Fortunée had taken some chocolate from her pocket and was offering it to Marianne:

'Here. You'll need all your strength and it's none too warm here in the woods. But the luncheon can't go on for ever.'

A little biting wind had got up, sweeping the dead leaves over the surface of the Route Ronde which had been made in the days of Louis XIV to encircle Fontainebleau and a large portion of the forest for the vehicles following the hunt. Clouds raced across a sky more pale grey than blue, just failing to keep up with a dark mass of swallows on their way to find the sun. Marianne's throat tightened as she watched the birds, flying so fast and free, thinking of Jason, a sea bird held basely in a cage until such time as the dull hand of a slavish, so-called justice should strike him down, not letting him see the vast, pure ocean again, even for one day.

A horn blowing deep in the forest dragged her from her gloomy thoughts. She had not hunted all her life without knowing the signs that the hunt was moving off. She jumped to her feet, automatically smoothing out the folds of her riding dress.

'Hurry,' she cried. They're away!'

'Not so fast,' Fortunée said easily. We need to know the direction first.'

The two of them stood for a moment listening, trying to disentangle the confusing echoes of hounds and horns; then Madame Hamelin beamed triumphantly at her friend:

'Excellent! They are going towards the Haute Borne – we shall be able to cut across the line! Come on! I'll show you the way and then drop behind while you go on alone – since His Majesty would rather not see me! Ready?'

With one accord, the two young women sprang into the saddle. Their whips cracked and they were off at a full gallop through the forest, guided by the sound of the horn. At first they followed a cross-ride with heavy cover on either side, bending low over their horses' necks to avoid overhanging branches. The going was rough, over stony ground which climbed steeply from time to time only to descend as steeply into deep valley-bottoms thick with heather and high rusty-golden bracken, but both were excellent horsewomen, Marianne especially, and they were able to avoid the many obstacles in their path without slackening their pace. In the normal way, Marianne would have enjoyed enormously the hectic ride through one of the finest forests in Europe, but today the stakes were too high and the risk of failure too tragic. Galloping in a desperate bid to save Jason Beaufort's life, she knew beyond all doubt that her own life, too, hung on the outcome.

They rode for a long time. The quarry seemed to be doubling endlessly and it was nearly an hour before they caught sight of the flash of white between the bare trees that told them the pack was in full cry. Hounds were running fast, giving tongue as they ran. The horn calls had already told Marianne long before this that the quarry was a boar and with her nerves in their present raw state she was glad of it. Deer-hunting had never given her any pleasure: the grace and beauty of the creatures moved her too deeply.

Fortunée had reined to a halt and now her voice came, borne on the wind:

'There they are – you go on alone…'

Marianne could see the boar now, crashing through the undergrowth like a great, black, bristly cannon ball, the pack hard on his heels. After them came two red-jacketed huntsmen, both riding greys, blowing for all they were worth. The Emperor could not be far away. She dug in her heels and shot forward, burst through a thicket, jumped a fallen tree trunk and a tangled brake – and landed almost plump on top of Napoleon, who was also going full-tilt.

Both mounts reared wildly to avoid a collision but whereas Marianne, perfect mistress of herself and her horse, remained easily in the saddle, the Emperor of the French, caught off balance, parted company with his stirrups and took a flying toss into the leafy mould.

'Ten thousand thunders! What half-witted—'

But Marianne was already on her knees beside him, overcome with horror at what she had done:

'It's me, Sire! Only me! Oh, in heaven's name, forgive me! I did not mean – oh, good God! You are not hurt?'

Napoleon glared at her and, getting quickly to his feet, snatched from Marianne's hands the hat which he had lost in his fall and which she had picked up.

'I was under the impression, Madame,' he said, in such arctic tones that Marianne felt an involuntary shiver down her spine, 'that I had banished you. What are you doing here?'

She gazed up at him imploringly. It had not even occurred to her to get to her feet.

'I had to see you, Sire! I had to speak to you, at all costs—'

'Even the cost of my back, it would seem,' Napoleon said grimly, adding, with a touch of impatience: 'Well, get up, get up! The appearance we present is already sufficiently ridiculous – and we are not alone.'

They were not. Even as he spoke, three men, whom the Emperor must have outdistanced in the chase, came thundering up to them. The first to arrive wore the splendid uniform of a general of hussars, the second was in the green suit of the imperial huntsmen and the third, the only one of the three known to Marianne, was the Mameluke, Rustan. The general had dismounted in an instant.

'Sire!' he exclaimed in anxious tones. 'Are you all right?'

But it was Marianne who answered, smiling engagingly: 'It is I, General, who do not deserve to be. My horse bolted with me and I reached here at the same moment as His Majesty. Our horses reared and I was thrown. The Emperor was good enough to come to my assistance, for which I am most grateful.'

As she uttered this piece of diplomatic prevarication she saw Napoleon's jaw lose something of its set look and the glare go out of his eye.

'It was nothing,' he remarked, carelessly shaking a dead leaf or two from the skirts of his grey redingote. 'Say no more. But enough of this day's sport. I am tired of it. It has been a fruitless day. Call off your huntsmen and your hounds, Monsieur d'Hannecourt. We are going back to the chateau. You, Madame,' he turned to Marianne, 'will follow us. I wish to speak with you. Rustan will take you in by way of the English Garden.'

'But, Sire, I am not alone in the forest. A friend—'

A gleam appeared in Napoleon's blue-grey eyes, not of anger this time but amusement:

'I see. Then you had better collect your friend, Madame, before you come. Some people,' he added, with an inflection which told Marianne that he was under no illusions as to that friend's identity, 'would appear remarkably hard to lose.'

Marianne bowed quickly and, placing her booted foot in General Nansouty's gallantly proffered hands, vaulted into the saddle with a neatness that made the hussar's lips twitch irrepressibly. He was too experienced a horseman to be taken in by Marianne's tactful story. If anyone had taken a header, it was certainly not this girl. But Nansouty was a man of the world and so he merely smiled.

It did not take Marianne many minutes to discover Fortunée or many more to put her in possession of the facts about what had taken place and the new hope which had so unexpectedly resulted for Marianne.

'He will see you, that is the main thing,' Madame Hamelin said. 'I dare say he'll give you one of his scolds, but what matters is if he listens to you. You may win yet.'

Then, wasting no more time, the two women gave their horses their heads and hurtled after the Emperor and his suite.

At the first cross-roads, they found Rustan waiting for them underneath a pine tree, looking like some rigid equestrian statue of a sultan. Making a sign to them to follow, he cantered off in the direction of the chateau, making a slight detour on the way so as to avoid running his charges into the rest of the court.

Half an hour later, Marianne was inside the palace of Fontainebleau, where she had begun to despair of ever being. She had seen no one beyond a few servants on her way from the English Garden, past the Carp Pool and through the Fountain Court. Then, leaving Fortunée in a small, deserted salon on the ground floor, Rustan had thrown open the door into a large room giving on to the garden and, bowing, indicated a chair. Once again, Marianne found herself in Napoleon's private office. It was the fourth she had seen but although this one had modern furniture and decorations in the style of Louis XVI, the usual litter of papers, maps, personal belongings and the ubiquitous red morocco files made it seem instantly familiar. There was the open snuff-box, the goose quill flung down at random, the big map unrolled on the desk and the hat left carelessly on a bracket table, just as at the Tuileries and St Cloud and the Trianon. To Marianne, it was reassuring. The Emperor's powerful personality stamped all his surroundings with his own identity, and feeling slightly more at home now and in a more hopeful frame of mind, she settled down to await his coming.

When he did come, it was in his usual style: a quick step on the tiled floor of the corridor, slam of the door, a rapid march across the room, hands behind back, pause by the big desk with a swift, appreciative eye for the ceremonial court curtsy, then directly into the subject on hand:

'Well, Madame? No doubt you had excellent reasons for pursuing me here importunately in direct defiance of my commands?'

The tone, aggressive and deliberately offensive, would, in the normal way, have provoked Marianne to an equally stinging reply. But she knew that if she wanted to save Jason she must cast off her pride and humble herself to the dust, and with all the more reason now that this same ruler had not long ago bitten the dust himself on her account.

'Sire,' she said with gentle dignity, 'this is the first time Your Majesty has accused me of being importunate. Have you forgotten that I am your loyal, obedient subject?'

'Loyal, I hope. Obedient, by no means! You are a perfect menace, Madame, and if I did not take good care you would disrupt the whole of my Grand Army altogether. If they're not fighting duels over you, they're killing people for you.'

'That's not true!' Marianne cried, stung to an indignation stronger than her resolution to be humble. 'No one ever killed for me, and those that say so—'

'Are not so very far out. Granting that no actual murder was committed on your behalf, I hope you do not mean to deny that on the same night two men challenged each other to fight and two more actually fought on your account.'

'Not two more, Sire. One more. The same man was the cause of both duels.'

Napoleon struck the desk a resounding blow with the flat of his hand:

'Stop splitting hairs, Madame! I don't like it. One thing is certain. My gendarmes caught two men in the act of fighting a duel in your garden. One escaped, the other failed to do so. How long has Fournier-Sarlovèze been your lover?'

'He is not my lover, Sire,' Marianne said wearily. 'Nor has he ever been. As Your Majesty knows full well, being aware of the deep bond of affection which exists between him and my friend, Madame Hamelin. Now let me entreat Your Majesty to forget that unfortunate business. It is not what I have come about.'

'But it is what I wish to talk about. I want the matter cleared up. General Fournier refuses consistently to offer any explanation other than this idiotic tale about a friendly bout with a foreign acquaintance. Which seems hardly likely when Chernychev had already cried off from fighting this damned Beaufort because Prince Kurakin had given him an urgent message for the Tsar. Not quite the moment to get out the foils.'

So the men who had invaded her garden on the night of the duel had recognized the Russian attaché and Fournier's gesture had been in vain. She bowed her head.

'Your Majesty knows the other man was Count Chernychev?'

Napoleon's face took on a sly grin which to Marianne appeared positively satanic:

'I thought so… certainly, but now you yourself have told me so.'

'Sire!' Marianne protested, outraged. 'That was unworthy!'

'It is for me, Madame, to be the judge of what is or is not unworthy. And let me advise you to moderate your voice if you wish me to hear you out.' There was a pause, occupied on his side in a close scrutiny of Marianne's crimsoned face. 'And now,' the Emperor went on, 'now I am waiting to hear from you a complete – and truthful – account of what passed in your house that night. Do you understand? I want the truth, and the whole truth! And you would be unwise to attempt a falsehood. I know you too well not to see through it at once.'