A Night Of Secret Surrender

‘The White Dove?’

‘A woman who transfers cachets for us sometimes and one who goes by so many names I have lost the truth of her real one. It is rumoured her father was murdered six years ago by the English.’

‘Where was the daughter when this happened?’

‘Here in Paris. Another lost soul of the Empire.’

Shay felt unaccountably sick. Was this Celeste he spoke of? Had she been with her father when he had been killed? Had she seen the murder?

‘Who does she work for now?’

‘Nobody and everybody. I pay her well for things pertinent to the security and success of Britain and her causes. Sometimes she slips in red herrings so even that loyalty is questionable. At heart I imagine she works for one of the clandestine and dangerous underground agencies set up by Napoleon’s less salubrious captains. Like everybody else here she needs money to survive.’

My God, such revelations turned all he had once known of Celeste on its head. Spoiled. Impetuous. Arrogant. Brittle and beautiful like her mother, but in a far more spectacular way.

Why would she come to his rooms and risk exposure? Why had she shadowed him? There was something he was missing and he could not quite put it together. The disguises she had sported each time he had seen her made no sense either, for August Fournier had been wealthy and his daughter’s gowns the veritable talk of the county. She could have retired into an elegant lifestyle with her looks and her money. She could have married anybody she’d desired and done well. Yet she plainly had not.

McPherson hadn’t finished, though, and after a moment he continued speaking. ‘The thing is that there is a certain fineness about her that one understands only by degrees. She brought me medicine when I was in bed with a bad chest last winter and only a few days ago she played a role in trying to save the lives of a family caught in the crossfire of politics.’

Now he knew it was Celeste, for she had spoken of the same blunder.

‘How?’

‘She warned them of the danger. They were about to leave Paris when they were killed.’

‘What was their crime?’

‘The father had shot a man who threatened his wife, but honour in Paris has many complex layers and most people are entangled in some way or other with government strategy. For all the freedoms Napoleon promises, he keeps a tight rein on divergent thinkers.’

‘Which Felix Dubois was?’

‘Ah, so you had heard of the fracas? The White Dove has her own thoughts on justice and if I know of her involvement, then others will, too. There were documents found in the Dubois house which heralded British sympathies. Some say they came from her hands. If she is not careful, it will be she who will feel the wrath of suspicion next, if she still lives.’

Shay swallowed and hoped the bread boy had made it to ground safely.

‘I have had word that my identity is on the verge of being discovered. Your name has been mentioned as well. Cut your losses now and come home with me to England, James, for Cunningham is already gone. We can leave on the morrow.’

The older man only shook his head. ‘To do what? There is no place left for me in Scotland now and I have been here in France for so long it has become my home.’

‘A home that is more and more unrecognisable. The causes here are as lost as Napoleon will be in a few short years and your name is certain to be found on the list of those who will be interrogated...’

‘If I knew from the start just how it would end, I still would not have changed a thing, Shay.’

‘Because you believed in Napoleon’s promises?’

‘No. The cause I believed in is long since dead. What I want now is justice for all those good souls who perished along the way, those who cry out for vengeance and who believe in equity and truth.’

‘The fight is no longer yours, James. It’s too dangerous for a start...’

A heavy knocking downstairs had them both standing and they moved towards the back of the room in unison. They had practised for this, expected it for weeks now, ever since Napoleon had abandoned Paris, leaving the political chaos in the city behind him. There were so many factions seeking power in the vacuum of all that was left.

‘You first.’ Although the older man protested, Shay pushed him through the small opening and lowered the platform with its thick rope gurney. The crash of splintered timber alerted him to the fact that his enemy was close, as did the sound of feet pounding up the creaky staircase.

As he heard the gurney hit the ground with McPherson safely away, Shay knew his own chance of escape had run out so he turned, raising the stool beside him like a shield, a thick twist of rope in the other hand.

They weren’t in uniform, a fact that told him the military was not involved. They were also not at all conciliatory. He might have managed something if they had allowed him words, but there were five of them altogether and when the gun fired at close range he felt the bite of it in his right thigh. A coldness spread quickly, his sight blurring. He wondered if the bullet might have hit a major artery or the bone for he could not feel his leg any more. Weakness crawled into his head and his limbs. Then there was nothing.

* * *

He came awake in a room and discovered he was bound to a chair. Tightly bound. Two men sat in front of him. One had just thrown a pail of cold water over his head and the shock of it brought him back to consciousness.

‘Who are you?’

‘Captain John Barton of the American Regiment of Infantry and one of President Madison’s envoys.’

‘Liar. You are Major Summerley Shayborne of the Eleventh Foot and you have worked for General Wellesley as an intelligence officer in Spain for these past two years.’

‘I don’t know who you are speaking of.’

‘Do you not, Major?’

There was a slight kerfuffle and there materialised before him the face of one of the soldiers who had accompanied him across Spain after his capture by the French Dragoons in the north-west provinces.

‘The Englishman’s hair is darker now, sir, but his attitude is exactly the same. It is him, I am sure of it.’

‘Thank you, Private. That will be all.’

A hard fist glanced across his mouth, tight with fury, the smack of it coinciding with pain. A dislocation of the jaw perhaps. He shook his vision clear.

The second blow jabbed a soft spot in his lower back and then a third targeted the injured leg. His thigh ached like the dickens. It was a considered torture and a damned effective one.

‘Confess who you are, Major Shayborne, and we will leave you alone.’

To hang, he thought, though it did cross his mind a simple knife to the throat might also have been an option. They were in a basement room and the floor was hard-packed earth, a drain of sorts to the side. To sluice away the blood, he supposed, the mess of death easily dealt with.

‘Who are...you?’ He got the words out with some difficulty.

No one spoke. Not Savary’s men, then, for they were braggarts and would have supplied such information readily given the unequal balance of power and the obvious outcome. Not from the War Ministry either. He doubted they would treat a man in uniform like this.

One of the shadowy unit of Napoleon Bonaparte’s that James McPherson had spoken of? He’d heard of them, of course, but only in veiled reference, the layers of intelligence deep here and impenetrable. He decided to play them at their own game.

‘The Emperor will move the Grand Armée into Russia before the winter. It is his first priority and the vacuum left will allow the English to take back Spain.’

Another slam into his ear, the high squeal of sound inside the drum a direct result.

‘Joseph Bonaparte and the Marshals shall be thrown out of Madrid and then piece by piece the victories of Napoleon will dissolve into defeats.’

His mouth was hit this time and he tasted blood. At this rate, he would be dead before they meant him to be. He kept talking.