Red Prophet ttoam-2 Page 6

He must have been forming the word with his lips. Either that or La Fayette could hear other men's thoughts– Frederic had heard rumors that La Fayette had a knack for that. Or perhaps La Fayette merely guessed. Or perhaps the devil told him– there's a thought! Anyway, La Fayette laughed aloud and said, “Frederic, if I had Stephenson build his railroad in Canada, you'd have me cashiered for wasting money on nonsense. As it is, if you made a report accusing me of treason for encouraging Stephenson to remain in Irrakwa, they'd call you home and lock you up in a padded room!”

  "Treason? I accuse you?" said Frederic. "It's the farthest thought from my mind. " Still, he crossed himself, on the off-chance that it was the devil who had told La Fayette. "Now, haven't we had enough of watching the stevedores loading cargo? I believe we have an officer to greet."

  “Why are you so eager to meet him now?” asked La Fayette. “Yesterday you kept reminding me that he is a commoner. He even entered the service as a corporal, I think you said.”

  “He's a general now, and His Majesty has seen fit to send him to us.” Frederic spoke with stiff propriety. Still La Fayette insisted on smiling with amusement. Someday, Gilbert, someday.

  Several officers in full army dress uniform were milling about on the wharf, but none was of general rank. The hero of the battle of Madrid was obviously waiting to make a grand entrance. Or did he expect a Marquis and the son of a Comte to come and meet him in his cabin? Unthinkable.

  And, in fact, he did not think it. The officers stepped back, and from their position by the railing of the canal barge de Maurepas and La Fayette could see him step off the Marie-Philippe onto the wharf.

  “Why, he's not a very large man, is he,” said Frederic.

  “They aren't very tall in the south of France.”

  “South of France!” said Frederic scornfully. “He's from Corsica, my dear Gilbert. That's hardly even French at all. More like Italian.”

  “He defeated the Spanish army in three weeks, while his superior officer was indisposed with dysentery,” La Fayette reminded him.

  “An act of subordination for which he should have been cashiered,” said Frederic.

  “Oh, I quite agree with you,” said La Fayette. “Only, you see, he did win the war, and as long as King Charles was adding the crown of Spain to his collection of headgear, he thought it would be churlish to court-martial the soldier who won it for him.”

  “Discipline above all. Everybody must know his place and stay in it, or there will be chaos.”

  “No doubt. Well, they did punish him. They made him a general, but they sent him here. Didn't want him involved with the Italian campaign. His Majesty wouldn't mind being Doge of Venice, but this General Bonaparte might get carried away, capture the College of Cardinals, and make King Charles pope.”

  “Your sense of humor is a crime.”

  “Frederic, look at the man.”

  “I am looking at him.”

  “Then don't look at him. Look at everyone else. Look at his officers. Have you ever seen soldiers show so much love for their commander?”

  Frederic reluctantly tore his gaze from the Corsican general and looked at the underlings who walked quietly behind. Not like courtiers– there was no sense of jockeying for position. It was like– it was like– Frederic couldn't find words for it–

  “It's as if each man knows that Bonaparte loves him, and values him.”

  “A ridiculous system, if that's what his system is,” said Frederic. “You cannot control your underlings if you don't keep them in constant fear of losing their position.”

  “Let's go meet him.”

  “Absurd! He must come to us!”

  But La Fayette, as usual, did not hesitate between the word and the deed– he was already on the wharf, striding the last few yards to stand before Bonaparte and receive his salute. Frederic, however, knew his station in life, and knew Bonaparte's as well, and Bonaparte would have to come to him. They might make Bonaparte a general, but they could never make him a gentleman.

  La Fayette was fawning, of course. “General Bonaparte, we're honored to have you here. I only regret that we cannot offer you the amenities of Paris–”

  “My lord Governor,” said Bonaparte– naturally getting the form of address all wrong, “I have never known the amenities of Paris. All my happiest moments have been in the field.”

  “And the happiest moments, too, for France, are when you are in the field. Come, meet General de Maurepas. He will be your superior officer in Detroit.”

  Frederic heard the slight pause before La Fayette said the word superior. Frederic knew when he was being ridiculed. I will remember every slight, Gilbert, and I will repay.

  The Irrakwa were very efficient at transferring cargo; it wasn't an hour before the canal barge was under way. Naturally, La Fayette spent the first afternoon telling Bonaparte all about Stephenson's steam engine. Bonaparte made a show of being interested, asking all about the possibilities of troop transport, and how quickly track could be laid behind an advancing army, and how easily these railed roads might be disrupted by enemy action– but it was all so tedious and boring that Frederic could not imagine how Bonaparte kept it up. Of course an officer had to pretend to be interested in everything a Governor said, but Bonaparte was taking it to extremes.

  Before too long the conversation obviously excluded Frederic, but he didn't mind. He let his thoughts wander, remembering that actress, What's-her-name, who did such an exquisite job of that part, whatever it was, or was she a ballerina? He remembered her legs, anyway, such graceful legs, but she refused to come to Canada with him, even though he assured her he loved her and promised to set her up in a house even nicer than the one he would build for his wife. If only she had come. Of course, she might have died of fever, the way his wife did. So perhaps it was all for the best. Was she still on the stage in Paris? Bonaparte would not know, of course, but one of his junior officers might have seen her. He would have to inquire.

  They supped at Governor Rainbow's table, of course, since that was the only table on the canal boat. The governor had sent her regrets that she could not visit the distinguished French travelers, but she hoped her staff would make them comfortable. Frederic, supposing this meant an Irrakwa chef, had braced himself for another tedious Red meal of tough deer gristle– one could hardly call such fare venison– but instead the chef was, of all things, a Frenchman! A Huguenot, or rather the grandson of Huguenots, but he didn't hold grudges, so the food was superb. Who would have imagined good French food in a place like this– and not the spicy Acadian style, either.

  Frederic did try to take a more active part in the conversation at supper, once he had finished off every scrap of food on the table. He tried his best to explain to Bonaparte the almost impossible military situation in the southwest. He counted off the problems one by one– the undisciplined Red allies, the unending flow of immigrants. “Worst of all is our own soldiers, though. They are a determinedly superstitious lot, as the lower classes always are. They see omens in everything. Some Dutch or German settler puts a hex on his door and you practically have to beat our soldiers to get them to go in.”

  Bonaparte sipped his coffee (barbaric fluid! but he seemed to relish it exactly as the Irrakwa did), then leaned back in his chair, regarding Frederic with his steady, piercing eyes. “Do you mean to say that you accompany foot soldiers in house-to-house searches?”

  Bonaparte's condescending attitude was outrageous, but before Frederic could utter the withering retort that was just on the tip of his tongue, La Fayette laughed aloud. “Napoleon,” he said, “my dear friend, that is the nature of our supposed enemy in this war. When the largest city in fifty miles consists of four houses and a smithy, you don't conduct house-to-house searches. Each house is the enemy fortress.”

  Napoleon's forehead wrinkled. “They don't concentrate their forces into arniies?”

  “They have never fielded an army, not since General Wayne put down Chief Pontiac years ago, and that was an English army. T
he U.S. has a few forts, but they're all along the Hio.”

  “Then why are those forts still standing?”

  La Fayette chuckled again. “Haven't you read reports of how the English king fared in his war against the Appalachee rebels?”

  “I was otherwise engaged,” said Bonaparte.

  “You needn't remind us you were fighting in Spain,” said Frederic. “We would all have gladly been there, too.”

  “Would you?” murmured Bonaparte.

  “Let me summarize,” said La Fayette, “what happened to Lord Cornwallis's army when he led it from Virginia to try to reach the Appalachee capital of Franklin, on the upper Tennizy River.”

  “Let me,” said Frederic. “Your summaries are usually longer than the original, Gilbert.”

  La Fayette looked annoyed at Frederic's interruption, but after all, La Fayette was the one who had insisted they address each other as brother generals, by first names. If La Fayette wanted to be treated like a marquis, he should insist on protocol. “Go ahead,” said La Fayette.

  “Cornwallis went out in search of the Appalachee army. He never found it. Lots of empty cabins, which he burned– but they can build new ones in a day. And every day a half-dozen of his soldiers would be killed or wounded by musketry.”

  “Rifle fire,” corrected La Fayette.

  “Yes, well, these Americans prefer the rifled barrel,” said Frederic.

  “They can't volley properly, rifles are so slow to load,” said Bonaparte.

  “They don't volley at all, unless they outnumber you,” said La Fayette.

  “I'm telling it,” said Frederic. “Cornwallis got to Franklin and realized that half his army was dead, injured, or protecting his supply fines. Benedict Arnold– the Appalachee general– had fortified the city. Earthworks, balustrades, trenches all up and down the hillsides. Lord Cornwallis tried to lay a siege, but the Cherriky moved so silently that the Cavalier pickets never heard them bringing in supplies during the night. Fiendish, the way those Appalachee Whites worked so closely with the Reds– made them citizens, right from the start, if you can imagine, and it certainly paid off for them this time. Appalachee troops also raided Cornwallis's supply lines so often that after less than a month it became quite clear that Cornwallis was the besieged, not the besieger. He ended up surrendering his entire army, and the English King had to grant Appalachee its independence.”

  Bonaparte nodded gravely.

  “Here's the cleverest thing,” said La Fayette. “After he surrendered, Cornwallis was brought into Franklin City and discovered that all the families had been moved out long before he arrived. That's the thing about these Americans on the frontier. They can pick up and move anywhere. You can't pin them down.”

  “But you can kill them,” said Bonaparte.

  “You have to catch them,” said La Fayette.

  “They have fields and farms,” said Bonaparte.

  “Well, yes, you could try to find every farm,” said La Fayette. “But when you get there, if anyone's at home you'll find it's a simple farm family. Not a soldier among them. There's no army. But the minute you leave, someone is shooting at you from the forest. It might be the same humble farmer, and it might not.”

  “An interesting problem,” said Bonaparte. “You never know your enemy. He never concentrates his forces.”

  “Which is why we deal with the Reds,” said Frederic. “We can't very well go about murdering innocent farm families ourselves, can we?”

  “So you pay the Reds to kill them for you.”

  “Yes. It works rather well,” said Frederic, “and we have no plans to do anything different.”

  “Well? It works well?” said Bonaparte scornfully. “Ten years ago there weren't five hundred American households west of the Appalachee Mountains. Now there's ten thousand households between the Appalachees and the My-Ammy, and more moving farther west all the time.”

  La Fayette winked at Frederic. Frederic hated him when he did that. “Napoleon read our dispatches,” La Fayette said cheerfully. “Memorized our estimates of American settlements in the Red Reserve.”

  “The King wants this American intrusion into French territory stopped, and stopped at once,” said Bonaparte.

  “Oh he does?” asked La Fayette. “What an odd way he has of showing it.”

  "Odd? He sent me," said Bonaparte. "That means he expects victory.

  “But you're a general,” said La Fayette. “We already have generals.”

  “Besides,” said Frederic, “you're not in command. I'm in command.”

  “The Marquis has the supreme military authority here,” said Bonaparte.

  Frederic understood completely: La Fayette also had the authority to put Bonaparte in command over Frederic, if he desired. He cast an anxious look toward La Fayette, who was complacently spreading goose-liver paste on his bread. La Fayette smiled benignly. “General Bonaparte is under your command, Frederic. That will not change. Ever. I hope that's clear, my dear Napoleon.”

  “Of course,” said Napoleon. “I would not dream of changing that. You should know that the King is sending more than generals to Canada. Another thousand soldiers will be here in the spring.”

  “Yes, well, I'm impressed to learn that he's promised to send more troops again– haven't we heard a dozen such promises before, Frederic? I'm always reassured to hear another promise from the King.” La Fayette took the last sip from his wineglass. “But the fact is, my dear Napoleon, we already have soldiers, too, who do nothing but sit in garrison at Fort Detroit and Fort Chicago, paying for scalps with bourbon. Such a waste of bourbon. The Reds drink it like water and it kills them.”

  “If we don't need generals and we don't need soldiers,” asked Bonaparte condescendingly, “what do you think we need to win this war?”

  Frederic couldn't decide if he hated Bonaparte for speaking so rudely to an aristocrat, or loved him for speaking so rudely to the detestable Marquis de La Fayette.

  “To win? Ten thousand French settlers,” said La Fayette. “Match the Americans man for man, wife for wife, child for child. Make it impossible to do business in that part of the country without speaking French. Overwhelm them with numbers.”

  “No one would come to live in such wild country,” said Frederic, as he had said so many times before.

  “Offer them free land and they'd come,” said La Fayette.

  “Riff-raff,” said Frederic. “We hardly need more riff-raff.”

  Bonapa rte studied La Fayette's face a moment in silence. “The commercial value of these lands is the fur trade,” said Bonaparte quietly. “The King was very clear on that point. He wants no European settlement at all outside the forts.”

  “Then the King will lose this war,” said La Fayette cheerfully, “no matter how many generals he sends. And with that, gentlemen, I think we have done with supper.”

  La Fayette arose and left the table immediately.

  Bonaparte turned to face Frederic, who was already standing up to leave. He reached out his hand and touched Frederic's wrist. “Stay, please,” he said. Or no, actually he merely said, “Stay,” but it felt to Frederic that he was saying please, that he really wanted Frederic to remain with him, that he loved and honored Frederic–

  But he couldn't, no, he couldn't, he was a commoner, and Frederic had nothing to say to him–

  “My lord de Maurepas,” murmured the Corsican corporal. Or did he say merely “Maurepas,” while Frederic simply imagined the rest? Whatever his words, his voice was rich with respect, with trust, with hope–

  So Frederic stayed.

  Bonaparte said almost nothing. Just normal pleasantries. We should work well together. We can serve the King properly. I will help you all I can.

  But to Frederic, there was so much more than words. A promise of future honor, of returning to Paris covered with glory. Victory over the Americans, and above all putting La Fayette in his place, triumphing over the democratic traitorous marquis. He and this Bonaparte could do it, togeth
er. Patience for a few years, building up an army of Reds so large that it provokes the Americans to raise an army, too; then we can defeat that American army and go home. That's all it will take. It was almost a fever of hope and trust that filled Frederic's heart, until–

  Until Bonaparte took his hand away from Frederic's wrist.

  It was as if Bonaparte's hand had been his connection to a great source of life and warmth; with the touch removed, he grew cold, weary. But still there was Bonaparte's smile, and Frederic looked at him and remembered the feeling of promise he had had a moment before. How could he have ever thought working with Bonaparte would be anything but rewarding? The man knew his place, that was certain. Frederic would merely use Bonaparte's undeniable military talents, and together they would triumph and return to France in glory–

  Bonaparte's smile faded, and again Frederic felt a vague sense of loss.

  “Good evening,” said Bonaparte. “I will see you in the morning, sir.”

  The Corsican left the room.

  If Frederic could have seen his face, he might have recognized his own expression: it was identical to the look of love and devotion that all Bonaparte's junior officers had worn. But he could not see his face. That night he went to bed feeling more at peace, more confident, more hopeful and excited than he had felt in all his years in Canada. He even felt– nwhat, what is this feeling, he wondered– ah yes. Intelligent. He even felt intelligent.

  * * *

  It was deep night, but the canalmen were hard at work, using their noisy steam engine to pump water into the lock. It was an engineering marvel, the steepest system of locks on any canal in the world. The rest of the world did not know it. Europe still thought of America as a land of savages. But the enterprising United States of America, inspired by the example of that old wizard Ben Franklin, was encouraging invention and industry. Rumor had it that a man named Fulton had a working steam-powered boat plying up and down the Hudson– a steamboat that King Charles had been offered, and refused to fund! Coal mines were plunging into the earth in Suskwahenny and Appalachee. And here in the state of Irrakwa, the Reds were outdoing the Whites at their own game, building canals, steam-powered cars to run on railed roads, steam-powered spinning wheels that spat out the cotton of the Crown Colonies and turned it into fine yarns that rivaled anything in Europe– at half the cost. It was just beginning, just starting out, but already more than half the boats that came up the St. Lawrence River were bound for Irrakwa, and not for Canada at all.