hope the chit is dead in a ditch somewhere. She bolted from the carriage at the first
stop- – abandoning you, my dear Duchess – and I have not the least idea where -she
is now.“
„How very too bad for you,“ Sarah said commiserat-ingly.
Mr. Highclere’s face darkened with rage, and he moved toward her, hand raised.
Sarah stood her ground, braced for the assault. She had been a warrior of the
People, and if Mr. Highclere expected an easy conquest, he was quite misled. Sarah
expected to be the victor, and once he was immobilized, she would escape.
But her plan – and Mr. Highclere’s – was forestalled by the arrival of a dapper
young man in an immaculate unfamiliar uniform.
„Monsignor Talleyrand will see you now, M’sieur Highclere. And Madame la
Duchesse, as well.“
* * *
Sarah did not know that Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord held the
nickname in some circles of the Black Priest (only partially due to his unwilling
flirtation with holy orders), but she might have coined it herself upon reflection;
though the fair hair had since gone to silver and he was entering his sixth decade,
Talleyrand still had the sweet-faced innocence of a kindly village priest. He had
escaped the Terror by becoming its instrument, and when the wheel of bloody
Revolution turned, he had gone on to become an instrument of Imperial terror
instead.
He was dressed in a black coat like any clerk, his hands sheathed in black kid and
a black stock tied about his throat (some said he wore black because it showed the
blood less than a white linen cravat would – but fortunately Sarah had not heard
these tales). He sat in a plain wooden chair behind a plain wooden table in a room
upon the ground floor of the keep. An inkwell, pens, and paper stood on the table at
his elbow, as if he were a law clerk preparing to take a witness’s statement.
Sarah gazed about as she was brought into what once must have been the grand
salon. It was a chamber thirty feet by sixty, and had been beautiful once, but now the
salon held the same air of vandalism and neglect as the rest of the building – a pale
area on the bare wooden floor showed where a rug had once been, and many of the
panes of me row of long windows had been mended with parchment, casting the
room into a dolorous golden gloom. The ornamental plasterwork had been damaged,
and me wall-coverings ripped away. Someone had taken a hammer or a crowbar to
the immense white marble fireplace, so that its frieze of satyrs and cupids now stood
eyeless and maimed. No fire burned upon the hearth now, and despite the season,
the echoing room was cold.
„Good afternoon, Madame la Duchesse?“ Talleyrand said in flawless English as
Sarah was brought to a stop before his desk. „I trust you had a pleasant journey?“
„Oh, do stop all this play-actor foolishness,“ Sarah burst out in exasperation.
„You know very well I did not! I was kidnapped, and drugged – and if you do not
know what a head so much laudanum gives one, I shall be happy to enlighten you
upon that much, at least!“
„Madame has spirit,“ Talleyrand observed. „Such spirit as others have had, when
first they came before me. Not afterward.“
„If you brought me here only to kill me,“ Sarah observed with some asperity,
„allow me to point out that you have very many other people available to you for this
exercise, much more easily obtained than I. You went to a great deal of trouble to
get me here.“
„But you are here now,“ Talleyrand observed passionlessly.
„Yes,“ Sarah agreed. „And I should like to know why?“
„You did not explain?“ Talleyrand asked Mr. Highclere.
„I thought – That is to say – “ For the first time in their unwanted acquaintance,
Sarah saw Mr. Highclere at a loss for words.
„You did not think. Very good, Monsieur Highclere. I do not ask all of my agents
to think. You may go now. I wish to speak to the Duchess privily, and then I shall
have another commission for you.“
From the corner of her eye, Sarah saw dark color mount in Mr. Highclere’s face,
but he seemed unwilling to cross the man he had called Monsignor, and after a
moment Geoffrey Highclere managed to master himself enough to nod stiffly and
stalk from the room.
„And now we may be comfortable, madame,“ Talleyrand said, as if Sarah were
not left to stand in front of him, without even the refreshment of the bowl of gruel
that the maidservant had brought to the room. „And I shall explain matters to you.“
Sarah was tired. She was afraid, and becoming more so at the minute, for she
could sense that Tallyrand was a far more dangerous man than Geoffrey Highclere.
But her face showed nothing of this – she was cornered and at this man’s mercy,
but she would do as the porcupine and the skunk did in such situations.
She would bluff.
„I do not require your cooperation, so you may set your mind at rest upon that
head,“ the Black Priest said, when Sarah said nothing. „What I require is that your
husband come to heel and cease his quixotic quest.“
Talleyrand got to his feet and began to pace, speaking as if he were lecturing a hall
of students.
„You may perhaps not be aware that for some years the Duke of Wessex has
been King Henry’s chief political agent, a meddler without portfolio in the affairs of
sovereign nations: killer, blackmailer, thief – “
„He is, after all, English,“ Sarah said, a faint ironic note of explanation in her
voice. „But pray continue, sir. I collect that you have brought me here to transform
my husband’s character?“
Talleyrand stopped, and what seemed an expression of genuine amusement
transformed his fallen angel’s countenance.
„In a manner of speaking, my brave one. In the past few days I have been made
aware that Wessex’s latest adventure is a strike against the secret heart of France.
Monsieur le Duc wishes to accomplish his father’s commission and discharge the
duty that the late Duke his father died attempting to fulfill. Such filial feeling is often
admirable, Madame la Duchesse, but in this case I must deplore it. France’s affairs
must be left to France, and if the Duke of Wessex does not see the wisdom in this, I
am desolated, dear lady, to tell you that your life will be forfeit.“
Sarah’s heart sank, though her face did not show it She’d known there was
something smoky about her husband’s character – and frequent absences. But to
hear his crimes and his profession laid out so baldly…
„It would make more sense, surely,“ Sarah offered in a steady voice, „for you to
murder my husband. If you had a desire to accomplish your objective, I mean.“ She
forced herself to stand as still as ever she had stood while on the hunt This, too, was
a hunt of sorts… only who was the hunter, and who the prey?
„I will admit, madame, that here we touch upon a small difficulty,“ Talleyrand
said, stopping in his endless pacing to face her. His back was to the window, and his
black coat was spotted with gold and silver light falling through the glass and
parchment panes of the windows. His silver hair was haloed in metallic fire, and in
that moment he seemed less like a man than like some inhuman instrument of Fate.
„For you see, at the moment we have no method of placing this small matter
before the Duke your husband. We attempted to settle the matter of his inconvenient
life in Copenhagen, but we have received recent word from Paris that the Duke of
Wessex is still most troublesome alive – though, alas, still incommunicado. And
while he remains so, it will be a matter of the most difficult to explain to him that he
must surrender or receive your pretty head in a large box.“
Even Sarah could not keep from flinching at the particularly brutal image
Talleyrand’s words conveyed. Defiantly, she walked around the table and sat down
in the chair he had vacated. She folded her hands in her kip and raised her chin
boldly.
„He will be a difficult man to convince,“ Sarah said after a moment. „He does not
love me, you know.“ And even as she said that, a tiny part of her deep inside cried
out that it did not matter, because she loved him, the man she had crossed universes
to find….
Talleyrand walked over and stood directly before Sarah, gazing down at her with
a stern fond expression, as if he were her father confessor.
„My dear Duchess, no wonder you look so, as the English say, blue-deviled.
How could any man spurn a lady of such vivacity and breeding – not to mention
undoubted wealth? Truly this Wessex is not a civilized man. But do not concern
yourself: Wessex will certainly wish to preserve your life, for you are his wife. I
would hesitate to term this a matter of honor, something which no spy has, but
certainly his pride would be touched upon if I were forced to kill his Duchess. Alas,
madame, it is a weak reed, but it is all we have to rely upon, you and I.“
Sarah’s head hurt; she was tired, thirsty, and beginning to be hungry. And she
was becoming very weary of this man’s pretense that the two of them were allies of
any sort.
„You cannot possibly suppose that I believe I will escape this chateau alive?“
Sarah scoffed.
„Perhaps not, madame, but you will hope,“ Talleyrand said at last. „As we all
must hope, in these dreadful uncertain days.“
Without waiting for her reply, he went to the door and knocked at it. It opened,
and the same young soldier who had conducted her to mis room came to lead her
away.
„How did you get here?“ Wessex demanded of his errant partner. „And more to
the point – why? Did Misbourne send you? Has the Princess turned up?“
Koscuisko shrugged, looking oddly uncomfortable. „No, and no, but I can assure
you that Ripon’s guns have been rather neatly spiked as well. Lady Meriel is here.“
Koscuisko seemed to gather his forces. „And so is the Duchess of Wessex.“
For one appalled moment Wessex thought Koscuisko meant his mother, then he
recollected that it was Roxbury who was Duchess of Wessex now.
„She’s in France?“ he said rather blankly.
Briefly, Illya Koscuisko put Wessex in possession of such information as he’d
managed to piece together: the Earl of Ripon’s ball; Lady Meriel’s midnight visit to
the Duchess of Wessex; their flight to Talitho; Geoffrey’s Highclere’s sudden
arrival.
„I tracked down the blockade runner he used too late to stop the sailing, but
there’s no doubt it’s Highclere who made all the arrangements. And I’d lay a
monkey the Duchess didn’t mean to make the trip – not and abandon her coach and
servants. I found the maid in an upstairs room – drugged – and she told the tale that
they were running from Mr. Highclere. If that’s the case, they didn’t get very far.“
„Women!“ Wessex swore in furious exasperation. His mind was working rapidly.
„If Highclere has made for France, it does seem to argue that his heart isn’t quite
with his brother and the cause of the Old Religion.“
„Or that the plot had blown up – especially if the lady wasn’t as willing to play as
she was previously advertised – and Highclere was looking for a new paymaster.
He’s quite the loose fish by all accounts,“ Koscuisko said.
„Where did he take her?“ Wessex asked hopefully, but his only answer was a
rueful shrug.
„I waited for Captain Crispin to return and had him land me and Spangle at the
same location, the good Captain being a man of remarkably elastic principles when
hard coin is at stake. But we were a day behind them, and the trail went entirely cold
in a littie village about a day from here. So I decided to take a cold cast, and since
they might as well be held here at Verdun as anywhere…“
„Here you are,“ Wessex agreed. „And I’d had the same thought, regarding the
Princess and her suite. Shall we try our luck? Providing, of course, you have a plan
to get both of us past the city gate.“
„Well, as to that,“ Koscuisko said modestly, „I always have a plan.“
The Lieutenant of the Emperor’s newly-formed Bataillon Polonais de la Garde
Impériale rode up to the gate at Verdun with the fury of a young nobleman who had
lost his day and was late for his dinner. To be asked to present his papers was an
insult. He and M’sieur le Chevalier were attached to Talleyrand’s own Department –
it was impertinence even to question them. Did the gentleman – and the Lieutenant
used the term with all due disbelief – wish to send for his officer to meet the
Lieutenant with sabers in the woods nearby?
The outrageous bluff worked. Cavalry officers were frequendy detached from