by C. S. Quinn
I see the footman glance at the blown horses and then back at the Marquis.
‘At once,’ he says. ‘What pleases you.’ He glances to the carriage door where the girl sits inside, her head turned determinedly forward.
‘What are you waiting for?’ snaps Salvatore. ‘Hand her out, man. She’s no lady to wait on my noble arm.’
The footman walks quickly to the painted door, with its outsized family crest, and opens it. I watch as the lovely girl inside extends dark fingers and allows herself to be drawn out. The way she holds herself reminds me of the plantation where I spent my early childhood. It was common for slaves to lose hope a few years after capture and trudge about, heads bowed. Others retreated into themselves, queens of their own internal domain, no matter what befell their outward selves. This girl has something of that about her. As if no weapon could ever pierce her armour.
Was she once a slave? I wonder. Or did she arrive in Paris by other means?
As she passes the horses, her mask slips. She hesitates and extends a tender hand to the nose of the nearest, taking in its foaming mouth and sweat-slicked head with sorrow.
Salvatore flicks his head back. ‘If you tarry, Centime, you’ll find a riding crop has many uses.’
She picks up her skirts and trips nervously after him.
I turn to Jemmy, my eyes blazing.
‘To hell with protocol,’ I say. ‘Let’s go in.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE ENTRANCE IS STAFFED BY TWO VERY TALL MEN, EACH holding a showpiece rifle. Part guard, part decoration.
‘I’ll wager those fancy things don’t even shoot straight,’ Jemmy mutters as we pass by. But he keeps his distance even so.
Salvatore and his lovely companion have vanished away so entirely, I can only assume they have gone to another part of the building. My eyes scan the thick crowd of painted faces and plumed wigs, but there is no sign of them.
The interior of the Louvre is breathtaking, a huge airy space of gilded walls and black-and-white tiled floors. Today the effect is heightened by the decadent showmanship of Europe’s greatest gunmakers. Huge sprays of blousy white flowers line the length of the room. The sumptuously carved furnishings of the Louvre have been reconvened to display rifles and pistols. Cabinets and tables of mahogany and ebony form a loose square around the reception room.
‘Bloody saints,’ breathes Jemmy, staring at the flowers. ‘Those blooms are hot-house. Must be worth ten francs a piece.’
His eye glides over an ivory-inlaid cabinet on which three shining rifles have been artfully displayed in a fan.
‘We’re not here to buy,’ I tell him as we walk into a larger reception room beyond. ‘This part is all for show. Salvatore will be hosting his serious trade elsewhere.’
We pass a bowl of marzipan and real fruit. Jemmy stretches out a hand, then retracts it on noticing my expression.
Inside the huge belly of the Louvre, the walls are hung with works of art from the royal collection, and grander purpose-built display cases of guns, rifles and pistols are laid all around. Even in this large space, the density of weaponry exhibited makes it difficult for the wide-skirted ladies to move between them.
Jemmy’s eyes have grown round.
‘There is talk that Marie Antoinette took to visiting such events in disguise,’ I explain in a whisper, taking in the courtly ladies. ‘Little chance of that now.’
‘If you met the Queen, you would have to curtsey,’ says Jemmy. ‘I should like to see it. Your English pride.’
‘I should never curtsey to a French Queen,’ I tell him. ‘I am English. We are half at war.’
‘Then I should like to see the meeting even more.’ He smirks maddeningly.
‘And what of you?’ I demand. ‘Would you bow to a woman who lets her people starve?’
‘My mammy taught me to bow to all ladies,’ says Jemmy. ‘Takes you a long way in life, good manners.’
He looks away, distracted by a sparkling gun.
‘Look at the workmanship,’ he breathes, gliding a hand over a mother-of-pearl-inlaid rifle displayed on a velvet cushion.
Immediately, a man in green silk with an outrageously coiffed white wig is at our side.
‘Might I help you?’ He bows obsequiously low.
Jemmy holds out a hand, and the man stares for a moment, unused to such egalitarian gestures in France, then shakes it uncertainly.
‘Captain Avery, at your service,’ smiles Jemmy.
The man’s mouth moves silently.
‘You are … You were … Not the same Captain Avery who was imprisoned in England?’
‘The very same,’ agrees Jemmy, giving no indication he is abashed by this. ‘The English set me free when they realised I could out-sail their best men,’ he adds, with his characteristic lack of humility. ‘Sometimes I am paid to privateer, but mostly I do as I please.’
The man’s attention turns to me, a sly look of admiration creeping on to his features. ‘Seems you are doing very well for yourself indeed. You come along for the ride, eh?’ He eyes me venally and lifts my hand to kiss it. Naturally, he thinks me a whore, albeit a fine one.
‘This is my wife,’ interjects Jemmy smoothly.
The man drops my hand as though it were red hot.
‘My apologies,’ he mumbles. His face passes through an alarming array of expressions. ‘Your wife?’ he asks finally, giving me a perplexed look. For a man like Jemmy to have clothed his wife so magnificently is a puzzle he cannot decode.
‘She is Russian,’ explains Jemmy. ‘She came with a wardrobe. But doesn’t speak or understand English or French.’
‘You weighed her stupidity and dirty blood against good looks and fine dresses, eh?’ decides the man, relieved at a feasible explanation. ‘But mon Dieu, what a face to her! She looks ready to kill.’
I catch my expression in a mirror across the room and realise the furious glint to my eyes is terrifying.
‘A Russian habit,’ says Jemmy, ‘pay it no mind.’
The man is looking nervously at me from the corner of his eyes. ‘If you say so.’
‘We are here to meet someone,’ says Jemmy. ‘A marquis.’
The man’s eyelid twitches. ‘A few such men are here.’
‘I think you know the man I have in mind. He was recently released from the Bastille.’
‘Perhaps I can help you,’ agrees the man, a degree of cunning creeping into his expression. ‘First, let us discuss your weaponry needs.’
Jemmy nods as though expecting this.
‘I can pay well, for the right quality,’ he tells the man, who hefts the rifle Jemmy was considering, beaming.
‘The wheel-stock is walnut,’ he tells Jemmy. ‘Carved by the greatest craftsman in France, who resides here at the Louvre, under His Majesty’s patronage.’ He sweeps a hand around the palace interior. ‘Much of his work is cabinetry of the finest kind,’ he explains, ‘but he makes occasional pieces, only for us. No other gunmaker is worthy of his art.’
Jemmy runs a loving hand along the barrel.
‘We also have very fine daggers,’ continues the man smoothly, his gaze dropping to Jemmy’s outlandish sword hilt. ‘The pinnacle of silver-work. Nothing less than marvels of engineering.’
I decide to leave Jemmy poring over the wares, and begin making a sweep of the room. That’s when I see the same girl who was with Salvatore earlier. Centime, her black skin striking against the sea of white faces. She is walking quickly towards an elaborately corniced doorway. A guard moves to bar her entry and she opens her hand to show him something. He moves back and she steps through.
Curious now, I walk quickly in the same direction, arriving before the guarded entrance just as Centime vanishes from sight into the room beyond. I try to get a good look inside. It is less crowded than the main fayre and the guests seem less decorated and decidedly more male in number. Tables for billiard and shuffle games are laid out, and clusters of serious-faced gamers are leant over tables, moving counters and
shuffling tokens. I can’t see Centime by a table.
‘This room is by invitation only,’ says the guard, looking me up and down.
I trust my quick wits, and in reply remove from my hanging pocket the monographed musket bullet given me by Lord Pole.
‘The Marquis has invited me personally,’ I tell the guard, letting the lead ball roll in my palm, its calligraphied ‘A’ on clear display.
He nods and falls back to let me past. I walk through, to a very different party beyond.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
IN FAUBOURG SAINT-ANTOINE, DUSK IS SETTLING OVER THE meagre fish market. Wares are in short supply and beginning to stink. No one can afford to buy bread. Fish is a secondary consideration.
A woman with three good-sized pumpkins and a baby strapped to her chest argues loudly with another as to her rightful pitch. A haggard old soup-seller is looking hopefully inside her empty kettle. Children methodically sweep the dirty floor, searching for scraps.
Ovette is picking through the rubble of her basket, tossing away pieces she cannot sell. Robespierre has sent her a message she does not quite understand. She carries it folded away in her dress.
It simply says: Await the pamphleteer.
She cannot imagine what the news pamphlets could tell the women that they don’t already know. Things in Paris are dire. People starve. Bread is too expensive to buy.
Even so, Ovette looks up expectantly as the morose routine of market labour is interrupted by a pamphleteer shouting of the latest news. He is a young boy, struggling with his thick stack of printed paper, his fingers dark with ink.
‘News from Versailles!’ announces the pamphleteer, eyeing the women. One stands and strides towards him.
‘What news?’ she demands.
‘One centime a pamphlet …’ begins the boy, but the woman cuffs him around the head. ‘I suckled you at my teat when your mother died of the pox, Jean-Baptise,’ she says. ‘Tell me the news.’
‘I … Well. There is no news,’ admits the boy. ‘I’m not allowed to read it.’
‘You mean you can’t read it?’ The woman cuffs him again. ‘Didn’t your father pay for that day at the poor school? What were you learning?’
The boy flushes furiously and turns his attention to the writing, his eyes watering with the effort.
Ovette stands.
‘Here,’ she says, walking towards him. ‘Let me.’
The boy looks back and forth between Ovette and the other women. Seeing no other instruction he hands the paper over.
‘What does it say?’ demands the woman, glowering over Ovette’s shoulder. ‘What of the menfolk? Are they now at Versailles?’
Ovette shakes her head, looking nervously at the women sat or stood near their wares.
‘It was decided to delay,’ she explains.
A wave of deflation sweeps over the women. Their faces are slack with misery.
‘That’s that, then,’ mutters one. ‘What of the price of bread?’ she adds, a menacing undertone to her voice.
Ovette’s jaw is set tight. ‘It has gone up.’
Now despair joins forces with disappointment. Their men will not make a stand. They must surely starve.
Ovette looks at the women. Poor women. Hungry women, with their starving children bound to their chests or sat on their hips. She squares her shoulders.
‘Women of Faubourg Saint-Antoine,’ she announces, ‘we must make a stand ourselves!’
Jeers greet Ovette. The women are already turning away, back to their sad lives. She has misjudged things.
‘Sit your arse down, Two-Face,’ says the nearest woman. ‘This isn’t the fight of women like you.’
But Ovette is not to be silenced.
‘Fuck this,’ she mutters, raising her hands to her mouth. ‘Fuck this!’
A few women stop to listen now. She is speaking their language.
‘The men will not march today!’ she shouts. ‘The price of bread has risen.’
She waits for the horrid, furious chatter to swell into shouts, then raises her voice louder.
‘Fuck those cowardly men!’ she shouts. ‘And fuck the King too, and the Queen’s fat arse on her velvet cushions!’
There are laughs and shouts of agreement.
‘The lawyer was right!’ she says. ‘Our men will not do it. But we can, we should!’
Ovette waits for her moment. ‘I say we go ourselves, us women, to Hôtel de Ville, and we do not leave without bread!’
All around the marketplace, eyes come alight. Many women were there at the fall of the Bastille, drunk in the heady abandon of breaking the rules. They are starving and ready for change. Any change.
Several begin to stand.
‘I say it too!’ shouts the pumpkin-seller.
‘And I!’ agrees a woman with a basket of clams. ‘Nothing doing now for market sales anyway, is there? No sense waiting all day in the rain for men with no money in their pockets.’
At this a few more women get to their feet, decision made.
‘To the Hôtel de Ville!’ cries Ovette. ‘And we shall not be repelled until they give us bread!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
RETURNING THE BULLET TO MY PURSE I ENTER THE ROOM, letting my gaze sweep the people. This is a very different setup to the fine ladies buying jewelled weaponry. The air is thick with pipe smoke and a hubbub of urgent negotiation, framed by far plainer cabinetry than the public fayre. Here the guns are larger, for killing rather than adorning. The daggers are discreet and deadly. Swords come in a variety of styles, with huddles of men discussing their merits. There are crossbows and garrottes, axes and pikestaffs. Innovative bullets are being handed round, and gunpowder ignited in crucibles, to demonstrate its force.
The victuals are of a basic kind too. Fare for soldiers and sailors. Two open barrels of red wine into which the men periodically dunk their empty tankards for a refill, and a vast board of torn-up bread, sausage and cheese.
The customers are from all over the world. Russians in heavy leathers, a Chinaman in a light watered-silk overcoat and turned-up shoes, several Italians that I instantly deduce from their stance (weight shifted slightly on to the balls of their feet) attended the same assassins’ school as I did. The smell of unwashed bodies and oily wool clothing is high in the air. I find myself smiling. A typical warlord get-together.
As is usual in gatherings of this kind, a good deal of gambling is taking place alongside the cut and thrust of the bartering. Louvre billiard and shuffle tables have been reconvened for the purpose, and a number of common men are playing the unfamiliar games with reckless gusto. From the piles of gold coins stacked by the players, it’s a high-stakes assortment of individuals.
I see Centime. She stands, beautiful and ethereal, next to the dark-haired Marquis, whose predatory eyes are fixed on the game before him. Despite the fastidious grooming of men of his class – the powder, the wigs, the perfume – he still emanates some unkempt woodland quality. A hunter, I decide. A man who stalks by night.
He lays wooden counters on a number board. Judging by the towering mound of coins at his elbow, he is on a lucky streak. Then I see why. The dealer watches where the Marquis lays his tokens, then removes cards from a compartment concealed beneath the table. In an impressive sleight of hand, he turns them to reveal Salvatore’s chosen numbers. With a little smile, the Marquis awaits his winnings.
Centime places a hand on his shoulder. She whispers something in his ear and he nods, then sweeps her forward, an arm on her small waist. She winces as he crushes her to him, causing some of the wine from her glass to spill. Salvatore says something to the assembled gamers, and a carnal sneer travels around the men at the table. Several openly leer at Centime’s low-cut dress. Apparently satisfied, Salvatore releases her, and Centime walks away, back erect, to a corner of the room, upending the rest of the wine into her mouth as she goes.
She stands alone before a painting of King Louis XIV, the original Sun King, swaddled in gold-studded er
mine, his white-stockinged legs poking from the bottom in a dancer’s pose. When a servant fills her empty glass, she takes a jerky sip, hands trembling, face mask-like.
Alive with sympathy, I watch her for a moment, looking glassily out on to the crowds. Her gloved hand moves so that she can swallow her drink in compulsive small gulps. As I drift towards her, she looks up first in alarm, then something else. Mistrust, or trepidation.
‘Small men who wish to appear larger,’ I observe, ‘do the worst harm, do they not?’
Now her eyes widen in fear. They are a bluish brown, I notice. Almost grey. And, I can’t help but think, rather beautiful in their terror.
‘The Sun King,’ I qualify, gesturing to the painting. ‘Those high wigs and tall shoes were compensating for something, don’t you think? He made all of Versailles worship him like a God. Ceremonies, rituals.’
‘You are English?’ It isn’t exactly a question. More an accusation. She is taking in my dress.
‘I am Attica Morgan.’ I curtsey very low, keeping my eyes on hers. ‘I couldn’t help but think you looked sad, over here, alone. I have come to rescue you.’
Centime eyes me for a moment, then breaks away the gaze. She laughs. A brittle sound.
‘I assure you, mademoiselle,’ she says, looking into the crowds again, ‘there is nothing to save me from. My life is far too interesting.’ She eyes me with open disdain. ‘Shouldn’t you wait for the host to make introductions?’ Her voice seems too deep and worldly for her childlike features.
I tilt my head. ‘I like to make my own rules.’
She smiles into her drink and sips with the glass pressed close to her lips. ‘Then you are fortunate. Not all of us are born so.’
‘You were shipped as a girl from West Africa, I think?’ I let my eyes sweep her shoulders. ‘Taken from any family you had and sold to one of the cheap windmill brothels as a curiosity, since you were too small to make a useful slave?’
She looks down. Her head makes the slightest bobbing nod.
