Climbing up the short flight of stairs to the front door, he lifted the latch and pushed the heavy door open. Inside smelled damp and earthy, and there was a faint rustling on the tiled floor as a large lizard scurried for cover. Napoleon set his haversack down on a table and explored the house, opening the shutters as he went from room to room. Tiles were missing above most rooms and rain had leaked in and stained the floor. In one bedroom, a section of the roof had collapsed and crushed the child's cot beneath. Ivy had grown across some of the windows and tough tendrils had even begun to force their way inside and spread along the walls.

Outside, the courtyard was overgrown and the flowerbeds had all but vanished back into the wilderness.

It would take time, but the estate could be brought back into decent enough condition to let.The house was the place to start, he decided, and went back inside.

He began by breaking up some of the ruined pieces of furniture for firewood. By the end of the day he had swept most of the rooms clear of dirt, cut the ivy away from the windows and cleared the debris from the room in which the roof had collapsed. As darkness fell outside he lit the fire and took the sausage, bread and wineskin from his haversack. As he ate and drank by the wavering glare from the grate, the shrilling of the cicadas outside in the olive groves made him smile. As a boy he used to complain that they kept him awake. Now, they just seemed to be welcoming him home.

For the next week Napoleon worked steadily and methodically, clearing room after room, replacing the missing tiles, repairing damaged shutters and doors. On the third day, as he was eating his evening meal by a small fire as dusk closed in outside, there was a loud knock on the door. Napoleon flinched at the noise. There had been no sound of approaching footsteps on the stony path or up the steps to the door. Putting his bread and sausage down on the small table, he wiped his hands, walked softly to the front door and opened it.

Outside in the wan glow of the failing light stood a tall man in the greased wool cape of a sheepherder. Except that he wore soft leather boots and he carried a musket. It was no fowling piece, but a soldier's weapon. Napoleon took all this in before he concentrated on the man's face. He must have been in his mid-thirties, with dark curly hair and bright blue eyes.

Disconcertingly he greeted Napoleon with a broad smile as he inclined his head and asked, 'Signor Naboleone Buona Parte?'

'Yes, that's me. How can I be of service, Signor . . . ?'

'People know me as Benito.' He emphasised the name as if to imply that Napoleon should be familiar with it. 'May I come in?'

'Why?' Napoleon felt his heart begin to beat faster. 'It is late.'

'Alas, it is not easy for me to move around in daylight.' Benito smiled again. 'Let us say that my existence is not appreciated by the French. Besides, I cannot allow my business with you to wait.'

Napoleon stared at him a moment, and realised that the man was far bigger than him, and armed.

'Very well, then. Please come in.'

In the kitchen he turned to face Benito and indicated the table.

'Sit down there. I'll get another chair. Help yourself to some food, if you wish.'

'Thank you, Signor. I am hungry. The nature of my duties means that I go without food for days sometimes.'

'I see.' Napoleon fetched a stool and sat down opposite the man. Benito carefully leaned the musket against the wall behind him and flicked the cape back across his broad shoulders. From his belt he drew a long straight dagger and, keeping his eyes on Napoleon, he cut himself a length of sausage and gnawed a chunk off the end.

Napoleon cleared his throat. 'You said you had some business with me.'

Benito nodded, chewing then swallowing the sausagemeat. 'I was told that there was a man working here.When they got your name down in the village I had some enquiries made about you in Ajaccio.'

'So?'

'So it seems that you are a French artillery officer, supposedly here on leave.'

'If your spy's information was any good, you'll also know that I am a son of Carlos Buona Parte, who fought with General Paoli at Ponte Nuovo.'

'I'm aware of that. I knew your father,' Benito smiled. 'That is why you are still alive. For the moment.'

Both men tensed up for a moment, and Napoleon's heart was beating fast as he tried to think of some way of overwhelming the man. Benito laughed suddenly and cut himself another piece of sausage.

'Relax, Lieutenant. I'm just interested in finding out more about the son of a Corsican patriot who has put on the uniform of our enemy.'

'I am no traitor, nor a spy, if that's what you are implying.' Napoleon responded angrily. 'I am a soldier on leave. I'm trying to help my family survive a crisis thrust on them by the French Government, as it happens. So I'll thank you not to question my motives, nor my patriotism. And you?' Napoleon stared back at him, as he recalled something his mother had said after his return. 'I a.s.sume you are one of Paoli's men.'

'Of course.'

'Then you will know that the general is being backed by a foreign power.'

Benito pursed his lips. 'That's true.'

'Do you know which foreign power?'

'No.'

'You claim to be a patriot, and yet you could be working for someone who might well turn out to be an enemy of Corsican independence. I can think of a few countries that might want to get the Corsican people to throw off French rule just so that they can have the island for themselves.' He nodded at Benito. 'I'd say that makes us about the same.'

'Not the same . . . but near enough. Very well, Naboleone, I accept that you're a patriot, but what would happen if you were called upon by the French to fight Corsicans?'

Napoleon was silent for a moment. 'I pray that day never comes.'

'It may well do, sooner than you think.'

'Maybe. But in the meantime I will continue to persuade every Frenchman I meet to support Corsican independence. If they only give us that, then we would be their staunchest ally.'

Benito laughed. 'We will just have to keep working on the French.You keep on trying to talk them round and I'll just keep on killing the ones who won't listen. Between us we should get what we want in the end.' Then the amus.e.m.e.nt faded from his face like a candle being snuffed out. 'But if I ever see you in uniform leading troops against us, I'll kill you and I'll kill your family. Do you understand?'

Napoleon nodded.

Benito picked up the wineskin.'A toast then, to Corsica, proud and free.' He removed the stopper and took a large mouthful, before holding the wineskin out to Napoleon.

'Corisca, proud and free,' Napoleon repeated and took a swig.

'There! Now I'm tired. I have to go.'

Napoleon showed him out of the kitchen and back to the front door. As he opened the door he was aware of movement in the shadows outside. A short distance from the house, bathed in moonlight, stood four men armed with muskets. Napoleon's eyebrows rose at the sight and Benito laughed heartily.'You didn't really expect me to put myself at your mercy? I just needed to put you to the test, that's all. No point in risking my life into the bargain. I'll see you again one day. Meanwhile, consider yourself warned. As long as you are here to see your family you are safe. But if you ever return to Corsica as a serving French officer, then I'll gut you without a single regret.'

'I understand.'

'Then farewell, Naboleone Buona Parte. Until we meet in a free Corsica.'

'Until then.' Napoleon held out his hand and they shook.Then Benito turned away, strode across to his men and led them off into the darkness of the olive trees.

Napoleon returned to Ajaccio at the end of the week and told his mother and Joseph of the progress he had made. After some reflection he had decided not to tell them about his encounter with Benito. It would only worry them needlessly. He picked up some tools from a local ironmonger and persuaded Joseph to return to Mellili with him to help with the repairs.

'But I need to study my law books,' Joseph complained.

'You can do that each evening, after the work's finished.'

'I suppose so.' Joseph considered the prospect for a moment and then nodded his agreement. 'And it'll give us more time together.'

'True, but this isn't a holiday, Joseph. We must get the house repaired as soon as we can if it is to generate some income for Mother.'

As autumn gave way to winter the two brothers laboured hard to make good the repairs to the house and by the time cold rains lashed down over the hills they were able to shelter inside in comfort. There were no more visits from Benito, and after a month Napoleon stopped looking for him or his men amongst the olive groves and devoted his full attention to renovating the estate.

With the biting cold of the new year and more rain, Napoleon and Joseph retreated to Ajaccio to prepare the paperwork for their claims for compensation. The local administration claimed that it had no authority in the matter and that the only hope of a decision for their case was to pursue the matter directly with the government in Paris.

As the winter came to an end Napoleon realised that he needed far more time to ensure that his family's financial difficulties were resolved. He applied for an extension to his leave, saying that his health was poor and that he had been advised to rest and fully recuperate before returning to duties.The leave was duly granted and while work continued at Mellili Napoleon completed the doc.u.ments supporting their claim and sent them off to Paris.While the family waited for the reply, Joseph returned to Italy to resume his legal training and Napoleon spent the evenings working on the opening of his history of Corsica, writing late into the night to make up for the time he had lost renovating the house and its land.

Finally a reply came from Paris and Letizia joined him in the salon of the house in Ajaccio as Napoleon read through the letter. It was brief, polite and to the point.The clerk at the Treasury who dealt with contractual disputes thanked the family for their doc.u.ments but regretted to say that no further action could be taken unless the plaintiff sent a representative to Paris to pursue the case in person.

'Why?' Letizia asked.'What difference would that make? It was all there in the doc.u.ments.'

'Of course it was, Mother,' Napoleon replied.

'Then why demand that we send someone? Do they think we can really afford the time and money to do that?'

'Of course not. They're hoping we'll have to sit tight in Corsica and the case can be delayed long enough for everyone to forget about it.'

Letizia sat back in her chair. 'Then what can we do?'

'I can go to Paris; force them to get on with the compensation process and not leave until it's done.'

Letizia stared at him for a moment before she nodded. 'I wish I could come with you, but there's your brothers and sisters.They need me here . . . When will you go?'

'As soon as possible.' He took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. 'Then it can all be sorted out, and you'll have everything that's owed to you.'

Chapter 41.

It was late autumn when Napoleon reached Paris. Uncle Luciano had provided him with enough money to survive in the capital until the new year, if necessary. But Napoleon hoped to have resolved matters by that time and return to the army, since his period of leave would have expired. He would have spent fifteen months away from his regiment and he did not imagine that he would be able to abuse the army's patience for much longer.

Conscious of the need to make sure that his meagre funds lasted as long as possible, Napoleon took a room in one of the cheapest hotels he could find: a grime-streaked antique on the river, close to Notre-Dame. If the cold wind blew in the wrong direction the rank odour of the river filled every room in the Pays Normande, even the small chamber up in the attic where Lieutenant Buona Parte eked out his days between pursuing his business at the Treasury offices and strolling around the centre of the city, arms clasped behind his back and head down, deep in thought.

Napoleon found a small subscription library close to the hotel where he could choose from amongst a diverse range of novels, plays and philosophy. Monsieur Cardin's library occupied the ground floor of a building that was otherwise given over to a company employing seamstresses who worked on gowns for affluent customers. Monsieur Cardin was a thin, spare man who dressed in old clothes and wore a wig from which all the powder had disappeared years ago so that it now had the appearance of mattress stuffing. His wire-rimmed spectacles were thick and made his dark brown eyes look like tiny dots of ink. The neglect of his appearance was due to his obsession, his one true love - the books that lined every wall of his premises. As the young artillery officer's eyes scanned along the rows of books he felt a giddy joy in being exposed to the most eclectic range of writers he could imagine. At present he was most interested in Monsieur Cardin's recent acquisitions in the section devoted to political philosophy, particularly a new work, little more than a pamphlet, with the terse t.i.tle 'A New Order', and Napoleon had started to read the introduction.

The capital had been flooded with pamphlets since King Louis had first announced that he was summoning the first parliament for nearly two hundred years. France was being crushed under the burden of a corrupt and outdated system of government that gave every advantage to the aristocrats, and squeezed the very last sou out of the purses of the poor. Some kind of reform was desperately needed but the aristocrats and the Church refused to relinquish their privileges, and the King - surrounded on every side by sycophantic n.o.bles - refused to implement the reforms that the vast majority of his people were crying out for. Their voice was heard in the angry crowds that gathered in all the cities, and in the vast outpouring of political tracts that filled the bookshops and libraries. Most of these publications were little more than cant, and Napoleon turned to this latest pamphlet with few expectations of learning anything worthwhile. At first the dry style nearly put him off, but within a few sentences the author boldly stated that the era of kings was over. Such were the advances in the sciences, education, philosophy and social relations that the very concept of monarchy was an anachronism that no state that considered itself civilised should tolerate.

This was a position that went beyond Napoleon's own thinking. He had only recently concluded that many of the Royal Houses in Europe were so corrupt that they needed to be swept away and replaced by something more efficient, honest and fair. But Napoleon had conceived of these replacements in terms of a more enlightened system of monarchy. The idea that monarchy itself was the problem struck his imagination like a thunderbolt.

He took the slim book over to a table by a window and sat down to read more by the light coming through the filth-streaked gla.s.s. At the end of the introduction came the author's credit: 'By Citizen Schiller, in the spirit of liberty, brotherhood and equality'.

Citizen Schiller - Napoleon fixed his eyes on the words. A citizen, not a subject. What would it be like to live in a world where men lived in freedom and equality? Where natural ability, not hereditary affluence, determined an individual's prospects. All the petty slights and torments that Napoleon had endured at the hands of the aristocrats over the years at Brienne, the Royal Military School of Paris and the officers' mess in Valence rushed into his mind like a great black wave. He felt engulfed by the shame of being treated as a social inferior. Citizen Schiller . . . Why not Citizen Buona Parte one day, when he could slough off the skin of his origins and be judged by what lay beneath? He read on through the morning, until he turned the last page, and then stared out of the window into the cold grey world of the grimy street outside.

'A thought-provoking read, isn't it?'

Napoleon turned and saw that Monsieur Cardin had left the small desk on the podium that allowed him to survey the library and was standing a few paces away, shelving some books that had been returned. The old man's eyes glinted behind his lenses as he smiled.

'This Schiller writes from the brain as well as the heart,' Napoleon agreed. 'I like that.'

'Yes, it's a rare quality when the two facets work side by side and don't contradict each other.'

'Still,' Napoleon reflected, 'it is one thing to write about such a future in abstract terms. The real trick is to make it happen. I wonder if this man has thought it through, this Citizen Schiller, if that is his real name.'

'It isn't.' Monsieur Cardin flashed a quick smile. 'Do you think a man who openly espoused the contents of that pamphlet would be free from persecution under our present system?'

'A pity. I should like to have discussed this further with him.'

'Why don't you?' Monsieur Cardin said quietly.

Napoleon looked at him, then glanced round the library.There were a handful of other customers reading or browsing through the stock, but none close enough to overhear. His turned his attention back to Monsieur Cardin. 'You know him?'

'I have met him, and I know where he will be speaking the day after tomorrow.'

Napoleon's eyes narrowed a fraction. 'Why are you telling me this?'

'You said that you would like to discuss the pamphlet with him.' Monsieur Cardin shrugged. 'He is visiting the capital for a few days. I thought you might be interested.'

Napoleon was at once suspicious.Was this some kind of test of his loyalty? In which case the best course would be to play the role expected of him. 'I am a King's officer. I could inform the authorities about this. Indeed, I could be a police informer, for all you know.'

Monsieur Cardin chuckled. 'Lieutenant Buona Parte, you're barely more than a boy. You're no spy. I've watched you come in here almost every day for the last three weeks. You read nothing but radical political texts and I have enjoyed the few words we have exchanged over that time. I think I am a good judge of character and I can tell that you are a kindred spirit politically. On that basis, no, I don't think you would inform on me. Besides, what is there to inform about? It's a small meeting, little more than a debating society where ideas are exchanged. I admit that the authorities might disapprove, but that's all. As long as these things are kept behind closed doors and pose no threat, they can be tolerated. So, are you interested in meeting Schiller?'

Napoleon picked up the pamphlet as he considered the offer. It would be foolhardy for so junior an officer, at the very start of his career, to be seen attending a radical meeting, no matter how few people it might attract. The army would take a dim view of it and any prospect of a glittering career would disappear for ever.

'No. I can't take the risk.' Napoleon rose up and straightened his uniform coat. 'I must go, Monsieur. I have an appointment I can't afford to miss.'

'I'm sure,' the other man smiled. 'But if you should change your mind, come back at eight in the evening, the day after tomorrow.'

Napoleon turned to leave the shop, conscious that he was being watched all the way to the door. Outside he drew a deep breath and quickly strode away from the library. At first he resolved never to return there, never to see nor speak to Jean Cardin again. It was not wise to be seen with the man. Then a chill of anxiety traced its way up his spine. Suppose the library was already under surveillance. Suppose that he had been seen going into the library on a regular basis over recent weeks. Maybe he was already on a list somewhere as a suspected radical. Maybe he was being watched even now.

As the thought occurred to Napoleon he had a terrible urge to stop right there in the street and nervously glance back to see if he was being followed. He fought the urge and instead walked further on, until he came to a bakery.The window was filled with baskets of bread and trays of pastries. He went inside and pretended to look over the wares as other shoppers queued to make their orders. His head was tilted down towards the tarts as he stared out into the street beneath his brow. A handful of people were coming from the same direction that he had been walking and he scrutinised them closely, discounting an old man with a young laughing woman on his arm and three young urchins chasing a hoop along the gutter.Then his eyes turned to a sallow-faced young man a few years older than himself in a nondescript brown coat and black tricorn hat pulled low over his forehead. The kind of man you would find in any street in Paris.

Without once looking at Napoleon, or even glancing in the window of the bakery, the man walked by. Napoleon sighed with relief. He was being foolish, hopelessly paranoid, he decided.What possible interest could the Paris police take in the political opinions of a lowly artillery officer? He bought a meat pie and left the bakery, wandering back to his hotel through the narrow streets.

He paused a short distance from the dingy entrance to the Pays Normande and surveyed the street.There were only a few people pa.s.sing by and no sign of anyone following him or keeping an eye on the hotel. Napoleon felt some of the tension drain from his body as he emerged into the open and made his way into the hotel and up to the attic.

In the privacy and security of his small room his earlier anxiety seemed quite unreal and he laughed at himself.All the same, when he left the hotel that night to find a cheap evening meal, he could not resist looking up and down the street before he set off.

Chapter 42.