The Accountant Becomes Louis XVI to Save His Neck

The royal fiat hung in the air, as stunning and irrevocable as a thrown gauntlet. The doctors, robbed of their prerogatives and their magical instruments, withdrew into a sullen, resentful muteness. They complied, as they had to, but their faces told their tale: the King, in his bereavement and ignorance, had sentenced his own queen to death. They were no more than spectators, waiting doggedly for their dark prognostications to come true.

Art ignored them. He had made his stand, and now there was nothing left to do but wait and watch. He refused to leave the Queen's side, taking up a permanent, lonely vigil in the chair beside her bed. The great machinery of the state, the endless parade of ministers and dispatches, was left to Necker to manage. Art's entire world shrank to the dimensions of the quiet, candlelit bedchamber.

The next two days were a slide into a personal hell. Marie Antoinette's condition worsened markedly. Fever raged, her skin burning to the touch. She moved in and out of an agitated, incoherent condition, muttering in a mix of French and her native dialect of German. The doctors loomed in the corner of the room, arms crossed, their faces severe 'I told you so' masks. The HUD was a constant torturer, its numbers a flashing reminder of his losing wager.

Heir's Survival Probability: 52%...

Marie Antoinette Health Status: CRITICAL.

Heir's Survival Probability: 49%...

He closed his eyes, his mind fixed only on the woman in bed. He dismissed the ladies of waiting, wishing to be alone with her. He did for himself the lowly office of dipping cloths in cold water and applying them to her forehead, of moistening her dry lips with a moist piece of linen. He was no longer a king. He was only a man, trapped in a desperate, private battle with moving shadows.

In the long, silent hours of the second night, when the palace was as quiet as a tomb and he felt a profound, soul-deep exhaustion, he began to talk to her. He didn't know if she could hear him, but the silence was unbearable. He spoke in a low, steady voice, his words a desperate lifeline thrown out into the dark.

He didn't talk about their life here. He talked about his other life, the one that felt like a strange dream. He edited the details, of course, framing it as stories he had once read. He told her about a place with buildings so tall they scraped the clouds, about carriages that moved without horses, about music that could be captured in a box. He told her about things he missed, simple things that seemed impossibly luxurious now. The taste of coffee, hot and black. The smell of freshly cut grass in a suburban summer. The roar of a crowd and the sharp crack of a bat hitting a ball at a game played on a field of green diamonds.

He talked of his cynical, well-organized life as an accountant, of a nicely balanced ledger giving him quiet pleasure. He even admitted his outrage at his helpless politicians on his television set, the very rage that had come before his strange waking in her world. He was not talking to the Queen of France. He was talking to his wife, his friend, in an effort to keep her anchored in the world of the living with sheer vocal strength, with a day-to-day reality of a life she could not comprehend.

Sometime in the deepest hour of the night, when the candles had burned low and his voice was raw, he felt a change. The hand he was holding in his own, which had been frighteningly hot for two days, felt... different. It was still warm, but the dry, burning heat had lessened, replaced by a faint, blessed dampness. Her breathing, which had been shallow and rapid, seemed to deepen, to even out.

He bent again, his chest heaving. Her eyelids moved. She was not waking, but the agitated, malarial writhing had ended. She appeared to have sunk into a genuine, profound sleep.

He sprang to his feet and flung wide the doors of the antechamber, his unexpected appearance waking the slumbering physicians. "Come now!" he bade hoarsely. "Something has changed."

They hurried to her bedside, their professional skepticism at odds with their obligation. Dr. Lassonne hesitated to take the Queen's wrist, his fingers probing for her pulse. He felt it for an eternity, his face impassive. He took her forehead with his hand. The other doctors gathered about him, muttering, their countenances a blend of disbelief and confusion.

At last, Lassonne looked to Art. Arrogance and resentment were eradicated from his eyes, which gleamed with a look of dazed, grudging admiration.

"Your Majesty," he ventured, his voice little more than a whisper. "The fever... it has broken. Her pulse is steadier, more regular. I... I don't know what it means. It is impossible medically. But the crisis... I think you will find that the crisis is past."

A tidal of relief so strong it hurt physically engulfed Art. He held onto the bedpost for balance, his knees going weak. He had won. His bold, instinctual long shot, a naked bet on the human body's innate talent for mending if not actively injured, paid off.

A day later, Marie was awake, clear-eyed, and demanding to be fed. She was still enormously weak, her strength spent in the ordeal, but her eyes sparkled with light once more. Danger was gone. She knew what he had done. She had been told of his dramatics by her ladies once in safety: the King's flouting of doctors, his royal insistence on withholding all treatment, his sleepless two-day vigil at her bedside.

He sat with her, feeding her spoonfuls of clear broth, when she reached out her hand and took his. It was a frail but determined clutch. She looked at him, and in her eyes he saw none of her previous distrust or politics of expedience. He saw a deep, enduring, and transformative gratitude.

"You saved me," she murmured, still weak. "All of France's finest doctors were going to let me die. But you didn't. You saved us both."

He nodded his head, his throat constricted with feeling. "We saved each other," he answered, and he knew this was the strongest thing he had ever said in this life. Their alliance, once a delicate political arrangement, had been remade in this common, life-and-death extremity. It was no longer about state. It was about the heart.

The word of the Queen's recovery circulated through the palace and Paris thereafter, accompanied with a tide of national rejoicing and relief. That political truce born of mutual alarm now took firmer root in a time of good feeling. That war crisis with Britain was cooled, its diplomatic commission moving as slowly as a snail. For once, Art experienced a genuine, rock-bottom optimism. He had a collaborator he could entirely trust. He enjoyed his court's grudging respect, his subjects' adoration. He faced the void and took a step backward.

Weeks later, the court was finding its natural rhythm. Necker entered the study one afternoon in a more relaxed and cheerful-looking mood than ever Art had seen him.

"Good news from our men across the sea, Your Majesty," he declared with a rare smile. "The first intelligence from Roderigue Hortalez and Company has come in courtesy of Dr. Franklin. It seems our American rebels have won a great, truly unexpected victory in a small town in the colony of New York. A place called Saratoga. A complete British army's been forced to surrender." Necker's smile grew wider. "Dr. Franklin sends his greatest thanks. From him, our... 'shipments'... of troops' textile supplies and agricultural implements were conclusive."

Art felt a surge of pride. His secret, high-risk strategy was working better than he could have ever hoped. He had managed to bleed the British without a single French soldier firing a shot.

"Now," said Necker, his smile faltering as he produced a second, more formal-looking document. "There's more news. The victory at Saratoga's had... some repercussions. It's given another major Continental power a sense that the American cause isn't a lost one after all. That it's a legitimate business, as it were."

A familiar cold dread began to creep back into Art's veins. "What have they done, Minister?"

"They have resolved to officially recognize the United States of America as an independent country," Necker announced, his expression solemn. "And they are putting their fleets in a position to issue a declaration of war against Great Britain in favor of that recognition."

"Who?" asked Art, although he dreaded the reply.

He stared him right in the face. "Spain, Your Majesty." The HUD, once so blissfully quiet, burst in his mind, a flood of red alerts.

GEOPOLITICAL SHIFT: SPAIN ENTERS THE WAR.

TREATY OBLIGATION DETECTED: The Bourbon Family Compact (Pacte de Famille) - ACTIVATED.

France is now bound by a defensive and offensive treaty to declare war in concert with Spain.

Your hand has been forced.

REVOLUTION RISK: +50%. The path of neutrality is sealed.

The war he had so adroitly, so assiduously evaded had come knocking at his very door, attracted thither by his unprecedented success with his undercover operation.