Flashman's Waterloo Page 19

  There must be fine old times if Fouché and Otranto get together, thinks I. But aloud I said, “Come now, he can’t be that bad. I know of at least one person in the government who I suspect could keep this Fouché in check.”

  She laughed in scorn at that. “You must be a foreigner to say such a thing. Have you heard of Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety and their Reign of Terror during the Revolution? They thought they could keep Fouché in check and yet he sent them to their own guillotine.”

  “Really?” I asked astonished.

  “I tell you he is the very devil. He trained to be a priest but when the Revolution came he joined the Jacobins and persecuted and killed many priests. He was the revolutionary leader in Lyon and once chained two hundred people together and executed them with grape shot from cannon. When the Committee of Public Safety reprimanded him, he knew his days were numbered and so he plotted and schemed with all of their enemies to bring them down. Then he served Bonaparte for years until he started to plot against him too.”

  If I had not been quite so distracted by those splendid bouncers heaving away under her blouse as she got into her passion, I might have paid more attention. But I didn’t. Now the danger was past my mind and body were working to their own end. I conjured what I hoped would be a winning smile. “Well let’s not worry about him. Why don’t you pour us both some more wine and sit back down here.” I patted the seat beside me.

  “No, you must go. If the king depends on your letter, you must not be seen here.”

  “But there is no one outside…”

  “No, you must go.” She was virtually pulling me up from my seat and pushing the wide-brimmed hat I had discarded back in my hands as she guided me to the door. In a second or two I was back out on the step. Well, this was really too much. Twice now I had been brought to the boil by some scheming female only to be let down. Well, perhaps not scheming in this case for she did not seem that bright, but that just made it all the more infuriating. Dammit, if I could not win her by charm, I resolved to win her by guile.

  “Stop,” I whispered urgently. “Don’t look, someone just peered around the end of the street and then ducked back. It might be one of Fouché’s men.” Of course there was no one there at all, but she did not know that and it seemed a capital idea to play on her fears. “They must have heard the door open and looked round to see me standing on the step. Quick, put your arms around my neck and kiss me as though I am your lover.”

  “What!” she gasped indignantly.

  “Look, girl,” I warned sternly. “The king’s life and his crown could depend on whether you kiss me right now. Do you want the death of the king on your conscience?”

  “No, no...” The poor girl looked confused – she could not understand what was happening.

  “Quickly now,” I urged, not wanting to give her time to think.

  “For…for the king, then,” she muttered as she leaned forward and placed her arms around my neck and gave me a delicate kiss on the cheek.

  “On the lips, girl,” I muttered before twisting to plant my mouth on hers while pulling her towards me. She had a scent with a hint of lavender and as I breathed it in I reached up to grab one of those firm ripe breasts. She stiffened at that – as did I – but for a brief moment I felt her press herself against me and her mouth opened as though remembering some long-forgotten pleasurable experiences with her husband. Then she pushed me away.

  “No, we mustn’t.” As she glared at me indignantly I took another swift glance at the empty other end of the street and started as though I had seen something.

  “Surely you saw that one?” I turned back to face her angry glare and struggled to ignore that delightfully heaving bosom. “We must give them no cause for suspicion. If I am caught then you and your father would be at risk and the king would be doomed. Quickly, inside, pretend you are welcoming your lover home.” I pushed her bodily into the house giving her very little opportunity for any acting. “Have you a place to hide the letter?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said and rushed over to the hearth where she lifted a loose stone and started to slide my letter underneath. I did not stay to watch but bounded up the little staircase to the floor above. There were just two rooms, a small one at the back, which I guessed was hers and a larger one with a double bed at the front that must belong to her father. By the time I heard her shoes clacking up the stair boards I was staring out of the front bedroom window.

  “Is there a passage behind the houses in front?” I asked. I had already seen that there was one behind the row of houses I was in and so it was a reasonable assumption.

  “Yes, why? And what are you doing in here?”

  “I thought so.” I pointed at the house opposite. “One of the devils is watching us at this very minute through a telescope, I saw light glint off the glass.”

  “What? Now this is madness. That is Madame Celeste’s house, of course she is not an agent of Fouché.” I thought for a moment that I had overcooked it then, but she squinted across the street and added hesitantly, “I cannot see her in there.”

  “Of course not,” I pounced on the opportunity. “She is either at the ceremonies or the agents have taken over her house. For her sake, we must do nothing to alarm them.”

  “I don’t understand what is happening.” She was sounding more hesitant now and I stepped closer.

  “Unless Madame Celeste has a tall son with a telescope who watches your father’s bedroom, there is an agent of Fouché watching us right now.” I pulled off her mop cap and her long blond tresses fell down onto her shoulders while those cornflower-blue eyes stared at me with a surprised innocence. If this girl had been without a man for three years since her husband died, I thought it had been a shocking waste of beauty. Something I was all too keen to rectify. “We must convince them that we are lovers,” I assured her. “A couple who have slipped away from the ceremonies for a private assignation. Otherwise, they will get suspicious and everything will be lost.” I took hold of her then and kissed her again. She hesitated at first and then slowly she put her arms around my neck. This time, she did not push me away as I reached up to cup one of those wonderful breasts. I felt a tremble pass through her body and it was not from fear as she suddenly pressed both her lips and her body hard against me.

  By George, this was capital, I thought as she broke the kiss to whisper in my ear, “Are you certain they are watching?”

  “I would never ask this of you if there was the slightest doubt,” I assured her as I pushed her back towards the bed.

  “We must do this for the king,” she murmured as I lowered her down to the covers. She was breathing heavily by then and while she was playing the coy and reluctant bird, I know women. She was just searching for an excuse to justify what she had probably wanted all along. “Heavens, girl,” I gasped as I started hauling up her skirts with one hand while unbuttoning myself with the other. “He will probably give you a medal for this afternoon’s work.”

  “It is my duty, then,” she sighed, before squealing, “ooh what is that!” as something poked at her.

  “Consider it the royal sceptre,” I growled as she reached down between my legs to grab the offending item and two royal orbs.

  As it turned out she was quite an ardent royalist and once she had got over her initial shyness, she willingly took up all of my suggestions and even suggested a few salutes of her own to her monarch. As the waves of pleasure reached their peak she arched her back and shouted out, Vive le Roi! It was a good job Fouché’s men were not across the street, for they would have certainly heard her.

  I have always said that patriotism has its place and for me, it was never more finely expressed than in that little room in Montmartre. The revolutionary principles of Liberté, Fraternité and Egalité are all very well, but they are a bit too virtuous for me. If kings, even fat ones like Louis, can inspire pretty blonde girls to go to extraordinary lengths to express their devotion, then I agree with her: Vive le Roi! That girl l
iterally bent over backwards to please her monarch, as well as forwards and on one side and then the other. Every oath of allegiance I have seen since has seemed rather tame.

  Afterwards, she fetched up the wine and I found a cigar and we lay together, with me reflecting that this espionage business does have its upsides.

  “Do all royal duties give this much pleasure?” she giggled.

  “It certainly beats standing guard at the palace,” I agreed.

  She gave a little purr of desire and added, “Fouché may have helped kill one king but if we have to do this, I don’t mind stopping him kill another.”

  “What do you mean, he helped kill a king?” I asked feeling a sudden unease.

  “He was one of those who signed the execution warrant.”

  A chill feeling spread down my spine as I queried, “This Fouché, does he have another name?”

  “Yes. When the emperor dismissed him before, even he did not dare send him away in disgrace. So Fouché was made a duke of somewhere in Italy.”

  “Otranto,” I whispered in growing horror.

  “Yes, that was it,” she agreed happily, snuggling into me. It fitted. Of course it bloody fitted and I cursed myself for not having seen it before. Those same eyes that had stared into mine at the cabinet meeting had watched those poor wretches blown apart by canister on his order and countless other conspiracies over the intervening years. A moment before I had been considering a second patriotic tribute. But now I just wanted to be away from that house and any hint of intrigue. I got up slowly and peered around the curtain at the road outside. There were a couple of women walking up the street with half a dozen weary children. They must have come back from the ceremonies in the city. It was high time I was back in the ministry; I would find some quiet corner and claim I had been there all afternoon.

  “I think they have gone,” I told the girl. “But to be sure I will go out the back door. That way when I emerge from the alley at the end of the street, if anyone is there, they will not know what house I came from.” It was absurd, but while I had made up the existence of Fouché’s agents before, I was now more than half convinced that they might exist.

  “Wait a minute,” the girl called as I started to pull on my clothes. “I don’t even know your name.” She giggled again, “When the king summons me for my medal, I need to know who he should give the second one to.” Tempting though it was to fantasise about the Cross of the Order of Joan of Arc pinned on my left tit, awarded for fornication above and beyond the call of duty, I had no intention of giving her my real name or even my French one.

  I hesitated a full second before I replied, considering my options. Now I knew that Fouché and Otranto were one and the same, I did not doubt that sooner or later his agents would genuinely come knocking on the door. If they got their hands on the message I did not want them coming after me. I could have given her a made up name but they would have swiftly discovered it was false and then tried to track down the real culprit. Far better to give them someone real.

  “Hobhouse,” I told her. “My name is Cam Hobhouse, but you must keep that to yourself.”

  “What a strange name, Cam ‘obhouse,” she repeated and then she added, “must you go now? Maybe one day I will be Madame ‘obhouse?”

  “It is quite possible,” I assured her. She said the name very prettily and as she lay there naked on the bed pouting up at me with her blonde hair tousled across the pillow, I nearly tore my clothes off again. Lust and fear battled among my wits for a moment, before fear won by a head and I reluctantly picked up my coat. “I have to go,” I assured her, “but I will be back as soon as it is safe.”

  A minute later I was disappearing down the alley at the back of the house, having checked that both ends were clear of agents. I reflected that this was the second time that I had framed Hobhouse for something that I had done. The first time he had been forced to flee the country and I had a twinge of conscience about his fate this time. If Fouché had anything to do with it, I suspected our friend Hobhouse would discover that the new French republic was not quite the bastion of enlightenment he supposed. It would serve the naive idealist right to have a dose of reality. Perhaps he would then run off and join his brother with the British forces. They were bound to question him, I thought, but as he knew nothing he could do no harm. Even if he mentioned his friend Flashman in a French army uniform, there was no way to connect that to me.

  Chapter 22

  I realised as I hurried away that I had not even bothered to ask the girl her name. Not that I cared too much about that, for I never really intended to go back. It might have been callous indifference, but I think it saved my life a few days later, as you will see. No, all I cared about was getting away without being seen and that message reaching Wellington. The girl had assured me that her father would take it personally the very next day and she was in no doubt as to its importance. I went back to the ministry that afternoon and as my fellow officers appeared, mostly drunk, a while later, I was easily able to convince them that I had been a good little toady swot and diligently working through the day.

  The next morning I went to extraordinary lengths to check that I was not being followed, but there was no one. Everything was as before. That evening I hired a coach and had it drive through the square where had I met Hobhouse. I half drew the blinds and hunched down in the shadows; sure enough he was there, sitting at the same table as before and poring over a pamphlet with another bookish fellow. I sat back against the leather seats of the carriage and grinned for it seemed we had got away with it. By now the message should be hidden in the leather cart on its way to Brussels. I could easily imagine Wellington’s reaction when he saw it: the contents were just the information he wanted. It would save him from a humiliating defeat and possibly the collapse of the alliance. I had saved his armies with messages from behind enemy lines before, but this was possibly the most important campaign of the age. It would set the seal on my diplomatic career. There would be honours and recognition and, just as importantly, it would reveal Grant to be an incompetent halfwit. The icing on the cake was that Davout had announced he would remain in Paris as war minister when the campaign started, so as one of his staff officers I would stay safely in the capital while the rest went off to fight.

  I was much more relaxed the next day, which turned out to be a mistake. The pace of work at the ministry had, if anything, increased as the marshal pushed everyone to get troops ready to meet the emperor’s target. By evening I was exhausted when I reached my lodgings. If I had been more alert I might have noticed the polished black carriage parked across the street, but probably would not have, for coach drivers often waited there for patrons who were visiting the nearby theatre. The first indication I had that anything was wrong was when I reached my landing and saw that the door to my rooms was open. There were candles flickering inside and the low rumble of male voices. I cursed myself for not carrying a pistol that day. The only weapon I had was my sword. It was not my trusty gold-hilted blade that I had carried for years – that still hung over the study fireplace in Berkeley Hall. I had left it in England when I came to France, thinking that my soldiering was behind me. Now I carried a cheap utilitarian sabre. I slowly reached down and started to pull on the hilt. The steel made a scraping noise against the throat of the scabbard and the voices inside my room stopped at the sound. There was silence for a moment, but then I heard a boot scrape in the hallway below. I chanced a glance over the bannister to see a heavy-set man staring back up at me. He made no attempt to climb the stairs; it was obvious that he was there to catch me if I tried to make a run for it. I felt a trickle of sweat run down my spine, I was trapped.

  With the blade now free and held out in front of me, I took another step forward so that I could look through the door into my room. God knows what I had been expecting, but it was not a half-eaten roast chicken and basket of bread on my table with glasses of wine. A man I had not seen before sat facing me. He smiled as I came into view and beckoned
me to enter my own room.

  “Please, don’t keep us waiting, Colonel.” The voice came from the end of the table that I could not see. I reached out with my sword point to push the door further open to see the speaker and almost instantly wished I hadn’t. For there, sitting in my best chair at the end of the table, was none other than Joseph Fouché, Duke of Otranto.

  My guts did a proper polka of terror then for the thought of this encounter had given me a nightmare just two evenings before. “What… what are you doing here… sir?” I croaked.

  “Ah do come in, Colonel. Marcel, don’t just sit there, give the colonel some of the chicken and pour him some wine. He must be hungry after a long day at the ministry.” Fouché smiled as he gestured to the plate of chicken bones in front of him. “I must apologise, Colonel, you were such a long time that I ate my share without you.” He was a small thin man, a bony face with grey hair and sideburns; he looked almost rodent-like. In other circumstances you would not have given him a second glance, but I noticed that his smile did not extend to his eyes. There was no warmth in them at all and I could not help but wonder at all the secrets he knew and how many men he must have looked at before arranging their deaths.

  I stepped over the threshold and looked about me. There was just Fouché and the man Marcel in the room and a quick glance showed that my possessions had been expertly searched.

  “What do you want with me?” I asked, although I was not sure I really wanted to hear the answer. But Fouché just ignored my question.

  “Marcel, take the colonel’s sword and show him to a chair.” I felt the sword prised from my fingers. There was little point in resisting for they were bound to be better armed than I. The servant simply put the weapon on the sideboard as though they were unconcerned if I snatched it up again. Then he was guiding me to one of my own chairs and I was firmly seated in it. The man remained standing behind me, and I turned from him to Fouché, wondering what would happen next. Fouché looked calmly back at me. “The chicken is very good.” He seemed determined to continue the act of the welcoming host, notwithstanding that he had come uninvited into my room. “You could drink from my glass if you are worried about poison.” That was the first reference to this meeting being anything unusual. “Some people feel a little uncomfortable about my…er...hospitality,” he added.