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I am going to ask you to do something silly. I'm gonna ask you to play pretend.
Yeah, yeah, we know how it all ended.
It ends with a cannonball coming right out of nowhere and then days of agony and delirium far away from anywhere you’d consider home. It ends with a hole in the heart on a routine patrol, also out of nowhere, after years of dying on the inside. It ends after years of surviving and saying whatever you need to stay on top because nobody else is going to do the job, because it's all going to fucking come for us in the end.
We're not going to go on and on about what should have been, because there's too much to think about there. But we are going to play pretend. We’re going to be boys fighting with wooden swords.
And we’ll start at the end because that’s where we are right now.
Vers l'avant !
1.
So, try to imagine this-
The battle’s been over for days, but there’s still a man lying in a bed. He’s drifting in and out of coherence, his dreams poisoned by his blood. He’s in between places. He’s falling into somewhere unknown and he absolutely hates it; he’d rather have as much intelligence as can be gathered before making a move.
He whispers the name of his wife.
His murderer answers.
His murderer shouldn’t have been there. There should have been a court martial, but the Emperor had hushed up what had happened. He was already a commander down and despite what the other one did, the Emperor could not afford to lose him too.
The battle had been won, but perhaps it could have been won more quickly were the commander of IV Corps there to command his men through the mist and up the height.
His murderer says, “Fuck, I didn’t mean to do this.”
And the dying man, sweat pooled on his forehead, caught in an irrationality he would never have condoned, says nothing, but he reaches out, his hand trembling.
With a gentleness that has always been so difficult, the murderer holds the proffered hand.
“Louise,” whispers the dying man.
They never knew each other particularly well, but it’s hard not to be drawn together by the intimacy of blood and death.
The murderer doesn’t know what to say, except for, “I’m here.”
But the dead man doesn’t hear it.
2.
Forget all of that. It didn’t happen.
Napoleon won Austerlitz with the help of his marshals. Two of them did not fight a duel in the headquarters of another.
Imagine this, instead-
Pitched fighting in two contested villages, violent and heated. The previous day was painful, but today will be more so. So many will be taken unexpectedly, but that is always the way of the fight.
A man is charging into battle upon a white steed. He's done this shit a million times before, though he won't exactly put it in those words. His sabre is high, but his heart is stung, and it better have hurt to think about what was said.
He's been a master of this bloody work for years, but this time, pain shoots through a freshly bandaged wound. His limbs aren't responding so swiftly, like they usually do.
He shifts his weight here when he should have been there, and he stumbles and falls-
And the horses ride over him.
Their hooves bite into his body, carving out flesh with each step. It does not matter whose side the horses were on. All that matters is that in the clash of cavalry steel, the commander of the reserve cavalry has fallen at the worst possible time.
And later, the man who dealt that fatal blow the day before will come to the body. He won't exactly say what Ney says in another world, but he’ll be thinking something real similar. He'll lean down, and for some reason he'll reach out and brush the powdered hair that should have been white out of the way.
His hand will linger. He'll tell himself that it couldn't have happened to a nicer man, but he won't believe it.
The battle went well, but a Marshal of the Empire was always going to fall here.
Confused? We haven’t gotten to the good stuff yet.
Blood and guts and steel!
I will not lie; like any sane man, of course I fear the fight. Of course I don’t want to bloody die. But the élan presses you forth and pulls at your chest. You have to get caught up in it if you want to survive, because only by marching towards the sound of the gun can you march in concert with your men, and the only thing that matters is that you’re marching in unison.
And the same thing for duelling, maybe. I couldn’t tell you, but that’s how I imagine it to be. It would be just like war, but it is simply just you and one other, dancing around with blades or staring each other down with pistols drawn like the damn British do. It just doesn’t last as long with guns, and I bet it wouldn’t be as satisfying.
But I digress.
Let’s take a step back before we try to utterly destroy each other, shall we? Let’s go back to how it started. The books on duelling say you need to take twenty paces back. I’m not one for reading much but why not follow what they say?
We’ll be fucking each other up soon enough.
Vingt pas ver l'arrière marche !
1.
Two Marshals of the Empire, glorious men dressed in velvet blue and decorated with the gold and silver of honour and legion, were standing in the post-house in freezing Moravia. This was where another marshal, Murat, had his headquarters. Murat was not around; perhaps he would have tried to calm Lannes, for the two were friends of a sort. Lannes and Soult would not have needed much provocation to abandon the fight, after all.
There were much more important things to attend to.
Earlier, the conversation had gone like this-
Murat said with all the sincerity and charm that he was known for, “Ah, Soult and I were just talking, my friend, and the disparity between our forces and theirs-” he nods towards the imagined they outside, “is very concerning! Would you not agree, my friend?”
Said Lannes, “I wouldn’t put it past the Emperor to pull a plan from his ass.”
“We advise retreat.” Soult’s words were terse and tired. “There is no other way.”
In this battlefield of words, it was two against one, and Lannes’ skill with words was as vigorous and untrained as his sword. So he agreed, put his hands up, and he said, “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Lannes, my friend, the Emperor won’t listen to us, but he’ll listen to you.”
“Write him a letter,” said Soult.
And the ink was scarcely dry when Napoleon entered the room with a hearty "Well, gentlemen, we are pretty comfortable here!"
Murat and Soult almost snapped to attention, but Lannes barely raised an eye. “We don’t think so, sire,” he said. “Just finished writing you a letter about it. Want to read it?”
Snatching the letter up without a word, Napoleon barely gave it a glance before he let out a surprised laugh. “Lannes, you, advising retreat? There’s a first time for everything! Marshal Soult, what do you suggest?”
And this is where the stoic strategist blundered. “In whatever way your Majesty employs the 4th Corps, it will account for twice its number," he said.
Immediately, Lannes burst out. “What the fuck?!” he shouted. “I just got here fifteen minutes ago! I don’t know shit about our position except for what these two were blabbering about, so I believed them, and they told me to write to you, so I did! And now Marshal Soult is just pretending that he didn’t spend fifteen minutes going on and on about how fucked we are? Soult is a fucking sneak, that was a fucking insult and I will have satisfaction!”
“I had simply wished to defer to the Emperor’s superior analysis of the situation,” Soult said.
“Oh, and now you’re kissing his ass, you twisted weathervane! I challenge you to a duel, you coward, and-”
Napoleon was pacing, ignoring the increasingly violent words from Lannes. When he spoke, it took a moment for Lannes to realise the man he loved was speaking and to shut up.
“We’ll retreat,” the emperor said languidly. “Lannes is right- but no duels. I’ll need the two of you later.”
And so the three marshals themselves retreated, to disperse orders for a vast retrograde movement where the sun would shine on the weapons of thousands of men marching in Napoleon’s perfect composition.
But later in the post-house, Lannes would find Soult.
“You are a swordsman,” snarled Lannes, “are you not? I have been waiting for you!”
And in reality, Soult’s response had been a dry “we have more important matters to attend to,” to which Lannes had scoffed, “Wretched thing!”
It would not have happened. Not in a counterfactual, not in a hypothetical, not in any dreaming. Jean-de-Dieu Soult would simply not have accepted. He felt himself above petty slights and slander like that, despite that which provoked this whole offence.
But if Soult had given more leeway to cynical disbelieving humour and less to outright dismissal, if he had thought two Maréchal d’Empire would never stoop to such things, if he had said a careless “You will not,” or even “You may try,” in the firm belief that Lannes would back down…
This would not have happened this way, not at this time, not at this place. There is a possibility that perhaps later, in Spain, if it is reported correctly, that Ney’s fighting words would spark Soult to act and the clash of swords would ring out, but now Soult is disinclined to fight when there are better things to do.
But if he had enraged Lannes even more, if he had levied an insult-
That, then, would have been how it started.
2.
Already, Lannes’ patience with that insufferable Bessières was running short.
It had run short years ago, when Bessières and Murat had reported the misuse of funds, when Lannes had effectively been exiled to a post that he hated. And that had been because, in truth, Bessières had deserved the job that Lannes had received more.
They had been friends before. Afterwards? There was only silence between the two.
Lannes could forgive Murat who was only standing up for his friend, but he couldn’t forgive a turncoat.
But now, Lannes would say that shit didn’t matter anymore. This was eight years on, eight years of brutal battle and bloody war. Eight years of simply coexisting as colleagues, of gritted greetings and polite words.
This was an exhausting campaign. Outnumbered by superior artillery, the soldiers not entirely gathered properly, and fractious tensions were growing cracks in the army. These had been exhausting nights, and all Lannes had wanted was to cut through the bullshit and just talk to the emperor, no minced words, no dancing around the point, straight to the point.
Bessières was there. Bessières was always fucking there with his pretty powdered hair and wan smile, ever since he was a “guide” of the general Bonaparte. And Bessières had just said, “You cannot see the emperor now, Marshal Lannes.”
That was the wrong thing to say, because Bessières then found his collar grabbed and yanked towards the apoplectic Lannes. “Fuck off!” growled Lannes. “You fancy yourself the emperor’s bodyguard but you’re just his fucking lapdog, aren’t you? And when we need you on the battlefield, you’re off fucking around God-knows-where, but now I need to actually talk to the emperor, you’re right in our faces!”
Bessières really should have punched Lannes then. But instead, he was speechless, his usually pale face red with anger.
And before any more words could be said, Napoleon himself appeared. He grabbed a hold of Lannes’ hand and said, firmly, “Calm down, Lannes.”
A soldier so loyal as Lannes could never disobey a direct order. And so he stalked off, seething but checking himself, forcing himself to calm down.
Bessières was hardly the most pressing thing to worry about, after all. There was that feeling of impending doom that in reality would have become true. It was important to rest in that lonely abandoned peasant’s hut, listening to the lovely voice of his young Spanish aide d’Albuquerque sing and regale the others with adventures.
A cannonball took d’Albuquerque the next day, but no tears could be spared for him. The enemy was moving backwards and it was time to charge, to charge with all the might of the cavalry.
Lannes was in charge here, but the commander of the cavalry was one particular Bessières who Lannes was not fucking impressed with.
“Tell Marshal Bessières,” said Lannes to de Viry, “that I order him to charge with full force!”
“Tell Marshal Bessières,” said Lannes to LaBédoyère, after de Viry had admitted he hadn’t said those words exactly, “that I order him to charge with full force!”
The implications here were clear: Bessières is not doing well enough. He must attack with more zeal and momentum, he must go until sabres pierce the enemy’s body. And for one marshal to order another- that is an impudence towards one nominally of the same exalted rank as the other, a statement that “you are under my full authority” and “you have fucked up”.
So finally, to Marbot, after even LaBédoyère had not had the courage to convey the exact words, Lannes said with exasperation, “Marshal Augereau told me I could count on you. You’ve proven that, but prove it again; go tell Marshal Bessières that I order him to charge with full force; emphasise that - full force!”
Marbot went off and delivered the message.
It had not been received well.
But the Austrians were driven back. Another friend, General d’Espagne, had been killed, but there was still no time to mourn. There was only time to take grim satisfaction in the effectiveness of that charge.
With the advent of dusk came the ceasing of battle, and the only action that should have been left was the fires consuming the villages of Aspern and Essling. But there was the sound of guns in Aspern, where Masséna was in charge, and Lannes, his commander’s instincts honed and poised, knew he needed to be there.
Marbot came with him to guide him towards Aspern. As they approached, Lannes said, “Go, find Masséna for me. We need to talk.”
In another world, Marshal Masséna would be speaking with Marshal Bessières. If what Marbot had written was true, the latter would recognise Marbot and lunge forward with haughty words.
But here, Bessières was alone when Marbot came across him.
“It is you, sir,” Bessières said, an eager anger taking over a stiff persona. “It is you! If those clumsy words were yours alone, sir, I will teach you to choose them better when addressing a superior! And if they come from your Marshal, then he will answer for this insult!”
From the darkness with the glee of a lion, Lannes emerged. “I had wondered if he had conveyed my words directly,” he said, almost casually. “But it looks like he did- well done, Marbot! As for you, how dare you scold my man?”
“Your aide-de-camp,” said Bessières, shaking, “told me that you ordered me to charge with full force. I feel such expressions are quite inappropriate between men of our status.”
“Those are definitely my words!” Lannes said. “And they were accurate and just. You’re under my command, the Emperor said, right?”
“The Emperor did say I should comply with-”
“Comply?” Lannes’ laugh was scornful, but the words after that were shouted. “Comply?! Here, you don’t fucking comply, you obey. If I was in your place, I’d resign. But, I gave you direct orders, and you will obey those orders lest you want your command withdrawn! This morning, all I saw was you and your men parading around in front of the enemy and no decisive action - so I ordered you to charge with full force because you weren’t fucking doing it!”
“This is an insult, and I will have my satisfaction!” Bessières cried out. He clapped his hand to his sword-hilt.
Lannes did the same. “Right now, if you wish,” he hissed.
And in another world, Masséna would have been there to invoke his seniority and to break up the fight.
But if he hadn’t been, then this would have been how it started.
We started at the end because that’s where we are now.
We’re gone. We’re lost. We’re dead.
But now we’ve taken a few steps back and greeted each other like gentlemen. Our hearts are beating a march in our chests and we’re ready to go at each other like damn animals. There’s glory in war and glory in battle, but if I had a choice, I’m not sure it’d be worth it.
I was so damn good at war. I bet I’d be damn good in a duel. It’s all about coordinating bodies, making sure you’re in the right place at the right time to make contact with the enemy. Making sure they overreach and extend into you while holding yourself to a higher standard. You touch them without letting yourself be touched, or maybe you invite them in just a little, tempting them just to reach for you.
We’re going to do just that. I’ll dance out of reach and you’ll follow where I want you to go, because I’m in fucking charge here.
We’ll make love in the only way we truly know how to.
On va camarades !
1.
Lannes is fast.
Lannes is fast and he’s fucking furious, but Soult has actually read the goddamn manual.
Jean Lannes is shorter and slender in a sinewy way, and if he had actually learned how to fight properly, he would have the advantage by far. He’s less thrusting his sabre and more flailing it about at times.
Jean-de-Dieu Soult does not have that speed. His leg is crooked, but even if he could dart around as fast as Lannes, he would not. He holds his blade in textbook manner because he had read it in a textbook. He is stiff and proper, but that does not mean his blade flashes any less.
“You asshole,” Lannes hisses, his words in time with his slashes, “stand by your words! Don’t hide under my petticoats, you cowardly shit!”
Soult deigns not to answer. He is a bitter tease, acting only in response to defend himself, but the more he does so the more it drags on even if there’s a scowl on his face and he pretends that he’s above it all.
And maybe Lannes should have been above it, too, but there’s a wild grin on Lannes’ face as he’s lost in the fury of it all.
“The Emperor knows me, and he knows I wouldn’t espouse that shit about retreating! I just thought I’d help you and Murat out but you-“
“It- it was not my intention to offend you, monsieur,” Soult huffs, deflecting another wild blow. Perhaps he sees an opening in Lannes’ stance, and perhaps he knows exactly how to take advantage of it, but time skips a beat and Lannes is in another unorthodox step. “The Emperor knows best and I simply agreed with him-“
“Now I look like a fool, but you, sir, you look like a coward!” The sabre slips a glancing blow, and Lannes laughs full throated and full of heart. He’s wasting his energy but he doesn’t care. He’s drinking this all up, spending himself before the grand finale that will be Austerlitz.
This is hardly a dance. Their bodies aren’t moving in unison, not at all. But there’s an understanding that is being constructed as Soult’s leg buckles and staggers and Lannes’ breath grows shallower but faster.
Then, again there is a moment where Lannes’ guard is down and Soult prepares himself to take a step here and to lunge forward. He reaches forward, trying to pretend that he isn’t feeling the contagious jitter-quick exhilaration of Lannes’ high.
And then, understanding shatters so suddenly. Without reason and without thought, Lannes thrusts his blade into Soult’s chest.
Soult steps back in what he thinks is surprise before his leg fails him and he falls. Suddenly sober, Lannes darts forward just as he did before, his sabre clattering to the side, and he reaches for the wounded man.
Two men, both so full of pride and patriotism and power, so close and united by the blood pooling on the ground. And later, after the battle is won, the man who should have commanded IV Corps will fall into a dreaming death as his blood rots within him.
A parting gift.
2.
The Jean-Baptiste Bessières that everyone knows is a calm tempered man, elegant and graceful, able to engage in small talk and laugh politely at the jokes that aren’t actually that funny. He is a distant cold figure, statuesque and lonely, even as he listens to the tales of the wounded and the dead and even as widows and veterans receive money and condolences.
Make no mistake; this is not that Bessières. This is a sharp strike a long time coming.
He is cold but he is not slow. His eyes are flashing maddened lightnings, almost as bright as the fires devouring twin Aspern and Essling. It is almost out of place under his carefully styled hair, darkened slightly with soot and dishonour.
“You have impugned my honour for the last time, sir,” Bessières says, almost shouts, his sabre catching distant firelight. “You have disrespected me and my men! I will show you what it means to charge with full force, you villain.”
“And where was this vigour when it was needed the most, sir? The Austrians were fucking retreating, but you took your damn time charging them!” Lannes’ answer both physical and verbal is fire-fast and light. He has honed his riposte in the years since that fight with Soult that never happened, but it is still untrained, still driven more by feeling than finesse.
The two must have been so exhausted from the day’s events, and yet it is something like élan that pushes them to bite at each other, to spit and snarl in the absence of any masters. They are blind to the world around them, blind to Marcellin Marbot frantically looking for Masséna, blind to the soldiers trickling in to watch these marshals both so beloved go at each other with steel and hatred.
They only have eyes for each other. In the flickering light of ruined villages, there is only the enemy. There is only jagged broken breaths and sweat gleaming on skin and an intensity that had never been resolved.
Beat for beat, they are almost mirror images in their waltz. Bessières would rather his movements be more calculated and deliberate but the lightning in his eyes forces his hand, and so he matches Lannes' ferocity in a rhythm neither quite expected.
Bessières growls, “You should have told me those poisoned words yourself, coward.”
“I have more important things to do than to watch over your every move!”
Both of them, perhaps, are telling themselves that this is purely physical. That this is just a means to gain satisfaction, just to defend themselves from this one slight and not for years of pretending that the other does not exist.
It is nothing more than that.
Nothing more, even when Masséna comes shouting, demanding that this disgraceful duel so beneath the title of marshal cease, his voice so much louder than in that other world where it is merely a firm admonition. But unlike those other selves, the momentum built up by estranged years cannot be easily stopped.
It’s not clear what happens next. Bessières’ sabre cuts into Lannes’ arm as Lannes pushes forward into Bessières’ side.
That should have been satisfaction enough, but even as Bessières staggers back, he tries again to thrust his blade. Again, Lannes’ arm catches the blow.
The old Masséna is pushing them apart, anger rattling his voice. Neither are dead and the wounds are not so serious-
Until the next day when the cavalry commander will charge forth. He will lead his men into glorious battle, but he will fall when the wound from this duel betrays him.
So, what do you two think?
1. Soult..?
“Implausible. Deeply implausible.”
“This is how I died, you know. Lingering in bed, fighting my dreams- fuck, it should have been a shot in battle.”
“We all know. And now you have inflicted it on me.”
“You died peacefully of old age. I’m just making sure you know the pain I knew.”
“You died before our empire was lost. You were never there at its worst- at Russia, in Spain, Leipzig, Waterloo-”
“I could have been, you bastard! Who knows what I could have done. I’ll dream about what I could have been but it won’t be me, it’ll never be me, not again.”
“And this phantasm you have conjured is neither of us. But I must ask why you were so kind to me.”
“What do you mean? I’m not nice. There, I killed you, I stabbed you in the chest after accusing you of being a coward- which you are- and here, I’m annoyed at you.”
“As we observed, when I died in this dream of yours, you held my hand as I deliriously call you my wife.”
“It- it doesn’t mean anything!”
“I am not sure I would have done the same were I in your position.”
“That’s because you’re a bastard looking to save your own skin.”
“I did what I had to do for France. And so did you.”
“That’s what you keep telling yourself.”
“But it was why we could stand to work with each other, I believe. It was what brought us all together. Our love for France and our love for the emperor. And before you interject with some witticism about your unique relationship with your ‘best friend’, know that I could not help but to love him too.”
“... He had that effect on everyone, didn’t he.”
“He did.”
“And it fucking pained me to think that he would think me a coward because of your fuckup.”
“I was working with the best information I had at the time.”
“See, that’s what’s wrong with us. We’re never going to admit when we fuck up. We’re too damn proud for our own good.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“I am, you asshole. But I’m also talking about him. And I think that’s a kind of understanding we have, people like us, who don’t know how to speak in anything but blood and actions.”
“I know how to use my words. But despite myself, I do somewhat understand your point. And perhaps I might profess to a regret that we did not come to that understanding in life.”
“... We couldn’t have. We’re too different. But here, we have all the fucking time in the world.”
“Indeed. We do.”
2. Bessières..?
“I… knew you never cared so much for me, Monsieur le Maréchal, but to be killed in such a manner strikes me as vicious.”
“It was either that or a cannonball, and you already got killed by that one once.”
“Do- no, did you truly hate me so much?”
“Honestly? No. I couldn’t forgive you, but I’m not… going to hold tightly onto a stupid grudge for… what was it, eight fucking years?”
“Perhaps I did. Perhaps I was the one who kept it going!”
“No, I don’t believe that of you either. I think we just didn’t care for each other anymore and decided to leave each other alone.”
“… It did hurt when you were Napoleon’s favourite, given the duty that I had been fulfilling for so long.”
“And it fucking hurt when you got me sent to Portugal!”
“Good. But now that we are speaking… shall we call us even?”
“Now that we’re dead? Fine. But we’re not friends, and we won’t ever be. Black doesn’t suit your hair, too.”
“… I agree.”
“And maybe I was a little too harsh on you over there by letting you get trampled by your own horses. But it was still satisfying to see.”
“I had thought we were even.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted you to die, but it was damn satisfying to watch you fall, and it was damn satisfying to bleed you. I should have challenged you when you fucked me over with the funds. Or you should have challenged me when I got your stupid job.”
“... What?”
“You shouldn’t have just… sat there and tried to get your revenge in such a fucking stupid manner. You should have said something, pointed a sabre at me, yelled at me. Then we could just have worked it all out, and I wouldn’t have lost a friend to stupid politics.”
“Or… we could have just killed each other. And that would not have changed much in our personal relations.”
“Yeah, we’ll never fucking know, will we? Because all we have now are these stupid dreams and what-ifs. Just going through the motions of our legacies, where both of us ended up like goddamn Turenne.”
“I am sorry that you suffered for so long in your death.”
“So am I.”
“Mine was instant, and that is a relief.”
“Look at the two of us. We hated each other for so long that, fuck, it was just… kinda there. I still- I don’t hate you, but I don’t like you. But we ended up in the same place via the same path.”
“And I hope you got your satisfaction from this dream we shared.”
“I sure fucking did.”
I think I could have taken you two. In a fight, if I have to clarify.
I did enjoy that. Fighting you two in a way that we never got to in life, getting close to you fuckers and testing your limits and winning, dominating and destroying you. And if you don’t think that’s what would have happened, fuck you, I’m a Gascon, saying this shit is what we do.
I don't think I could have liked either of you bastards. One of you fucked me over, and the other, we couldn't ever have been friends anyway. But I have to admit-
I’m glad I didn’t actually kill either of you.
If we had to do it all again, maybe we’ll be friends. Or maybe we’ll be something else, now that we know each other so fucking well.
But that’s not an option for us now.
Let’s go.
We’ve got better things to do than to linger here like dead bodies.
C'est finis. Rompez !