I chose a trunk for my own to fill with the dresses I was now sure would be given to me; I would include a few others. I lacked for an address to send them to, as I had seen them sent to others, but once I had one, I could do it then in secret and collect them. And then they would be entirely mine. I was sure no one would know. I smiled as I imagined printing Tante Castiglione on the side and sending it to her.
I remembered then that I was to have sent a card to her by now. A card I had not yet prepared. I had entirely forgotten. I had two missions, the one I had sworn to myself and the one I had promised to her, but my mysterious pianist and the tenor’s reappearance had destroyed my sense of them both. Yes, it was silly, this thing the Comtesse wanted—this mission was the exercise of her vanity, no matter what she said. But she would be impatient, even angry, if I delayed further, and I needed the money she’d promised—it didn’t matter if she was mad if she paid.
I shut the trunk, off to discover just how a grisette might post a letter to her aunt.
Seven
THE HUNT WAS out once more the next day. There were two hunts in the week, I knew: chasse à tir and chasse à courre—in the first the animals were beaten from the woods into a cordon and shot while helpless to escape, and in the second the animals were beaten from the woods and then shot as they ran, no matter the kind, in every direction. I couldn’t remember which one this was. It didn’t matter. I went alone to the apartment, sure of being undisturbed, and worked at making a fair list of the week’s events, laying out the Empress’s gowns in order.
I had made some good progress when cannon fire and gunshots began to fill the air until it seemed like a war had begun here, an attack on the palace while the Emperor and Empress were at play. When I heard the first cannon, I thought it a salute of some kind, but then the next and the next came, and then I heard gunshots and the shouts of men.
I imagined the Empress dead in the forest beside her horse, the entire party slain, the woods burning, filled with enemy soldiers. They would advance on the palace, setting fire to it next, I was sure.
The single way out I knew of was the road out of the palace into the town, but this would be full if there was an invasion or so it seemed to me. Or was it better to hide in the palace and wait? It seemed strange to me that there was no one to tell me what was happening or what to do if this was an attack until I remembered no one knew where I was.
I decided on changing into the dress the Empress gave me. I could leave disguised as a guest. I took off the palace uniform, and as I did, the door opened.
I leapt behind the dressing screen, afraid to think of who had entered.
Through a crack in the screen, I saw the tenor. He searched the room with his eyes before entering quietly, and I next saw a woman following behind, fair-haired, carefully dressed, a rich man’s wife, with a florid complexion on an intelligent face. Or she was blushing from what she was up to, I couldn’t say. She wore her tea gown already, clearly having abandoned the hunt, but there was no urgency, or not the urgency I would have expected, in either of them.
She looked askance at the room, as if reconsidering their joint aim.
I wondered for a moment if they could not hear the noise of the battle until the battle noise was rejoined.
How much longer? he asked.
I mean, who can say how long the ambush of a cottage can take? she said, indifferently, and crossed to the window before turning back to him with a smile.
The tenor chuckled at this, but he could see her hesitation. An expression crossed his face I did not recognize. He was softening, I saw, to her. Was it pity? Here was how he was with a woman he had not paid for. He reached for her.
With the French, he said, such an attack could last a week.
They laughed, rueful.
She said something I could not hear.
Well, you could say you have not recovered, he said. There’s no reason anyone should protest.
The tension of the battle seemed to thicken the air around them, slowing whatever passion there was, and then there was only quiet.
It’s over, and now they’ll be back, she said. Richard will be at my room in half an hour. I . . . we will try again, she said. Tomorrow the Empress seems likely to be at her councils again through tea. Perhaps then. I’m sure whatever indisposed me this afternoon will not leave me so quickly, she added, and leaned in to kiss him before slipping through the door expertly.
It was some game then, the cannons. A game of war. My own mistress would be back, then, as well. I waited for the tenor to leave, but he did not, sitting down instead and then reaching to where I had stowed my uniform. He pulled it out slowly and held it to his face.
I had never seen this before. The hunger he had for me.
You’re here, he said flatly. Show yourself.