by C. S. Quinn
I glance over my shoulder. A group of uniformed guards have appeared at the other end of the long corridor.
‘Perhaps they’re friendly,’ I say, only half paying attention. ‘Distract them.’
The large lock is failing to reveal its secrets. I press my eye against it, trying to see what I’m missing. Behind me the shouts of the approaching guards grow louder.
‘I need a few moments,’ I say to Jemmy, turning back to the door and making an effort to tune out the danger.
‘Wonderful,’ Jemmy mutters. I hear the sound of a gun being loaded, gunpowder tapped and tamped. I glance back. One guard fires upwards.
‘Surrender your weapons!’ he shouts, as the air clouds with smoke.
Jemmy stands firm, pistol in one hand, sword in the other.
‘Let’s talk about this,’ he says. ‘None of you boys wants to die today.’
I work faster, lifting different picks, pushing them in, trying alternate weights and combinations.
I turn again to see two guards come at Jemmy from behind through the smoke. I’m about to issue a warning when he takes a backwards aim and fires. The first guard hasn’t even hit the ground before Jemmy spins and jabs the second with his sword.
My lock-picking efforts are suddenly rewarded with the twang of a mortar rolling back.
‘I’ve got it!’ I shout.
Jemmy, whirling about with his sword, drops the attack and runs for the opening door.
Once he’s through I slam it fast behind us, attracting the satisfying sound of gunshot spattering harmlessly on the other side. I slick the lock back into place, just as a body weight is hurled against it.
‘This way,’ I say, pointing to a curling stone staircase winding up.
We run up the stairs two at a time. After three flights, they change to something more like a wood ladder. It’s stiflingly hot up here and we climb more slowly now, measuring our breath.
‘You didn’t learn to sword fight at sea,’ I accuse, as we reach the top. ‘Those were fencing moves.’
‘A man I met in Granada,’ says Jemmy.
‘You’re quite the man of secrets.’ I can’t keep the admonishment from my tone.
‘You’re one to talk.’
Jemmy lifts a trapdoor above our heads and we squeeze through and out.
The fresh air is glorious, a breeze rippling past. I catch my breath as I see Paris through the sturdy crenulations. Tiled and thatched city rooftops stretch away.
And rammed in the narrow streets between: thousands upon thousands of citizens, seizing their chance for liberty.
CHAPTER 96
DANTON STRIDES FROM THE BASTILLE, SHOULDERING aside French people who are pouring across the bridge.
He is met by a carpenter on the other side, clumsily bearing a musket.
‘What’s happening in the prison?’ the carpenter asks Danton. ‘Is it true de Launay slaughtered all the prisoners?’
Danton considers what he has seen: the strangely empty corridors.
‘Yes,’ he lies easily. ‘He is a monster and we must take arms. But I’m afraid it is a shambles in there, my friend, and no order to the people at all.’
The carpenter absorbs this, chewing his lip.
‘Better wait here.’ Danton claps him on the back. The man sinks several inches into the mud under the force of it. ‘The King’s guard is only around the corner. I’m going to ask them for help.’
The carpenter looks at him as though he has lost his mind. ‘They are royalist troops,’ he says hesitantly.
‘They may be,’ agrees Danton, ‘but they are also Frenchmen.’
Danton walks off, leaving the carpenter open-mouthed in his wake.
A few streets down Danton find eighty or so Gardes Françaises leaning against a wall with nothing much to do. As he approaches, they eye him suspiciously. A few drop their muskets from their shoulders.
‘Brave Gardes Françaises!’ booms Danton. ‘Can you not hear the cannon fire?’
The guards look at him, their faces hard. A few more ready their guns, take steadier stance.
Danton lifts a hand to his face, overwhelmed suddenly with the exhaustion of the last few days. His great voice breaks.
‘Governor de Launay is murdering our parents, wives and children,’ he says, his voice strained with tragedy, ‘who have gathered unarmed. Will you allow them to be massacred? Won’t you march on the Bastille?’ Tears are streaming down his face.
The guards look surprised. They huddle together. Minutes pass.
Danton waits. A few people have come out of their homes. Whispers are exchanged. They wonder what will happen. Most likely Danton will be arrested and they look forward to the show. Several men are already muttering that they will fight tooth and nail for the lawyer’s freedom.
Finally the captain of the Gardes Françaises straightens his royal uniform and approaches Danton.
‘We will march,’ he says, ‘if you will lead us.’
Danton agrees. He guides the militia through the streets, haranguing the locals in his great voice. More people join. Citizens hiding in their houses emerge and join them. Gunpowder and shot is handed around and shared.
When Danton arrives at the Bastille, the small guard has become an army.
The uncertain people milling about outside look on in awe.
‘There are two hundred barrels of gunpowder in the dungeon!’ announces Danton. ‘Shall we take them in the name of France?’
The roar of ascent seems to reach every corner of the city.
Danton looks up at the Bastille, this mighty town within a town, its ten-foot-thick walls and insurmountable bastions. He paces a little at the side of the dry moat, wide as five houses, peering over like a bear nosing at a salmon river.
Danton eyes the turrets again, tilting his head full back to do so. He claps his great beefy hands together.
‘Allez, lads,’ Danton surmises, ‘this thing is coming down today.’
CHAPTER 97
JEMMY AND I STAND ON THE RAMPARTS OF THE MIGHTY prison with Paris stretched before us. Immediately beneath us is the great dry moat – a yawning abyss of a thing where the swampy earth has cracked in zig-zags.
‘I was right,’ says Jemmy after a moment. ‘It is a good view.’
I’m reluctant to tear myself away. Seeing Paris as this incredible sweeping vista is fascinating, not least because we can readily see how the crowd swarms and thickens, from the Hôpital des Invalides along to the Hôtel de Ville and then to the Bastille.
More and more people are coming. It reminds me of a swarming ants’ nest. So many people are emptying on to the streets, seemingly from nowhere.
I focus my attention on the ghoulish task at hand. Finding the gibbet.
There’s a great wide walkway, broad enough for five men to charge through, with broken stones underfoot where repairs have not been made.
‘I don’t see any guard,’ I whisper, as I walk along.
Jemmy’s face is lined in concentration, wary.
Up on the ramparts, preparations have been made to repel with force. But there’s an unfinished air to it all: cannons lie in disarray; craggy piles of rock are roughly piled, in readiness to throw off the bastions; cannon balls are stacked in neat pyramids.
We creep along, expecting at any moment to be ambushed.
Jemmy stops short at a swinging cage which houses a decomposed body. Below it is a narrow tunnel descending to darkness.
Inside, the rotting skeleton swings in its gibbet, looking over Paris with empty sockets. A crawling feeling of unease is assailing me. There’s something horribly familiar about this tiny enclosure. Virginian-plantation terrors are drifting back.
‘You were right, this poor fellow will have been raised from the dungeons,’ says Jemmy, looking at me. ‘This is a disused chimney shaft by the looks of things, adapted to purpose.’
I walk closer to the gruesome display, an arm over my nose to ward off the smell. I feel my legs tremble slightly as I peer over
the narrow edge. The tight dark space is the stuff of nightmares. I concentrate on noticing how the chain connects to a pulley-type mechanism.
‘We only need pull that,’ says Jemmy, ‘to send you down.’ His voice sounds far away. He’s pointing to a long lever, furred with rust and joined to two equally orange-hued cogs. ‘The gibbet will drop you down to the depths.’
I open my eyes wide.
‘You’re not suggesting I get inside it?’ I swing my attention to the gibbet, appalled. I’d been planning to climb.
‘It’s the fastest way down,’ says Jemmy.
‘The jolt at the bottom would break my neck.’
Jemmy looks at the mechanism.
‘I think I can adjust it,’ he says, ‘use a belt attached to the chains to ratchet you down and stop you dropping too fast. I’ve used a similar thing for anchors in shallow harbours,’ he adds.
‘Have you ever broken an anchor?’
‘Never.’
I give him a hard stare.
‘Once,’ he admits. ‘Lot of seaweed swept in at Haiti. We couldn’t see the rocks.’
Damp terror pricks at me. I watch silently as Jemmy lifts the catch on the gibbet and stands neatly aside. The cage opens, dividing in half and the corpse plummets down. It’s a long time before we hear the thump of the dry remains hit some distant floor.
‘I didn’t know they opened that way,’ I say, hearing the words as though someone else is saying them. Fear is seizing at every part of me now.
‘Pirates are fairly familiar with gibbets,’ says Jemmy with a wry smile.
‘All aboard,’ he says, nodding to the two halves of the empty gibbet, ‘passage straight to the depths of hell.’
I have a detached sense that he’s making light of things to ease my obvious dread and am grateful. But my mouth is too dry to thank him. Unwanted thoughts are spooling like tentacles as I force my legs to take me to the metal cage and step on to the precarious grid at the base.
‘Don’t close it!’ I shriek as Jemmy reaches up to shut the gibbet.
‘I have to,’ he explains calmly. ‘It won’t fit down the shaft unless I do. And you’ll be safer this way.’
My heart is beating low in my stomach.
You’re not a slave any longer, I tell myself. You can free yourself from this cage any time you choose.
But it doesn’t stop the pounding nausea as Jemmy closes the gibbet over my face. He reaches in, takes my hand and squeezes it.
The fear abates slightly.
‘This thing is as old as the prison,’ I point out, eyeing the dry remains. ‘Are you certain the chain won’t break?’
‘Chains like this can withstand a fair amount of rust,’ says Jemmy, looking up at the rusty iron links that suspend the cage. He removes his belt, loops it around the lever.
‘I’ll follow you down,’ he says. ‘I can shin down the chain once the gibbet is dropped.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘You have to find a way to take us out of France. You think you can find a ship?’
‘My crew will have the Esmerelda at the docks,’ says Jemmy. ‘They’re the fiercest pirates in the world and that boat is their home. Your English fellows might have reported it for capture, but they won’t have succeeded.’
He has an expression that I can’t determine is pride or wishful thinking.
‘Very well,’ I say. ‘Then you must get to your ship and take us home.’
‘If you make it out alive, I’ll be at the cinque port. When word of the Bastille gets to the King, he will arm every river and dock. Get there before sundown.’
Jemmy pulls the belt, face contorted in effort as the old crank yields. There’s a shriek of metal and the cogs start turning. And suddenly the cage plummets a few inches in a cloud of iron-coloured dust, then catches sharply, throwing me up in the air and painfully to my knees.
‘Sorry!’ says Jemmy. ‘It didn’t work quite as I expected. I’ve got it now.’
‘I’m getting out,’ I say, rising to my feet. ‘I’ll climb. Really it’s better—’
I’m interrupted by a ghostly noise, a strange sort of cheering rippling up the chimney shaft. It takes me a few moments to understand.
‘The rebels are in the dungeon,’ I say, fear for Grace overtaking everything else.
Jemmy moves closer to the gibbet, the belt still looped in his hand.
‘I’m sure I can rig something up, so you can climb down fast,’ he says. ‘But first I want to try something.’
There’s a hint of dishonesty in his voice that I haven’t heard before and I’m confused by what he’s trying to hide.
Jemmy leans smoothly forward and kisses me through the bars of the gibbet. It’s so unexpected I barely have time to react. Then he’s saying something, mouth still against mine.
‘I thought you might need the distraction,’ whispers Jemmy.
It’s only when I drop, cold air replacing the sensation of his warm lips, that I realize he’s released the gibbet.
I’m free-falling down the shaft, my eyes screwed tight shut. ‘You bloody bastard!’ I hear myself shout it into the abyss, as deeper feelings of terror coil into my soul.
A few words float from above.
‘Takes one to know one, Lady Morgan!’
CHAPTER 98
GRACE CAN’T BREATHE. SHE IS DRAGGING IN GREAT panicked gulps of air. Her heart is beating out of her chest. The sharp chain of diamonds is pressed against her ribs.
It is then, in the dark at her feet, she hears a horrible sound. Like a goblin clearing its throat. Something cold and slimy slips around her toes. She pulls up a foot and the noise comes again, more urgent.
It’s only a toad, Grace realizes, giddy with relief. The realization of her own idiocy calms her slightly. She feels suddenly fond of the toad. Grace is ludicrously pleased to have a friend in the dark.
‘I won’t hurt you,’ she whispers to it.
Grace tries to draw air in slowly, pulling in a thin stream. The panic ebbs but doesn’t abate.
A door crashes open. Grace’s heart leaps. She calls up. There are footsteps. Many footsteps and loud cries. There are people above, looking for prisoners.
Grace shouts and bellows. No one hears her. They’re too far away. She’s too deep underground. She screams until her throat is ragged. Something about this sugarloaf-shaped pit repels sound.
There’s a splintering noise, as though someone is hammering at a wall, then an ominous trickling of water. Down in the dungeon they are the same level as a few old tributaries. It occurs to Grace something might have been damaged to cause a leak.
Feet run over her grating, but don’t stop. And then, to her sinking heart, the people leave. All is quiet. Everyone has gone.
Grace returns to her breathing. It’s the only thing she can do. And then she feels the first stream of cold water trickle in from above. It covers her ankles. Before she knows it for sure, the water is already at her hips.
CHAPTER 99
AIR IS RUSHING PAST MY FACE AS I DESCEND THE NARROW shaft, towards the dungeon. I realize I’m gripping the bars of the gibbet tight, my face screwed up in readiness for the impact.
The muggy summer heat of the prison flashes into damp cold. My free-falling cage slows, caught by some mechanism high in the ramparts. Relief blooms. Jemmy has done as he promised. There’s a ticking kind of sound as I begin to drop more rhythmically. It’s almost slowed to a stop when I feel the metal floor smash against something hard, sending a rictus of pain through my feet.
I stagger, still clutching the bars. I’ve landed on the gibbet corpse, I realize. The impact has smashed it to pieces, but likely prevented my ankles from breaking.
I peel my hands away from the bars. There are rectangular indentations in my palms and I rub them, wincing.
I’m in a large chimney breast and beyond is what can only be the Bastille dungeon. It feels completely different to the great deserted prison above. There is a cold dampness that immediately bites at your bones, a stench of mould
and mildew strong enough to choke on.
I have an instant awful sense of entrapment. These unyielding walls seem to be shuffling in on me, whispering of a thousand poor souls who have died in the dark.
I reach outside the gibbet and loosen the catch, letting it open rather precariously atop its human buffer.
Taking out my knife, I assess my surroundings. There’s a shout in the distance, a cry with a violence to it that is deeply disturbing.
Ahead I can see a meandering maze of dark tunnels. Bone fragments of the corpse I obliterated with the gibbet crunch under my boots.
The ceilings are so low I must stoop under the arching stonework. This is a dungeon in the truest sense, built so the old King of France might torture and terrify.
Doors have been opened in a pattern. A route. Someone was here before me, someone with a key.
I break into a horrid little chamber, the thick walls curved and rats running across the floor. My stomach turns. There’s a smell I know only too well. The last time I encountered it was in the bowels of a slave ship.
Chained to the slimy brick are seven men. They are secured to the wall by their necks and ankles. Torture is all too evident on their starving bodies. Their wrists are worn to welts and pustulating wounds where their manacles rub.
Childish helplessness overwhelms me. I run to the first man, pulling at his chains. An animal instinct has overtaken me. I wrench and kick, I take out my knife and plunge it uselessly at the hard stone.
There must be rooms and rooms of such men. Where can I even begin?
Despair is sudden and paralysing.
A sudden explosion at the far end of the corridor smashes into my thoughts. A great ragged opening now stands where a wall once was. I stare in surprise. Through the smoke and tell-tale smell of gunpowder pour a legion of royal guards.
‘Attica!’ I hear a booming voice. ‘Shouldn’t you be looking for your little cousin?’
I turn, tears blurring my vision, to see Danton, complete with a small army of well-armed soldiers.
‘We’ll take it from here,’ he says, ‘you must be certain we shall have these men free. Jacques here found the gunpowder, barrels and barrels of it. So we are well resourced for a little revolution.’ He grins, revealing small pearly teeth in his cratered face.
