The Scarlet Code

by C. S. Quinn

  I shake my head fiercely. ‘I was much younger when you wed. A headstrong girl.’ I look at him, feeling more myself again. ‘I don’t know if I would have refused,’ I say, relieved to find my voice is back to normal. ‘Perhaps I would have. It would have been foolish of me. I know that now.’ I try for a smile.

  I can’t quite find the words to tell Atherton how ever since his marriage, I have kept every letter he sent. That when he sends me out with the latest equipment for spy work, I feel I am carrying him with me, like an amulet.

  Atherton’s frown lifts. ‘Then you give me hope,’ he says. ‘I shall not demand an answer now.’

  I find I can only nod. Relief floods through me, but it is tinged with a terrible feeling. I have been a coward and allowed a chance for happiness to steal away.

  He is retreating, giving me room to think, and I find myself appreciating his cool consideration, whilst wanting to shake him for it at the same time. My hands grip into fists, willing myself to pull the situation back.

  ‘Atherton?’ He must hear something in my tone, because his expression changes. ‘I don’t need to think about the proposal.’ I swallow hard. ‘My answer is yes. I shall pack up my Paris apartment.’ I pause. ‘I …’

  The delight on his face is such that had I not already begun speaking my next words, I should have stopped.

  ‘I only ask one thing,’ I finish.

  ‘Anything.’ He beams, striding nearer and picking up my hands in his.

  ‘I … I have unfinished business in Paris.’

  ‘You want to go back to Paris with the pirate?’ The smile has fallen from his face. He looks devastated. I realise between us we have somehow sucked any sentiment out of the whole proposal. I don’t know how to get it back, and am wrong-footed and confused at his rather strange focus on Jemmy.

  ‘A woman is dead,’ I say. ‘An abolitionist. I think her death was part of a political plot. The King is about to sign the Rights of Man.’

  ‘You are English, Attica. This is a French concern.’

  ‘It has implications for the colonies. If the King of France declares all men are equal, then slavery must be abolished on principle.’

  Atherton is shaking his head. ‘It is never as simple as that. The French economy runs on slave-made goods.’

  ‘There is a wider mission. Lord Pole’s. The victim was murdered by a known arms trader. Pole wants me to discover the reasons for him being politicised, so he might get back to arming the French for a war.’

  Atherton nods. ‘Well, that is a worthy pursuit,’ he agrees. ‘Let them all kill each other. On the other side of the Channel. Better than risking our good men.’

  I have the painful sensation that if I told him the full truth – how I’ve grown to care about justice in France – he wouldn’t understand.

  Atherton walks to the far side of the room to retrieve his sticks. A moment between us has gone and, even as it evaporates, I curse the loss of it. I could have told him everything. The thing would have been done. Why couldn’t I say it?

  Because Jemmy would think you a traitor to the crew, whispers a voice.

  ‘I’ve been working on a few items for you,’ says Atherton.

  The cogs have turned. We’re fully back inside the boundaries of our business relationship. In the jangle of emotions still twanging in my chest, I slide back into the safety of it with equal parts regret and relief.

  He approaches a large plain table with jerky movements of his legs, then places both hands on it to steady himself. ‘Come and see,’ he says. ‘We’ve made some excellent advances.’

  I eye the table.

  Atherton lifts a round cast-iron ball.

  ‘A grenade?’ I’m frowning. It looks like the kind that has been more or less removed from military kit, due to their general uselessness.

  ‘Five times the power!’ says Atherton proudly. ‘Twenty times if you drop it in water. No need for a direct hit. Even a bad bowler like you could use it.’ He winks.

  Atherton taught me cricket when I was fifteen – back when I thought the age gap meant he was an old man. At that time he had a devastating throwing arm. I never did improve at the game. I couldn’t see the point, when I could knock the wickets over with my slingshot.

  ‘Isn’t that incredibly dangerous?’ I suggest to Atherton. ‘How could you be far enough away not to be included in the blast?’

  Atherton’s smile widens. He taps the top of the grenade, which has a strangely long neck.

  ‘It’s a new kind of ignition,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t rely on a lit fuse. More like a tinderbox, with an internal percussion striking a flint. Works like a relay system in here.’ His long finger prods at the rounded belly of the weapon. ‘The spark lights a slow wax-coated fuse.’

  ‘You could use a lot more wax to slow it,’ I say, understanding, ‘since it is all contained.’

  Atherton nods.

  ‘How long until it explodes?’ I ask.

  ‘Around ten seconds. I’m looking at shorter fuses for use in battle,’ he adds, sensing my objection. ‘The wax is a problem there.’

  I take it from him. ‘If it isn’t a lit fuse,’ I say, tilting my head to examine it, ‘how does it ignite?’

  ‘You twist the top,’ says Atherton. ‘Three full turns clockwise will release a spring.’ He holds it out to me. ‘Otherwise it’s quite stable.’

  ‘You’re certain?’ I take it and toss it in the air, enjoying Atherton’s pained expression as I catch it just in time. ‘I learned cricket from the best,’ I tell him with a smirk. ‘Have you anything else for me?’

  ‘Well, I’ve improved the acid formula.’ He hands me a glass bottle. ‘Refill your hidden vials with this version. It’s safer to transport and will dissolve up to an inch of metal per dram.’

  I take the bottle and remove the two slim vials I keep hidden in my corsetry. While I’m refilling them, Atherton busies himself across the room.

  I move closer, wondering what weaponry he has developed.

  He fumbles in a box for a moment, then lifts out a small sharpened piece of wood.

  ‘A stick?’ I can’t keep the disappointment from my voice.

  He selects a piece of paper, and writes my name smoothly.

  I lean across the page, amazed.

  ‘It will write up to ten pages, without wearing down,’ he says proudly, ‘no ink needed.’

  ‘That is incredible.’ I lift the little writing tool, turning it wonderingly.

  ‘It’s the same principle as a carpenter’s pencil,’ says Atherton. ‘But we’ve reduced the graphite core to a tenth of an inch by baking it with clay. Partly your idea,’ he adds. ‘I’ve been using a kiln for all kinds of things since your suggestion we bake porcelain with coded messages.’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ I say, closing my hand around it.

  ‘Don’t stab anyone with it,’ adds Atherton. ‘It’s the only one I have and was expensive.’

  I slide it into my hanging purse.

  ‘Thank you.’ I realise I’m toying with the opening far longer than is necessary.

  ‘You must go to Paris,’ says Atherton suddenly. ‘Things are due another turn in France. It’s on a knife-edge since the Bastille fell.’

  I nod.

  ‘Then you should go now.’ He manages a smile.

  Feeling more distant from Atherton than I have ever felt, I force myself to walk towards him, put my hands on his shoulders. When I kiss him, just to the side of his mouth, it feels contrived. He stands completely still, as though any movement might dispel the gesture. I can feel his breath, coming fast on the side of my cheek.

  ‘You’ll be back?’ Atherton asks quietly, as I draw back.

  ‘I always am.’

  He unpins something from his coat. His royal cockade – black ribbons to symbolise his fealty to our Hanoverian king.

  ‘This is for you,’ he says, fixing it gently to the top of my dress.

  ‘What does it do?’

  ‘It will remind you of
your Englishman, waiting at home for you.’

  ‘Oh.’ I touch it, abashed. ‘I will be back in four days,’ I say, speaking hurriedly in my embarrassment at confusing his romantic gesture.

  He beams. ‘This Monday, then. I’ll ask your father to ready your family chapel. Unless you think it too soon.’

  I try for a smile again, fingering the cockade. ‘No. Not at all. I should rather keep it a simple affair, and my relatives will make it grand if we give them any notice.’

  Everything is coming out wrong. I kiss him awkwardly on the cheek, then turn to leave.

  It’s only then I notice one of his papers has drifted to the floor. On it are the words ‘marry me’, written in the grey of his new pencil invention. I force my feet to carry me out, pretending I haven’t seen it.

  I walk out of the sugar refinery with thoughts awhirl in my brain. I have just been offered everything I’ve ever wanted. So why do I feel so unhappy?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE SUN IS RISING ON A NEW DAY IN PARIS, AS OVETTE Campan arrives at Faubourg Saint-Antoine, with her basket of wares. Every morning she wakes before dawn and picks over what is left of the Bastille, looking for saleable pieces.

  Now she arrives at the market, passing thick-armed fishwives who have owned their pitches for generations sitting cross-legged before hampers of shellfish. Less fortunate sellers with fish on the turn stalk the market with baskets on their hips, avoiding donkeys laden with fruit who nudge their way through the scant crowd.

  Ovette makes her way to the peripheries, dirt tracks etched with guts and peel, where the lowliest sellers convene. Here, women have set out their aprons on the ground, rubble and stone laid atop the linen. A more enterprising woman has repurposed ironwork from prison fetters as fire pokers.

  ‘These from the cell of the Marquis de Sade!’ she bellows, holding them up to passers-by. ‘These with blood stains!’

  None of them look at Ovette as she arrives. She is a middle-aged woman, but life has beaten her old. Her dark hair is shot with a thick streak of grey at the temples and her face is gaunt and weathered. There is a large, livid birthmark splashed across one side of her face that has earned her the nickname ‘La Deux Visages’ from the other traders.

  Ovette stops to see her usual pitch is occupied and today she is too resigned to fight for it. She shifts her load to the other hip, causing dust to cascade through the wicker.

  ‘What do you want, Monsieur Robespierre?’ she asks wearily. He has been here before, and wholly disconcerted her by bowing. No one had ever bowed to her before. Not even at her ill-fated wedding to a quick-fisted fisherman, which her own relations refused to attend.

  He peers in her basket.

  ‘You have been hard at work,’ he says. ‘I am in awe of the ingenuity of the people.’ He sweeps his hands in the direction of the vanquished prison. ‘Nothing there now but a dark hole. Yet it really happened. The Parisians pulled it down only a few months ago. Here is a memory.’ He reaches across, lifts a stone, and gazes at it thoughtfully before dropping it back.

  She is already shaking her head. ‘I cannot join your cause,’ says Ovette. ‘The other traders hate me. They call me Two-Faces.’ She glances at the nearby sellers. ‘I am not like them, raised in the marketplace. They think I am hoity-toity because I can read.’

  She does not mention the other unkind tricks played on her by the low-bred market women. The dumping of stinking rubbish on her pitch. The pissing in the gutter that runs past her baskets.

  A scant smile plays on Robespierre’s mouth.

  ‘They are simple women,’ he says, ‘bred to distrust what they do not understand. It keeps them alive, so we cannot be scornful.’

  She shakes her head again. ‘Leave me in peace, monsieur,’ she whispers. ‘I gave all I had. I tried to speak above the throng, and it gained me nothing.’

  ‘You did not hire a good lawyer.’

  ‘I spent every last sous …’ begins Ovette. Robespierre holds up a hand.

  ‘I understand your outlay was significant. I only say it was not enough to earn your son the representation he needed to walk free. For that, I am afraid you need bribes. Large ones. And someone with good enough connections to deploy them.’

  ‘You have such connections, then?’ says Ovette sadly, trying not to wish for what might have been.

  ‘No.’ Robespierre adjusts his neckerchief. ‘Furthermore, I operate only within the law and could not have saved your son,’ he says bluntly. ‘But I was able to argue successfully against the definition of his crime, after the sentence was carried out.’

  He holds up papers. She takes them, reads them slowly, her lips moving.

  ‘They will bury him on church grounds?’ Her eyes brim with tears.

  Robespierre nods and holds out a hand to fend off her embrace. ‘I am not of your belief, madame. It is my understanding that religion is nothing but a trick to keep poor people labouring away, giving their money to priests and kings.’

  ‘Then why did you represent my plight?’ she asks, thoroughly confused.

  ‘It was a miscarriage of justice,’ he says, frowning as though it is all wholly obvious.

  She clutches the papers tight to her chest and sobs. Robespierre waits patiently, as a man might glance at the sky, waiting for rain to ease off.

  ‘Change is possible,’ he tells her. ‘But not in such a small way. We must change the system. Someone in amongst the women who can read, who can lead a charge, change might come from such a person.’

  ‘That is not me.’

  ‘I saw you speak in court, madame. You have fire.’

  ‘I spoke for the life of my son.’

  ‘Madame Campan,’ says Robespierre, ‘your son is gone. I am not a man for gentle words, to tell you he is in heaven, for I do not believe it. We cannot change what has been. C’est la vie. But you can save other sons for other mothers. Will you turn this tragedy to some good, madame? Or will you let it defeat you, and starve here in the market, working until your body gives out, paying court costs you do not rightfully owe?’

  Ovette’s eyes drift to the huddle of women who get together every week to discuss legal revolutionary things.

  She closes her eyes. ‘And if I do not do what you ask?’

  ‘I ask nothing,’ says Robespierre, looking offended. ‘My services are free.’ He turns to leave with another tight bow.

  ‘Adieu, madame,’ he says. ‘Vive la Révolution!’

  She watches him stride away to the meeting of the market women.

  Why should I care? My son is dead.

  Beneath everything – the daily grind of selling Bastille rubble to pay her court fees – this knowledge always bubbles. Ovette tries to skirt above it, to stop from sinking. Some days the effort makes it difficult to keep her eyes open.

  ‘Monsieur Robespierre!’ Her voice slices through the marketplace, above the din of hawkers. ‘Wait!’ She hitches up her basket. ‘I will come with you.’

  He slows and turns, looking unsurprised.

  ‘If you are to join the cause, I suggest you put aside your pride, madame,’ he comments. ‘Tell them the truth. Your son was hanged. The tragedy of it all left you destitute. You are all equals.’

  A flush slowly rises on her cheeks, blooming beneath the large birthmark.

  ‘What can I do?’ she asks.

  ‘Read,’ says Robespierre. ‘Pamphlets, speeches, instructions.’

  ‘Instructions?’

  ‘The women have been talking for weeks about a protest, a march on City Hall. They only lack a little direction.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  WHENEVER I HAVE RETURNED TO PARIS IN RECENT MONTHS, my first port of call is Jemmy’s ship, docked just upriver of the city. I like to greet the crew, with whom I have grown close, and plot with Jemmy over too much brandy as to our next grand rescue. It is the favourite part of my return. So I cannot quite explain why I walk instead to the Marais, not even to my favourite tavern, but to another infamous and low-brow
affair, filled with sailors and dancing girls, opposite a bathhouse open only to men. It’s one of the reasons I love Paris. The authorities turn a blind eye. Not like London.

  The landlady sits on a hard chair, smoking a pipe, calling for barrels of this and that from the cellar. She fixes me with a hard stare as I shout over the din for brandy.

  ‘You are lost?’ she accuses, taking in my silk dress. ‘This is no place for ladies.’ I smile a little in reply. Something in my expression must assure her I can take care of myself in her den of thieving and worse, because she nods and cups both hands to call my order. A boy emerges seconds later with a small barrel.

  ‘Brandy for the lady,’ says the landlady.

  ‘I am no lady,’ I assure her, as the boy fills my held-out tankard. She seems reassured by this. I pass her coins, throw back the brandy and hold out the tankard for more. Her grim expression lifts at the sight of the money. ‘Fill it to the brim,’ she urges the boy. ‘Don’t skimp her.’

  I take several deep sips, noting how the tumult in my head recedes.

  ‘Heartbroken?’ demands the landlady, eyeing my faraway expression.

  I shake my head and my field of vision doesn’t quite follow the motion. The brandy is strong and already taking effect. ‘The love of my life has just proposed.’

  She nods slowly at this. ‘Wedding jitters, then. I had the same as a girl. The wedding night is all over in an instant for most; put it out of your mind.’ Her head tilts. ‘You look old to be first married,’ she remarks.

  ‘My family …’ I say, letting my gaze sweep the room. ‘Arrangements can become complicated.’

  ‘Ah.’ Her face doesn’t match her words, though. She seems confused by it all. ‘Well, you have your darling now,’ she decides. I raise my tankard in silent toast, and notice, in an abstract way, some liquor sloshes free. I realise I usually drink brandy with Jemmy and this makes me unexpectedly lonely.

  ‘He is a French man?’ asks the woman.

  ‘He is from Irish family, born in America,’ I say. Then I realise she is referring to Atherton. ‘English,’ I say. ‘The man I will marry is English.’

  She is silent for a moment, observing me carefully, taking in my tawny skin and dark hair more fully.