‘And now he is an actor! It was his choice to stay in France.’
Henry felt disappointed in Juliette. ‘There are things I can’t discuss, and this is one of them. But you should know that Paris is more perilous than ever.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘In a world turned upside down, we need heroes. There are not many who are prepared to risk everything. Don’t you think their courage earns them the right to defy social conventions? I can assure you of this: Yann is worth a thousand foppish young men.’
‘But you are not listening to me. All I am saying is that he is not a suitable husband for Sido.’
‘You are in danger of sounding like a hypocrite, someone who had no intention of thinking Yann an equal, who was always going to see him as a gypsy boy. Were you just playing a game, like Marie Antoinette pretending to be a shepherdess?’
Juliette put her head in her hands. ‘No, no . . . perhaps.’
They were silent for a while.
‘Give Sido back her letters,’ Henry said. ‘Make it up with her. If Yann survives . . .’ He paused. ‘Be kind to her.’
Sido’s thoughts were in chaos. Yann a gypsy! Suddenly she felt foolish and ignorant. Her aunt was right. She was a child when it came to the affairs of men. Had she heard correctly? A gypsy? Now she thought herself a blind fool. The talisman, his dark eyes, his ability to read her thoughts. Oh, dear Lord, this made her love for him even more impossible. She remembered with horror the stories about the Marquis’s hunting parties, when he would boast that he had killed gypsies like crows and hung them in the trees. To think that by birth she was part of a society that saw such barbarity as its God-given right!
And then she remembered a grand ball in what seemed like another lifetime, given on the day she first met Yann, the day Kalliovski had killed the magician Topolain.
She had been standing on the stairs when she overheard a young woman talking about the time the Marquis had brought a fortune-teller to the house who had predicted that he would lose everything to the King of the Gypsies.
The thought lifted her spirits and getting off the bed she went to the window and opened the shutters. It was a cold rainy night; only a few people were out. Then, in the flare of a passing carriage lamp, she saw him again, looking up at her window. Sido quickly backed into the room, blowing out all the candles before she dared look once more into the square. No one was there. The stranger in the three-cornered hat had vanished.
Chapter Nine
Madame Loup said not a word when she was told her husband was dead, fearful lest she might let out a hallelujah by mistake. After all, she had prayed every day of her married life for just such a miracle as this. And slowly it dawned on her that at last she was free of the murderous thug who had as good as ruined her life.
‘A tragedy. I hope they catch the aristos who’ve done this,’ said a drunk, fighting to keep his distance from the floor.
‘Guillotine the lot of them!’ said her neighbour, Citizen Planchot, a pale fish-like creature who had always been terrified of the butcher, but felt the necessity of singing his praises now that he was dead. He was hoping he might be able to buy the business.
Madame Loup finally found her voice. ‘Where is Anselm?’
‘No one’s seen him. We can only hope he’s still alive,’ said Citizen Planchot.
‘The Spirit of the Revolution,’ said the drunk, hoping to be invited in for more wine. ‘He’ll turn up.’
Like a bad penny, thought Madame Loup.
There being nothing to say, nothing to sell, and no wine she wished to share with anyone, she closed the shop for good. After that she would stand night and day by the window, studying the passers-by, listening to the sign of the iron pig swinging back and forth.
Neighbours believed her grief and devotion to her family kept her there, holding a vigil, waiting for Anselm to return.
But they were wrong. Very wrong indeed. She had never liked him, even as a baby. All that beauty had a stink of cruelty about it that made her sick. Anselm, as far as she was concerned, could go to hell.
Citizen Planchot came every day to report to Madame Loup on how his search for Anselm was going. He had been to taverns and gambling dens, but had neither found nor heard a thing that would give him a clue as to where the lad could be. He had even gone to the police headquarters in the Hotel de Ville, looked in at the city prisons and been down by the Drowned Man’s Benches, slabs of stone beside the Seine where the luckless ones were fished from the river to be claimed or not as the case might be.
‘Maybe he’s been picked up and conscripted,’ said Citizen Planchot, hoping now his neighbour might negotiate the sale of the shop.
Still Madame Loup waited by the window, coffin-cold and unconvinced that the devil’s imp was dead.
Then she heard that Anselm had been seen and knew she had no choice but to leave the shop and leave it fast. To that end she invited Citizen Planchot round, and sitting at the kitchen table they came to an agreement. The business and the shop would be his, and Madame Loup would have enough money to return to Mallemort in Provence, her childhood home.
After he had gone she went upstairs to her clean sparse bedchamber and sat on the bed, sewing her new-found wealth into her best red calico petticoat. Packing a few possessions, she went back downstairs and looked round the shop for the last time. It was then she saw a figure in the gloom and her heart sank.
He appeared, to anyone who didn’t know the true colour of his blood, the kind of young man to give your heart to, such were his angelic looks, those golden eyes, that sensuous mouth.
‘Well, well,’ he said. His words snaked towards her; she could feel the venom in them.
‘Sold the business, I heard. Took it into that sawdust brain of yours to do something on your own, without consulting your son and heir.’
Madame Loup had been edging towards the door, but Anselm got there first.
‘We can do this the civilised way, or the hard way.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said. Under her red calico petticoat her knees began to shake.
‘Oh, I think you do, Mother. I want my money.’
She opened her bag and showed him just a few assignats that she had kept back for the journey.
‘You’re making me angry, Mother,’ said Anselm quietly. ‘And you know what happens if you make me angry don’t you, Mother? I want all the money, every last sou.’
Madame Loup backed away.
Anselm was in no hurry. He would get his money all right; that was not the point. The point would be the pleasure he would have in seeing her beg for mercy. He put his finger and thumb on her jaw and pushed her hard against the wall. He could feel her soft skin, tissue thin like parchment, in his grasp.
‘You’d better be careful, Mother, that you don’t end up with the rotten chicken meat.’
Madame Loup’s face was turning blue.
‘Now, I ask you again. Where’s the money?’
Ever since Madame Loup had been married, she had imagined her own death as a door through which she knew escape from the final beating was possible, a place where her husband couldn’t touch her. Now she worried that he might be waiting on the other side, ready to grab her. The thought was enough to make her fight with her last ounce of courage, for suddenly she knew what she wanted out of life, and that was to live without fear.
Her new-found strength excited Anselm. He liked resistance. But it was useless.
He could feel her pulse beating, knew that he only had to squeeze and the frayed thread of her life would be broken forever.
He watched emotionless as she gasped for air. Madame Loup’s words were now no more than a desperate whisper; her bird-like hands had curled over, trying frantically to claw at him.
‘Oh, sweet Mary, save me,’ she begged, with what sounded like her last breath.
Anselm had never been worried by his conscience. His moral compass, for what it was worth, his father had stolen from him long ago.
The urge to kill was powerful, irrepressible inside him as he squeezed tighter. Madame Loup’s eyes rolled back in her head.
All Madame Loup could see was light. It shone brightly. The Virgin Mary, she felt sure, had come to take her home.
‘Leave her be,’ came a rough voice. ‘Do you hear me? I have work for you, but there’ll be nothing if you kill her.’
Involuntarily Anselm loosened his grip as he recognised the voice of Mr Tull.
‘Let her go,’ said Mr Tull again, talking to Anselm as he would to a dog. ‘Let her go, you pathetic little puke-pot. ’
Anselm let Madame Loup drop to the floor like a pile of rags.
Realising that she was alive and her protector, whoever he was, looked like a man strong enough to hold Anselm back, she said in a whisper, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, I tell you this, and it is the truth, you are no son of mine. I didn’t bear you. You were left in a basket of stinking blood and guts. Even your real mother didn’t want you. She was glad to be rid of her devil’s child.’
Anselm rushed towards her once more, but Mr Tull had him by the collar.
‘Save your breath to cool your porridge.’
‘Go to the devil!’
As Mr Tull dragged him from the shop he was still screaming, ‘I’m going to kill her!’
Madame Loup lay on the floor for a long time, gasping for breath, until her strength returned. She sat up and drank a glass of wine. She knew she had escaped Death by a cat’s whisker. It would be many years before he came calling again, walking through fields of lavender to find her.
‘ ell, I see the shop business ain’t to your liking,’ said Mr Tull, when they were seated in a café with a jug of wine in front of them. ‘Calm down, you’re going to need your wits.’
‘Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you around for ages,’ said Anselm, drumming his fingers wildly on the table, his foot tapping a chaotic rhythm on the floor.
‘Away on business. It seems I got back just in time.’
Anslem wasn’t listening. He leapt to his feet. ‘Let me finish her off; it’s what she deserves. She owes me, she does.’
‘By all means,’ said Mr Tull. ‘Go on, kill the old girl; it’s no skin off my nose.’
Anselm was rearranging his scarf, ready to charge back to the butcher’s shop.
‘The only thing is, you wouldn’t get to meet Count Kalliovski.’
His words had the desired effect.
‘Oh,’ said Mr Tull, lighting his pipe. ‘You’re interested, then?’
‘Yes.’
Mr Tull leaned forward and grabbed Anselm by the throat. ‘If,’ he said, knowing exactly where to press to cause the most pain, ‘you breathe a word of what you see tonight, you are a dead man and no mistake. You get my drift?’
Letting go, he poured a tumbler of wine. ‘Have a drink. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.’
It was early evening when they reached the Place du Faubourg de Gloire. All that was left of the Bastille were a few stones and blackened earth.
‘A place of secrets,’ said Mr Tull.
‘They say it’s haunted by the spectre of the Terror made real,’ said Anselm, remembering what he had been told in the whorehouse where he’d been staying.
‘That wouldn’t surprise me. But I think the Terror is real enough, with or without the spectre.’
‘I’ve heard them say he has a big dog.’
‘Oh, put a rag in it.’
They walked away from the Bastille, towards the Seine ferrymen who were packing up for the night.
‘One last trip?’ asked Mr Tull, bringing out a good handful of coins.
‘For you,’ said the ferryman, pushing his boat into the water, ‘a pleasure.’ He lit the lantern. ‘Take you to La Taverne des Trois Pendus on the other side?’
Mr Tull nodded.
The brown water of the Seine lapped past. Until they reached the south bank the only other sound was the swish of the oars.
They crunched up the shore and climbed the wooden steps leading to the inn.
‘Is this where we’re meeting him?’ asked Anselm.
‘No.’ Mr Tull was in no mood for talking. ‘Sit down and shut up. I’ll tell you when we need to go.’
At midnight Mr Tull shook Anselm awake and stood him up, taking in his appearance.
‘You’re a mess. You don’t half stink too. What, you been sleeping in the gutter?’
‘No,’ said Anselm.
‘Pull yourself together, make yourself look respectable. One other thing. Not one word about the robberies. If you say anything, you’ll be a bag of bones.’
It had started to rain heavily by the time they arrived at their destination: a shop with a shuttered front. Above, in the murky window, hung three dimly lit red lanterns. The room inside was equally empty, with sawdust on the floor and a scrubbed counter on which sat a large ledger. Somewhere in the distance a bell rang. A man appeared from behind a velvet curtain. He was dressed from head to toe in black.
‘Serreto,’ said Mr Tull. ‘How are you?’
‘As well as these topsy-turvy days allow.’ He opened the ledger in front of him and wrote something down. Pointing his quill at Anselm he said, ‘He knows the rules, does he?’
Mr Tull nodded. ‘He’s here on probation.’
‘I see.’
Anselm had the feeling from the look Serreto gave him that he had just been measured for a coffin.
They were taken through the curtain into an antechamber lined with row upon row of cloaks and masks. Bunches of unlit torches stood in wicker baskets, waiting to be used. Mr Tull lit one and opened another door that led to a flight of stairs descending to the cellar - or so Anselm thought, yet the further they went the more he began to realise that no cellar could possibly be this deep. The stairs, made out of limestone, became narrower and spiralled, step after step, round and round. The light of Mr Tull’s torch flickered, throwing shadows across the white stone walls, and still they kept going down without end.
The air began to smell musty and damp and finally they reached the very bottom. They were in a cavernous room that led to a tunnel, lit with torches as far as the eye could see.
‘Are you ready?’ said Mr Tull.
Anselm was quiet. Mr Tull turned to check his companion.
‘A lot of people couldn’t stand it down here,’ he said, ‘but you get used to it. You still with me?’
Anselm nodded, following Mr Tull into the labyrinth of tunnels. He took a deep breath of stale air and said out loud, ‘This is a new beginning and nothing is going to stop me.’
‘What did you say?’ said Mr Tull, turning round.
‘Just that I wanted . . . I want to thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For giving me this opportunity. I owe you, I do.’
Mr Tull walked on. ‘Better hope that my master likes you.’
What he didn’t say was: if he doesn’t, you will never see the light of day again.
Chapter Ten
Of all the châteaux Anselm and his father had robbed over the past year, nothing compared to this.
The first chamber had a higher ceiling than the passageway they had walked through. Anselm later discovered that it was only a prelude to what lay beyond, a waiting room of sorts, a place to contemplate one’s own mortality. If he had been able to read the motto above the door he might have been more worried: Enter here if you dare and you fear not death. The words, no more than a pattern to Anselm, didn’t interest him. What fired his imagination were the painted walls which, though he didn’t know it, depicted Dante’s Inferno. The ceiling too had been decorated so it looked as if the chandelier had been spewed out of the mouth of the devil. Three golden bowls stood near the far end of the chamber, and flames like forked tongues flickered menacingly. He was enthralled by the idea that tonight he would meet the great man himself. The master, as Mr Tull called him. Count Kalliovski.
Mr Tull, unlike Anselm, seemed oblivious to his surroundings, as he paced to a
nd fro, fiddling with his watch. Seeing Anselm studying the walls he hissed at him, ‘Remember, not a word about our other business, understood?’
‘Of course, Mr Tull. My lips are sealed.’
Mr Tull was beginning to have his doubts about bringing Anselm here. His lack of breeding showed. He looked what he was: nothing more than a pretty boy, a small-time crook from the Place du Carrousel.
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