The day after the Imperial Guard messenger left, Pomona heard the sound of a carriage early in the morning.
At first, she thought it was merely passing by. Instead, the carriage drove straight into the courtyard.
An officer in his forties stepped down from it. He had a stern, unsmiling face. After inviting Pomona into the carriage, he sat beside the coachman at the front. Just like that, she was inexplicably taken away.
The carriage brought her from the countryside to Paris. It was nearly noon when they reached the bank of a river, where Napoleon Bonaparte was waiting for her in a colonel's uniform beneath a gray overcoat.
She was wearing a nun's robe, though without a veil. After all, she had not truly become a nun.
She did not dare open the door, and Napoleon did not open it for her either. At last, the officer who had picked her up could no longer stand it and opened the carriage door for her.
He held out a hand, signaling for her to get down quickly. She cursed and stepped out of the carriage.
This was an undeveloped forest, with nothing around them. She had no idea why she had been brought here.
"Take a walk with me," General Bonaparte said.
Keeping a socially appropriate distance from him, she picked her way along the pebble-strewn riverbank.
"Why did you bring me here?" she asked.
"What you are looking at now is Paris's future water supply system." Napoleon pointed at the clear river and the center of Paris. "I intend to dig a canal between them."
"You're not building the ancient Roman aqueduct anymore?"
"It would take too long, and it isn't practical. What would you like the riverbank to look like?" Napoleon asked Pomona.
"What?"
"I want to give