‘I’m sure they are happy enough where they are. Besides, if they were with us, I rather fear that everyone’s gaze would be drawn to them. They certainly have their mother’s fine looks.’
Josephine shook her head, but smiled all the same at the compliment. Then her eyes lit up as she glanced at something over Napoleon’s shoulder. ‘Oh! Look there!’
He turned and saw that two small children had climbed on top of a large barrel resting on a wagon, parked at the side of the street. Between them they held up a tricolour flag with his name embroidered on it. Napoleon waved at them and they shouted with delight and waved back frantically. Just before they passed out of sight he glimpsed a glittering spark below them in the wagon. Then the carriage jolted as it passed by and the children and the wagon were gone.
Josephine chuckled. ‘It seems your public loves you.’Then she noticed the faint frown in his brow. ‘What? What is it?’
Napoleon shook his head. ‘I’m not sure.’
He leaned out of the window and stared back towards the wagon at an angle. The children were still waving. He shrugged and settled back against the seat cushion. Josephine was still staring at him and he forced himself to laugh. ‘It’s nothing. Really.’
Outside in the street the world dissolved into a brilliant flash of white, then orange, and an instant later there was a deafening roar, and the carriage was slammed forward as if a giant fist had struck the rear. Napoleon and Josephine were hurled against the seats opposite, amid a shower of broken glass. For a moment Napoleon could hear nothing, and his head felt as if it was stuffed with wool.The light from the torches outside had gone and thick black smoke smothered the street. He shook off the glass and groped towards Josephine, his heart beating in panic and dread. He felt her body, and as she stirred a wave of relief swept through him. His ears filled with a dull roaring sound that slowly resolved into specific noises: the shrill whinny of an injured horse; screams and moans and the shouts of people frantically calling out for their friends and family.
‘Napoleon?’ Josephine’s voice sounded slightly muffled as she pulled herself up on to a seat and held his face in her hands. He saw that her cheek was bleeding from a cut. She spoke again, and he heard her more clearly this time as his hearing recovered. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine . . . I think.’ Napoleon glanced over his body and flexed his limbs.There was no pain and no blood.Then he turned to the shattered window on his side of the carriage. ‘An explosion. A bomb.’
At once he recalled the convoy of carriages behind them and pushed down the handle of the door. It swung open and Napoleon scrambled down into the street and stared back along the convoy. The cart and barrel on which the two children had stood to greet Napoleon had vanished.The street was filled with the bodies of people and horses and the shattered remains of carriages. Every window as far as Napoleon could see had been shattered and the buildings immediately around the point of the explosion had collapsed. An officer from the Consular Guard ran up and took his arm.
‘Sir! Get back in the carriage.We have to get you out of here!’
‘Leave me alone.’ Napoleon gestured towards the blackened figures stirring amid the carnage. ‘Help those people!’
The officer stared at him briefly and then nodded, turning to his men. ‘Follow me!’
‘My God . . .’ Josephine mumbled.
Napoleon looked round and saw that she had followed him down from the carriage. She stared past him, and then thrust her gloved hand to her mouth as her eyes widened in terror. ‘My children! My children . . . My Eugène. Hortense. Where are they?’
She brushed past him and ran back towards what was left of the following coaches and Napoleon went after her, his heart heavy with dread. Only a miracle could have spared those caught in the full blast of the explosion.
Chapter 63
Napoleon followed Josephine as she went from the remains of one carriage to the next, picking her way over rubble, fragments of wood, shattered limbs, and the carcasses of horses. Some of the bystanders and men of the Consular Guard had found some torches from further up the street and moved over the scene in their search for the survivors.
‘Mother!’ a voice cried out and Josephine snapped towards it.
‘Eugène! Is that you?’
A shape waved to them in the gloom. ‘Yes, over here.’
Napoleon and Josephine clambered across a pile of rubble from one of the collapsed buildings and found that the carriages towards the rear of the convoy were still intact. The horses and driver of Eugène’s carriage had all been killed by flying masonry and splinters from the carriage ahead of them.The door hung on one bent hinge and Eugène beckoned to them desperately. ‘In here. Quickly.’
When they reached the carriage Napoleon and Josephine looked inside and saw Eugène cradling his sister in his arms. There was a livid streak of blood down the silk material of her dress and she looked up with a dazed expression at her mother and stepfather.
‘Oh, God.’ Josephine’s voice caught in a choke before she continued, ‘She’s hurt. Out of my way!’ She hauled herself into the carriage and pushed Eugène to one side as her hands traced the flow of blood up to the torn flesh of the girl’s wrist. A jet of blood arced into the carriage and splashed on Josephine’s cheek.
‘Get some pressure on the wound!’ Napoleon snapped as he squeezed in beside his wife. ‘Eugène. Find a doctor. At once.’
‘Where?’
‘Just do it!’
Eugène stumbled away and Napoleon hurriedly unwound the fine scarf from round his neck and began to tie it round the injury, as tightly as he could. Hortense gasped at the pain and Josephine glanced furiously at her husband.
‘I have to stop the flow of blood,’ he explained gently. ‘It’s her only chance.’
But even as he spoke the blood continued to well up through the material.
‘Mama, I’m cold.’ Hortense’s eyes fluttered. ‘So cold.’
Her body began trembling violently and Josephine grasped her chin. ‘Oh, God, please, no. Not Hortense. Please God.’ She shook her daughter. ‘Hortense . . .’
The girl moaned faintly in her throat and her whole body was shaking.
Josephine glanced up. ‘She needs help.’
‘Eugène is finding someone.’
‘Mother . . .’ Hortense’s voice was little more than a murmur. ‘I’m cold. Hold me.’
Josephine drew her daughter in close to her, nuzzling her soft hair as she stroked Hortense’s cheek. ‘My baby . . . My baby.’The first tears glistened in Josephine’s eyes, and rolled down her cheeks, smearing her make-up. Napoleon tied off the dressing and held the girl’s cold hand. Josephine was rocking her daughter gently in her arms, as if the girl was an infant. She continued to whisper endearments and comforting noises until Eugène returned.
‘I’ve cleared a path for your carriage, and sent word for a doctor to go to the palace at once.’
‘Good boy.’ Napoleon patted his stepson on the arm.‘Now we must get your mother and sister away from here.’ Napoleon eased Josephine away from her daughter, who had passed out. Slipping his hands under the girl’s shoulders, Napoleon turned to Eugène. ‘Here. Give me a hand.’
The study was lit by the fire alone, and Napoleon sat in a chair staring into the flames as the wood hissed and crackled. He was still smeared with smoke and black smudges, and his formal coat was unbuttoned and hung open. He held a large glass of brandy in his hands. As he gazed into the wavering orange glare at the heart of the fire he saw the explosion, and its terrible aftermath, playing out in his mind, almost as if it was happening again.