Love's First Light

by Jamie Carie

  He found to his amazement that he understood this lovely lady’s tale as well as any intricately hidden apothecary recipe. “So Christophé is in Robespierre’s house?”

  “Yes. We said we should send for the physician, that nasty gash in his head, you know, and he said ‘no’ we should find Jasper. The midwife—” she motioned to the door and the disappeared woman—“brought me here. You . . .” Her eyes widened, and he saw sudden horror in their depths. “You are Jasper, are you not?”

  Jasper couldn’t help his smile. “Yes. I am Jasper. Please, madame. Allow me to gather up some tonics, bandages, and such, and then we will be on our way.”

  Suzanne become quiet, looked down at her clasped hands in her lap. As Jasper went to find what he needed, he heard her murmur, “Such a day, it’s been such a day.”

  Jasper turned from his steps toward his laboratory. “Is Robespierre there? In the house?”

  Suzanne shook her head, a ringlet bouncing against her full bosom. “Oh, goodness no. But if we happen upon him, we’re to say that you are Scarlett’s physician. As she has just had the babe, you see. André, she’s named him. Christophé says that means he is brave. And, well, no one would question a doctor in the house at such a time.”

  So the women were hiding Christophé. Jasper heartily hoped he did not meet up with the man called Robespierre. Robespierre might recognize him from the interrogation he’d undergone after Christophé had escaped. It was still hard to believe he’d convinced them that he had no idea a man was in his spare bedchamber. The busted window frame, the one Christophé must have broken when he fled, had helped, making it look like someone had broken into Jasper’s house to hide. Maybe there was a God after all.

  His hand paused as he reached for the medicines. Thoughts buzzed through his mind, and he allowed a small smile. Better pack some poison with the medicines for his friend.

  One never knew what opportunities might present themselves.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Suzanne told Jasper everything he could ever want to know about the three Bonham women as they walked back to Robespierre’s lodgings. He could scarcely believe Christophé was being hidden beneath his enemy’s nose. It didn’t sit well, and there was nothing he wanted more than to spirit the young man away to the safety of his own home.

  The only thing Suzanne hadn’t mentioned was her own marital state, except that she’d said Robespierre was their only living male relative, so she must be without a husband. He kept reassuring himself with that thought.

  Turning his head toward her, he studied her profile. She was just middle-aged, probably ten or so years younger than his fifty-five years. She walked at a brisk pace without growing very winded. Heaven knew she could talk and walk at the same time—both at a breakneck speed. He was surprised—no, shocked—that the constant chatter didn’t grate on his nerves. He’d always prized his solitude and quiet.

  “My dear,” he spoke into a brief lull. “Have you been a widow long?” He wouldn’t ordinarily ask a new acquaintance such a personal question, but who knew when, if ever, he would see her again.

  “Oh, yes. Let’s see . . .” She concentrated, counting on her pudgy fingers. “Just under nine years. That’s right. Almost nine years ago my dear Frederic died in an accident.”

  “What kind of accident? If you don’t mind that I ask.”

  “Oh, no. Not at all. Frederic was a jack-of-all-trades. We never really knew what kind of job he would take next. They always ran out, you know. When the things were built, or the field was—” she waved her hand, apparently looking for the right word—“harvested, or whatever he was currently about. He always worked himself out of jobs. One job, his last, was to help repair the roof for Cathédrale Saint-Nazaire-et-Saint-Celse, a very grand cathedral in Carcassonne. It was a long job, should have taken months. But one day—” she looked over at Jasper and shook her head, her voice filled with dramatic sadness—“he slipped off the roof at an enormous height. They said he died immediately.”

  Jasper touched her arm. “And you with two young girls. What did you do?”

  Suzanne compressed her lips together and then let out a little laugh. “I suppose we became jacks-of-all-trades too.” She laughed again. “I’ve never really looked back on it to think about what we did, but we had many odd jobs, from taking in sewing and laundry to selling garden vegetables. Why, Scarlett even learned masonry and was helping to build garden terraces and walkways for a time.” She smiled over at Jasper. “God has taken care of us.”

  “Then Scarlett married?”

  Suzanne looked up into Jasper’s eyes. “Daniel Robespierre. A very grand young man, or so Scarlett tells me. I never had the chance to meet him. Scarlett sent us an allowance then and Stacia and I scraped by.”

  “Daniel Robespierre . . .” Jasper mused. “I believe I have heard of him.” He didn’t tell Suzanne that the man had been famous as a young hothead, stirring up debates and tempers with a natural orator’s command of his audience. “How did Daniel die?”

  Suzanne grew quiet. She looked up and pointed. “Look. We’re nearly there. Do you see the house?”

  Jasper knew the place. It was near the new headquarters for many members of the Convention. He personally tried to stay as far away from politics as he could, but now . . . in this new world where everything was turning upside down and inside out, no one could escape its vortex.

  Jasper thought he had pressed the dear lady enough for now and let his next question fall away. “Let us hope Robespierre is not at home,” he said instead. He didn’t tell Suzanne how truly worried he was if they happened to come face-to-face. Not only had they met once before, he recognized that Robespierre may have heard of him as he was something of a renowned person in the city for the healing arts. His potions, the concoctions that he studied and perfected over the years, the herbal remedies for anything from a sneeze to the plague, had made him something of a magician in the city of Paris.

  He could only hope his face was not as recognizable as his potions.

  ROBESPIERRE WOKE TO an empty feeling. Like a giant, gaping gulf that was black and unfathomably deep. He heard cries coming from somewhere and then realized the source, this blackness. His mind, not quite fully awake, replayed the death signatures he had signed. In the light of day, in the righteous strength of the Révolution, he hadn’t batted an eye. But at night, he saw them. Saw their hands grasping up at him from this hellish hole, saw their heads on the point of a spike, demanding justice. Heard them cry out for the freedom he claimed he stood for.

  He turned on the unfamiliar bed and, for a moment, felt the void open wider, deeper.

  He was six and waking in a bedchamber with his siblings. There was always that single, shattering moment where everything went from dreamy sleepiness to terrible truth. Where a new day to run the hills in his home in Arras was snatched away with smothering despair, the sudden sitting up in bed and clutching the covers to his thin, six-year-old chest as the knowledge that their father had left them struck him.

  His mother too. Dead in the childbirth bed birthing his youngest sister. After that, his father had packed the four of them off to his maternal grandfather’s house and simply . . . disappeared. The aunts and his grandfather had raised them.

  Both parents lost to a bloody birth.

  Blood. Red blood. Thick and never-ending . . . blood.

  And now it spilled all over France.

  Would it haunt him forever?

  He couldn’t go back to the Duplays’ until Scarlett had birthed the babe. He knew she was close, he could tell she was hiding the signs, although why he couldn’t fathom. All he knew was that he would stay here until he learned that the deed was done. He closed his eyes and allowed the memories to wash over him.

  He’d taught himself to read and write, and by the age of eight was sent to the college of Arras. He’d thrived there, holding fast to the accolades from his teachers for his ability to read fluently, grasp the higher levels of mathematics, and memoriz
e any fact they gave him. And he’d begun to notice that he had a strong voice, a voice filled with conviction, when he spoke. His grandfather and father had been lawyers, and it appeared he had inherited their gift for public speaking and debate.

  The bishop of Arras noticed his early brilliance. Maximilien could still remember his heart rising to his throat when he learned of the bishop’s recommendation to the school that was every scholar’s dream: the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. There he studied the Roman Republic and their democratic ideals. The rhetoric of Cicero, Cato, and Rousseau. The brilliance of Voltaire. They said man could be free. All men. Not just the nobility that kept him firmly from reaching his potential. They said he could be everything he believed he could be.

  It was then that he’d decided in some deep, semiconscious part of himself, that he would be the champion of such freedom. But he was afraid. Many times, when in a social context where he knew he didn’t belong, he would have to command his legs to stop shaking and his palms to cease their sweating. He would remind himself of his worth . . . no matter the cost.

  He clenched his eyes shut, remembering the day he had been appointed the one out of over five hundred pupils to give the address of welcome to the king on behalf of the entire college. Louis XVI and his bride, none other than the famed Marie Antoinette, were rumored to be stopping by the college on their way to Versailles.

  He remembered it like it was yesterday. The crisp air that left fogs of breath close to their faces. The falling rain. And he, with his heart bursting so hard it felt outside his rib cage. They waited for hours in that rain, watching for the swaying black roof of a carriage, longing to hear the mud spattering against the wheels as it came, headlong and full of wonder, toward their huddled little group.

  The king was coming. The king was coming to them! Maximilien clutched his paper, where he’d painstakingly written and rewritten out his speech, against his sodden pants. The king was coming to hear him. He prayed it was so with everything in him.

  Four hours and twenty minutes later, the carriage with its outriders, wearing uniforms in royal blue and gold, the colors of the king, finally rounded the turn in the road and came into view. The coach itself was so grand and gleaming black as it swayed back and forth, growing bigger as it came up the drive that Maximilien accidentally wadded the speech in his fist against his leg as he watched their progress. Was it really him?

  When Maximilien saw the emblazoned coat of arms of the king of France, he nearly choked. Looking behind him, he saw awe on the faces of the other students reminding him of his place of honor and importance. He locked his heels together, straightened his shoulders, and took a deep breath. Excitement spread throughout his body as the wheels, rimmed with gold, turned and turned and then came to a stop directly in front of him, splashing mud and water onto his spit-shined, best-day shoes.

  He waited for a long minute for the door to open so that he could begin. The paper with his speech was a shaking, crumpled, sweaty ball in his hand, but he didn’t need it. He had memorized every line of that speech days before. He was the chosen one. He was to give a speech to the king.

  The King of France.

  But it wasn’t to be. King Louis only waved from behind the blurry glass and then sunk back into the plush cushions that were his life. Maximilien heard laughter coming from within the coach. Confused, his body strained forward, trying to see past the glass that separated him from royalty. It hadn’t yet occurred to him that they might not open the door. He stood poised, turned out in his best coat and standing in the rain . . . waiting for hours for this honor.

  Finally his professor nodded for him to begin.

  Was he really to start? To deliver the address to nothing but a prettily painted wood box on wheels?

  Tears sprang to his eyes, a further embarrassment. He could feel the impatience of the king’s men, hear the stomping of the horses’ hooves in the mud-clogged street, and saw the glare of the coachman. It finally dawned on him.

  They were all waiting for him to begin.

  The rain dripped down his neck, and he felt the cold for the first time as he stuttered out the words. He heard a laugh or two, quickly smothered. Then something took hold of him. Of his gut and his soul. He near shouted the rest of the speech, hoping with everything within him that this lethargic king would hear him. That he would be honored by the words, yes, but even more by the cadence and conviction of this young man’s voice.

  Nothing. There was nothing.

  The king condescended to sit up and wave . . . a brief gesture that wasn’t worth remembering. That was, in fact, more of a slap. A kick. A turned head, as if Maximilien was no more than a fly to be shooed away.

  And then they were gone.

  All the grandeur of court rode away on wind and melted before his eyes in the mist of the drizzle and the tears that he couldn’t manage to hold back.

  And so the message his parents’ abandonment gave him was confirmed, by no less than the king himself.

  Maximilien meant little. He was small. He was nothing. No one.

  His heart turned hard that day. Hard and glowing with purpose. He would mean something to the world. If it took his last breath to accomplish it . . . he would mean something strong and powerful enough to bring them all to their knees.

  And now, he did.

  Robespierre blinked, letting his eyes open and become accustomed to the dim light in the room. His had been the voice in this mighty Révolution. The king’s own neck severed at his gentle suggestion. He smiled and inhaled the victory of it, remembering the stricken queen’s face, how she, too, mounted the bloody steps.

  Oh, revenge, how sweet your taste.

  Oh, recompense, how you fill me with joy.

  Oh, redemption and the mighty hand of righteousness, how fitting you are upon my shoulders.

  Robespierre smiled.

  Freedom has such a beautiful name, he mused.

  And its name is Death.

  He rose in the bed of his enemy and looked at his hands. They were coated with the blood of innocents. He held them up to his face and stared, breathing hard through his mouth.

  No!

  Yes!

  But their blood cried out to him, demanding to be heard. “No!”

  He rose from the bed, still staring at his hands. “I will not hear you! Do you hear me? I will not listen!” He wiped his hands against his breeches as he took a step toward the low-burning fire he had lit hours ago when he plotted the demise of the final St. Laurent.

  Well . . . not quite the final . . .

  Émilie’s sweet, innocent face rose up into his mind’s eye. “Pure. The only thing pure.” He lifted his face to heaven.

  “I spared her for you.”

  There was no peace in that prayer. Turning from the fireplace, he looked toward the floor where his enemy lay conquered.

  No one was there.

  Chapter Twenty

  Thin, wailing cries woke her. Her head was full of dreams, which faded away as the cries grew loud in her ear. What were they? Who made them? Finally, she remembered, and then reared up. André. He’d been born. He was here, right here next to her.

  She winced at the slow, creeping ache in her pelvis and turned with care toward the small, moving bundle. “Mon cher. Mon cher,” she crooned, curling toward the waving arms and increasingly unhappy cry. “What? What is it?”

  She drew him close against her body, her lips brushing his rounded scalp where dark hair grew in tufts. “Come. Come to me.” Her hand reached for his long, slender fingers, and he grasped quick hold. He turned his head toward her, his eyes the slits of a newborn, rooting with his rosebud mouth.

  She smiled, wonder resonating through her chest like an expanding light, as his arms and legs waved, his wail growing truly distressed now. “Are you hungry? Is that it?” She worried so that she didn’t know, would never really know, all he needed. “Here.”

  She unbuttoned her gown and offered him his breakfast. Had Daniel been alive she might h
ave had a wet nurse, but she was glad not to. She wanted to be the only one who was her son’s whole world, at least for this little while.

  A movement from across the room made her turn. Christophé was sitting in the room’s only chair against a far wall.

  “You shouldn’t be in here. Robespierre could be home by now. He will want to see the baby.”

  Christophé stood, wobbled a little, and then straightened. “Never felt so weak and dizzy before. Not accustomed to it. Forgive me.” He walked toward the bed. “I won’t stay long. They have put me in a maid’s room, but I couldn’t sleep. I had to see you.”

  Scarlett looked down at her son, who had drifted back into a contented sleep. She paused, working up the courage to ask the only question she needed answered. “Why did you leave? I thought . . . I thought you cared about me.” She couldn’t look at him, so instead moved André to her side, turned away, and fixed her gown.

  “Of course I do.” His voice was strong and sure behind her.

  “Then why?” There was anger and hurt in her voice, but she couldn’t help it. “And without even a word. You just . . .” She turned back toward him, not caring that he would see her tears.

  “It won’t make sense to you.”

  “Tell me.”

  He walked over and sat on the bed next to her. She could see the shadow of his beard and more—the shadows in his eyes. Finally he spoke. “Robespierre.”

  “My uncle?”

  “My enemy.”

  Scarlett thought through his words. Christophé was an aristocrat. The Count of St. Laurent, as there was none of his family left living. Was Robespierre responsible? She stared into his haunted eyes and knew. Of course he was. Why hadn’t she put it together before?

  “How did you know?”

  “That Robespierre was your uncle?”

  “Yes.”

  “I found a letter in your house. Something about flour. That he could send no more.”

  “Oh . . .”