CHAPTER ONE: ANNUNCIATION, 25 MARCH 1806 (TUESDAY)
SAINT-DIÉ DES VOSGES
Achille shifted his gaze from the piebald cow to the silver five-franc coin, which he had been idly turning over in his hand to the cow's cud-chewing rhythm, and then back again. A young, dirty girl holding the cow’s tattered rope halter regarded Achille with dark liquid eyes. Committing the profile on the obverse to memory once again, Achille thrust the five franc piece into his coat pocket. The girl shifted her weight from one bare foot to the other and visibly gulped. He wanted to blurt out, Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. He tried to pull himself up into the most upright and composed stance he could manage, here on the side of a hill amidst the brush and the first new sprouts of spring. He scratched at his high, stiff collar where the gold embroidered acanthus leaves met his freshly shaven neck.
The Mayor of Saint-Dié, his tri-color sash emphasizing his enormous girth, was babbling on about the cow and the peasant girl’s father and the honor it really was, truly it was. Achille tried to look serious and, he hoped, commanding. “So, Monsieur Alençon,” Achille interrupted the Mayor, “when will the bishop and the celebrants arrive?”
The Mayor pulled out a pocket watch and flipped open the face. “Probably not for another quarter hour or so, Monsieur Aescher.” He squinted at the path winding into the trees at the bottom of the slope.
Achille scrutinized the cow, again. He opened his mouth, then closed it, somewhat indecisively. One of the horses behind him stamped a hoof and snorted. Do not be afraid. “May I go ahead and examine the cow, Monsieur?”
The Mayor started. “Oh, why, of course! Of course you may, Monsieur Aescher. He may, mayn’t he?” The Mayor looked around at his entourage.
“Does the proprietor of the cow concur?” Achille archly asked a silent figure at the fringe of the well-dressed group.
The man grunted. It was almost a shrug. He called to the girl, presumably his daughter. “Marie, hold Isabel still for Monsieur the Inspector.”
Marie adjusted her grip on Isabel’s halter, and stroked the cow’s forehead. Her eyes never left the slim government inspector as he picked his way further into the field, his spurs rattling on the tough dry twigs that had lasted through the winter.
He laid his hands on the cow’s shoulder as she mechanically chewed her cud. Isabel was a fine specimen, a beautiful dairy cow. Sliding a hand down the inside of cow’s thigh, Achille could feel the taut udder. Her hip bones stuck out, but not unduly so. But Achille wasn’t in a field in the Déodatien hinterlands for a mere dairy cow. “Is it her other side?” he asked the sullen peasant girl. Marie only nodded. Moving around to the cow’s off side, he brushed off some of the abundant dried mud that encrusted Isabel’s hide, separating the coarse hairs where white met black. He traced the outline of a particularly striking marking on the cow’s flank. There was no doubt about it; the cow’s coloration was her own. The white patch on her side was a startlingly exact match of the profile of the belaureled figure on the five-franc coin. And all French francs, for that matter. The reports had been true. Achille was not wasting his time by coming all the way out here. Isabel had a perfect likeness of the French Emperor splashed boldly across her flank.
Do not be afraid, Marie, for thou hast found grace with the Emperor Napoléon. Achille tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress a grin. Behold, thou shalt bring forth a cow.
