An extract from Marcelo Coutts and Stuart Goldwin’s science-fiction zesty re-telling of pre- and post-French-revolutionary history, sprinkled with a culinary flavour, where even impossible dreams can come true…

CHAPTER 1

The big man at the top of the stairs

“Kings are the slaves of history.”

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

The sound of ten-thousand thundering hooves beating across the Camargue in Louis Marchand’s dream gives way to the reality of some belligerent and unknown force pounding on his bedroom door. Four o’ clock in the morning. Merde, he thinks, as he tries to unglue eyes sticky with sleep. Unhappily, and half-awake, he accepts the miserable fact that he’s not in France, atop a galloping white horse foaming at the bit. No, he’s still in this godforsaken place, on this godforsaken rock, at the end of the earth, beyond the gates of the sun.

Somehow, he manages to stumble out of bed without hurting himself and wipes a nose, runny with snot, on the least crusty arm of his nightgown. If only it weren’t for this infernal, eternal damp. Hades itself must have reached its sticky breath upwards to consume the very souls who inhabited this miserable, black-rat-infested dwelling they called Longwood House.

Damn it! I’m coming. As if it weren’t punishment enough to be confined to this mouldy place, now it seemed a man was not even allowed to get a good night’s sleep.

He coughs several times, a rattling bark that summons a goodly glob of phlegm. It’s been like this since he arrived here in December 1815 – phlegm, damp, snot, and misery.

On his way to the door, he stops at a mahogany washstand to douse his face. He dips his hands into the exquisite blue and white patterned crockery basin and splashes the cold water onto the visibly shocked visage that stares back at him from the little mirror perched above the bowl.

The basin has a more interesting and storied history than most people on the island, its having reputedly been a gift from a Chinese Emperor to the Empress Josephine, who in turn was in the habit of giving away gifts that she didn’t like to servants or anyone else who came into her presence. Louis must have had the unfortunate turn of luck to have been passing in front of the woman on just such an occasion. Or perhaps fortunate is a better word, because aside from its aesthetic charm, the basin is a finely crafted and functional piece of furniture that’s more than quite serviceable and certainly fit for purpose. And to good purpose it certainly had been put, since it has removed the need for Louis to make the perilous journey to and from the bathrooms in this building whose walls are as diabolically cold as the icy rocks that surround them. It’s so cold that the coldness seemed to creep into your bones and freeze them from the inside out.

Finally, he reaches the heavy door and struggles with the key. The latch and the lock mechanism have long ago rusted themselves into a state of non-cooperation – sea air and lack of maintenance have found their way into everything, including the souls of those who inhabit the big house. This beautiful, depressing shithole in the middle of an unforgiving ocean is as rusty as the souls of those who put me here, he thinks, rusty and corroded as the Big Man upstairs. Merde, even my bones are rusty.

The door creaks open with the sound of an old wooden ship adrift in a storm. There stands a redcoat. Louis fixes him with a malevolent stare and berates him with a few choice words in French. What in the name of all that is holy is the meaning of this intrusion? This is certainly not an appropriate time to be banging on people’s doors. Did he not know that a man’s resting hours were sacred?

The soldier, a snappy young Englishman whose French is as clearly rusty as everything else, takes a half step back, and does his best to maintain his composure. He returns Louis’ gaze with an equally steely look and declares, in English, that no-one is interested in Louis’ protestations, and that he, Louis, assistant to the Big Man upstairs, should stand to, and look lively in doing so. He wants to see you, immediately.

Louis hastily pulls on his clothes, which, although of the good variety, now sport several patches sewn onto the garment in the weak light of candles or Nordic fish-oil lamps. The result is a patchwork that looks in places like Nordic fishing boat sails that have been stitched by Vikings on their way to Valhalla.

* * *

The Big Man upstairs was, of course, not a reference to God, but rather to the person who lived on the top floor. And to whom everyone, including his British guards, had once paid a certain deference.

Things had been very different before the arrival of the new Governor some ten years ago. Despite being technically confined, the occupant of the top floor had nonetheless been treated well by his previous wards, who had made every effort to keep him happy.

He had been allowed to run this little empire here on the windswept plains of St. Helena like his own private court away from court. He wrote memoirs, issued orders, and was even allowed to explore the island on horseback, a luxury that, in retrospect, could not be underestimated, given the current state of things.

But the English, in their wisdom, had seen fit to despatch a new jailer in the personage of one Sir Hudson Lowe, an overly officious administrator, who had come into immediate conflict with the island’s sole detainee, and who had apparently made it his sole mission to make life as miserable for the prisoner as he possibly could. To this end, Governor Lowe did more than just insult his prisoner’s dignity. He curtailed the man’s freedom of movement and made him present himself personally each morning under the pretext that he might escape.

Feeling mishandled and insulted, the prisoner, and one time ruler of all Europe, withdrew from sight, boarding himself up inside Longwood and refusing to interact with the Governor at all. He even spread rumours about absurd escape plots designed to irritate Lowe, such as building a wooden submarine, a feat that even if it were remotely conceivable, would never have survived the cordon of British gunships that surrounded St. Helena. Slowly and somewhat sulkily, however, the Big Man had had to come to terms with the fact that this was not going to the same as Elba. And to make things even more miserable, his health had begun to deteriorate some years back with his condition becoming increasingly worse of late. Marchand suspected Lowe had been slowly poisoning the once great emperor to silence him conclusively.

But it was now the end of January 1821. And whatever anybody thought the British might have been up to, they had so far failed to achieve it.

* * *

Climbing the cold stairs to the room at the top, Louis passes the new physician who replaced the original doctor, Barry O'Meara. Although the new man did his best, he couldn’t possibly hope to fill the shoes – or indeed that new-fangled device, the stethoscope – of O’Meara. And how could he? O’Meara had been with the Big Man since La Rochelle, had even volunteered to accompany him on the journey to this god-forsaken rock. No indeed, O’Meara had become a great deal more than a mere physician tending to the needs of his patient. He had been a companion and confident, spending considerable hours in the company of his friend, pursuing various amusements and discussions on such important topics as warfare, military strategy, and women. O’Meara had once confided in Marchand that he was keeping a journal, at the Big Man’s suggestion, and had even allowed him a peak at the pages. Such was the rapport between the doctor and his charge.

As time went on however, the doctor saw his role grow into that of a buffer, protecting his patient from the cantankerous and pernicious influence of Governor Lowe. This so infuriated Lowe, who saw the two of them as being somehow in cahoots, that he mounted a relentless campaign of pressure to have O’Meara removed from the island. He succeeded. O’Meara was unceremoniously deported back to England.

The replacement physician was a dour, sarcastic creature, who went about with a lowered head and always seemed to be hiding something. Marchand had had a run in with him when he had first arrived. In the ensuing argument the new man had said something along the lines of “…there are many ways to lose one’s head. Pray that doing so in an argument should be enough for you.” It was a clear threat; an allusion to the evil guillotine of Dr Joseph Ignace. May his head be removed a thousand times by his own infernal device.

The Big Man’s door is open, and Louis has no time to compose himself before entering. The room is a pandemonium of papers and notes strewn everywhere. A maid had once tried to tame the disorder, only to be turfed violently out with the bellowed exhortation, “…where you see mess, I see the means to confront the very soul of Julius Caesar!”

Indeed, now, here among the disarray, Louis spots several pressings dealing with Cesar and other things Roman. It was understood that the great Roman emperor was a favourite of this great French emperor. Perhaps the great Roman would have reciprocated the admiration.

Louis comes face to face with his commander, thinking in that moment how wrong the world is in their characterisation of him. The Petit Corporal is anything but petit.

Forgoing the niceties that would have softened the insanity of the hour, Napoleon Bonaparte speaks a single, emphatic sentence to his assistant: Louis, I need you to get out of here and find him. Bring me the cook with no name.

Napoleon and the Cook with No Name is available now in paperback.