Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  I watch some of the younger patrons play darts, while others are engaged in raucous discussions of their exaggerated conquests. In an opposite corner I see a group of young people hunched forward in serious discussion. These are probably some friends of the man I just finished meeting. They look like the earnest university types who think they can change the world. Maybe they can. It certainly seems like the time is ripe for that, what with England just losing thirteen of its colonies to a ragtag bunch of farmers and merchants.

  Plenty of my countrymen aided that effort, but I did not. I want nothing to do with America after they killed Sophie. I don’t care if Glenda is right and Sophie killed our “mother;” that didn’t give Glenda the right to summarily execute her without even a show trial like Morgana. That many of the rabble uprising against the English were descendants of those Salem butchers is something I couldn’t forgive.

  This time I’d like to get involved, to help change the world. I want to throw off the yoke of the monarchy and end the whole feudal system that kept boys like Henri essentially slaves for generations. Aggie and I already staged our revolution nearly a century ago by freeing the Devereaux clan from poverty. Now their houses are as big as those of some noblemen and they own their own livestock. David took his one pony and eventually started a successful horse farm, where he and his family could live in peace and security. That’s the dream I want for all of my countrymen.

  One of the boys from the corner gets up and comes over to me. He looks familiar to me, so much like Henri and later David that it makes my heart ache. “Excuse me, mademoiselle,” he says. My hand stiffens to clip him in the throat. “Are you waiting for anyone?”

  “I’d like to be alone if that’s fine with you,” I say more harshly than I intend. I don’t need to be haunted by Henri’s ghost anymore.

  “I apologize. I just thought perhaps if you aren’t waiting for anyone you’d care to join our discussion.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “We’re discussing the rights of French women. You seem like you might have a unique perspective on that.”

  My cheeks turn warm as I realize he saw what I did to that weasel at the bar. I pick up my drink and nod to him. “I think some discussion might do me good.”

  I follow the young man over to the table. I’m surprised to find another woman already sitting there. She’s younger than I am, with brown hair that’s so straight and thick that I wish I could scalp her to use her hair in a wig. “This is Rachel, my fiancée. And these are my friends Joaquin and Noah.” The young man sticks out his hand for me to shake. “My name is Andre. And you are—”

  “Suzette Joliet.” This is the alias I’ve adopted since coming to Paris, in part to make it harder for Aggie or the coven to find me. Another reason is that it makes it easier to keep my legitimate business separated from my other business.

  “That was quite impressive what you did to that pig,” Rachel says and I instantly like her.

  “Thank you.”

  “Where did you learn to do something like that?”

  “My aunt taught me. She visited the Far East in her younger days.”

  “You’ll have to teach me sometime.”

  “I’d love to.”

  The boy introduced as Noah snorts and says, “You wouldn’t see that wife of Louis’s do such a thing. She needs a servant to lift her arms for her.”

  The others snicker at this, except for Rachel. I sit next to her and become instantly embroiled in a discussion of the oppression of French women. “All they want is for us to sit at home and raise their babies,” Rachel says. “They want us to be slaves, not wives.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” I say and I do.

  “What is it that you do?” Andre asks me.

  “I create and sell wigs.”

  Joaquin snorts at this. “The aristocrats and their wigs. Real hair isn’t good enough for them?” He takes a drink and then asks me, “How can you stand working for such empty-headed fools like that?”

  Before I can say anything, Rachel comes to my defense. “I think it’s great that Suzette expresses her creativity and manages her own business. More women should be like her.”

  “More women should be tools of Louis’s minions?”

  “I’m not a tool of anyone,” I snap and wish I brought my pistol. That’s my kind of tool.

  “Yes, well, I’m afraid your business is going to take a hit once Louis and the rest of them are driven out of here,” Andre says.

  “You’re going to overthrow him?” I can’t contain my disbelief at this. None of these kids looks as if they’ve ever fired a gun before. These are the type who are better at printing slogans than staging an actual revolution. For that you need guns—an army like the Americans had in overthrowing the English.

  “Not just us. All of us who are oppressed.”

  “Except the women, right?” I say, thinking of the meeting that brought me here.

  “Women are welcome to join us.”

  “As what, nurses? Concubines?”

  “We’ll be equals,” Rachel says. “We all have a stake in the health of our country. We’re all citizens of France.”

  “I’m not sure everyone would agree with that assessment.”

  “They will once they see what we can do when we work together.”

  I smile in spite of myself. Rachel’s eyes are so full of hope, so young. It was the same way I looked when I was a naïve sixteen-year-old willing to leave the coven for Henri. He was gone, along with Mama and Sophie and even David had died a few years back from old age. This girl has yet to have her heart broken in that way. I want to help her and her friends just to make sure that doesn’t happen, to keep her innocence pure.

  We continue talking for about an hour, until Joaquin and Noah have to return to class. This leaves me with Andre and Rachel. They take each other’s hands, so in love that again I feel a pain in my chest. “I suppose I should be going too,” I say. “I have work tomorrow.”

  Rachel reaches out with her other hand to take my arm. “Wait. Andre and I are going to dinner. Perhaps you’d like to come? I know I would enjoy your company.”

  “That’s generous of you, but I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

  “It’s no intrusion,” Andre says. “It’s not often I get the chance to talk with two such intelligent young women.”

  The way Andre smiles at me indicates he probably wants to do more than just talk. “I’m afraid not tonight. I’m feeling a bit tired.”

  “Some other time, then?” he asks.

  “Perhaps.” I nod to them and then hurry out of the tavern. I sag onto the couch once I get back to my apartment. A part of me badly wants to go back and accept their invitation—and whatever might come after it. But I know I can’t. I’m too old for that kind of foolishness. I already know from Henri—and a lesser extent David as well—what sort of pain that will bring.

  I do my best to forget about Andre and Rachel, until she appears in my shop two days later. She’s inspecting a wig so tall and heavy that it would probably snap her thin neck. “Can I help you?” I ask her.

  “So this is where the great Suzette works,” she says.

  “Yes.” I try to keep my voice neutral, asking her, “Is there anything in particular that you’re looking for?”

  “No. I just wanted to apologize for the other day. We didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You didn’t offend me.”

  She nods at this. “Andre sometimes thinks his charm is greater than it is.”

  “He’s a cad.”

  “He is not! Andre is a very intelligent, sensitive man. I’m lucky to have him.”

  I put my hand on her arm. In this huge dress and powdered wig it’s easy to feel like a grandmother to this young girl. “If he’s not sleeping in someone else’s bed yet, he will be soon.”

  She tears her arm away from me. “How can you say that? You’ve known Andre for all of an hour. I’ve known him almost my entire life.”

>   I nod. Childhood friends turned lovers, like Henri and I. It will probably end as badly for them. Still, there’s not going to be any reasoning with her, just as no one could reason with me back then. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I assumed too much.”

  “Thank you.” She fingers the wig for a moment, neither of us saying anything. Then she finally says, “Andre and I are going to listen to Francois Cabot read from his newest book of poems tonight. Perhaps you’d like to come?”

  There are a lot of things that I’d rather do than listen to poetry, but I know Rachel is trying to make amends for Andre’s flirting with me. “I’d love to,” I say.

  ***

  The reading takes place in the same café where I tried to sell guns to one of the revolutionaries. This time I’m in my peasant dress, with my hair down and face not slathered with cosmetics, so no one recognizes me. I find Rachel and Andre sitting at the table in the back where I held my ill-fated meeting.

  Rachel stands up to greet me. “I’m glad you could come,” she says. “I thought you might change your mind.”

  “And miss a chance to hear poetry like this? Don’t be silly.”

  Andre pulls out a chair for me. “I’m sorry if I offended you,” he says.

  “That’s all right. I overreacted.”

  Andre claps his hands and then smiles. “Well, now that we’re all friends again, let’s get something to drink.” He signals for a waiter and we all order coffee.

  The café pushes a few tables aside so the poet can sit on a stool. He’s a little nervous-looking man. When he reads, his voice takes on a passion much larger than he is. I’ve never enjoyed listening to verse, but I’m enraptured by his words, the rest of the world seeming to fade away as I focus on his images.

  The audience applauds loudly after he finishes this first reading. Rachel turns to me, the same look of wonderment on her face. “He’s great, isn’t he?”

  “He certainly is.”

  “He’s Andre’s cousin.”

  We don’t get a chance to chat any further, as the poet begins reading again. The rest of the reading goes by in a blur, as if his words have put me into a trance. After the last poem—and a hearty round of applause—the poet comes over to our table. Andre stands up to clap the shorter man on the back like a younger brother. “Well done, cousin,” Andre says.

  “Thank you,” Cabot says in almost a whisper.

  He sits down with us, though he orders tea and nibbles on a piece of pastry. His face turns increasingly red as the rest of us sing his praises. “I haven’t read much poetry, but that was really beautiful,” I tell him.

  “Thank you,” he says again. We all wait for him to grace us with some keen insights or observations, but he says nothing more than pleasantries. Increasingly he seems embarrassed to be here, his body tensing as if he wants to run away.

  Andre tries to draw him into a discussion of French politics, but Cabot refuses to be drawn in. “I’m just a poet,” he says.

  “That’s why you should care more than most,” Andre says. “In an Enlightened France you’ll have the freedom to write and say whatever you want.”

  “I already do that,” Cabot says, the closest he comes to showing anything like the same kind of passion as when he was reading.

  “So whose side are you going to take then?”

  “I don’t want to take sides.”

  “The time is coming when everyone will have to take a side. You’re either for the monarchy or you’re for liberty.” This sounds like the kind of slogan that Andre and his friends write in pamphlets to distribute around the city.

  Cabot is unmoved by this. “I’m leaving this country in a few days.”

  “Leaving? Why?”

  “I want no part of the bloodshed that’s coming.”

  “But where are you going to go?” Rachel asks.

  “Ireland. I have some friends there who will take me in.”

  “Francois—”

  “Please, cousin, don’t try to convert me. I’ve already made my decision. You’re welcome to come with me. All of you.”

  “Now see here, I’m not going to run from Louis like a mangy dog. I’m going to stand and fight,” Andre says.

  Rachel takes his arm and nods solemnly. “We’re going to stay and fight.”

  I say nothing, but later, as Cabot is preparing to leave, he asks to speak to me in private for a moment. “You look like a sensible young woman,” he says. “You must know that Andre and his friends are doomed to fail.”

  “I’m not sure about that. They seem very committed to their cause.”

  “It takes more than commitment to govern a nation. You would do well to remember that.” Cabot kisses my hand, flashes a shy smile, and then he’s gone. I return to the table with my new friends, but as I listen to their idealistic promises of equality and liberty, I can’t help wondering if Cabot is right.

  Chapter 17

  It takes nearly a month before things come to a boil in the city. It’s been long overdue since the king dismissed finance minister Necker for demanding he spend within his means and with more and more foreign-bred troops appearing on the streets. An eruption of violence was inevitable.

  For that month I’ve been going to various underground meetings with Andre and Rachel. The man I tried to sell weapons to is at some of these meetings, talking strategy with Andre and others—all men of course. I know better than to suggest anything or to make another pitch to sell them the guns they need to carry off anything. Instead, Rachel and I spend most of our time in the background and serving as hostesses to the men, fetching them coffee, bread, and cheese so they can continue to talk late into the night.

  The more I hear, the less enthralled I am with what’s happening. As I feared, Andre and the others aren’t military leaders, nor are they politicians. Most of them are academics, philosophers, or artists. They wouldn’t be able to run my family’s estate, let alone an entire country.

  I try to brace Rachel for disappointment, but she refuses to listen to me. She’s so enamored with dreams of individual rights and liberty that she can’t see the truth staring her in the face: there will be rights—but only for men. Rachel, me, Aggie, and every other woman in France will continue to be a second-class citizen.

  On the fourteenth of July, I open the shop as usual. Business has been drying up in the last few days, ever since Necker’s dismissal. There have been numerous riots around the city, with people stealing food and guns wherever they can. A wigmaker’s shop has neither of these, so I figure it’s safe enough for me. If things do get rough, I have two pistols, a musket, and a rapier in my workshop, not to mention a full arsenal of magic.

  Because of the chaos, there’s not much for me to do at work. I spend most of my time in my workshop, where I work on fashioning a wig for a young man about Rachel’s age, the son of a marquis. He’s marrying a landowner’s daughter near Normandy next week despite the tensions going on in the city. As when I was braiding Aggie’s hair as a child, the simple task of weaving the hair relaxes me, so for a few minutes I don’t have to think about what a mistake it was to come here to Paris.

  I had a good enough life in Edinburgh. Uncle Bob long since passed on, leaving me the house all to myself. I didn’t spend a lot of time there, spending most of my time on the road or at sea to ply my trade. After Uncle Bob died, I didn’t have anyone I considered a friend or confidante, just my employees and the bartenders at my favorite tavern.

  It was a lonely life, but it was good enough for me. I couldn’t say I was happy, but I wasn’t miserable either. I got to see plenty of exotic destinations, meet a lot of people, and do a job I was good at. Why did I throw that all away to come back here?

  More importantly, why did I let myself get sucked in by Rachel and Andre? It was mostly Rachel at fault. I liked her the moment I met her. She’s such a bright, innocent girl, so passionate about her beliefs. She’s the kind of girl I would like to have as a daughter—would have liked to have as a daughter with Henri. In that w
ay she’s a symbol of my lost hopes and dreams. I want to try and protect hers, though I know it’s likely all of this will end in tears.

  Of course it doesn’t have to. They don’t need guns with a witch on their side. A few Static Charges or Fireballs and I could send Louis’s troops running. For that matter I could easily capture the king himself and turn him into a pet toad for Rachel.

  If I did any of these things, it would be the last magic I used for the next fifteen years—if at all. Glenda would see to it that I was punished for so directly interfering in the lives of the mortals and for revealing my magic to them. She would shrink me down to a baby again as she did to Morgana—who is now back in the coven, though with the new name Sabrina and remembering nothing of her old life—or she would outright kill me as she did to Sophie.

  Even if I used magic to intervene and Glenda didn’t punish me, what would I do then? I would have to keep intervening until I would essentially be a tyrant ruling the people of France. Of all the things Mama and the others taught me, not using magic to alter the lives of mortals is one rule I can agree with at this point.

  I’m still working on the wig, trying to keep these pessimistic thoughts away, when Rachel comes running into the shop. My first thought is that Andre must have been arrested, that Louis’s forces are cleaning house and eliminating anyone who stands in their way.

  So it takes me by surprise when Rachel throws her arms around me in a hug. “It’s happening!”

  “What’s happening?”

  “They’re storming the Bastille!”

  “The Bastille? Why?”

  “To free the prisoners and take the weapons inside.”

  I snort at this. They could have had weapons weeks ago if that’s what they wanted. Instead they were attacking a prison with rocks and sticks. At least they would save some money this way.

  Rachel lets me go, her smile fading slightly. She expected I would be as overjoyed as she is by this news. “Didn’t you hear me? It’s finally going to happen!”

  “I hear you. Don’t you think the king’s men will put this down?”