The Bastille Spy

by C. S. Quinn

  THE BASTILLE SPY

  C. S. Quinn is a travel and lifestyle journalist for The Times, the Guardian and the Mirror, alongside many magazines. Prior to this, Quinn’s background in historic research won prestigious postgraduate funding from the British Arts Council. Quinn pooled these resources, combining historical research with first-hand experiences in far-flung places to create her bestselling Thief Taker Series.

  Also by C. S. Quinn

  The Thief Taker Series

  The Thief Taker

  Fire Catcher

  Dark Stars

  The Changeling Murders

  Death Magic (short story)

  THE BASTILLE SPY

  C. S. QUINN

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright © C. S. Quinn, 2019

  The moral right of C. S. Quinn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Hardback ISBN: 978 1 78649 8427

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 78649 8458

  E-book ISBN: 978 1 78649 8441

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  Inspired by true events

  CHAPTER 1

  St Petersburg, The Winter Palace, 1789

  THE DAY I KILLED THE COSSACK WAS WHEN IT ALL BEGAN. If I think carefully, I can trace everything back to that slave market in St Petersburg – an illegal affair trafficking mostly Persians and Kurds foolish enough to cross the badlands of Khiva.

  The dusty square bore a resemblance to other livestock markets in Russia. There were enclosures, merchants shouting their wares and buyers haggling, examining the goods. A good deal of vodka was being drunk and a few traders were filling their bowls from a cauldron of cabbage soup bubbling over a wood fire. Despite the sultry heat of the St Petersburg summer, most buyers wore thick fur-lined leather coats and boots.

  In contrast, I was dressed in Turkoman rags that barely covered my body, with a metal cuff heavy around my neck and chains at my wrists and ankles.

  The fellow slaves in my consignment were similarly clothed and bound, heads bowed low with the discomfort of their bonds, bodies wasted from their weeks dragged starving through the Russian countryside.

  In the middle distance stood the fate of many people trafficked here. The magnificent Winter Palace was being extended for Catherine the Great; the boxy Hermitage annexe wrought brick by brick from the sliding marsh. Her Imperial Majesty had ended slavery. But she doesn’t involve herself in building works. This square palace, with its endless gold columns and bride-cake green-white façade, was built on the bones of spent slaves, flung carelessly into the foundations.

  Even now if I close my eyes I can see and feel that fateful day as if it’s happening all over again. A bushy-bearded man steps forward and ushers our little group into a fenced enclosure. He wears a tricorn hat with red fur edging, jammed down low over his greasy dark hair. This is the man who bought us, the unseen buyer who paid the dead-eyed Khiva tribesman who herded us to the city gates. At his side stands a giant Cossack with a plumed turban, a studded-leather jerkin and a whip in his hand.

  ‘Let’s see what we have,’ says the fur-hatted merchant in heavy St Petersburg Russian, with a humourless grin, ‘in our Kurdish soup.’ This is a derogatory term for a job lot of slaves bought cut-price from Khiva – like the cheap stew made in Kurdistan, where each ladle holds differing amounts of miscellaneous meat.

  The slave merchant shoots a dark smile at his Cossack henchman.

  ‘Those pig-ignorant slave-hunters wouldn’t know if they caught Empress Ekaterina herself,’ opines our owner with a sneer. ‘My last batch had two Russians, worth fifty roubles each.’ He eyes us greedily, assessing, whilst the Cossack stares stoically at the Winter Palace. ‘Mostly Kurds,’ he decides, disappointed. ‘Perhaps some Persians if we’re lucky.’ He points. ‘Separate those at the back.’

  The Cossack moves among us, driving the slaves apart. He looks resigned and I wonder how he came to this position, hired muscle for a slave buyer.

  Our owner’s eyes land on me.

  ‘Well, well,’ he says, licking his lips. ‘What have we here?’

  I’ve tried my best to disguise myself, spreading mud over my skin, matting my long dark hair and arranging it over my face, but there’s no hiding my height.

  The owner lifts a chunk of tangled hair and I blink, scowling.

  ‘Could be something,’ he decides, turning to his hired thug. ‘See the eyes? Blue-grey.’ He spits on his finger and rubs away a little of the dirt on my upper arm.

  ‘Dark, but not too dark,’ he says. ‘What think you? An African half-breed?’

  ‘Too light. Maybe Moorish,’ says the Cossack. ‘The eyes are too savage to be Russian.’

  ‘Maybe,’ decides the owner. He prods his sharp stick into my chest.

  ‘You,’ he barks. ‘Where from?’

  I mutter a few words of frightened Kurdish. He shakes his head.

  ‘Kurdish,’ he says contemptuously. ‘Hardly worth the chains that hold her. She’s only good for the street brothels.’ He indicates towards the back of the market. ‘Put her in with the other whores.’

  They drag me along, the chain weighing around my neck, my hands bound, to a stinking shack partially roofed with mouldering reeds. A door of sticks is dragged open and the stench of despair wafts out. A huddle of frightened girls look up as I’m pushed to the ground and fastened to a metal hoop on the floor.

  The door shuts and I begin to free myself, working fast. I reach up, tugging a hidden lock-pick from my filthy hair. I unlock my chains and the manacle at my neck, rubbing my wrists in relief as the restraints fall.

  The other slaves are watching me shed my bonds, their eyes like saucers. I scan the little hut and my eyes land on a single scrawny man, huddled in the corner. Without his rigid aristocratic clothing, he reminds me of a soft pink crab slipped from its shell. His head was once close-cropped for a wig, but now his hair grows out untidily in clumps of black and grey, to match his unshaven face. Bare knees are drawn up to his chin, the naked legs ageing and liver-spotted. There is a deep bruise on his cheek just below his haunted eyes. My heart aches for him.

  I drop to the ground near where he sits.

  ‘You are Gaspard de Mayenne?’ I ask. He flinches, features twisted between confusion and fear.

  ‘Who are you?’ he whispers, his gaze trying to reconcile my light-coloured eyes to skin that isn’t white enough to fit, in that way Europeans do.

  ‘My name is Attica Morgan,’ I say, speaking in French. ‘I’m an English spy. I’m here to rescue you.’

  CHAPTER 2

  IN MY EXPERIENCE, MEN OFFERED RESCUE BY A WOMAN FALL in two camps: those who refuse the possibility and those who try to take command of the escape themselves. To my relief, Gaspard is in the first group; these are the ones who cause the least trouble.

  He
makes a little half-laugh, then stops when he sees my expression.

  ‘You have the wrong person,’ he says. ‘I was exiled here by King Louis XVI. I’m of no use to the English.’

  ‘Revolution is in England’s interest,’ I explain. ‘We like what you’re doing in France. Your pictures. We want you to keep doing it.’

  Gaspard considers this. I wonder how much of his spirit has been broken in his hard months of slavery.

  I move to unlock his chains but he pulls away, eyes furious.

  ‘No!’ he hisses. ‘I don’t need your kind of help. They will blind me and worse.’ My thoughts flick back to the mutilated people in the market. Slaves who tried to run. Gaspard’s eyes burn with boundless terror.

  ‘Even if I could return to Paris,’ says Gaspard, ‘the King would boil me alive as a warning to others who seek democracy.’

  It’s then I notice a raised ring of branded flesh on his ribcage, ill concealed by tattered slave garments. The Bastille guards must have tortured him before sending him to Russia. He sees me looking and rearranges his rags.

  I grip his thin wrists tightly and look straight in his eyes.

  ‘France is closer to change than its King wants you to think,’ I say steadily. ‘Your rescue will show the French people they needn’t be afraid. I give you my word as an Englishwoman. You will be free and you will be safe. I have done this many times.’

  I’ve been unlocking his chains as I speak and they fall to the dusty ground. His mistrust fades and he starts shaking, tears running down his cheeks.

  ‘It’s true?’ he whispers. ‘The French people might have liberty?’

  I nod.

  ‘What about the others?’ he manages, swallowing a sob. ‘The other slaves. The things they do to them ...’ He is trembling. I hold his shoulders.

  ‘Every last one of you,’ I promise, ‘will have your freedom today.’ Quickly I start unchaining the other girls, careful of their injured wrists and bruised necks. They are Kurdish and I speak to them softly in their own language. Without chains they seem even more vulnerable.

  I snatch a glance at the low sunlight slicing through the rickety door. Our means of escape will come soon. I work faster. There are more slaves here than I thought possible. But at last each sits unbound on the dirt floor.

  There’s a sudden flare in the far distance, visible even through the slats of our wooden door. Flames, the sound of gunfire. It’s time.

  I throw open the door. The slave merchants have been thrown into panic, believing their illegal trade is being raided. We’ve worked to give the illusion our limited troops are from the Palace and large in number.

  I kneel and move aside a little dirt on the ground. My knife is where I buried it last night, before I hid myself in the wagon of kidnapped Kurds disguised as a slave.

  I grip the dark-wood handle and pull the curved blade free. This is a Mangbetu knife, smooth black and deadly, awarded only to the deadliest fighters of the African Congo. I feel its reassuring weight in my hand and slide it into the back of my rags.

  The traders are wildly freeing their captives, anxious to avoid arrest. Chains and manacles fall to the ground with a heavy clanking. Ropes are cut, fences kicked down. Unshackled slaves are staring around themselves, unable to comprehend what’s happening.

  Behind me the slave girls are watching the chaos.

  ‘This is your chance,’ I tell them, pointing to a building at the top of the hill. ‘Go. Any slave who gets inside that church is promised sanctuary. Her Imperial Majesty decreed an end to servitude. By tomorrow night I’ll get you on a fur-trade boat bound for Hamburg.’

  There’s a fraction of a pause. Then Gaspard remembers something of his revolutionary self. He grabs hold of two girls by either hand.

  ‘Vite! Vite!’ he cries, dragging them forth. As soon as they exit the hut, something changes. Their faces become determined, their movements certain. They flee as a pack, heading for freedom. It’s like a dam breaking. Every slave is running hard, like a tidal wave moving uphill in the direction of the church.

  I hear a cry. One of the girls has fallen, her leg caught tight in a slave-snare. It’s only a simple rope-trap, but she’s panicking. Other slaves are stampeding near where she lies.

  I run to her. Falling at her side, I begin slicing through the trap.

  Suddenly strong fingers seize my upper arm. I stagger as I’m pulled around to see a familiar face: the outsized Cossack guard from the slave sorting. I twist, breaking from his grip, step back into a low fighting stance, my long black blade in my hand.

  The Cossack grins, revealing large white teeth. He tilts his head appraisingly, closing in. ‘I knew there was something different about you,’ he says in Russian, moving forward. ‘We heard tales about a girl spy. I didn’t believe it until now. You’re going to fetch a fine price in Moscow.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I can see the girl pulling at the half-cut rope around her ankle. I bring the blade low, pointing upwards as the Cossack closes in.

  He taps his thick studded armour.

  ‘Blades don’t pierce military leather,’ he says, lunging to take a heavy hold of my arm again.

  Suddenly his face twists in shock. He lets out a strange strangled cough.

  ‘Mangbetu knives do,’ I say, turning the blade to slice his lung as his eyes bulge.

  The Cossack drops silently to the floor, blood filling his airways. I look back to the slave girl sprawled in the dirt, mouth open in silent horror.

  I move back to her side, slash free the snare, pull her up and give her a hard shove.

  Her ankle is twisted and she gasps in pain.

  ‘I can’t do it.’ The girl’s starved and battered body is giving way. Her eyes are fixed on my bloody knife. ‘I can’t fight like you. They’ll find me ...’

  I take her face in my hands.

  ‘Look at me,’ I say, speaking in Kurdish. ‘Do you believe me when I say I don’t break my promises?’

  She glances at my blood-soaked hands.

  ‘Yes.’ She swallows.

  ‘You will survive this,’ I tell her. ‘I promise. I see it in you. Get to the church at the top of the hill and your freedom awaits.’ I spin the gore-flecked knife. ‘I will cut down anyone who tries to stop you.’

  She runs, limping towards salvation.

  I shield my eyes and see Gaspard has reached the safety of the church door. He turns, sees me and shouts something. I can’t hear the words but his expression is unmistakable.

  Hope, that emotion he’d so carefully guarded against, was in full bloom. I live for that look. It’s what keeps me going through all the hard business of spying for the English.

  Little did I know, in under two weeks, his face would look very different.

  Gaspard would be lying dead in the Bastille prison, a diamond between his lips.

  CHAPTER 3

  London, two weeks later

  IT’S GOOD TO BE BACK IN LONDON. THE TREES SURROUNDING King’s Cross are in blossom. I can smell the sweet-grass meadows that lead to Camden Village. My family’s town residence, a great red-brick hall awarded to my ancestors by Henry VIII, is resplendent in the sun.

  Today I’m dressed for a wedding: a white silk dress embroidered with dainty violets. Beneath a little purple hat, secured at a tilt, my curled dark hair is elaborately styled with jewelled pins. My shoes are satin, pointed, with a small heel. Strings of pearls conceal yellow ghosts of manacle bruising to my wrists and neck.

  I made the hour’s walk here from the squalid Wapping docks, drinking in the lively industry of blacksmiths and papermakers, the press of girls with baskets of wares on their heads, a scent of fresh bread and pies in the air. So, unlike the other wedding guests, I haven’t arrived in a gilded carriage. As I ascend the grand steps to the house an unfamiliar servant in gold-frogged livery is in the hallway making space on the portrait wall.

  He’s straightening an oil painting of my stepmother, the first Lady Morgan – a rapacious socialite who die
d many years ago.

  Next in line is the picture of my mother. A bright turban frames her dark-skinned face and she holds a narrow spear. Mamma never did get to England, but my father made sketches and had her commemorated in oils.

  Hearing my approach, the servant looks down from his half-ladder.

  ‘A sad story there, I’ll be bound,’ he says, noticing me looking at my mother’s portrait. ‘They say she’s why Lord Morgan drinks the laudanum. You are here for one of Lord Morgan’s wedding guests?’ he adds.

  Of course, he assumes me a courtesan. It’s hard for the English to see an unaccompanied woman in finery and come to any other conclusion.

  ‘I’m Attica Morgan,’ I reply. ‘Lord Morgan’s daughter.’

  The servant overbalances slightly then rights himself, pulling my mother’s portrait askew. He looks from her to me. A wild blush creeps up his neck and across his face. He tries to bow and the ladder jerks dangerously.

  ‘Please,’ I say, moving towards him, ‘don’t fall on my account.’

  ‘My apologies,’ he says. ‘Miss Attica. I didn’t know ...’

  He pronounces it A-ttica, the way the English do, which could be correct for all I know. My name means ‘of Africa’ – perhaps an attempt to connect me with my heritage. I’ve never minded my mixed blood because I can look like many different people. I could be, say, a Jewess or a Spanish dancer or an Italian heiress or a coal-eyed beggar girl. This is a great advantage for a woman who travels in disguise.

  ‘It’s a common mistake.’ I smile at the servant. ‘No one can quite agree if I’m illegitimate and I never could sit still for portraits. That’s the only one of me.’ I point to a mischievous-looking girl sat on my father’s lap.

  This discomforts him worse than before. He begins leaning from foot to foot.

  ‘Your shoes are the new Lady Morgan’s choice?’ I observe, taking in the little gold heels.

  ‘Yes.’ He smiles in relief, having found a better subject than my scandalous existence.