by C. S. Quinn
He pats my shoulder with a consoling hand. ‘You’ll both be put in the gatehouse lock-up overnight. Think it over. By morning you might have come to a different opinion.’
The other guard moves in closer.
‘Lock the girl and the simpleton in the gatehouse,’ says the gateman. ‘If she’s come to a better way of thinking in the morning, we’ll have the cart and donkey and think no more of the crime.’
He looks over my shoulder, frowning.
‘Strange,’ he mumbles, nudging his companion. ‘Why do they send us extra men?’
I don’t dare turn around. But I know without looking, that Robespierre has somehow deduced the gate we pass through.
‘Wait!’ shouts a rough voice. ‘Hold that cart. We have orders to search every sack.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE WOMEN TRUDGE ON THROUGH THE COLD RAIN, CHILDREN at their hips or tripping behind in the soft mud. They are soaked to the skin and frozen to the bone. But the march has something of fatalism about it now. They will reach the palace or die trying.
And there are so many of them. No longer just women, though they have joined in their thousands. Men too. They have even managed to acquire a cannon, the heavy weight of which they take turns in lugging along the dirt road, churning two deep troughs in its wake.
They have no powder or ammunition for the cannon, but they like the way it looks. As though they are a real army. Something to be reckoned with.
When the first wide boulevard of Versailles town comes in sight, a great cheer goes up.
But slowly, the jubilation settles to something else. A hush of uncertainty. Because the little town is like nothing these Paris folk have ever seen. The buildings are reminiscent of those in the capital. But the stone used to build them has a honeycomb-like appearance, exotic and unfamiliar. The streets are a similar construction. But it is all so clean. So orderly. And the people, who are fleeing to their smartly plastered homes and closing fresh-painted shutters, are round of limb and clean of dress. One imagines that if a child dies here, it is not flung on to a teetering pile with all the others.
At the noise of ten thousand tramping footsteps, a startled rat leaps from a nearby gutter and hurtles across the broad cobbled road. The women slow to watch it, a reverent hush amongst them.
‘Look at the meat on that,’ says Greta finally, voicing everyone’s thoughts. ‘If rats looked that way in Paris we’d feast off ’em.’
A shrill noise of rope on metal causes heads to turn upwards. One of the buildings employs a technological marvel unfamiliar to the market women. A winch device built into the eaves of the roof, which is currently employed manoeuvring a pianoforte through the first-floor windows. Now they notice many houses have this novel invention.
‘Must be a lot of grand furniture goes in and out,’ remarks Ovette, watching in wonder as the pianoforte sways gently on the ascent.
The woman with the baby strapped to her chest starts to cry. Later she will tell people the shock of the royal betrayal only hit home when she saw the town. ‘It was the future,’ she will say. ‘They’d built it already, and not invited us. Not even told us about it. We would have lived our whole lives not knowing it was there.’
The great mass of protestors file upwards along the main boulevard, and now they can make out the palace itself, squat and magnificent, in the middle distance, flanked by mighty gold gates. The number of people has swollen so greatly that pockets of women are forced out into the side streets, like a river bursting its banks.
One of the tributaries flows past Versailles’ tidy marketplace. It is more like a shopping arcade than the kind of pavement market found in Paris – a broad building with well-stocked stalls in its exterior arches.
‘Bread,’ says Greta, pointing accusingly. ‘They got bread here.’ The frightened market traders are only half packed away when the mob descends.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
AT THE GATE OF SAINT-MARTIN I AM FROZEN WITH FEAR as Robespierre’s men approach, demanding to rifle each sack that passes through.
‘We do our job well enough,’ objects the gateman gruffly. ‘What business have you here?’
‘We’ve word of an aristocrat trying to pass through this gate,’ says a man in striped breeches. ‘A criminal with a courtesan who sells secrets to the English.’ He eyes me and jabs a finger at the sacks loaded on the little wagon. ‘What’s in those bags?’
‘Salt,’ says the gateman, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. ‘This poor little fool was trying to smuggle. It’s off to the lock-up with her and the half-wit brother.’
Robespierre’s man eyes my wagon, then unsheathes a wicked-looking dagger and plunges it into the nearest sack. Salt spills free. He moves to the next, repeating the process. Centime’s sack is next in line. I hold my breath as he lifts his knife, ready to sink it deep.
‘You seek an aristocrat?’ I blurt. ‘I’ve seen him.’
The man lowers his knife and turns to me.
‘What’s that?’ He glowers at me. ‘If you have information you’d best be quick about it.’
‘I’ve seen him,’ I continue. ‘He passed a little way ahead of us. I could give you a good description. Only,’ I let my eyes drift to the guard, ‘you should have to settle our fine in payment.’
Robespierre’s man shakes his head in disgust.
‘I can tell you everything,’ I say. ‘What he looks like. How he speaks. He is from the south. A great tall man, he is.’
Robespierre’s man spits on the ground.
‘Get her away to the lock-up,’ he says in disgust, ‘before she drowns herself in her own lies.’
The guard, who has been watching the scene with amusement, jerks his head that I should pass through to the prison beyond.
‘Wait!’ I say. ‘I have good information. I can help you.’
Robespierre’s man has turned away from me now and busies himself examining other goods.
I watch as my wagon of salt is trundled to where confiscated goods are kept. Jemmy and I are taken roughly in another direction, towards a small cell with a single dark door.
‘This is where you’ll spend the night,’ says a guard, leading us towards it. ‘Tomorrow it’s the debtors’ prison for you both.’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
AT THE QUEEN’S HAMLET IN VERSAILLES, A STRANGE electric energy is in the air. Even now, Danton may be speaking to the commoners at the National Assembly in the rooms begrudgingly afforded them by the King.
The men plan to debate how they might force the King to sign the Rights of Man. Robespierre will join them soon. He is waiting for an important message from Paris.
The hours have been long. He stands, sits, paces. Drums thin fingers on the simple table. Any moment now, any moment, he will receive the news he has been waiting for.
The true identity of the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel.
Now he is certain he hears hoof beats and is beside himself with excitement. Just as he hoped, there is a knock at the door, and his spy from the customs gate enters.
‘You have him?’ Robespierre demands, a mad excitement gleaming behind his round glasses.
The man shakes his head. ‘Whoever this Pimpernel is, monsieur, he has not tried to get past our fellows.’
Inch by inch, the expression on Robespierre’s face changes, as though a set of whirring cogs are turning behind the pale façade.
‘Impossible.’ Robespierre pulls the documents a little too quickly from the man’s hands. He sits, pushing his round glasses up, and begins poring over the papers.
His spy shuffles uncomfortably from foot to foot, with the distinct impression he has been entirely forgotten. He glances hopefully at the cauldron of soup bubbling on the peasant-style fire. It has been a wet cold ride from Paris, and he was forced to take a longer route to avoid the thick crowds of protestors on the road.
‘Porte Saint-Martin,’ Robespierre says finally. ‘You doubled the inspections as I asked? Every vehicle searched?’
>
The man nods. Robespierre reads, a small smile on his face as he notes the most common contraband.
‘Books,’ he says aloud. ‘Ideas. The King tries to keep them out, but still they keep coming. From Switzerland, mostly, ideas of equality he doesn’t like.’
The spy nods uncertainly, the nuances of such matters lost on him. He is a simple man, a customs guard by trade, recruited to the Society of Friends after the price of bread doubled and his mother starved to death.
Robespierre sighs. ‘Chestnut staves,’ he says, ‘wax. Nothing out of the ordinary?’ he confirms. ‘You are certain?’
The man shrugs. ‘Nothing we saw. And the men were looking out for it.’
‘Every sack was searched?’
‘Every sack searched, every trunk opened.’
Robespierre flips pages in disbelief. ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing,’ he mutters. He stands suddenly, and begins pacing the room. ‘It is not possible,’ he says to himself, ‘he cannot risk keeping Centime in Paris. She has no friends. Salvatore’s men are everywhere.’
‘If you please, monsieur.’ The man is looking at Robespierre, who has sat down again to make another examination of the papers.
‘What is it?’ asks the lawyer, looking up distractedly.
‘Tonight it will all be over,’ says the man. ‘We shall have won. The Pimpernel will have to flee France or be lynched or imprisoned along with all the other foreigners. It is a small matter, this thing, compared to the grand cause.’
Robespierre turns, very slowly, eyes unreadable behind his glasses.
‘You think this man should simply retire to England with no recompense for his crimes against France?’
The spy hesitates, feeling a previously unseen net close around him. ‘No, but—’
‘I want him caught in the act.’ Robespierre slams a small fist on the table with impressive force. There is a strange fury to him now, wholly at odds with his small body. ‘I want these criminals who pretend themselves Gods torn down. Their despotic rule obliterated. So it might never threaten us again.’ He is breathing hard. ‘So you see why the Pimpernel must be arrested at the gate? I want people to see him for what he really is: a low criminal.’
The man nods slowly.
‘Moreover,’ says Robespierre, ‘this noble Pimpernel has interfered with my plans before. Do not forget he is a noble and able to go where we cannot. If he were to discover the plan, he might easily seek an audience in the palace, and then,’ Robespierre clicks his fingers, ‘pouf, all our plans rent asunder.’
Robespierre reads on, every part of him singularly focused on the page of exported goods. He stops for a moment, finger hovering, then taps another list, made separate from the customs entries.
‘These are confiscated goods?’ he confirms.
His spy nods.
‘Did you search these?’ asks Robespierre.
‘They are to be incinerated,’ says the man, speaking slowly as though Robespierre is not in charge of all his faculties. ‘Burned, according to the King’s law,’ he adds for good measure.
Robespierre ignores the tone, returning with renewed vigour to the list.
‘Silk, salt, leather.’ He leans back, thinking. ‘A barrel of wine.’
His eyes lift to the man.
‘White wine,’ he says out loud. ‘But the season is over. Why should white wine be coming through Paris at this time of year?’
‘Late harvest?’ The man shrugs.
Robespierre is shaking his head. ‘The summer drought killed half the crops.’ He draws the paper very close to his bespectacled face, as though hoping to read the answer there.
‘Did anyone open this barrel?’ asks Robespierre.
The man tries and fails to hold his nerve under Robespierre’s steely gaze. ‘Could be we tried a drop or two,’ he admits.
Robespierre sags, disappointed. ‘I was so certain,’ he mutters. ‘So certain he would choose that gate.’ His fingers drift to the other documents on his desk. Tallies from the other gates. There is an expression on his face like a little boy trying not to cry. It passes. He looks back at the customs gate documents. His long finger taps a line of text.
‘Three salt sacks?’ he asks.
‘Some girl and her idiot brother from the pays rédimés,’ he says, ‘trying her luck. Their father put them up to it.’
Robespierre winces at his compatriot’s heartlessness. ‘The Society thanks you for your service,’ he says, with a long sigh at the failure of it all. ‘It is time I joined the men in the National Assembly. One way or another, France will change for the better tonight.’
His spy bows, his eyes once again dancing towards the full cauldron of soup.
‘Please,’ Robespierre waves his hand, ‘take some food. I eat sparingly myself and often forget that others get hungry.’ He tries for a smile, but it comes out strangely.
Relieved, the spy walks to the cauldron, lifts the ladle, serves himself into a tankard, then liberally sprinkles the contents with salt from a dish on the mantel.
Something about the shape of Robespierre’s eyes changes very slightly, as though a suggestion has come into his mind he is unsure of. He shakes his head as if to nudge it into clearer view, then frowns, looking back at the papers.
‘Unusual for a poor girl to bring three sacks of salt,’ muses Robespierre. ‘The salt smugglers were sent back to Paris?’
The man shakes his head, his mouth now full of soup from the ladle. ‘Couldn’t pay the fine,’ he says, swallowing. ‘The brother is a simpleton. We put them in the little lock-up on the gate overnight. It’ll be the debtors’ prison for them in the morning.’ He gives a rather heartless laugh.
Robespierre folds the paper and taps it on the desk. He stands, eyes flashing.
‘The lock-up,’ he breathes. ‘It is ingenious. Get put in the lock-up and you pass the gate. All he needs do is break out, and it cannot be so secure.’
The man at the fire pauses in his soup-eating, uncomfortably aware he may have erred in some profound way.
‘The lock-up is very secure,’ he ventures. ‘No escapes. Ever.’
Robespierre ignores him, victorious in his deduction.
‘Get a message to Salvatore,’ he instructs, the words spilling out almost too fast to be comprehensible. ‘Tell him he will find Centime at Porte Saint-Martin. Hidden inside a salt sack. My price for the information is the pair of prisoners held in the lock-up.’
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
JEMMY AND I ARE SAT ON THE TINY BENCH OF THE DARK little lock-up. The stone-walled room is just large enough to stand inside.
‘That was well played,’ he says as the guard passes out of sight. ‘And your plan is working. I got a good look at where they store confiscated goods as we passed by and you were right in your thinking. It is far less heavily guarded than the second gate. You’ve had the guards deliver your salt sacks straight past it.’
‘So long as Centime holds her nerve,’ I say, ‘we can pick her up at nightfall. Those men will be drunk on contraband wine by then.’
‘So what is the second part of the plan, Lady Morgan?’ asks Jemmy. ‘How will you get us free from this cell? Something of Atherton’s perhaps? More magic sticks that set themselves alight?’
‘Better.’ I pull free the little glass vial of acid given to me by Atherton. ‘This will burn through the metal,’ I explain, nodding to the thick bolt just visible through the crack in the door. ‘Atherton’s invention,’ I add proudly.
‘But that is liquid,’ says Jemmy, peering suspiciously at the bottle. ‘Liquid cannot burn, Attica.’
‘I have seen it myself,’ I assure him. ‘It will dissolve away the metal bolt, wait and see.’
Jemmy crosses himself. ‘Witchcraft, to be sure,’ he says uneasily.
‘It’s science,’ I explain happily. ‘An alchemic reaction. Only a little is needed.’ I pour a few drops on to the top of the metal bolt and listen for the tell-tale hiss. It doesn’t come.
‘Perhaps a litt
le more,’ I say, frowning as I tip half the contents of the little vial on to the chunky bolt.
I wait longer this time, willing the chemicals to react.
‘It must be the wrong metal,’ I say, disappointed. ‘Some kind of pig iron, perhaps. The mix is impure.’
‘Your fine Atherton made no allowances for poor smelting.’ Jemmy sounds unnecessarily triumphant. ‘I’ll wager he has never seen the inside of a real prison.’
‘It’s all very well to consider yourself worldly,’ I retort, ‘but it does rather mean we’re trapped.’
‘Hogwash,’ scoffs Jemmy. ‘You’ve got enough equipment for seven prison escapes stuffed in your stockings, I’ll be bound.’
‘As is happens, I do have a device for digging out mortar,’ I say stiffly, sliding free a claw-ended metal rod from my stays. ‘This French lime plaster should be soft enough to dig free a few bricks, but it will take all night.’
Jemmy shakes his head and loops free the crucifix he wears around his neck.
‘What are you doing with that?’ I’m wondering whether he has some ingenious plan for pulling the bolt that will save my fingers from blisters.
‘Pirate signal,’ he says. ‘Drop an upside-down crucifix outside your prison window, and if there’s a brother-at-arms passing, he’s bound by pirate lore to set you free.’
I shake my head at Jemmy’s romantic notion.
‘You’ve always had a mistaken faith in honour amongst thieves,’ I say, turning to the wall, and scraping hard with my little tool. ‘Not to mention, it is hardly likely a pirate will just wander past.’
‘We’re everywhere,’ says Jemmy, tapping his nose and retreating to the narrow bench. ‘A few hours, and some kind soul will slide that bolt. You’ll see.’
I give him a pitying look and redouble my efforts, causing plaster to fall in a soft drift at the dirt floor of our cell.
‘You could help me,’ I add, as Jemmy reclines, tilting his hat over his eyes.
