Treason's Spring

by Robert Wilton

  Pinsent waited for Benjamin.

  Benjamin closed the door. ‘Bit of a shock, to be honest, old fellow. They’re brutes, these people, of course. But we hope this is some bit of chance or opportunism on their part.’

  ‘You don’t know why she’s been taken?’ Benjamin shook his head, and Pinsent followed him. ‘I heard that Henry Greene had been seen near this extraordinary robbery in Paris.’

  ‘Yes, indeed! Extraordinary, no?’ Benjamin’s voice dropped. ‘You ain’t seen him, I suppose?’

  Kinnaird looked faintly surprised. ‘No. No indeed.’

  Once again, he was left uncomfortable in the silence in this room.

  ‘Well, gentlemen, I ask your pardon for the intrusion. Good day.’

  Benjamin opened the door for him, and then held up a finger, thoughtful. ‘Good to see you, Mr Kinnaird. Um . . . if it’s no inconvenience to you, I hope we might stay in communication. You’ll be busy about your affairs, no doubt, and perhaps we may share any information we each learn.’ A smile. ‘Trying time to be English, and – Or, indeed, even to be Scottish.’

  Kinnaird nodded cautiously. Slight bows, and he was gone. Benjamin closed the door again.

  ‘What the hell was that, Raph?’ Pinsent still had the picture in his hand, ready to place it in the box. ‘The shiftiest fellow in France, and suddenly he’s your dear comrade?’

  Benjamin’s smile as he turned, and his eyes, were shining hard. ‘That, dear Ned, was opportunity at the door.’ Pinsent didn’t get it. ‘Right now we need a distraction. And what better distraction, than the shiftiest fellow in France?’

  Fouché watched Emma Lavalier walking away down the corridor, between two soldiers.

  She was as tall as them, and seemed to be leading. He was staring at the back of her neck, at the muscles in her shoulders, still trying to read her.

  As his glance fell away, he found Guilbert sitting immediately in front of him, looking up at him. Like some sort of faithful guardian. Or a watcher.

  Guilbert stood, and bobbed his head in courtesy. He must have been there when the woman had left.

  He seemed to have some trick of anonymity. Even against a bare wall, alone on his simple wooden chair, Guilbert could be unremarked.

  Why is he here?

  He had brought information about the woman Lavalier, and no doubt sought reward. Deserved enough, and Fouché was reaching for a coin when Guilbert’s frown and dismissive tut stopped him. ‘My regular payment is more than satisfactory, Monsieur.’

  What then?

  Fouché stood silent, waiting.

  The currency of information.

  ‘If you will spare me the time, Guilbert, I would be pleased to share such new information as I have.’

  A little smile from Guilbert, and a fuller bow. ‘Thank you, Monsieur. A most intelligent suggestion. It will make me more capable of serving you.’

  I never know when he is sincere.

  Guilbert sat. From his own chair, Fouché tried to look grand.

  His methodical mind overtook his pose of casualness. ‘The woman as you described her, Guilbert. A butterfly. A woman of diverse society. We had a prolonged performance of hauteur, of wounded dignity. She admitted acquaintance with some minor figures of the old regime, while trying to impress me with a few names of the new administration. She presents Madame Roland as a friend.’

  ‘So does half of Paris.’

  ‘She’s been there several times. This was more than posture, more than pretence. She is a woman of connections.’

  ‘Including foreigners?’

  ‘She presented herself as a hostess for a most colourful society. She named Greene, the Englishman. Owned he had visited her home several times. Was happy to talk about him; describe him. A rogue. A disreputable charmer. She was wide-eyed at the idea of his involvement in the affair at the Garde-Meuble, but did not resist it at all. She spoke only of his style as a man, and let me make the political inferences. She made no effort to hide or diminish her association with him. But then, she must have known that we would know of it anyway.’

  Guilbert nodded at the sense of this. Fouché took a deep breath, and his focus stretched beyond the office, before eventually returning to Guilbert. ‘That is why she leaves me so . . . uncertain; unsatisfied, Guilbert.’ Guilbert’s eyebrows rose a fraction; it was a challenge to his own effectiveness. ‘She generously confirms things that we already know or can easily check. She is associated with the most bewildering diversity of people. And all of her skill is used to present her own relation to those people in the most cautious way.’

  ‘She named other names, Monsieur? Associates of this Greene?’

  ‘She named other foreigners of her own association, but would not speculate about their relationship to Greene. I have a list here, which you must of course read.’ His finger dropped onto a page in front of him, and Guilbert’s eyes followed. ‘Again, these are names we already knew, or could know. The Englishman Benjamin we have heard of more than once. Other names.’ The finger tapped at the page. Guilbert watched it hungrily. ‘Perhaps I shall interview some of them. Is it possible also . . . Guilbert, is it possible for you – someone – to monitor such people? Follow them? Their correspondence?’

  ‘The Commune police keep any number of people watched, Monsieur; but they’re not up to following.’ Guilbert’s head came forwards slightly. His voice was flat. ‘You may command me anything, Monsieur. From this office’ – a glance at the connecting door – ‘you may command France.’

  Fouché considered this, eyes more intent.

  ‘It seems that the authorities cannot find this Greene, Monsieur.’

  ‘They cannot. He is reported missing from his residence for some weeks. This is why we try his acquaintances. Madame Lavalier was the most prominent.’

  ‘Perhaps I may try some of the less prominent, Monsieur.’ It wasn’t even a question. Fouché nodded, uncertain what exactly he was agreeing to. ‘What was her manner, Monsieur? Regarding her acquaintances of the court; the foreigners?’

  Fouché reflected. ‘It was well-judged, I should say. No suggestion of guilt, but a hint of shame. She the innocent victim of the rotations of history.’

  ‘Did she name La Porte?’

  Guilbert the shrewd; Guilbert the incisive. If only I might guarantee that Guilbert as my tool. ‘Alas, Guilbert, she somehow failed to own acquaintance with the King’s chief of secret correspondence.’

  Guilbert smiled politely at the sarcasm. ‘You’ve seen her style, Monsieur. Could she have had such a connection?’

  Again reflection. ‘I judge – yes. She is not of that circle of the court, but she could have been useful enough and presentable enough to be of service to its officers.’ He paused again, and again saw her in front of him, the eyes trying to read him. ‘She has depths, Guilbert. I hope I do not seem fanciful. Depths beneath her society charms.’

  ‘You think she could be dangerous, Monsieur?’

  Smile. ‘I think she could be . . . useful.’

  Guilbert nodded approvingly, and Fouché had the uncomfortable sensation of feeling pleased with himself.

  ‘Monsieur, if you find yourself on occasion . . . frustrated – thwarted – by such a person, there are . . . other ways.’

  ‘Torture?’ Fouché tried not to sound naive.

  A shrug in Guilbert’s lips. ‘Sometimes an unfortunate requirement of the needs of justice, Monsieur. We will agree that justice must be pre-eminent. It is unacceptable that a criminal should be allowed to obstruct justice by mere silence. In such circumstances it becomes necessary to overcome this obstructiveness with pressure. Brisk and prompt pressure.’ Fouché contrived a thoughtful nod. Another of Guilbert’s shrugs. ‘If Monsieur should ever think it . . . appropriate. For the needs of the Revolution.’

  ‘Mm. Indeed.’ Man of the world. ‘Presumably there is some approval required.’

  Again the shrug. ‘For a case of lower profile, much may be achieved on your authority alone, Monsieur
.’

  Fouché considered this – faintly pleased and faintly awed.

  Guilbert stood waiting.

  ‘Well, Monsieur?’

  What did he want? Fouché felt himself being hurried along through his own life. His face showed his uncertainty. Guilbert’s murmur again: ‘Monsieur, do you consider it appropriate for the woman Lavalier?’

  There were two impressions in Fouché’s mind: Emma Lavalier’s untouchable scornful superiority; and the first hint of pleasure that he’d yet seen in Guilbert.

  He felt his tongue tracing the circuit of his lips.

  ‘I shall have it in mind, Guilbert.’

  The suggestion of a smile from Guilbert.

  ‘She lives in St-Denis, Monsieur.’ Fouché looked up again. He’d thought the conversation over. ‘Same as the British you were interested in. Same as where there was the unrest in the night, over those mathematicians causing trouble.’ Fouché still didn’t understand. ‘The surveyors. Measuring the earth.’

  The triangulation; the meridian. Half-consciously, as Guilbert spoke, Fouché reached for the shelf where he knew Bailly’s letter to Lavoisier lay, describing the troubles of the astronomer trying to measure the meridian in St-Denis. He felt the texture of the paper as he picked it up, trying to weigh significance, read meaning. The truth of France is ten million connections and attitudes and affections, and of these I know but a few dozen.

  Guilbert had stopped, seeing the letter in Fouché’s hand. In this office, you deferred to paper.

  Fouché saw Guilbert’s expectancy, and passed him the letter. Guilbert obediently scanned it, flipping it over once to check that there was no second side of script, and then again in case the blank face told him anything more.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I make nothing of it, Monsieur.’

  ‘Nor I.’

  ‘I mean that I actually do not understand the words.’

  Fouché smiled. ‘That is your future, dear Guilbert.’ Guilbert seemed indifferent about his future. ‘Two of the most advanced natural philosophers of the age, discussing the most exciting experiment. It is part of the Assembly’s reform and standardization of all weights and measures.’ Guilbert remained unimpressed by the prospect of change to his weights and measures. ‘Bailly writes to Lavoisier to tell him of his student’s activities. And no, Guilbert, I don’t see there is anything to make of it.’

  ‘Man’s got a good story; wants to tell his friends about it.’

  ‘Exac-’ Fouché stopped, snatched the paper back, and looked at the all but blank reverse side again. ‘Friends, Guilbert! That’s rather good. Friends indeed. What did you make of the “1/6”?’ Guilbert shrugged. Fouché spun back to the shelves, and returned with the envelope. ‘Now?’ Guilbert swallowed his irritation. ‘Envelope and letter written in a different hand!’

  ‘A servant, Monsieur.’

  ‘A copyist, Guilbert!’ Still Guilbert refused to become excited. ‘In which case the notation would refer to the first copy of six, no? I propose that the other copies would have the same hand as the envelope.’

  ‘That’s how they do it sometimes. But who makes copies of a personal letter?’

  ‘Indeed. Indeed. And the copyist has the addresses.’

  Very faintly, Guilbert sighed. ‘Your pardon, Monsieur, but you seem a bit excited by this. From what you say, this . . . experiment isn’t any secret. There’s nothing in the letter that could be of particular interest to anyone.’

  ‘Not the message, Guilbert; there’s no secret there.’ He sat, heavily, at his desk and placed the letter and envelope squarely in front of him. ‘But the means.’

  There had been a ghastly intimacy to it, her interview with the creature Fouché. Terrible; thrilling. It had felt like nakedness; like the greatest vulnerability. Like violation.

  Emma had hurried home, cloak wrapped tight around her. Bathed, then walked two hours in the deepest part of the forest, bathed again. She wanted to be cleansed of her whole life. She wanted to hide, in some place where Emma Lavalier would never be found.

  It wasn’t the questions. She’d been deflecting and defying questions all her life. Not caring what people thought of her, she did not care when her answers caused disapproval, or her lack of answers caused frustration. It hadn’t mattered whom she danced with; whom she’d slept with.

  It wasn’t the style of the questions. She’d expected confrontation. She’d feared pain – for a moment, in the street, before the gate, the officers either side of her, she’d found herself shuddering at the thought of actual pain; her flesh raw and screaming.

  But the creature had been austere, even deferential, despite his remorseless persistence.

  No. Her experience had been bearable – better, even, than she had feared. But still she sat and shivered as the bath water cooled around her.

  Now she had dressed, and conservatively; austerely. Her ankles, her arms, and her vulnerable neck were all covered. She sat in the salon – she sat alone, upright on the sofa, holding her body tight and erect. And she reflected with a lurking sense of horror at what her world was become.

  Anyone could be declared a criminal – not for what they did, but for who they were – and carried to the guillotine. Prisoners were being casually tried in the prisons and killed. Priests – priests – had been massacred in their hundreds. The Swiss Guards – formality, order, the power of a benign central authority – had been slaughtered at the Tuileries. The Princesse de Lamballe had been interrogated and harangued and thrown into the street and cut to pieces.

  Death was no longer a contained, contingent thing – the consequence of crime or of disease. Death was everywhere, and utterly unpredictable.

  From somewhere, there was a knock.

  She had been escorted to her interview with the creature not knowing if she would return – or even if she would arrive. Each of the heavy wooden doors she passed in the passage towards him could have opened to drag her in and shut her up for ever. Whatever she said in the interview, her survival had depended on his whim. Every time the creature had opened his mouth – she remembered his mouth in particular, a thin bloodless reptile’s slit – the word could have been death. He hadn’t needed to threaten, because the whole of his regime, the whole of life now implied the threat. Violence was the breeze of the Revolution; violence was carried in the gutters; violence was in the blood.

  Again the knocking. Whatever the truth, whatever lie she told, at any second she might be dragged away and massacred.

  She heard the front door opening, the heavy click of the latch. Her erect body stiffened and strained instinctively, and she forced herself still.

  She’d wanted the servants away from the house for the rest of the day. She wanted no humans. But now a human had come regardless; a human who did not care to be stopped by an unanswered door.

  The world had changed. There were no laws any more. Least of all the old law that, faced with the grandest man of power, a beautiful woman could always find an advantage.

  The front door closed heavily. Footsteps, and another click as the door to the salon came open.

  KINNAIRD, Keith – born 175? – given as the s. of Muir Kinnaird of Corstorphine, shopkeeper, and wife Janet, but there is much to suggest that these – the father, at least – were but foster-parents. The timing, contemporary records, and certain tales from that time hint at the chance that the boy Kinnaird was the issue of an unknown Jacobite, either orphaned or abandoned by his father or by his father and mother, during the last silly flickerings of treasonous plotting in the decade following the defeat of the rising of 1745. The boy was schooled at home and then in Edinburgh, and reputed sober, adept and persevering. For a certain time he worked as assistant to his assumed father, then struck out on his own in trade, developing a concern of unspectacular but solid prosperity at first in Edinburgh, and then in correspondence with Glasgow, the northern cities of England, and eventually via the North Sea traffic. In the early 1780s he was in partnership, and later inter
mittently in correspondence, with GREENE, Henry (SS D/93). In London regularly 1780-1785; in Amsterdam at least once 1787.

  [SS D/101/1]

  Emma Lavalier rose to meet Kinnaird like some goddess of dignity, and it stunned him as much as if she had been naked.

  The lack of an answer to his knock, the absence of any servant to greet him, had been merely one more obstruction and discourtesy in many weeks of them. Expectations born of years in trade; of a lifetime as a Scot. A silent hardened scorn at the foolish painted men and women. He’d lifted the latch with the weary sense that, as usual, he must slip in uninvited, side doors and blank faces, must prosper if at all by the unorthodox path.

  All so tiresome. All so inefficient.

  And in that sensation, a moment’s reassurance. His father: no Scot was ever given anything for free, nor won what he did not first deserve. If you want it, you must take it. What you will become, you must make.

  The inner door. The echoing of the latch in the cool silence of the house. The door swinging away and the woman rising to meet him.

  Now he saw her beauty. Not a thing of flesh, of lips and shoulders and breasts as other men saw; instead, he saw a creature for one moment in absolute control of herself.

  For Emma, the appearance of the ridiculous English . . . Scottish man was a kind of reassurance of the perversity of her new world. The remorseless strangeness of it all. This salon had been her protected haven of life, of colour and amusements and passion. Today it was cool and empty and pale, and its only visitor was the man that none of them wanted or trusted.

  She said nothing. She stood in silence, watching him; considering him. The leanness: nothing of relaxation or indulgence about this man. Lean as the animals must be, that prey or are preyed upon.

  Kinnaird was accustomed to silence. But he was surprised by it now: he knew this as a place of bubbling revelry, of superfluous noise and superfluous life. Now it was frozen with stillness, paleness, and silence.

  He was used to using his silence, but he had not expected it in her. He had glimpsed Emma Lavalier before, and judged her: a decorative object, a licentious spirit.