Brienne-le-Château, August 25, 1782, that same night
Whatever else could be said about Brienne's masters, they had never let historical accuracy interfere with a good production.
"The Death of Caesar, corrected" bore only a passing resemblance to anything Rome's own historians might have recognized. Father Dupuis, who'd adapted it from an older French text years before either boy had arrived, had taken considerable liberties with the ending, the dialogue, and, judging by the enthusiastic gasps from the front rows, the sheer quantity of stage blood a school production could reasonably justify.
Napoleone watched from the crowd as Caesar, played by a broad-shouldered fifth-class boy named Verignon who'd clearly relished every rehearsal, strode across the makeshift stage in a purple-dyed bedsheet doing its best impression of imperial robes, declaiming lines about glory and destiny with a volume better suited to an actual battlefield than a schoolyard performance.
"He's going to lose his voice by the second act," Picot murmured, settling in beside Napoleone with a bag of roasted chestnuts he'd clearly bought from some other stall entirely, Madame Haute's absence apparently having left a gap in the evening's commerce that someone else had been quick to fill.
"He's been shouting since rehearsals began. I imagine his voice gave up weeks ago and he's simply continuing out of spite."
Onstage, the conspirators gathered in their circle, whispered plotting delivered in the exaggerated stage-whispers of boys who'd been told to project to the back row and had taken the instruction rather too literally. Bourrienne stood among them, Brutus's borrowed toga hanging slightly crooked on his shoulder, and though Napoleone could see, even from this distance, the tightness still sitting in his friend's jaw from their earlier argument, the moment the scene demanded it, Bourrienne's voice rang out clear and steady across the courtyard.
"Not for hatred of the man," Bourrienne declaimed, Brutus's justification delivered with more genuine conviction than Napoleone suspected the role strictly required, "but for love of Rome, and all she might yet become, unburdened of a single man's ambition."
The line landed harder on Napoleone than he'd expected it to, given everything the day had already cost him, and he found himself watching his friend with an attention that had very little to do with the play itself.
The assassination, when it came, was staged with more enthusiasm than grace, six conspirators converging on Verignon with wooden daggers dipped in something that looked suspiciously like beet juice, Verignon collapsing with a theatrical groan that drew a genuine laugh from several rows of townsfolk who'd clearly seen this particular production before and knew exactly which moment to enjoy.
"Et tu, Brute," Verignon gasped, sprawled dramatically across the stage floor, one hand clutching at his chest with rather more flourish than the moment demanded. "Then fall, Caesar."
The line wasn't remotely accurate to anything Shakespeare or Suetonius had ever written, Father Dupuis's "corrections" having wandered considerably from any known source over the years, but the crowd ate it up regardless, applauding as Verignon lay there, entirely too pleased with his own death scene to actually stay still through the ovation.
"You were good," Napoleone said afterward, finding Bourrienne near the makeshift dressing area, the borrowed toga already discarded, his own clothes half-changed back into.
"I had a great deal of genuine feeling to draw on tonight, if I'm honest." Bourrienne's voice was quieter than usual, some of the earlier heat gone out of it, replaced by something more tired. "Betraying a friend for the sake of principle. I confess I didn't need to reach very far to find that particular emotion convincingly."
"I'm sorry."
"I know." Bourrienne finished buttoning his coat, not quite meeting his eyes. "I'm not entirely certain I'm ready to say I'm sorry back, Napoleone. I still think you were wrong today. I'm just tired, and it's been a long evening, and I don't especially want to spend what's left of it still arguing."
"We don't have to argue tonight."
"Good." Something almost like the old lightness flickered back into Bourrienne's face, thin but genuine. "Because Verignon's insisting we all celebrate his magnificent death scene with whatever's left of the festival sweets, and I find I haven't the energy left to refuse a man so thoroughly convinced of his own theatrical genius."
They found the others near the emptying stalls, Davout methodically working through a paper cone of roasted nuts, Rocher and Picot already deep in an argument about whether Verignon's death scene had actually been good or simply loud, and for an hour, at least, the evening settled into something almost entirely ordinary, five boys sharing the last of the festival's sweets under a sky gone properly dark, torches guttering low around the courtyard, the whole school slowly winding down from a day that had asked more of at least two of them than either had quite expected.
Napoleone laughed more than once, genuinely, at Rocher's increasingly elaborate defense of Verignon's beet-juice death scene, and found, despite everything the afternoon had cost him, that the ache of it had eased somewhat simply by being surrounded, for a while, by people who hadn't entirely stopped wanting his company even when they disagreed with him.
It wasn't resolution. He understood that clearly enough, watching Bourrienne laugh at something Davout said, still catching, every so often, a flicker of something unsettled behind his friend's eyes that hadn't fully gone yet. But it was, for one evening at least, enough peace to carry him through until whatever came next.