Ribbons of Scarlet

by Kate Quinn

  “The Incorruptible?” I said in surprise.

  “Not so incorruptible.” Her voice sounded far older than her years. “I’m only the latest, for he has already despoiled one of his landlord’s daughters.”

  “Do you return his interest?” It was not courteous to ask, but in this strange dark night I didn’t know what constituted offense anymore. The world was upside down, and I could no longer hope for any good or be surprised by any evil.

  “I loathe him,” Émilie said conversationally. “He ordered me to the palace so I might see his triumph today. I did not dare refuse the invitation, though thanks to your arrival I was able to slip from his grasp before I had to refuse him something else.”

  “His triumph over my husband and my friends.” I shook my head as my earlier rage stirred inside me again. “Does Robespierre need a woman to applaud him to make his victory complete? I did not think he had such passions in him.”

  “All men do,” Émilie said. “My mother told me so, and I have seen nothing to make me disbelieve her.”

  “Then it will be his end.” My mouth stretched into a smile, then the smile to a laugh. It was a laugh that skirted hysteria, but I could not stop myself. I had thought myself unfit for politics because passion had made me weak. But men were no less immune to fits of passion. Whether spasms of love or of rage, emotion sways us all like the tides. I wondered if Robespierre would follow his passion for the girl opposite, or if his passion for the guillotine would win.

  “Passion thwarted turns to rage,” I said, laughter fading as I thought of Robespierre’s tight, ferocious gaze fixed on Émilie’s beautiful throat. “Leave Paris while you still can.”

  She pleated a fold of her silk dress between her slim fingers. “Wherever I go, I doubt it will be far enough to escape him.”

  “I do not think I will escape him either,” I heard myself saying. “Though it’s hatred he has for me, rather than love.” I had feared Danton with his crude flirtations and Marat with his obscene rantings more than Robespierre, but it was the small man with the quiet enmity flashing behind his spectacles who was the most dangerous. Too late, too late.

  Émilie smiled faintly. “Hatred and love are not as different as you might think.”

  Our cab was stopped at the checkpoint of the Samaritaine. “Who’s there?” the sentinel barked. “Two women all alone?”

  I could see Émilie casting her eyes up in exasperation even as I bristled. “Alone, sir? Do you not observe Innocence and Truth, our traveling companions? What more is necessary?” He looked chastened, and Émilie burst into laughter as we rolled on into the night.

  “I don’t think I have been traveling companions with Innocence for quite some time.” Amusement played around her lips as she met my gaze.

  “Nor I,” I said. In many ways Émilie was my opposite—young, no doubt royalist in her sympathies like her mother, seemingly unashamed to admit to her lack of purity. But here we were, in the same carriage upon the same dangerous avenue and afraid of the same man. Revolution had made France unsafe for everyone, regardless of loyalties or ideals. “You need not go out of your way to put me down on my doorstep; I can walk from here.”

  “Surely you, too, should flee while you still can, Citizeness Roland.”

  “I’m set in my ways,” I returned lightly. “If anyone wishes to murder me, they can do it in my own home.”

  She squeezed my hand and grinned, suddenly and enchantingly. I smiled back. Just a moment’s meeting between two women in the night, a touch of a woman’s hand and the support of her smile, but it gave me strength for what was to come.

  A MURMURED WORD from the porter let me know that my husband had fled, sneaking out via our landlord’s lodging to avoid the guards at the door. After determining my daughter was still safe upstairs with the servants, I was soon on my own way and slipping inside a certain house nearby. I found Roland writing by the light of a shaded candle—his face shattered in relief as he saw me, and we flung our arms about each other. Soon we were sitting, hands clasped across the table.

  “There is not much time,” I began. “What arrangements have been made?”

  “Our friends here will help me leave Paris. They have a passport for you, too, and clothes to disguise you as a peasant woman. And for our daughter—”

  “We will slow you down.” And if our friends had to hide three instead of one, it would put them in considerable danger. “Go ahead without us, Roland. It is you they want, not your wife and child. We will be safe.”

  “Not you. They hate you as much as me—”

  “You must get away.” I squeezed his hands fiercely. “You can still render great service in other parts of France where moderation still rules—if you can just escape this city and this crisis.”

  Someone had to stand against these Paris dictators and their mad little commune; I would help as many of my friends as possible escape into the provinces to set up an opposition. “The fight is not over.”

  “I cannot—”

  “You must.”

  He continued to argue, but I would not. I kept repeating “You must” until he gave way with another weary sigh.

  “Leave here as soon as you can, Roland. This hiding place won’t be safe for long.” I rose, pulling my shawl about my shoulders as he sat studying his folded hands.

  “Remember the farm near Villefranche?” he said suddenly. “When we were first married. The hills of Beaujolais rising behind, the slopes covered in vines . . .”

  “We will see it again.” He clung to me as I embraced him. I would have to be the brave one for this farewell; his eyes were brimming so I kissed both his eyelids before they could overflow. “I love you,” I whispered.

  “I wish you loved me more,” he answered.

  “I will prove it every day as we grow old looking at the slopes of Beaujolais.” I kissed him softly on the mouth. “Promise me you will continue the fight, Roland. No matter what happens.”

  When he finally nodded, I nodded back and slipped away, hoping with all my heart that he would keep the promise. I would keep mine—if we both survived, rode out this crisis together, and lived to see our hair grow white under the republic I loved so much, I would devote my life to loving him. Just fight, I prayed. Find the strength to fight without me. Because for the first time in years, I would not be by his side.

  SO WHY DID I return home? I knew the dangers, but I still went. Why?

  I could give a hundred answers. Because my daughter was there and I could not abandon her, or the servants who had served us so loyally. Because as much as I was loathed, Marat and Robespierre would find themselves called villains if they seized me. Because if they did seize me, that might be enough to slake their hatred so they would abandon their pursuit of my husband. And because even if the worst happened and I were to face the guillotine, I would rather die than witness this ruin of my country and the death of my revolution—I would consider it an honor to be counted amongst the heroic victims.

  Most of all, I went home to wait because it was not in me to run. I had run from the memory of what happened to me as a girl, and it had brought me nothing but shame. I would not run from these men today.

  I soothed my daughter’s tears and sang her to sleep on my return; I calmed my servants and sent them to bed. Then I took a shaky breath and went up the dark stairs to my chamber, where a man’s shadow detached from the wall as I slipped inside, and he drew me into his arms.

  For the first time on this long, terrible day I let myself sag, releasing a stifled sob. My husband was in flight, my friends were scattered, France had become a bloody arena where her children tore one another to pieces—but just a moment I let my shoulders sink under the weight of it all, as the strong arms I loved so much quietly held me up.

  Then I straightened, wiped my eyes, and stepped back. “There,” I told my lover. “You have seen me with your own eyes. Will you do the sensible thing and flee now, my general?”

  “I am not general of anything,” he
answered, still holding me about the waist. “At least until I can get to the provinces and raise allies against that bastard Robespierre.”

  I knew he would fight. He did not know how to give up. We were alike in that—when I had dispatched a note to his lodgings this afternoon warning that arrests were coming, he had answered that he would not leave Paris without seeing me and would wait in my chamber until the end of time if necessary. “Did you come in through the window?” I asked, feeling a most unlikely smile crease my lips.

  “Yes.” He kissed my temple, the corner of my brow. “Manon—”

  I laid a finger over his mouth. “I won’t flee with you, any more than I would go with Roland. I will only slow you down, and I will not let either of you be caught because of me.”

  I suppose I should have felt like the greatest harlot in France, bidding my husband good-bye with my love, only to go home and bid my lover good-bye, also with my love. I did not know how to maintain honor here—only that the course of greatest honor seemed to be to let neither man die. They both loved me, and I loved both of them—did that make me a whore? I was no longer so sure. In the eye of the storm, in the shadow of the guillotine, we all walked in the glint of lightning. In such days, I could no longer think love a tarnished thing, even if it grew where it should not.

  Honor, duty, love: these things would bind my beautiful Paris together again when the jackals were done rending it apart. I had to believe that.

  I lifted my head off my lover’s breast, saying simply, “Go now.”

  François Buzot bent his head and kissed me fiercely. The first kiss we had ever shared; the first kiss I had taken from any man but my husband. I had accustomed myself to remaining still for Roland’s dry mouth, cursing the stiffness that always paralyzed me, but as my lover’s wide hand tangled in my hair and his lips parted mine, I felt myself melting for the very first time in my life. I didn’t know if it was his skill or something in me—exhaustion, fear, my furious resolve to defy my enemies—but something loosened the great block in my chest that had been there since I was ten years old and that greedy-handed apprentice fumbled beneath my skirts. For the first time in my life, I returned a man’s kiss and wanted more.

  My lover stopped with his forehead against mine and his breath coming harsh, fingers resting against the fastenings of my muslin gown. His stillness asked a question of me, and I wanted to answer yes. But, smiling, I shook my head. I could not pull him down on the narrow bed and forget the world, much as I wished to. I didn’t know what the end of this revolution would be, but I would never betray my husband. I would share his fate and die as I’d lived, doing my duty, no matter how much it might cost me.

  It was enough to know I could have lain on that bed, and for once not felt like a sadly incomplete woman. Passion could have been mine, had the world been different. That was enough.

  My lover saw the good-bye in my smile and kissed me on the brow. “Fight,” he whispered. “Fight, Manon.”

  “Fight,” I whispered back and led him down the dark stair to the rear of the house where he might slip away unnoticed. I watched his shadow meld with the night as he slipped away, unnoticed, and then I locked the door and leaned against it, weeping for the men I loved. For myself. And for France.

  Not twenty minutes later, they came for me.

  The hesitant leader of yesterday had been replaced by another man, young and handsome and all insolent smiles under his red cap. “Remember me, Citizeness Roland?” I did. Théo Leclerc of Les Enragés, who never delivered a speech when he could shriek it, who had been one of the ten men forcing his way into my house nine months ago with threats and demands. Whom I had sent away empty-handed. Today he stood implacable, reading out a warrant for the arrest of Citizen and Citizeness Roland. I folded my hands through the recitation and considered my response. I might cite the law that forbid nocturnal arrests. I might cite the lack of legal grounds for any arrest at all . . .

  Do not waste your time, Manon. At this moment, the law is now little more than a word used to deprive people of their rights. Force is the master here.

  So I merely smiled. “How do we proceed, gentlemen?”

  Dawn was breaking pink and new over Paris by the time my apartment had been picked over. I had said my farewells, clinging to every drop of my strength as I hugged my daughter, as I kept my voice calm and told her that I loved her, that she would be safe and must have no fear. I clung to the scent of her hair as I was, at last, marched out into the street. On my doorstep I found two rows of armed men leading all the way to the carriage. Behind these men gathered a jeering cluster of the avid and the curious. My heart beat steadily as I advanced between the gleaming rows of pikes.

  A woman’s voice rose, vicious and shrill: “To the guillotine!”

  I found her face in the crowd and stared until she looked away.

  “We can close the carriage windows.” Théo Leclerc smirked as I stepped up into the coach.

  “No, thank you.” I sat, still feeling that curious calm. “I am not afraid of staring eyes and ask for no protection.”

  He settled into the seat opposite, rapping at the roof for the horses to drive on. “You have more character than many men, citizeness, to await justice so calmly. I’ll give you that.”

  “Justice?” I allowed my smile to curl. “If justice were done, I should not be here in your power at all. But if this procedure leads me to the scaffold, I shall mount it calmly. I weep for my country. I blush for my mistake in thinking France was ready for liberty.”

  He looked affronted. “The citizens of Paris are the arbiters of liberty—”

  “You citizens of Paris are the destroyers of your city. When you find yourself standing in its ruins, you will regret your cowardice.”

  He grunted. No doubt he thought me mad. But I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.

  “ON THE THRONE today, tomorrow in irons. That is the common lot of the virtuous in time of revolution.” I recorded those words the first night I spent in prison, the very first lines of my memoir. The pile of pages has grown since then, so fast—how long have I been here, nearly a month? My cell at the Abbaye is small, but my horizon limitless, and my soul ranges free outside these walls.

  It follows my husband, who I have heard is safely in hiding in Rouen, and urges him to have courage. It follows my lover in his blue coat where he works to gather allies in Normandy against the Jacobins, and presses phantom kisses to his mouth. It follows my daughter, safe with friends who cherish her as though she were their own. My body is caged but I have pen and ink and free will—how can any man born call me imprisoned with such gifts?

  My end is near, this I know. Any day I may be slaughtered or hauled before some tribunal where Robespierre, Danton, and Marat feed their enemies to the guillotine. I listen to the noise of the street outside, interpreting the sounds of this city as a daughter of the Seine always can, and I know terror triumphs now. Marianne, as we named our national goddess of liberty, stalks above France like a scarlet specter, the blood of the innocent trailing from her red gown, no longer a lady of liberty but a lady of terror. In her wake, insolence and crime rage furiously together and the people bow down in mindless homage and abject fear. My vast and beautiful city has become gorged with blood and rotten with lies, wildly applauding the foul murders that are supposed to be necessary for its safety.

  Yet I am at peace, because my part is done except for the very last act. Because a woman who is finished with life may simply be.

  How long I have fretted and feared over the role life gave me! I never wrote a word in my own name; I kept behind my husband in all things; I turned away from love for the sake of virtue . . . and as Sophie Condorcet said, all my good behavior did not save me. She and I talk now and then—she is allowed to visit the prisoners here, where she sketches portraits of the condemned for their grieving families. She gives me news, promises to look in on my daughter, and draws me as I write. We trade wry smiles: two women who have been called whor
es, simply because that is the word for any woman with an opinion and a voice to express it.

  Well, no matter what the world calls me, I know I am no whore. I shake back my hair and smile as I realize that in the shadow of death, I am free.

  Free to wish my husband well, knowing I stayed by him until the end.

  Free to love the man who unlocked me with a kiss, now that I have no opportunity to give in to sin. My love for him hurts no one now. I would have given my life to my husband—now I will give my lover my last sigh.

  Most of all, I am free to write.

  Write for the first time under my own name, my own words, and to hell with what the world thinks. Write the memoirs of Manon Roland, who will fight to the end showing the world that a woman can face her death bravely as a lion. All the rage of this revolution was bottled in its women, I thought once—now I leave the rage to the women still taking up arms in the fight. I wish them well, and give them my strength for the battle ahead, in the hope they can give my daughter a republic that will not need her rage.

  For myself, I will savor every moment within these drab walls. My jailers shall not prevent me from living to the full, right up until the last moment.

  My memoir is being smuggled out of this cell, chapter by chapter, to friends who swear they will see it published. Each roll of pages is tied up with a red ribbon—the same ribbons twined through my hair the day I defended myself, with honors, on the floor of the National Convention. Now they bind up the story of my life. Not everything will go into this document that will be my legacy—someday my daughter will read it, and she does not need to know her mother loved a man besides her father. But I will put in the rest. My beginning, as a bookish girl yearning for the world . . . my womanhood, where I was privileged to serve the birth pangs of a republic in this incandescent time of change and chaos, terror and glory . . . and my end.