Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals II

"You ought to write a history book yourself," Houston said, grinning. "The things you've seen and heard, it'd be worth reading."

"Slaves do not write histories," I pointed out.

"I heard somewhere that there were slaves who wrote books," Houston said. "Back in Roman times."

"This is not the Roman Empire," I answered, and bit off the irreverent addendum, "However much His Majesty likes to think so." I had no wish to match him for riskiness of wit; for myself I have always found bravery a vulgar quality, and those who possess it generally tiresome-though I did like Sam Houston, who had a keen sense of irony, no doubt acquired from living with the Cherokees.

"Well," he said, "there's my carriage, Albert," giving my name the English pronunciation rather than the proper one. "Good night."

Three days later the British arrived.

I was there when the Emperor got the word; in fact I was the one who brought it to him, though only in the sense of taking the sealed message from the dispatch rider-who was sweating, even though it was a December day and quite cool for New Orleans-and carrying it on a silver tray into the Emperor's private study. I did not, of course, know the contents, but I had my suspicions.

The Emperor read the message, smiled slightly, and tossed it onto his desk. "Well, Albert," he said, "the ball would seem about to begin. His Britannic Majesty's forces have put in their long-awaited appearance off our shores."

It was not, you understand, any great surprise. It was common knowledge, even in the streets of the city, that a large Royal Navy squadron, with a convoy of troop transports, had been working its ponderous way across the Gulf, shadowed at a discreet distance by Lafitte's people.

The Emperor got to his feet, slowly and clumsily, breathing loudly with the effort. I made no move to assist him; His Majesty's increasing corpulence and deteriorating health were among the many things one was required not to notice.

He walked over to the great windows that overlooked the palace grounds. "Ah, Albert," he said, his back to me. "Do you know, at times I wish myself back in France."

I said nothing, merely stood in respectful silence. I knew what was coming, having heard it so many times before.

"I have not seen France since the year 1793," he mused, his back to me. "Yet in some sense it will always be my second home. Strange; I have no such feelings, now, for Corsica."

He turned slightly, placing his face in profile. The morning light sharply silhouetted the famous features; the body might have grown corrupted, but that incredible head was still as beautiful as ever.

"Perhaps," he said wistfully, "I should have stayed. That was my intention, after all, when the traitor Paoli drove the Buonapartes from Corsica. I had no thought but to return to France and resume my military career. It was sheer chance that that American ship happened to be in the harbor, while I was seeking passage to Marseilles to rejoin the family, and that I fell to talking with the captain-and made a sudden impulsive decision, and the rest, as they say, is history."

He turned and smiled at me. "Who knows? Had I followed my original plan, surely I would by now be an officer of rank in the forces of the Republic. Not that that would be such an enviable fate, now," he added, "after the drubbing the British and their allies have given the Republic's armies. But perhaps I could have changed all that, eh? That fellow Wellington might have found General Buonaparte a harder adversary."

"As indeed he soon shall, sire," I murmured.

"What? Oh, yes, of course. Excellent, Albert!" He laughed. "Yes, it would seem the Duke and I are destined to do battle, in one possible world or another."

His mouth twisted. "If, if. If not for Paoli's treachery, I could have been the liberator of my homeland, and spent the rest of my days as ruler of Corsica. Treachery is a terrible thing, Albert, to be execrated above all other human sins."

I kept my mouth shut and my face blank, and tried to suppress the picture in my mind-of the late Colonel Burr, or rather his ghost, listening to that last little homily. The exquisite treachery by which the Emperor had disposed of his old partner would for sheer seamless detail have impressed a Borgia.

History, by the way, still seems silent on the question of just when and how the former Captain Buonaparte, now a newly commissioned lieutenant in the tiny United States army, chanced to meet then-Senator Burr. I have an impression it was at some sort of social function in New York, but I may be mistaken; at the time, after all, I was still a half-grown servant boy in a wealthy New Orleans household, being educated above my station by a capricious and indulgent owner. (Interestingly, it is possible that the Emperor and I were learning English at the same time.).

Whenever and wherever it happened, it was certainly one of the most fateful encounters of all time. I wonder if they recognized each other, in that first moment, as two of the same breed? Much as two sharks in the lightless depths of the ocean must apprehend their common species…

"But then," the Emperor said with sudden joviality, "in that case who would now reign over the interior of North America? Perhaps your famous and talented relative Tecumseh, eh?"

"Tecumseh is Shawnee, sire," I said very diffidently. "My father's people were Choctaw." Not that it mattered; my mother having been quadroon, I was unequivocally «black» under the laws of the Empire.

"Albert, Albert." He laughed softly and gave me a fond look. "I tease you, but you know how highly I esteem you. See here." He adopted the manner of one who has just made an important decision. "You have been a good and faithful servant for many years. When this business with the English is concluded, I intend to free you."

I bowed my head, as if overcome. "Sire," I said most humbly.

He did this, on the average, two or three times a year. It meant nothing. As many men-and women-had learned, the Emperor was too great a man to be bound by a trivial thing like a promise. But one had to pretend.

The next day they had a big council in the palace war-room. Standing beside the door, awaiting requests for drinks or whatever else the military leaders of the Empire might require, I witnessed the whole thing.

"So," the Emperor said, looking down at the map that covered most of the great conference table, "our guests have arrived, and we must make ready to welcome them. The question is, where?"

"No sign of any landings yet," Colonel Crockett observed. "They're just sort of hanging around offshore. Last message I got from Sam, he said he could just make out their sails, out in Chandeleur Sound."

He scratched absently beneath his fringed buckskin jacket; a gross discourtesy in the royal presence, but the Emperor tolerated much from the eccentric and extremely able chief of scouting operations. Half the alligators in the swamps were in Crockett's pay and the other half his blood relatives-or so it was said.

General Jackson snorted loudly. "By the Eternal, I don't suppose your 'boys' could trouble themselves to give us a more detailed report?" He and Crockett hated each other; it was one of those deadly personal enmities at which the Tennesseeans excel. "At least an estimate of the enemy's numbers?"

"No need," the Emperor said mildly. "We have, after all, a full roster of the enemy's forces, and have had for some time."

This was true. The Emperor's secret agents were everywhere, on both sides of the Atlantic, and very good at their work. If he had wanted to look it up, he could probably have learned the name of the trooper who watered Wellington's horse.

The Emperor was studying the map. "I confess," he said, "I am having trouble envisioning how they plan to do this."

Even with my own utter lack of military knowledge, I could see the problem. New Orleans is an oddly situated port; below the city, the river runs a hundred miles or so before reaching the sea-but it does not flow through solid land, but down the middle of a strange narrow alluvial peninsula that sticks out far into the Gulf, a kind of penis of the continent. The whole shoreline is a perfect mess of lakes, bays, bayous, and cypress swamps, with hardly any firm ground. How the Duke of Wellington proposed to get past all that was more than I could understand.