tilted his head. There was also a large oval conference table covered by felt cloth like a green England. A huge map of the Channel hung on one wall, and there was an inkstand with sheets of paper and quill pens cut ready for use, should Bonaparte need to dictate an order.
Pasques pushed Astiza and me through the pavilion door and took up sentry duty outside with the bodyguard Roustan. We’d been searched for weapons.
The new emperor was standing at a window, feet planted, hands clasped behind his back, to stare into the Atlantic haze toward Britain. His uniform coat was his favorite chasseur green again this day, boots bright as obsidian, and vest buttoned tight across his stomach. The foul weather had at least temporarily scrubbed away the habitual yellow pallor that new acquaintances commented on, giving him a ruddy flush of health. He turned and smiled, reminding me how capable he was of mercurial charm. “Ethan, my savior! And your lovely wife. Welcome.”
We’d left Harry with Catherine, the two planning to stroll the port boatyard. My son liked to watch the men hammer and saw, and the comtesse enjoyed the glances and catcalls of brawny carpenters.
“I’m honored, sire.” I suppose an American should have sought a democratic alternative to such honorifics as “sire” and “majesty,” but I no longer knew what else to call my old friend and enemy. Since I well remembered the crunch of the guillotine blade, I’d call him anything he liked, until either he was dead or I was a safe ocean away.
“The honor is mine. You saved me from the surf.” He addressed my wife. “I made a fool of myself, I know.”
The confession had the intended effect of thawing her. “You cannot fight heaven,” Astiza said.
“It’s stubbornness I must master. From my will comes success, but it also tempts danger.” He turned to me. “I find it very odd, Gage, how you circulate in and out of my life to cause trouble and then rescue. I’m inclined to suspect you’re a Little Red Man yourself.”
Napoleon had a firm belief that a peculiar French gnome unpredictably appeared in the night to make murky forecasts of his future. He was as superstitious as the black rebels of Saint-Domingue, scoffing at religion one moment and crossing himself the next.
“Just an American trying to make my way with my family.”
“And a spy.” He said it matter-of-factly.
“For both sides.” I shrugged as though this were the normal state of affairs, even though my heart hammered.
“Yes, the perfidious British. Why are you working for that devil Sidney Smith again?” He sounded genuinely puzzled.
Since Napoleon was in my debt for saving him from the surf, there was no better time for the truth. “I feared I’d lost Astiza in a hurricane. A renegade French policeman with your secret tattoo blamed you for the circumstances that put us all there. I wanted revenge, and the British offered a way to achieve it. Except that it turns out my wife miraculously survived.”
“Blamed me?” He struck a pose of injured innocence but also seemed amused, as if the suggestion that he could influence anything was absurd. This from a man who had cut down a Paris mob with grapeshot, abandoned an army in Egypt, and tried to reinstate slavery in his colonies.
So why not make the accusation and hear his defense, since I seemed to have little aptitude as an assassin? “The former policeman Leon Martel said it was your idea to steal my son and hold him for ransom. He said you knew about an emerald I’d found, and used it and my boy to manipulate me to search for an Aztec secret of flight.”
Bonaparte looked genuinely puzzled. “Ethan, I’m trying to govern a large, intractable nation surrounded