The Royal Palace of Aranjuez smelled of roast beef and treason.
I sat at the long banquet table, flanked by the Spanish nobility. The air was hot, thick with the scent of beeswax candles and unwashed bodies covered in expensive perfume.
To my right sat King Charles IV of Spain. A man with a face like a melted candle and a mind to match.
To my left sat Manuel Godoy. The Prime Minister. The "Prince of Peace." The man who was currently selling his country to the highest bidder.
"Try the oxtail, Administrator," Godoy urged, pointing a fork at my plate. "It is a delicacy of the region."
I looked at the meat. Rich. Oily.
I picked up a grape instead.
I bit into it.
It didn't taste sweet. It tasted like sucking on a copper penny.
Metallic. Bitter.
My stomach lurched. Bile rose in my throat.
I grabbed my napkin and spat the grape into the linen.
"Too rich?" Godoy sneered. He took a sip of wine. "Perhaps the French stomach is too delicate for Spanish hospitality."
Across the table, a Duke smirked. The Spanish court hated me. They hated the French tricolors hanging on their walls. They hated the 25,000 soldiers camped outside their city.
I wiped my mouth. My hand was trembling.
It wasn't the food. It was the medicine. The Digitalis was building up in my system. Toxicity. My vision had a yellow tint, like looking through old parchment.
"My stomach prefers simpler things," I said, forcing a smile. "Like accurate ledgers."
Godoy's smile faltered.
"Speaking of ledgers," he whispered, leaning in. "We need to discuss the... transit fees."
"After dinner," I said.
I looked at Charles. My son sat at the far end of the table. He wasn't eating. He was watching the servants. He was counting the knives.
He caught my eye and tapped his wrist. Time is up.
The dinner ended in awkward silence. The King retired to play with his clocks. The Queen retired to... wherever she went when Godoy wasn't available.
Godoy led me to his private study.
It was opulent. Gold leaf on the ceiling. Maps on the walls.
"The price has gone up," Godoy said, closing the door. He didn't offer me a seat.
"We have a deal, Manuel," I said, rolling my wheelchair to the fire. "France guarantees your position. You keep the border open."
"The deal was for transit," Godoy said. "Now you are occupying forts. Pamplona. Barcelona. Your 'friends' are acting like landlords."
He walked to his desk. He picked up a letter.
"The British Ambassador has made a counter-offer," Godoy said. "He offers me the throne of Portugal. Not a slice. The whole kingdom. If I switch sides."
He looked at me. Greed shone in his eyes like oil.
"Can you match that, Administrator? Can you make me a King?"
I sighed.
I was tired. My heart was beating too fast. The yellow haze in my vision was giving me a headache.
"I can't make you a King, Manuel," I said.
I signaled Charles, who had slipped into the room behind me.
"But I can keep you from becoming a pauper."
Charles placed a black ledger on the desk.
"What is this?" Godoy asked.
"An audit," Charles said. His voice was flat. "Of your accounts in the Bank of England."
Godoy froze.
"You have 4 million pounds sterling deposited in London," I said. "Bribe money. Skimmed taxes. Your retirement fund."
I tapped my cane on the floor.
"Yesterday, I sent a telegraph to James Rothschild via a double agent. I told him you were planning to seize British assets in Cadiz."
"You... what?"
"Rothschild is paranoid," I said. "He froze your accounts this morning. Code 99. Assets Liquidated."
Godoy turned pale. He grabbed the ledger. He flipped the pages.
"You are broke, Manuel," I whispered. "The British won't make you a King. They won't even sell you a ticket."
Godoy slumped into his chair. The arrogance vanished. He looked like what he was—a corrupt bureaucrat caught in a trap.
"What do you want?" he rasped.
"Resign," I said. "Tonight. Take the King and Queen. Go to Bayonne. I will give you a villa in France and a pension. You will live comfortably."
"And if I refuse?"
I pointed to the window.
Outside, in the courtyard, torches were burning. A low roar was building. The sound of a thousand voices chanting.
Death to Godoy! Death to the traitor!
"The people hate you," I said. "They know you sold them out. If you stay here, they will tear you apart. I can't protect you from a mob, Manuel. I can only offer you a carriage."
Godoy stood up. He ran to the window. He looked down.
He saw the pitchforks. He saw the hate.
"I'll sign," he whispered. "Get me out of here."
The escape was a disaster.
Godoy fled in a covered wagon hidden under a pile of rugs. The King and Queen followed in a carriage with the blinds drawn.
They left the palace empty.
The mob didn't know they were gone. They stormed the gates at midnight.
CRASH.
I was in my guest quarters. I heard the wood splinter.
"They're inside!" Charles shouted, running into the room. "The Mutiny of Aranjuez. They're looking for Godoy."
"And if they find a French Administrator instead?" I asked.
"They will kill us," Charles said. "We have to move."
He grabbed the handles of my wheelchair.
We ran.
Not through the main halls. Through the servants' corridors. Narrow, dark passages behind the walls.
My wheels rattled on the uneven stone.
"Faster," I urged.
We could hear them. The screams. The breaking of porcelain. The ripping of tapestries. It wasn't a political protest. It was a lynch mob.
We passed a small window looking down into the courtyard.
I saw a French courier. A young boy, maybe eighteen. He had been delivering a message.
The mob had caught him.
"No," I whispered.
I watched. I couldn't look away.
They dragged him from his horse. They didn't ask who he was. They saw the uniform. The Tricolor.
They tore him apart.
Literally.
It was primal. Animalistic. I saw a man bash the boy's head with a rock. I saw a woman stab him with a kitchen knife.
It wasn't war. War had rules. This was pure, unadulterated hate.
I felt sick. The Digitalis nausea mixed with horror.
"Don't look," Charles said. He pushed the chair harder.
We burst out a side door into the stables.
Napoleon was there with a squad of Polish Lancers.
"Get them in the wagon!" Napoleon shouted.
They lifted me—chair and all—into the back of a supply wagon. Charles jumped in beside me.
"Go! Go!"
The lancers whipped the horses. We tore out of the palace grounds just as the mob rounded the corner.
A few shots rang out. A musket ball splintered the wood next to my head.
We galloped into the night, leaving the burning palace behind us.
We stopped at a French camp ten miles north of Madrid.
I sat by the fire, shivering. The yellow halos around the flames were intense. My heart was skipping beats. Thump... pause... thump.
Napoleon paced back and forth.
"The King is gone," Napoleon said. "Godoy is gone. The throne of Spain is empty."
"It's a power vacuum," I said, rubbing my temples. "We need to install a Regency council. Stabilize the currency. Calm the people."
"No," Napoleon said.
He stopped pacing. He looked at the fire with that dangerous, visionary glint in his eyes.
"We don't need a council. We need a King."
"We just got rid of one," I said.
"A French King," Napoleon said. "My brother Joseph. I will make him King of Spain."
I froze.
"You can't do that," I said.
"Why not? I conquered Italy. I conquered Holland. I put my family on those thrones."
"Spain is different," I said.
I pointed back toward Madrid. Toward the glow of the fires on the horizon.
"Did you see the mob, Napoleon? Did you see what they did to that courier?"
I leaned forward, my voice trembling.
"It wasn't business. It was religious. They hate us. Not our policy. Us. Our atheism. Our modernity."
I tapped my cane on the dirt.
"You can't franchise a monarchy here. The people won't buy the brand. If you put Joseph on that throne, you are declaring war on every peasant in Spain."
"I have 100,000 men," Napoleon shrugged. "Peasants have pitchforks. Cannons beat pitchforks."
"Not these peasants," I warned. "They don't fight in lines. They fight in the dark. They fight with knives."
"It is decided," Napoleon said. He turned away. "I have already sent the telegraph to Joseph. He is coming to Madrid."
He walked off to his tent.
I sat there, watching the fire.
He had just poured gasoline on the ulcer.
"He's wrong," Charles whispered beside me.
I looked at my son. He was cleaning a rifle. Not a toy. A real Baker rifle he had taken from a dead British spy.
"He is," I said.
"The math doesn't work," Charles said. "Occupying a hostile population requires a ratio of 1 soldier to 40 civilians. In Spain, we would need 400,000 men just to keep the roads open."
"We don't have 400,000 men," I said.
"Then we will lose," Charles said simply.
I looked at the yellow flames.
We had won the battles. But we were about to lose the war.
Because you can't audit a fanatic. And you can't bankrupt a man who has nothing left to lose but his soul.
"Get some sleep, Charles," I said. "We leave for the border tomorrow."
"With the gold?"
"Yes," I said. "Whatever is left of the Spanish Treasury. We're taking it to Paris."
"It won't be enough," Charles said.
"It never is," I whispered.
I closed my eyes. The image of the courier being torn apart played behind my eyelids.
The Black Spot was spreading. And I was the one who had brought the plague.