Leopard in Exile by Andre Norton, Rosemary Edghill Read Free Book Online

an
    English agent. Wessex had run agents in his time, and knew that a man would have to be mad to attempt
    to recruit Warltawk, so it was unlikely that the Baron was a French agent. Nor could Warltawk be
    running agents of his own—the former Kingbreaker was too closely watched for that. But if Warltawk
    were neither agent nor spymaster he must be playing at a different game.
    To find out what it was, Wessex needed an ally. Suddenly, he smiled.
    It had just occurred to him where to look for one.

Chapter Two
    Legend in Green Velvet
    (Paris, May 1807)
    T he recently-christened Palais de l'Homme held the treasures of a plundered Empire. The wealth of
    Italy, the ancient grandeur of Egypt—the jewels, paintings, statuary of a thousand years filled the
    Emperor's palace. As were so many constructions of the Empire, the grandly titled Palais de l'Homme
    was a makeshift thing created from the hasty joining of two older edifices: the Louvre and the Tuileries.
    Those who remembered the early days of the Revolution and the glorious ideals of equality and liberty
    they had held in those days kept prudently silent now. The ideal-crazed revolutionaries had toppled one
    luxurious despot only to discover themselves replacing him with another in the space of a handful of
    years. And France's present Imperial master, unlike her past Royal one, would not be content until he
    had devoured the world and remade it in his own image. At the same time as he proposed draconian
    peace treaties upon his victims, Napoleon tore down the ancient buildings of Paris to rebuild the city as a
    second Rome, eternal monument to his glory. The immense new palace that Percier had designed would
    not be finished for several years: until that day, the Emperor reigned in the place from which his
    predecessor had reigned… if not quite in the same style.
    The Emperor's court was the largest the modem world had ever seen, and its rituals were conducted
    upon a stunning scale. When a supplicant entered the vast blue and gold throne room, the occupant of the
    throne at the far end was a distant and nearly-invisible figure set against a vast gilded sunburst
    surmounted by the laurel-crowned Imperial signet and surrounded by his courtiers. As one proceeded
    down the long scarlet expanse of carpet that connected the throne and the entrance, slowly the petitioner
    felt his own consequence diminishing as the figure of Napoleon loomed larger and larger, until at last the
    petitioner gazed up a flight of white marble steps to the gilt and crimson throne upon which sat the Master
    of the World, and felt himself dwindle into utter insignificance.
    Illya Koscuisko did not feel insignificant as he gazed about the throne room, making note of who was in
    attendance this day and who was not. He had been a part of mis great drama for some months now, and
    had gotten used to its scale.
    He only wished he could become as used to his uniform.
    Napoleon rotated his ceremonial guard, but his favorite—for propaganda reasons—was the Garde
    Polonaise , formed from the regiments of partitioned Poland—and he employed it often. Upon forming
    the unit, he had redesigned the uniform of the Polish hussars from which most of its members were
    drawn—now the eagle-wings were of gold, towering six feet above the soldier's heads. The wolfskin
    pelisses had been replaced with whole leopard-skins lined in red silk, and upon the fronts of their shakos
    the men now wore a golden dragon's mask, an empty symbol of their stolen kingdom.
    It was because of the Emperor's hollow promises that Illya had first joined the White Tower Group, for
    only through the defeat of the Corsican Tyrant could his beloved Poland live again. It was one of the
    amusing paradoxes with which his life abounded that to work against Napoleon, it was necessary for Illya
    to embrace the life that would have been his if he had in fact joined the tyrant, and for some months now
    Illya had been passing as a member of the Garde