It’s never wise to be the bearer of bad news, particularly when the recipient is Napoleon Bonaparte. He was difficult enough when we started our relationship in Egypt, and he has since become more irritable from the misery of power. The higher Napoleon rose, the further he could fall. The more he commanded, the more people demanded. The more trappings of royalty he took on as emperor, the more Europe’s aristocracy called him impostor and usurper. He greeted me, after two months’ campaigning, with too little sleep and too much impatience.
“Gage in Bohemia? I thought I sent you across the English Channel.” His voice was brusque.
“I did as you asked and conducted naval diplomacy with both sides,” I said. “It ended badly, through no fault of my own.” I refused to make meek excuses, even though it was intimidating to thread through his ring of imperial guardsmen, Mameluke bodyguards, unctuous aides-de-camp, and hovering colonels. I’d be more than happy to be dismissed from this consumptive army that ate its way across Austria.
Murat had escorted me to Napoleon’s tent in a field camp near Wolkersdorf. The French were marching toward the city of Brunn, twelve miles short of where the retreating Austrians and Russians had turned to rally, and a great battle was brewing. As I reluctantly rode with French cavalry to report to the emperor, we followed the telltale trail of war. The half-frozen roads were mush churned by hooves, boots, and wheels. Columns of smoke marked where marauding cavalry, looting infantry, or opportunistic bandits had set fires. Peasants mournfully watched the army pass, the refugees bent under their belongings and so thickly wrapped that they looked like walking tubs of laundry. I shared bread with some of them. The Russians were the most brutal, they assessed, the Austrians the most hungry, and the French the greediest. Did I know which way they should flee?
I did not. The smell of dung, corruption, and ashes was everywhere.
We passed a train of whores, peddlers, moneylenders, thieves, beggars, madmen, and shirkers, the types that stick to every army like burrs on a tail. Calloused and weathered vivandières, long hair tucked into their woolen scarves and voices hoarse from calling, slogged in their secondhand hussar jackets and filthy skirts to offer tonnelet kegs of brandy painted a patriotic red, white, and blue. The price was a franc per ounce, and fatalistic infantry paid this absurdity. They might die tomorrow, so what value was money? And did mademoiselle wish to sell something more as well?
We also passed corpses hanging from bare trees, the bodies presumably those of spies, partisans, or bandits. Crows pecked at the frozen flesh, and the land was gloomy. The fields and copses of wood were flecked with patches of old snow. The soldiers were tired. They’d already marched a thousand miles, fighting a dozen small engagements. The farther they advanced, the more the odds mounted against them. Napoleon needed a decisive victory to finish this war.
Everyone was cold and wet. Officers claimed billets in houses, paid for with letters of credit, and the generals had field tents. Wagoners could sleep in, or under, their vehicles. The rest had only their greatcoats, called capotes in French, and slept in the open when they couldn’t commandeer a shed or barn. Their pack was their pillow, and tied rags their nightcap. Most hadn’t changed clothes for three months. Wash water had a skin of ice each morning, and the army moved too fast to dig proper latrines. Napoleon might disdain Venetian corpses, but he was never fastidious about the stink of his own regiments, which you could smell before you could see. Now he frowned at me.
“What do you mean, ‘It ended badly’?” he demanded.
Could he not know of the battle off Cape Trafalgar? “When Admiral Villeneuve learned he might be relieved of command at Cadiz, he decided to sail and fight.”
Napoleon’s sigh steamed in the cold, the air chilly even in a square tent crowded with officers. Outside, sleet skittered. The general gave me a cutting look. To avoid those gray eyes, I inventoried how emperors campaigned. A checkered canvas tarp made a floor, a folding camp chair served as throne, and his bed was a thin mattress on a folding iron frame. Accoutrements included a sword, pistols, and a toilet kit that held toothbrush, tweezers, tongue scraper, scissors, ear picker, and corkscrew. There was a jar of licorice, a small looking glass, and a gilded bottle of cologne.
The emperor was dressed in his habitually modest green uniform coat of the chasseurs, wearing a colonel’s epaulets. He’d lost weight on campaign.
“Gage helped with the ruse at the Tabor Bridge,” Murat put in. “Under my command.”
The cavalry commander was still smarting from a second rebuke by his emperor brother-in-law. Having been scolded for wasting time taking Vienna, Murat had briefly redeemed himself with my cheerful lies at Tabor Bridge. But then the idiot had fallen for the same trick three days later! Russian prince Peter Bagration delayed French attacks by claiming another armistice, and Murat was confused enough to allow the enemy to escape. Napoleon’s reaction was volcanic. Now Murat, splendiferous and moody, was trying, like a happy but chastened hound, to get back in the emperor’s good graces. Bonaparte’s suspicious scowl swung from me to Murat and back again.
“Villeneuve risked battle? Gage, I ordered you to negotiate peace with Admiral Nelson to preserve my fleet! A naval showdown does me no good when my army is preoccupied with Austria and Russia. The navy was to wait until I returned to invade England!”
I tried to look dignified and opaque, like Foreign Minister Talleyrand. People rise by learning to talk at great length about as little as possible. “I counseled both Nelson and Admiral Villeneuve to accept a mutual truce, and enlisted Emma Hamilton to make Horatio see reason. But I couldn’t prevent battle.”
Napoleon scowled. “Give me your report.”
“You haven’t heard?”
His tone was flat. “This is my first word of it.”
The naval disaster had been fought four weeks before, and it was left to me to bring the bad news? What monstrous luck! I glanced at the marshals around me, hoping for support, and they all looked away. I cleared my throat. “I’m afraid Villeneuve was defeated.”
There was a groan from the entire assembly. Napoleon’s valet, Constant Wairy, made a fastidious note from his seat at a field desk. The bastard was probably already planning his memoirs, I thought darkly, and no doubt would paint woeful messengers in a bad light when making his own brilliance shine brighter. As much as I was unhappy with my recruitment into yet another Napoleonic adventure, I was also jealous of any climber more toadying and successful than me.
Napoleon interrupted my jealous reverie, face clenched tight as a pack strap. “How badly?”
“Both your fleet and the Spanish put up a brave fight, but the English are rather expert. I had to leave before the incoming storm fully hit, but your sea power suffered a substantial subtraction.”
“Don’t talk like a damned courtier. What’s the sum?”
“Almost every ship in the Combined Fleet was either captured or sunk.”
Now curses from the officers.
“Storm?”
“There was a hurricane after the battle, half the ships already dismasted and drifting. I was already hurrying to give you news, so didn’t see the sinking, but I suspect the weather made things go from bad to worse.”
“Disaster!” hissed Marshal Lannes.
“The Combined Fleet is gone?” Bonaparte’s tone was near disbelief.
“I’m afraid so, mon empereur.” It never hurts to use a flattering title. I pondered on a way to soften the blow. “Nelson was wounded and almost certainly dying. It was fearsome havoc on both sides. I barely survived.”
He looked at me with disgust. “Yet here you are, fifteen hundred miles away, without a scratch.”
“My bruises are healing. I’m hurrying to save my family. I am told my wife might be imprisoned in Bohemia.”
“Family!” He jumped from his camp chair and pounced like a tiger, grabbing my ear to inflict a torture he’d learned from his Corsican mother, Letizia. He twisted my lobe with relish as I yelped in surprise. I bent my head and then turned my entire body to try to lessen the corkscrew of pain, but he squeezed like a vise. I’d have punched the bastard, but then I’d be shot.
“Your Majesty!” I gasped, as humiliated as a schoolboy. He used this torture on almost everyone, including women. A light pinch was a mark of favor, while a sadistic clamp made displeasure plain.
“You deserted my fleet to look for your family?” he roared.
“I didn’t desert! The Redoutable sunk out from under me!”
“How could you get here ahead of everyone else?’
I was grimacing. “Habitual brilliance. I’m an experienced traveler, as you know. My family is near, and I’ve been in a lather to find them. And you. I thought you’d find my intelligence useful.” Yes, now that I was Ethan Gage again instead of Hieronymus Franklin, I’d pretend to be the long-lost agent until I could escape again. What wretched fortune to survive a naval catastrophe, only to fall in with a marching army! Bonaparte moved too fast.
He finally released his grip and I staggered back, eyes watering. His hands were small, fine, and strong. His face was flushed, eyes darting to his maps, his mind calculating. “Did Villeneuve die?”
“I don’t know. His ship surrendered.”
“That fool has ruined everything.”
Best to move on, I thought. “The good news is that Marshal Murat put me to use in Vienna. I think I’ve done my share.”
“I conscripted him!” Murat shouted. The officers laughed.
I waited. Napoleon knew that I’d spied and fought for both the French and British sides—he had used that to his own advantage—and that my country was across an ocean, and my loyalties focused mainly on my family. I never entirely belonged anywhere, and yet was of service because of it.
Bonaparte sat heavily in the tent’s only chair. His fleet destroyed! For three years he’d dreamed of invading England. Now, even if he won here, invasion was impossible. World domination required destroying Britain, not Austria, and destroying Britain required destroying British ships. Not a single English vessel had surrendered to the French.
“Gage, you materialize like an omen. Like the Little Red Man.” There was a murmur at mention of this prophetic gnome; it made his marshals uneasy. “One moment you’re helping France, and the next you’re consorting with the English spymaster Sidney Smith. You swing like a weathercock.”
“I’m an American neutral. I just want my family.”
“What happened to that rifle I gave you? It was worth a small fortune.”
“The British have it.”
He closed his eyes, summoning control. “Always the damned English.” Then he opened them, their gray cold and commanding. “Your news makes our campaign more important than ever.”
“You’ve never had luck with the ocean.”
“Well.” The emperor collected himself. “If we are defeated at sea, we must smash Alexander’s Russians and Francis’s Austrians on land. They have foolishly become England’s lackeys and must be destroyed because of it.” He took a breath and stood again. “Which we will do. You’ve brought clarity, Gage, like a dousing from a bucket of ice water.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
His eyes swept all of us. “We’ve had a month of astounding victories. We’ve conquered General Mack, taken the enemy capital, and seized his military stores for ourselves. But a final victory is assured only if I can get my enemies to engage before they fully gather their forces. I need them overconfident, I need them hurried, and I need them confused.”
“If they’re confident, they’re fools,” said Murat. “We’ve chased them from the Black Forest to Moravia.”
“And yet our supply lines are stretched, our armies scattered, and the English naval victory will give them encouragement.” Napoleon moved to a map, lips pursed. “Constant, how far away is the 4th Dragoon Division?” The question was a bark.
“We’ve had dispatches, mon empereur.” The secretary jumped to another table and began sifting through messages. “I recall seeing it, and if you will give me five minutes . . .”
“The 18th regiment of the 2nd Brigade is commanded by Lefebvre-Desnouettes and is at Stockerau with orders to take Znaym, three hundred men,” Napoleon recited without waiting. “The 19th is at Pressburg and ordered to Holitsch, four hundred men. The 17th, 15th, and 27th will hold at Gundersdorf for further orders, which will bring up Laplache’s brigade of one thousand.” It was a brilliant display of memory, and I’d no doubt Bonaparte could repeat the entire army list. His power of recall was dazzling. He didn’t curse luck; he made it. “You’re a gambler, American. Would you bet on my cards?”
“In brelan, the cards are secondary to the bluff,” I said, relieved that anger had turned to solutions. My ear still smarted. “You can take any pot with strong cards, but the art is winning when your hand is weak.”
Now his look was appreciative. “See? This is why I retain Gage. He’s a rogue, but not a stupid rogue. Find the utility of every man.”
“Wise counsel,” Murat said, in order to remind us again that he’d found me.
I straightened. Not my choice of compliment, but better than I usually get. Some officers regarded me jealously, and I realized I could make too many enemies by making Napoleon too much of a friend. Careful, Ethan.
“The Allied strategy is to draw me on,” the emperor continued, taking on the tone of a lecturer. “I have fifty thousand men here in Bohemia, but Francis and Alexander have gathered eighty thousand at Olmütz. There will be a hundred thousand if we give enough time for Constantine and Essen to come up. We are using another fifty thousand guarding Vienna and my supply lines to France, but Austrian archdukes Charles and John are bringing eighty thousand in forced march from Italy. Ferdinand has ten thousand to the west to fall on our rear. Masséna is too far away to come to our aid. The British and Swedes threaten the Low Countries, and the Italians and British make mischief in southern Italy. Gage, you’re a student of Hannibal and the casino. What kind of hand am I holding?”
The only reason he tolerated me was honesty. “A dangerous one. If you give the enemy time to act in concert, the odds are hopeless.” Another murmur. “You could take your winnings, the capture of Mack’s army, and negotiate for the best peace you can get.” I turned to the others. “Or you can go all in.”
Napoleon smiled. “Indeed. I’ve put my head in the noose to pursue my enemies, and my only course now is to make them even more reckless than I am. What strategy would you adopt in brelan, Gage?”
“I’d bluff. But in this case the cards are exposed, since both sides have scouts who can count. The Allies know they outnumber you, and the longer they wait, the greater their advantage.”
“Exactly. My spies tell me Russian general Kutuzov has counseled exactly such patience, but younger and more eager Russian princes are anxious to fight. There’s no glory in delay and maneuver. Kutuzov is a commoner, and they despise him for it. Emperor Alexander is torn between common sense and the aristocracy he must placate to consolidate his power. I, meanwhile, need a decisive battle while I can still even the odds. I need Alexander to attack, but only when and where I want him to. How do you draw an opponent out, American gambler?”
“By feigning weakness.”
He turned to the others. “And what would look weaker than sending a foreign hanger-on like Ethan Gage to beg for time from an enemy?” The officers laughed.
This new diplomatic duty was alarming. I was searching for my wife.
“Gage does exude a certain craven cleverness,” Marshal Lannes judged.
“The kind of duplicitous diplomat who negotiates to save himself,” Murat added. “Royals will remember his treachery at Tabor Bridge and view our use of him as cynical and desperate.”
“The American is obsessed with his own family when the world is on a knife-edge,” Constant chimed in.
“The world is always on a knife-edge,” I said, but no one was listening.
“Gage is as feeble as a hare in a snare, with Alexander the watching Russian wolf,” added Napoleon’s aide-de-camp General Anne-Jean-Marie-René Savary. “Using an American will confuse them.” This guileful officer had won the emperor’s favor by commanding his bodyguard, crushing French rebels, and overseeing the illegal execution of the Duc d’Enghien. Any sensible man was wary of him, including me.
“Exactly,” Napoleon replied. “We’re going to choose our place to fight, cousins. And we’re going to use the American to bait the trap.” He turned to me. “Gage, I’m sending you with Savary to offer a truce. The more the enemy holds you in contempt, the more likely you are to succeed.”
“I know nothing about Russians.”
“I don’t want you to study them. I want you to draw them to where I can kill them. We have a week at most to destroy them before they become so strong that they destroy me.”
“Lure them where?”
“Exactly.” Once more he addressed the others. “The Allies have three choices. They can march into the forested hills of Bohemia, to my far left, between Brunn and Prague, and hurry westward to cut my supply lines and retreat. But that puts their army columns on hilly forest roads, out of touch with each other.”
“We could crush each column as it emerges from the woods,” Lannes said.
“Second, they can march directly from Olmütz toward Brunn and attack me head-on. But I have a choice of several heights to make a stand on, and if I lose I simply fall back on my supply routes. Even an Allied victory could result in stalemate.”
“The last thing Czar Alexander wants,” said Savary. “He fancies himself Alexander the Great. Emperor Francis wants to be Charlemagne.”
“Third, they can swing south, around my right. If successful, this puts them between our forces and Vienna, and closer to the Austrian dukes coming from Italy. They would retake their capital, unite their forces, and force me into a precipitous retreat. A combined army could chase us all the way to Paris.”
“You think they’ll try that,” I summed up.
“I prepare for every contingency. But that would be my choice, were I Alexander or Francis. So: a thousand miles from home, winter coming on, enemy reinforcements marching from all directions, our supplies thin and troops tired. What is our task, cousins?”
“To have them try to turn our right flank in a place of our choosing,” Murat said. He had the eagerness of a schoolboy and recited the answer the teacher wanted. “And then strike a devastating counterblow.”
“You are learning at last. Yes, to turn their own confidence against them. I have ground in mind. We’re too weak, and too extended, to attack the enemy at Olmütz. We must convince them to hurry to us by pleading for time.”
“The more you beg, the less you get,” I offered. “That’s been my experience, anyway.” I take lessons from my failures.
“I’m gambling like brelan, Gage, and I’m gambling that the Austrians will recognize you and trust nothing you tell them. Promise me that you can still lie and dissemble, trick and deceive, mislead and divert.”
“I’m actually honest to a fault. And even if they think the worst of me, won’t they be tempted to just shoot or hang me?”
He smiled. “That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.” The joke, if it was one, got a hearty laugh. “No, they’ll send you back with a counteroffer to conceal their movements, in time for glorious battle to embroil us all.”