Work Text:
I
Ivan Braginsky stood by the window in Vilnius, watching the snow melt on the roof across the street.
Snow in June. No, not snow. Poplar cotton. The Polish summer came late, and white fluff from the poplar trees filled the entire city like an avalanche in reverse. He pushed open the window, and the clusters of white drifted in, clinging to his dark green uniform like tiny surrendering flags.
"Your Majesty," his aide de camp reminded him from behind, "the French vanguard has reached Kovno."
"Kovno?" Ivan turned, a confused look in his pale purple eyes, as if the name were foreign to him. "Is that on the Dnieper? No, it's on the Niemen."
The aide did not correct him. The Tsar had been like this often lately, speaking disjointedly, as if something had stolen most of his attention. Ever since the final ultimatum had arrived from Paris, Ivan had not slept a single full night. He reviewed documents at night, read letters before dawn, and stood on the balcony at sunrise looking west, as if he could see that golden haired man across six hundred kilometres.
"He's coming," Ivan said suddenly, his tone as flat as a weather report.
"Yes, Your Majesty. Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, crossed the Niemen yesterday."
Ivan did not answer. He lowered his gaze to the letter spread open on his desk. The edges of the paper were gilded, the French letters slender and elegant, like twisting grapevines. He recognised the handwriting. Ten years ago, when he had just ascended the throne, every letter from Francis, then First Consul of the French Republic, had been written in this same script.
To His Majesty Emperor Alexander. Between your empire and my republic, there is no need for mountains or rivers to stand apart. Friendship itself is the strongest bridge.
Later, Francis crowned himself emperor. The salutation on the letters changed from "His Majesty Emperor Alexander" to "Mr. Braginsky." And then came Austerlitz, the cannon fire drowning out all diplomatic niceties.
Ivan had not personally marched that time. As Francis raised his sabre on the distant battlefield, Ivan stood in the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, staring at the map of Bohemia, silently crossing out the names of one general after another.
"Are you asking why I did not go myself?" Ivan had said to Kochubey at the time. "Because he would have seen me."
Kochubey did not understand.
Ivan did not explain either. How could he? That Francis Bonnefoy's perception of land was almost supernatural. As soon as Ivan set foot on the battlefield, Francis would know from the very scent of the air that he had arrived.
"Your Majesty," the aide called again.
"I heard you." Ivan finally lifted his eyes from the letter. "Order Bagration's troops to ... no, never mind."
"Your Majesty?"
"He wants me, not my army." Ivan's voice was as light as poplar cotton landing. "Let him come find me."
II
Francis rode into Kovno with dust in his hair.
The Polish summer was brutally dry. Dust kicked up by hooves settled on his golden hair, on the epaulettes of his dark blue uniform. He did not wipe it off. Emperor Napoleon was not a man who fussed over his appearance on the battlefield. He was a god of war, and gods did not care about dust.
"Your Majesty," Berthier said, handing him a canteen, "reconnaissance cavalry report that the main Russian forces are not in Kovno. They have withdrawn toward Vitebsk."
"Retreating again." Francis took a sip of water. It was warm and tasted faintly of rust. "How many times is that since we crossed?"
"Not a single direct engagement."
Francis tossed the canteen back. He raised his head and looked toward the northeast horizon. The clouds hung low, and the grey green plain stretched out of sight, like a promissory note without a receipt. Alexander I, Ivan Braginsky, was playing a game of hide and seek with him, and Russia was the biggest hiding place in the world.
"He knows I won't fight in winter." The corner of Francis's mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "He wants to drag me into October and let the cold bury my army."
"Then what does Your Majesty plan to do?"
"Keep chasing." Francis did not hesitate. "He thinks the expanse of Russia can swallow my army. But he forgets one thing. Ivan himself is far more fragile than any front line."
He did not explain what he meant. But his grip on the reins tightened, and his spurs lightly touched the horse's flank. The mount broke into a trot, and behind him the cuirassiers followed, the clanking of their armour like heavy drumbeats.
He remembered something. Tilsit, 1807. That year they met on a raft moored in the middle of the Niemen, two emperors standing face to face like duelling swordsmen with a velvet draped table between them. Ivan had worn that dark green dress uniform, a white carnation pinned to his collar. He looked much younger than his age, his cheeks still soft with youth, but there was something hidden behind those pale purple eyes, like an underground river beneath permafrost, calm on the surface, turbulent in the depths.
"Your Majesty the Emperor of the French," Ivan had begun, his pronunciation of French soft, biting into the word "France" as if it were a piece of candy. "I have long admired you."
Francis bent to kiss his hand. Convention dictated that he kiss the ring, but he kissed the skin between the knuckles instead. Ivan's fingers were cold, like the Neva River in a November in Saint Petersburg.
"Mr. Braginsky," Francis straightened up, his eyes curving into crescents. "You don't need to be so formal with me. The straight line distance from Moscow to Paris is twenty five hundred kilometres. If we have to exchange pleasantries over such a long road, it will be exhausting."
Ivan laughed. That smile gave Francis a slight start. It was not a diplomat's smile, not a tsar's reserve. It was a twenty year old's unguarded, almost naive laugh, delighted by being amused.
"Then I will be honest," Ivan said. "I do not like you."
Francis blinked.
"But I am curious about you." Ivan added, his gaze steady, unflinching. "A son of a fallen Corsican noble. How did you bring all of Europe to its knees?"
"That sounds like praise."
"It is a question."
The talks lasted two days. They signed the Treaty of Tilsit, and France and Russia transformed from enemies into allies. On the night after the signing, Francis walked into Ivan's tent and found him crouched on the floor, shining a torch over a spread out map.
"What are you doing?"
"Counting how many places you have conquered." Ivan did not look up. "Corsica, Paris, Italy, Egypt, Germany, Poland ... where will you stop?"
Francis crouched down beside him, his shoulder nearly touching Ivan's. The candlelight turned the map of Europe yellow, and the border between France and Russia looked like a fresh scar.
"At you," Francis said.
Ivan finally looked up. Their faces were very close, close enough for Francis to see a tiny mole under Ivan's right eye.
"Then you will regret it," Ivan said.
III
Borodino.
September 7, 1812, dawn.
Francis stood on the ruins of the Shevardino redoubt and looked out at the mist spreading before him. Beneath the mist lay the Kolocha River. Across the river lay the fortifications the Russians had built overnight, Bagration's flèches, the Raevsky redoubt, rows of chevaux de frise and breastworks. When the mist cleared, he would see the full formation of the Russian army. And when the mist cleared, the Russian army would see him.
"Your Majesty," Berthier's voice was tight, "the Russians reinforced last night. Bagration's troops have joined Barclay's. An estimated one hundred twenty thousand men on the front line."
"One hundred twenty thousand." Francis repeated flatly. "When I crossed the Alps, I had forty thousand exhausted men behind me and three Austrian lines in front of me. You all said it was impossible."
He took off his bicorne hat and wiped the dew from the brim with his sleeve. The morning light was seeping through the eastern fog, pale golden rays falling on his face, illuminating the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. He was forty three years old. It had taken him twenty years to rise from a junior artillery officer to the master of Europe, and Ivan Braginsky had dragged him into a quagmire in a single summer.
"Give the order," Francis put his hat back on, his voice suddenly clear and sharp as a bugle call. "Eugène's Italian corps attacks the right flank. Davout's First corps assaults the centre. Ney's Third corps follows up."
He paused, then spoke the words that would be remembered by all his officers.
"Before tonight falls, I want to see the backbone of Russia broken."
The cannonade began at six o'clock.
Four hundred guns thundered at once. The earth trembled like a drum skin. Francis stood on the high ground, telescope in hand, and watched the first shells land on the Russian positions. Soil and bodies flew into the air together. Smoke quickly spread, obscuring half the Kolocha River.
At nine, he sent in Grouchy's cavalry.
At nine thirty, the first French tricolour was planted on the outer wall of the Raevsky redoubt.
Then he heard another sound.
Not cannon. Not the cries of battle. Singing.
Someone on the Russian side was singing. Distant, muffled, like wind through a dead forest. Francis turned his telescope toward the sound and saw a group of Russian soldiers standing in formation, crossing themselves, singing a song in a language he did not understand. The Orthodox hymn had no instruments, only voices, low and deep like the C string of a cello.
When they finished singing, they picked up their rifles and charged into the gap torn open by cannon fire.
"Your Majesty," a messenger ran up, face covered in blood, "Prince Eugène on the right flank requests reinforcements! The Russian cavalry has launched a major counterattack."
Francis did not move. His telescope was still aimed at that position, at those people marching to their deaths with a hymn on their lips. His lips parted slightly, but no sound came out.
He remembered Ivan's eyes. Those pale purple eyes, like an underground river beneath the permafrost. What lay behind those eyes was this, wasn't it? Not tactics, not weapons, not anything that reason could calculate. It was a total, absolute indifference. Indifference to how many died, to how much land was lost, to whether Moscow burned or remained. Russia did not care.
But he cared. Every soldier of his was a son of France, a star he had picked from the flames of the revolution one by one. He could not bear to lose them.
"Tell Eugène," Francis lowered the telescope, his voice low, "the cavalry is coming."
"Your Majesty, what cavalry?"
Francis turned. He stood on the high ground, the tricolour snapping in the wind behind him, the burning sky of Borodino before him. Suddenly his legs felt heavy, as if something had tripped him. Not mud, not corpses, something more abstract. It was the reins Ivan had thrown on the ground, and he had stepped into them without noticing.
"All of the Imperial Guard," he said, each word seeming to squeeze through his teeth. "Prepare."
Berthier stopped him.
"Your Majesty! The Guard is the final reserve. Unless absolutely necessary..."
"This is absolutely necessary."
"But Your Majesty..."
Francis pushed him aside. He walked down the high ground, mounted his horse, and wrapped the reins twice around his hand. His mount sensed his fury, reared up, and let out a long whinny. The cuirassiers of the Imperial Guard formed up behind him, their armour reflecting the orange red light of the flames, like a row of moving furnaces.
He raised his sabre.
And then he saw a man.
On the far bank of the Kolocha, amid a group of retreating Russian soldiers, a man sat on horseback. Dark green uniform, white breeches, gold aiguillette flying in the wind. He wore no helmet, and his light blonde hair had been turned grey by the smoke.
Ivan Braginsky.
He had come.
Francis's sabre froze in the air. Across the entire battlefield, across the roar of four hundred guns and the silence of thirty thousand corpses, their eyes met.
Ivan's expression was calm. No anger, no fear, no emotion at all. He simply looked at Francis, just as they had looked at each other that first time in Tilsit, curious, quiet, with a spine chilling, almost translucent innocence.
Then Ivan smiled.
It was a very faint smile, so faint it could have been swallowed by the cannonade. But Francis saw it. He saw that smile, and he saw what lay behind Ivan. The Russian infantry battalions were withdrawing toward the village of Semyonovskoye, not in a rout but in a disciplined redeployment. The Raevsky redoubt was still in Russian hands. Bagration was gravely wounded, but no one panicked.
They seemed to be saying: go ahead. Burn Moscow. Burn half our territory. We will retreat to the Urals, to Siberia, to Kamchatka. When your soldiers freeze to death in the snow, when your horses' hooves sink into the frozen swamps, we will come back and build a monument with your bones.
Francis slowly lowered his sabre.
"The Imperial Guard," he said, his voice as rough as sandpaper, "...will not attack. Halt."
Berthier was stunned.
"Your Majesty? Borodino is right there..."
"I said halt."
He sheathed his sabre. For the first time on any battlefield, he let go of the reins, letting his hands hang by his sides. The wind blew from the east, carrying the smell of burnt earth and blood. He closed his eyes.
He would win Borodino. He would take Moscow. And then? Ivan would not sue for peace, would not surrender, would not sign a treaty. He would burn himself and all of Russia to ashes, then rise from those ashes and walk back toward Paris, step by step.
Francis opened his eyes. Across the river, that patch of dark green uniform had vanished.