'Ah, we are coming round. May I inquire how your Serene Highness feels now?'

'Dreadfully ill – and not very serene, I am afraid, Constant. Very far from it, in fact.' Then, as recollection flooded back, she added: 'The Emperor? Who would have thought that he—Was he trying to kill me?'

'No indeed, your Highness! But you were most imprudent. When his Majesty's temper has been tried to such an extent, it is unwise to attempt to approach him, much less to reason with him, and after what had just passed—'

'I know, Constant, I know… but it is so desperately serious! What the – the priest said sounded insane, but there was truth in it. You know that as well as I do.'

'His Majesty's personal attendant cannot indulge in private opinions,' Constant said wryly. 'I will say, however, that on seeing your Highness fall insensibly at his feet, the Emperor appeared somewhat alarmed and – er – distressed. He sent for me at once and commanded me to do my utmost for his – victim.'

'That word I am very sure he did not use. He probably said presumptuous wretch or ninny or something of that kind.'

'Poor lunatic was the expression, if your Highness will forgive me,' the valet corrected her with the shadow of a smile. 'To some extent the exercise of violence has calmed the Emperor. His temper is somewhat improved.'

'I am delighted to hear it. It is gratifying to have been of use. And – the man – the spy, do you know what was done with him?'

'The Grand Marshal has just reported that, for want of a better place, he has been incarcerated in one of the outlying towers, the one known as the Secret Tower. You may see it from the window.'

Disregarding the agonizing pain in her head, Marianne got up from the day-bed on which she had been laid and, driven by an irresistible impulse, hastened to the window, followed by Constant's protesting adjurations to her to take care.

The windows commanded a view of the whole area of the Kremlin. The tainitskie Bachnia, the Tower of the Secret, was the oldest, going back to the fifteenth century, and also the nearest of the towers, a menacing pile of brickwork, black with age, its squat shape like the figure of a crouching man blocking the way to the river. But from the tower, Marianne's eyes travelled on to the city and she gave a gasp of fear. The fire was gaining ground.

Beyond the slender ribbon of the Moskva was a sea of fire advancing like an irresistible tide and sweeping nearer with every minute. Whole regiments of troops were at work along the river banks, forming long human chains to carry buckets of water from the river to the fire. The buckets were no more use than thimbles and the men were like Lilliputians striving with their tiny casks to slake the thirst of a giant Gulliver. More men were standing on the roofs of houses not yet invaded by the fire, trying with the help of brooms and wet cloths to deal with the continual shower of flaming debris that fell from above, while one by one they were engulfed in the billowing black smoke that, driven before the high wind was gradually blotting out the whole landscape.

'What is the sense,' Marianne said at last in a colourless voice, 'of locking a man up when we are all in danger? How long will it be before we are overtaken by this cataclysm?'

Constant shrugged. 'The rogue will not have time to weary of his prison,' he said, and there was a note of anger in his voice; unusual for the big, placid Fleming. 'The Emperor has decreed that he be brought to trial this very evening, before the Duc de Trévise, the Governor of Moscow. He will be tried and before nightfall will have paid the penalty for his unthinkable temerity.'

'Why unthinkable?'

'Why, because he is a Frenchman and a person of no great account. That insane abuse he hurled at the Emperor might have been understandable on the part of a Russian, a defeated enemy, or even coming from one of the irreconcilable émigrés for whom his Majesty represents something between Cromwell and Antichrist. But for a miserable parish priest to utter such insults, to curse him in that prophetic fashion, and at such a time, that is unforgivable. Moreover, the man may not live even until tonight.'

Marianne's heart stopped beating.

'Why not? It is not like the Emperor to execute even a guilty man without fair trial—'

'No, no. But circumstances may make it necessary to despatch the matter sooner. The Kremlin walls are old and stout and we stand on a hill, but the ring of fire is getting perilously close. His Majesty is on the point of going out to inspect our resources for combating the fire and to see for himself the gravity of the danger. If, by any chance, we should be obliged to evacuate the palace, then the man's fate will of course be decided before we leave. You heard the Emperor: he will die before we leave the palace.'

Marianne felt terror taking hold of her. A moment ago, when Constant had told her where the 'Abbé Gauthier' was imprisoned, she had been conscious of something like relief, for she had feared those about the Emperor might have killed him on the spot. But her relief had been short-lived and now it seemed to her that things were moving with terrifying speed. A few hours! A few hours at most – perhaps only a few minutes, who could tell? And then the sentence would fall, inexorably as the blade of the guillotine, and there would be no more Gauthier de Chazay, ever again! To Marianne, the thought was as unbearable as a red-hot iron set to her flesh. She loved him. He was her godfather, almost a father to her, and their two lives were so intermingled, bound together by such invisible ties of mutual tenderness, that if one perished something would die also in the other.

Even now Marianne could still not understand what could have brought him, a man of wisdom and prudence, a great prince of the Church possessed of powers which, though unsuspected, were wide enough to compare with those of any crown, to that mad, fanatical exit. For all his dedicated hatred of Napoleon, it was not like him. The secret weapons of diplomacy were far more in tune with his temperament than grandiloquent speeches, especially ones doomed to failure. But now how could she snatch from death the good man who had always been there to rescue her from dangers and difficulties?

Her meditations were interrupted by the sound of a quick step in the adjoining room and she knew that Napoleon was coming. The next moment he was there, pausing in the doorway and then, catching sight of the girl standing in the window, coming quickly towards her. Before she could even begin to curtsy, he had laid his hands on her shoulders and kissed her with unexpected gentleness.

'Forgive me, little Marianne! I did not mean to hurt you. I was not aiming at you but at – oh, I don't know – at fate, perhaps, or the stupidity of mankind. That wretched madman had put me out of all patience. I think I could have strangled anyone who came near me. Does it hurt very badly?'

She shook her head, lying heroically, and managed to smile.

'If this little bump,' she touched the throbbing spot where the vase had hit her, 'has helped to ease your Majesty's nerves, then I am more than glad. I am – your servant always.'

'Don't be so solemn. If you mean you're fond of me, then say so straight out, not with all these courtly circumlocutions! But you'd do better to tell me what you really think – which is that I'm a brute. We've both of us known it for long enough. And now tell me what I can do to make you forgive me. Ask anything you like, even my permission to – to commit what follies you please! Is it horses you want? An escort to go with you to Petersburg? Do you want a ship? You can set out at once for Danzig, I will see that you have money, and there wait until your privateer drops anchor, as he is bound to do—'

'Why, can it be that you have changed your mind, Sire? Do you believe that, after all, I may have some chance of happiness with Jason Beaufort?'

'Not at all! I think the same as ever I did. Only I fear that I have asked too much of you – and perhaps exposed you to too great a danger. I am not unaware of the risks involved, but I and my troops are men and bred to risks. You are not. You have braved too many perils already to come to me. I have no right to demand more of you.'

As often happens at dramatic moments, a fantastic thought suddenly popped into Marianne's head. Could it be that, in offering her her freedom, Napoleon was also thinking to get rid of her? He did not seem to like Cassandra any more than his marshals did. But his motive was unimportant in the end. The fact that he had suggested it was so wonderful and so unexpected that for a moment she was dazzled. She knew that at that moment she held the keys to her life and liberty in her hands. One word and, in a matter of minutes, the gates of the Kremlin would open and let her out. A carriage with a strong escort would carry her, with Gracchus and Jolival, happily away to the seaport where the broken thread would be joined once more and whence, turning her back on Europe once and for all, she could fly away to a new life where all would be love… But love was a word she could not, must not utter, for it would mean a double sentence of death for her godfather.

The little spark died away. Slowly, she slipped from the Emperor's hold and fell at his feet. Then, bowing her head, she murmured: 'Forgive me, Sire! One thing only I would ask of you and that is – the Abbé Gauthier's life!'

'What?'

He had started back as sharply as if he had been struck and stood staring at her as she knelt before him in her simple brown dress, with her face a mask of grief and her green eyes filled with tears, her hands clasped, trembling, before her in an attitude of prayer.