The Scarlet Code

by C. S. Quinn

  I am interested despite myself, though reluctant to share too much enthusiasm with Lord Pole.

  ‘Tell me more.’ I reach across his desk to refill both our glasses with port.

  ‘This was found in the victim’s hand.’

  Lord Pole’s hand slides beneath his desk and smoothly emerges with a lead musket ball rolling in his palm. It is small, the kind commonly used in lightweight continental muskets. I lift it up and look closer.

  It bears a letter, scraped into the side. A flourishing ‘A’.

  ‘A calling card?’ I suggest.

  Lord Pole nods. ‘Have you heard of a man named Salvatore de Aragon?’

  I plunder my memory for French aristocrats who are of interest to the English government.

  ‘He’s an arms trader,’ I say, recalling the papers, ‘with a nasty habit of finding who is making the best guns, stealing them by the thousand, and supplying them to French troops.’ I think some more. ‘As a younger man, Salvatore joined the King’s army explicitly to torture peasants. When there was a suggestion of restricting his behaviour, he began his own gun-smuggling operation, using his military contacts. Supplied a great number of lightweight Dutch muskets to French troops in America, which likely lost us the Battle of Yorktown.’ My mind tracks to the last few details. ‘If I remember correctly, Salvatore is half Italian, half French, hence the first name.’

  ‘Very good,’ says Lord Pole. ‘His mother was an Italian opera singer. Educated her son in a near hysteria for his father’s great family name – hers being very much in question. You know how people are about birthright.’

  Something passes over his face and is gone. I often forget that for all his peerage robes and position, Lord Pole’s lineage is not so far from my own. A bastard with only a half claim to nobility.

  ‘The effect was to make Salvatore one of the most grandiose and entitled of his kind,’ continues Lord Pole. ‘He truly believes the French aristocracy is a distinct race. Real blue blood. But even aristocrats can be checked. Last year Salvatore was placed in the Bastille by his family for his own protection, since he was flying very close to annoying Marie Antoinette.’

  ‘Don’t tell me he tried to sell her some diamonds?’ I say with a flash of insolence, reminding Pole of the danger he placed me in with one of his recent schemes to implicate the Queen in the smuggling of a politically volatile necklace.

  Lord Pole ignores the jibe. ‘Salvatore exercises his noble privileges with rather too much relish. One of the nastiest of his breed. Peasant girls, that kind of thing.’ He doesn’t elaborate and I don’t ask. ‘Marie Antoinette objects. She is kind in her own way, I suppose. In any case, the irony is that when the Bastille fell, Salvatore walked free. A man who thinks the common upstarts lower than cattle.’

  A flash of anger must have showed in my eyes, because Lord Pole nods with unexpected understanding.

  ‘If he is at large in Paris, why am I only hearing of him now?’

  Since I have been living in the French capital for the past few months, I have made it my business to be involved in any underground goings-on.

  ‘He left France after his release from prison to rekindle his old business connections. The mystery is that for all his hatred of commoners, Salvatore is not a political man. His family estate includes slave plantations, of course, but he has never been vocal in defence of the practice.’

  I nod, turning this information over.

  ‘This killing, there’s more to it,’ continues Lord Pole. ‘Someone is influencing Salvatore, and I want you to find out who. Before any more of our citizens are executed.’

  ‘Have you considered Robespierre’s involvement?’ I suggest.

  Lord Pole sighs. ‘Be careful you do not let the French water make you as emotional as the natives, Attica. You have a fascination with this little lawyer that defies logic. Nothing has ever been proven as to Robespierre’s criminal activities. As far as the Sealed Knot is concerned, he is nothing more than a lawyer with revolutionary zeal.’

  ‘Something is happening at the Paris city gates,’ I tell him. ‘Jemmy and I have been watching Porte Saint-Martin, and duties on imports and exports are being enforced with an iron fist. It’s almost impossible for people to get in and out of the city without being searched.’

  Lord Pole looks up, mildly interested.

  ‘That is the King, surely? He makes some fruitless attempt to waylay revolutionary books and so forth.’

  ‘I thought so too. But I looked into the men on the gates taking the taxes. Almost all have secret revolutionary affiliations. I’d lay money Robespierre has a heavy body of spies on those gates. It’s a prime place to obtain information. And if you control movement in and out of the city …’

  ‘Any evidence Robespierre himself is behind the tightening of security at the gates?’

  ‘Robespierre is careful,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Inhumanly so. You said so yourself …’

  ‘I said Le Société des Amis was careful – whoever they are.’

  ‘La Société,’ I correct him.

  Lord Pole throws up his hands in apparent despair at the French system of gendering words.

  ‘Male or female,’ he says, ‘they are seemingly everywhere, yet slip through our fingers whenever we get close. Even their purpose remains elusive, though we assume it to be political.’

  Not knowing everything about the mysterious faction is as close as Lord Pole has ever come to failure. He looks rather ill at the mention of them.

  ‘Certainly, I am undecided as to whether Robespierre is even involved with the Society of Friends,’ he says, recovering himself. ‘If he is, then it is a lowly role. In any case,’ he concludes, ‘Salvatore is hardly likely to work for common revolutionaries. He would see them dead before their coarse leather shoes sullied his marble floor.’

  I open my mouth then shut it again. He is right.

  ‘So if not Robespierre or the Society, then who?’

  ‘That is what we want you to find out. I’m sure you agree our interests are mutual.’

  ‘That is still to be discovered.’ I sip port, letting the complex flavours linger on my tongue as I consider. He looks up at me and there is something in his eyes I have never seen before.

  ‘Would it be too much to believe I value the happiness of my favourite niece?’ he asks.

  ‘I am your only niece. And yes, it would. What advantage is there to you if I kill a French arms dealer?’

  Lord Pole grins wolfishly. ‘Who said I wanted him killed?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT IS LATE AS ROBESPIERRE FINISHES THE LAST OF A TIDY pile of legal documents. He is pleased with his work and will allow himself a small indulgence, expending the cost of a full candle wax dedicated to his favourite new pastime. Straightening his immaculate lawyer’s suit and locking the door of his little office, he pulls forth a slim box from under a neat stack of papers. A locked chest within a locked chest. He opens it with a small key from his pocket.

  Inside is his treasure. Little boxes and trinkets from his past, worn and colourless with age. Right at the bottom, pressed carefully between two pieces of paper, is a lock of blonde hair. Sometimes, just after sunset, if his wine is stronger than usual, he takes it out – the hair so old now it is brittle and dull. The ribbon it is tied with is faded and has lost its smell. Even so, Robespierre will lift it to his nose, inhale, stroke the satin between pale fingers. As a boy he used to sleep with it clutched in his small fist, pushed up against his cheek.

  Today he does none of these things. Laid atop his mementoes are an array of little flower tokens. The last was brought to him only yesterday. With each he feels closer to the unravelling, but still far away.

  Robespierre lifts out the little card tokens one by one and lays them on his desk. It is a ritual he carries out often. He owns three now, and has put it out that a full franc will be paid to anyone who brings him more. A few people have tried to trick him with badly attempted frauds, but they are easy to see throu
gh, Robespierre knows each of his three tokens by heart. Understands they are part of a code he has not yet broken.

  Each thick piece is cut in the jagged shape of a flower. A pimpernel. Red paint has been – to his eye, at least – rather artlessly washed across the fronts. He lifts the first, turns it face up. It has been cut from a playing card. A queen of hearts. Next is a jack of the same suit. Sometimes Robespierre finds himself stiff with cold, pained with hunger, having sat until his candle burns out, examining these mysterious tokens. He is certain they are a message from his adversary. A little game they play between the two of them, while the serious business of saving France plays out.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ISTARE AT LORD POLE, WORKING THROUGH WHAT HE IS suggesting.

  ‘If you don’t want me to kill Salvatore,’ I say eventually, ‘what do you want?’

  ‘We need him to stop assassinating bloody republicans and get on with dealing arms,’ says Lord Pole smoothly.

  This doesn’t make immediate sense. ‘But that would weaken your position in America,’ I say.

  ‘That thing is long done,’ says Lord Pole, looking tired. ‘We shall not retrieve those territories now. Better we try to salvage a trading relationship. Besides, the French King has lost interest in being America’s hero now that he has problems at home. But,’ Lord Pole fixes his dark eyes on me, ‘with all the upheaval someone will start a war with France. Prussia, Austria, Spain …’ He spreads his hands in a way that says, I don’t care who.

  ‘You want to be sure the French have enough good guns to put up a decent fight,’ I say, catching his drift. ‘Weaken another country.’

  ‘Certainement,’ agrees Lord Pole in perfect French, glancing at the diagrams of trading routes laid out on his desk. ‘The French cannot win it, of course. But they might do a lot of damage with the right weaponry and save us a good deal of work acquiring several lucrative trading routes.’

  ‘If attack comes, France will be in chaos,’ I say, thinking aloud. ‘The people are already driven to fever pitch.’

  ‘I fail to see how that is a concern,’ says Lord Pole. ‘I hope you are not forgetting you are English, Attica, for all the delights of the French Marais. They eat frogs, you know,’ he adds, waving an admonishing finger.

  ‘I work for King and country,’ I tell him, insulted at the suggestion I have gone native.

  ‘Then you have a fine opportunity to show your patriotism.’

  ‘And how do you suggest we persuade this Salvatore fellow to stop murdering revolutionaries? Marry me to him? That is your usual solution to problems of this kind, is it not?’

  ‘Very funny, Attica. You will be pleased to know I have given up on bettering your position, since you show such truculence in the face of eligible suitors. You know my thoughts on the subject. If you are so intent on helping abolish slavery, your ambitions would be better served with a suitable husband. It seems you would rather play around with your pirate friend, rescuing one loud-mouth radical at a time and grossly underachieving your potential. So be it.’

  I wonder if he can see from my face that his barb has hit home. My guilt at not doing more for the slave cause burns me. But just for now, helping the French people achieve freedom and ensuring the Rights of Man is signed seems more tangible. A traitorous part of my mind flashes an image of Jemmy. I dismiss it.

  Lord Pole reaches to a neat pile of documents and retrieves something from the bottom.

  ‘There is a weapons fayre in Paris this week,’ he says, waving an expensively produced card. ‘All the latest weaponry by the finest rifle makers in Europe. Mostly selling jewelled pistols to ladies, but there will be an underground trade for the more military minded.’

  ‘There always is.’ I nod.

  ‘Salvatore will be in attendance. We found part of a document suggesting he plans to meet his influencer there.’

  ‘You want me to find him, discover who is putting him up to the murders?’

  Lord Pole smiles insincerely. ‘You see, Attica? We can occasionally be on the same side. Find out who Salvatore is working with. Sever the association.’

  He makes a sharp cutting motion with his hand.

  ‘What about Atherton?’ I ask.

  ‘What about him?’ The question seems to wrong-foot Lord Pole so entirely I wonder what I’ve missed.

  ‘Weapons, equipment,’ I explain patiently. ‘Have you anything for me in his absence?’

  ‘Ah!’ Lord Pole is himself again. He opens a drawer. ‘I have a few things here.’

  A silken handkerchief emerges, inscribed with a map of Versailles, and a set of old dice carved from bone. As an afterthought he produces a necklace with an amber stone locket.

  I lift the little cubes and smell mercury-nitrate on the six. ‘Loaded dice, such as every gambler in Cheapside owns.’ I lift the light silk. ‘The old map-hidden-on-a-handkerchief trick.’

  ‘Not the very latest innovations,’ agrees Lord Pole. ‘We’re in a pinch without Atherton.’

  I open the locket to reveal two white tablets. ‘And poison pills? I didn’t realise you had so much faith in me.’

  ‘Every spy is required to carry them after that dreadful business in Brazil,’ says Lord Pole, and it isn’t clear if he means the torture of an English spy or the spilling of state secrets.

  ‘Don’t mock those pills,’ he adds. ‘They’re of my own devising and have saved several men from a very nasty death.’

  ‘By killing them.’

  ‘Quickly. Cleanly. Without torture.’

  ‘And without spilling your secrets. Do you have anything else tucked away?’ I suggest. ‘I have heard rumours of a device called a wheel that sounds very useful.’

  ‘Atherton and his latest tools will be deployed at the earliest opportunity,’ says Lord Pole. My heart beats a little faster at the possibility of seeing him. ‘He is currently quartered outside Calais, so you may meet him on your way back to France.’

  I am desperate to ask what kind of family business would take Atherton to France, but I won’t give Lord Pole the satisfaction of refusing to tell me. I see him watching me for a reaction. He gives a small shake of his head when he sees I will not break with my good breeding.

  ‘Atherton tells me there are some fascinating new developments,’ adds Lord Pole. ‘He has been working on a way to store strong acid, so our agents might carry it on their person without coming to harm. You might remember that fellow on the Irish crossing who blinded himself.’ I nod. ‘In the meantime, try a little gratitude, Attica. In my day, we spies had a garrotte and our wits.’

  ‘Very good, your Lordship.’ I curtsey. ‘Outmoded equipment notwithstanding, I dare say it shouldn’t be too difficult for us to discover who is leading Salvatore.’

  ‘Us?’ Now Lord Pole frowns deeply.

  ‘The pirate,’ I explain. ‘Jemmy Avery. The weapons fayre is smuggler territory, and he knows contraband. I need him.’

  Something flashes across Lord Pole’s face.

  ‘Have you asked him to accompany you when you return to Paris?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You seem very certain he will.’

  ‘Jemmy has a great love of showy pistols,’ I say with a shrug. ‘And he works for gold.’

  ‘Are you sure it isn’t only gold he works for?’ enquires Lord Pole. ‘Atherton seems to think him quite in love with you.’

  I laugh at the idea.

  ‘Atherton thinks every man within fifty foot of me is petitioning for my hand. He has an excessive idea of my bridal value. Outside of your political schemes, I assure you a half-breed bastard is not so prized.’ Lord Pole winces. ‘Not to mention Jemmy Avery loves only his ship and his crew.’

  ‘Yet he’ll desert them so readily?’

  ‘As I say, he works for gold.’

  Lord Pole looks ready to say something, then changes his mind and instead taps his knuckles on his desk.

  ‘Very well then,’ he says, selecting a sealed document from his drawer and passing
it to me. ‘Permission from His Majesty to join the flying mail coach to Dover. With a fair wind you might even be back in time for a dish of roasted snails in one of those dingy taverns you favour.’

  ‘I’m not so French yet.’ I smile at him. ‘But I am learning a great deal about brandy.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT IS MORNING WHEN ROBESPIERRE AWAKES, HIS HEAD ON the hard desk, body stiff with cold. His candle is burned right down to its wick from working through the night. The tokens are laid out neatly on his desk, implacable in their inscrutability.

  He hears movement from outside; most likely the market women, he thinks. They have taken to gathering by his office to offer him little gifts in gratitude for the speeches he makes.

  Robespierre sighs to himself, glancing for one last time at the tokens, willing them to give up their secrets. His ink bottle is almost empty, he notices, and lifts the bell on his desk.

  A few moments after the ring, his housekeeper enters.

  She curtseys. A look of pain flashes across his face.

  ‘No need for deference, Madame Bouvay,’ he reminds her. ‘We are equals. Might I have fresh ink? Be sure to smell it for turpentine,’ he adds. ‘Some of those merchants are still selling thick summer-ink that clogs.’

  She only narrowly prevents herself from curtseying again.

  ‘A little breakfast?’ she suggests. ‘You haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.’

  ‘I will take a little fruit later on. Is there any news from the pamphleteers?’

  ‘Nothing from France. Only something from Lisbon. A dockyard set afire last week.’

  Robespierre tilts his head, only half interested. ‘Why?’

  ‘No one knows. These merchants sabotage one another all the time.’

  ‘They are docks which launch slave ships, are they not?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, monsieur.’