The heat of the day was inhuman, and before long I had torn off my hood, loosened my collar, and sincerely contemplated leaving my coat on the side of the road while dread and anticipation poured off me like the sweat that drenched my clothes.

I remembered the rumours that I had heard, and the stories that I had read; the British press keen on humiliation, the French press keen on the business of forgetting: how Bonaparte lived his life on this boiling speck of land as though he were still an Emperor; dining off Imperial silverware; drawing up plans for battles still to fight; living on memory; living by court etiquette; Montholon and Bertrand in full dress uniform despite the heat.

How do they do it?

And why does he let them?

I remembered an evening, years ago, when a similar heat had descended on Paris. It was March, and the entire city, unprepared for anything but frost and freezing mud, had stood with doors and windows open to the heat, hoping for rain, or at least for a breeze.

I was alone at Café de la Régence, watching the chess. Napoleon wasn't there, though before tonight, he always had been, and I found myself paying a heroic lack of attention to the empty seat looming out of the sweaty half-darkness next to me, and trying not to think about the last time I had seen him: the sound of his voice as we had lain on our backs in bed; his fingertips as they had traced the veins of my hand and lingered almost lovingly at the scar on my wrist.

'Is she rich?' I had asked him, when he had told me of his intention to marry the ci-devant vicomtesse de Beauharnais.

'Yes,' Napoleon had replied; his almost-emaciated ribs like half-healed scars in the candlelight, 'she is an aristocrat and a martiniquaise, though most of her money seems to come from the latter.'

I chuckled.

'Well played, my friend.'

'Yes, indeed. The opportuneness of it is almost providential. Though she has been inconsiderate enough to make me fall in love with her as well.'

'You're in love with her?'

'Yes.'

'Then what are you doing here, fucking me?'

He had turned onto his side to face me; his grey eyes like mist that could sear and kill, and he kissed, once, the soft skin at the base of my throat; the ghosts of his teeth leaving imprints on my skin; his tongue laving over them as his hips began to roll slowly against mine. I bit stubbornly on my bottom lip and willed myself not to move or make a sound, more out of spite than anything else. Then those infernal hands of his began to softly stroke my sides, my thighs, my cock; my lips let out a stifled moan, and before I could do so much as struggle, he had pinned me down, and I had let him; his cock pressed hard and hot against mine.

'Answer the question, Bonaparte,' I had muttered through gritted teeth, my voice flushed red with hunger.

'You have a deep, repressed kind of violence about you,' Napoleon had murmured in reply; trembling with something that I deluded myself was fear; 'it enthralls me.'

I had gazed momentarily at my sword as it lay harmless on a chair and had seriously considered cutting his throat with it as the fingers of both his hands threaded through mine and my legs wrapped quickly and tightly around his waist, pulling him as close to me as nature allowed.

I gazed at my sword now – at Café de la Régence, watching the chess – to remind myself that I still could cut his throat, if I wanted to.

I gazed down at the hilt, which so many times had seemed to be a part of my hand. And in that moment, the weapon seemed like nothing more than an artfully-crafted piece of metal: a thing of death, not life.

Then I looked up again, and the propriétaire of the throat that I so keenly wanted to slit was pushing his way through the crowd of chess enthusiasts, looking intensely serious and more than a little annoyed.

He reached my side. He spoke in a manner reminiscent enough of Georges-Jacques Danton to make me roll my eyes.

'Fait-moi l'honneur de profiter de ma voiture, citoyen,' he said.

'I cannot; I have a bet on someone,' I stiffly told him.

Napoleon cocked an amused eyebrow at me; his mood apparently forgotten.

'Who?' he enquired.

'Man in the green coat,' I replied.

Napoleon turned to examine the man at the table at the end of the room. He watched him for a few moments before turning back towards me.

'Then may I suggest we leave,' Napoleon said, 'for he is about to lose.'