08 Jester's Fortune by Dewey Lambdin

Author:Dewey Lambdin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

08 Jester's Fortune

Book IV

Hospita vobis terra, Viri, non hie ullos

reverenta ritus pectora;

mors habitat saevaeque hoc litore pugnae.

No friendly land is this to you, O Heroes,

here are no hearts that reverence any rites;

this shore is the home of death and cruel combats.

Argonautica, Book IV, 145-147

Gaius Valerius Flaccus

CHAPTER

l

The general was happy, nigh to Seventh Heaven.

The very day of his return to conquered Milan, his centre of operations—laden with the paintings, the statuary, the silver and gilt masterpieces of the southern kingdoms, bedecked with glory, new fame to fuel his dreams and with forty million francs of solid specie to support the patrie—Josephine had come, at last.

Nigh to a second, blissful honeymoon, her presence seemed, after such a long wait. So fortuitously timed, too, in that glorious hiatus between the first arduous conquests and the near-bloodless but brutal | marches to the south. Even the Austrians conspired to spare the young general, to give him this joyous rencontre with his beloved bride, and peace enough in which to enjoy it, for the new Austrian commander General Wurmser had yet to arrive from the Rhine with his fresh armies.

“A terrible risk, but I tweaked their noses,” General Bonaparte boasted, “I got my way, thank God.”

“A terrible risk, indeed.” Josephine frowned. “You know Paul and the rest of the Directory can be so arbitrary. Really, my dear ...”

“There could not be two generals in charge here in Italy, sweet one.” Bonaparte chuckled. “I could not serve under Kellermann, though he's the hero of Valmy. He's so old, so set in his hidebound old ways. It i would have been two dancing-masters doing a minuet with each other, Kellerman and Wurmser, and I relegated to the southern campaign, robbed of troops and unable to cow Tuscany, much less Rome.”

“Promise me you will never threaten to resign, again, mon cher,” Josephine admonished him, as the brilliant salon and its hundreds of guests—willing or unwilling—swirled about them. “Heroes, even a successful hero, are expendable. To play at politics so far removed from the latest gossip, your supporters . . .”

“The lifeblood of politics,” the elegant young aide, Lieutenant Hyppolyte Charles, simpered from the offhand side.

“The army would have been divided into threes,” Bonaparte said, regarding Lt. Hyppolyte Charles with a wary eye. “Part to besiege Mantua, part under Kellermann to dance the old way against the Austrians . . . and I, the smallest part, sent off on errands, too far removed to aid Kellermann when the Austrians attacked him. And attacked him they very well would have. Wurmser, Beaulieu, they would have understood General Kellermann and his methods. He would have offered nothing novel. He'd not frighten them ... as I do.”

“But before you defeated the south and won their tribute, mon cher, your threat was empty. And far too brash,” Josephine belaboured, fanning herself as if faint with dread at her husband's daring. And sharing a look of puzzlement with her escort, Lt. Hyppolyte Charles.

“No matter, ma cherie. It worked. I alone command in Italy,” Bonaparte bragged.

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