Treason's Spring

by Robert Wilton

  Guilbert said, ‘There are other people we could bring in.’ His fingers flickered, so fast that Fouché wasn’t sure he’d seen aright. ‘Other questions.’

  Fouché contemplated him. ‘Guilbert, I think you could rack every royalist in Paris and they wouldn’t know the truth. Or we wouldn’t recognize the truth.’

  Guilbert gazed back. It seemed to him worth trying. He said: ‘If you don’t find these documents – if they stay hidden – are they dangerous?’

  Fouché shrugged. ‘I can’t know, dear Guilbert, can I?’ His eyes changed. ‘But the possibility! Think of the possibilities in that correspondence. To have every traitor in France, every two-faced trimmer, in one’s hand. To know of Louis’s intrigues with the other kings.’ The enthusiasm cooled. ‘And I fear we’re losing a race. I fear there are other men out there, who seek these documents, and they are more active than we and they may know more than we.’ His hand wavered over one page. ‘This Kinnaird . . . this prodigious agent of intrigue. He is everywhere – and we are nowhere!’

  ‘If they know more than we do, and we could find them or follow them somehow . . . ’

  Fouché’s smile was dead. ‘It’s a charming notion, Guilbert. But it’s meaningless, isn’t it? Unless . . . ’ Guilbert waited. ‘I wonder about St-Denis, and that damned apothecary’s shop. If we have nothing else to try, we might try something there.’

  To the librarian, Cathedral of Meaux

  Sir,

  I write as a friend and servant of a cause much troubled in these days.

  I write as one of a community who knew dear Xavier Bonfils, and knew him for a loyal and pious man. Those who knew him and those who believe in what he believed in do all surely regret his death, victim of one of ten thousand anonymous violent hands that do torment this land.

  [Approximate translation; original French very confused at this point.]

  I believe that in his flight from Paris our friend entrusted to you some token of his past, which he believed too precious to be risked on his solitary journey. And in truth he was wise, for had he not done so it would already been in the hands of his murderers. Nor could he have found dearer surer hands than yours to receive it, for he was ever a man of faith.

  And yet I speculate that you might find this token a burden. I speculate that you might, particularly after our friend’s death, fear that the continued possession of it should bring you and your establishment into danger.

  Know, then, that I have it in my power to take this token into safer keeping – to take it, indeed, quite out of the power of those who would use it for ill. Know that if you should find it to your benefit to be relieved of this burden, it may be arranged with the greatest speed and secrecy, and in the full assurance that the objects of our dear Bonfils in entrusting it to you will be upheld.

  If I may assist you in this way, send me word at the house of Gérard in St-Denis.

  Your dignity and security is precious to those of us who respect the old values. Please believe that I would do nothing that brings you risk or shame. Believe that we look to your endurance as a sign of what we prize. Believe my hope that we might share happier times.

  In true faith, I remain yours,

  Keith Kinnaird

  He reappeared out of the infinite early one morning, a grey thing in the pallor of the dawn, standing in the chicken shit with the round-shouldered slouch of all the beggars until Lucie opened the back door and his shoulders came up and then his head and the eyes, those cold eyes, were staring into her again and it was as if the last weeks hadn’t happened.

  Every instinct told her she should ignore him, close her eyes and hope he vanished, slam the back door and escape through the front.

  He gazed at her, and she thought: it is all mad.

  Lucie shrugged. She turned, and walked back into the house, leaving the door open.

  From the battered chair, just as in his first visit to the house, Kinnaird watched her.

  ‘How do you, Lucie?’ His voice was low, warm.

  She scowled through this and his other courtesies about her father, about trade. ‘You’re still hunted,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You should have stayed in the forest.’

  ‘For ever? There’s no point in hiding, Lucie, if it’s not to be ready to return.’ Her weary scowl at this wisdom seemed familiar to him, and he felt it like reassurance. ‘How is St-Denis? The people I know?’

  ‘Same police as ever, same games. But . . . everything matters more now. Everyone goes more careful.’ He nodded. ‘The other British – the two you knew – they’re still fugitives like you. But I saw one of them.’ She smiled, cold. ‘Easier for them. They’re not as famous as you.’

  He didn’t return the smile. ‘Madame Lavalier?’

  ‘Goes to Paris a lot. She has to be careful now. She stands out. Enough to be known; not enough to save her.’

  He nodded again, sombre.

  ‘What do you want, Kinnaird?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Why are you here? What now?’

  ‘Now I’m back, Lucie. I’m back and I’ve unfinished business here. I want to know how my name has been upturned; and I want to right it. And I still want to find out what happened to Hal.’

  ‘Why? Why not let it all lie? What does it matter now?’

  He just looked at her. His expression hadn’t changed at all. Fixed on his face: a faint wild smile.

  It was infuriating. ‘You can’t stay here!’ She added, more measured: ‘I mean, St-Denis isn’t safe. The police know all about the foreigners here. They’re watching the Tambour. They’re watching my father, Kinnaird: the work he does; the letters that come and go.’

  He considered this. ‘Interesting. I only came to say hallo, but that’s interesting.’ He stood. He came forwards a step. ‘I need you, Lucie; I need you as my go-between. I’ve a place to stay – not far from here; they’re people I trust, for they’re outcasts like me. But I need you to be my contact with the world.’

  She watched him.

  ‘I’ll pay, obviously.’

  ‘Ten francs the day. And I continue my normal work. People’d notice otherwise.’

  ‘Mm. I was thinking twenty. Let’s call it fifteen. But you’ll be mine. Pont de Neuilly at dusk each day, and whenever else I get you word.’ Another step forwards. ‘You’ll be my ears and my eyes, Lucie. You’ll help me feel my way into St-Denis and even into Paris. You’ll be my guardian angel.’

  Again she shrugged. It is all mad.

  In the doorway, behind him, she saw him stop, saw his head turning slowly as he quartered the ground.

  ‘What happened to you, Kinnaird?’

  She had become adept at pronouncing the name – or a more elaborate version of it, giving a weight to the vowels and the long-buried ‘r’ that no tight-mouthed Scot or ignorant Englishman ever did.

  Kinnaird liked it. He turned back to her. ‘You were . . . you were a rabbit,’ she said, matter of fact. ‘And I left you in the wildest forest in France.’ She glanced down at her lap, then up into his eyes. ‘And I knew it would kill you.’ At this Kinnaird smiled, and nodded slow. ‘But you survived, and you came back.’

  ‘Lucie, for a Scot – the forgotten son of a race of forgotten sons – the whole world is a forest. We learn fast.’

  ‘Anything for Kinnaird?’ The parlour of the apothecary in St-Denis was quiet – one other man there, slumped on a chair and staring into space. Benjamin had moved carefully through St-Denis, and in the shop he came close to the counter to ask the question. He didn’t think his face was known, but there had to be a chance that someone somewhere might know the real Kinnaird.

  The Scotsman hadn’t been seen for weeks. Followed old Greene, perhaps? Little chance of him getting the letter first.

  The man behind the counter was fidgety. ‘Ah, but yes, Monsieur Kinnaird!’ One risk dismissed immediately: the Scotsman either didn’t use the place for his letters, or was too unmemorable. Benjamin had had an explanation ready, but it was much b
etter to be thought Kinnaird. ‘For you we have two letters.’

  One was all Benjamin needed.

  Dear friend,

  your message came to me like cool water in the fever. The confirmation of the death of our friend is sad indeed, and yet we have surely become used to sadness in these terrible times, and must begin to fear that we shall never find any ease for our torments before we have enjoyed the great easing which comes to all true men of true faith.

  Sincerely, your proposal would be most convenient. I do not wish to retain that which is not properly mine. In the turbulence, I cannot properly guarantee the good-keeping of the book. If it could be returned to those more fitted to possess it and better able to care for it and all that it represents, I should be doubly relieved.

  You may visit me at any time of day or indeed night: we are used to visitors to our library, and travellers in search of a bed. Your name will alone secure you what you seek.

  [SS K/1/X1/30] (AUTHOR TRANSLATION)

  Benjamin’s heart thumped once, a burst of satisfaction as soon as he skimmed the message. His letter, in the congenial guise of Kinnaird, had hit home. Bonfils had wanted to protect his book, whatever it was and whatever its secrets. Or perhaps he had wanted to escape it: an uncomfortable and incriminating link to his royal master. Either way, he had left it with his acquaintance, the librarian to the Bishop of Meaux, in whose care it might be safer and more anonymous.

  Still lounging against the counter, he read the message a second time. The man was scared. He read it in the generalizations, in the absence of salutation or signature. The hint that a night visit might be preferred; the eagerness to be rid of the royal family’s mysterious book. The willingness to overlook the faint possibility that it was a deception; which it was, of course, but not as the man might have thought.

  Most men were focused on individual preservation, and with their heads down and their bags packed for an emergency might hope to come through the instability unscathed. But this man . . . their whole world was destroyed. Whatever happened in the wars – whether or not the Prussians found the gumption for another try against the citizen armies of France – it didn’t seem likely that world would be restored. He tucked the letter into his coat.

  Benjamin no more than glanced at the opening of the other letter to Kinnaird. A triviality – have the package that you hoped for – some damned bit of merchantry – obliged if you would collect it from – He refolded it, pushed it back across the counter. ‘I’ll leave this second one here for now. Reminder.’ That’s right, old fellow; carry on trading turnips while some of us scheme and shine for Britain.

  An attic in Aubervilliers; cheap lodging conveniently – or uncertainly – between Paris and St-Denis.

  ‘I’ve sport tonight.’

  Pinsent began to rise from his bed. He was looking paler now, Benjamin thought; flabbier. ‘Hold up; I’ll – ’

  ‘No. No, that’s all right, old lad.’ Hand on shoulder. ‘Solitary fox tonight. Foil rather than sabre, eh?’

  ‘Foil rather than – ? Oh, go to hell then.’

  Benjamin smiled. ‘For that jaunt I’ll have you with me, old lad.’

  Later, in the squalor of St-Denis, dirt streets and greying plaster walls and mean low eaves, there suddenly flashed a dart of beauty: something clean and proud and alive. As soon as he saw Emma Lavalier walking down the street towards him, Benjamin hesitated.

  She was walking along the other side of the street. Her head was erect, her gaze direct forwards. She did not engage with the scene around her, with the lesser people. He knew that she was being careful where she trod, but the gaze never broke and she seemed to glide.

  It was romantic fancy, of course. He felt a curse growling in his throat at his own foolishness. Emma gets shit on her shoes like everyone else. She was a dozen paces away, serene.

  Half a dozen paces away she slowed and stopped, and first her eyes and then her head turned to him.

  They watched each other’s faces for a while; enjoying it.

  Then some question in her face, some . . . apprehension.

  Very slightly, Benjamin shook his head. Then he nodded, formally, and kept his head down until she had walked on.

  But with Emma, the shit’s grateful.

  He watched her go: her rump, her back, her shoulders, the high neck and the hair under her cap, the hair shining black, a crystal of coal left in the ashes.

  From inside her chemise, Lucie produced a folded paper. It took a further moment for Kinnaird’s mind to move from the chemise to the paper.

  ‘For you.’

  His name was on the outside, but not as a salutation inside.

  Monsieur, we have the package that you hoped for. We should be obliged if you would collect it from the premises of our agent Lessart in the rue Sainte-Anne at your earliest opportunity. The door will be opened to you at any time. We trust that we may continue our co-operation, for we apprehend that we may be of further profit to you.

  There was no signature. But beneath the message a symbol had been drawn with half a dozen strokes of the pen: a crude crown.

  Kinnaird frowned at it for a time. Then his eyes came up, to find Lucie’s.

  He watched her. She stared back.

  She broke first. ‘It’s a trap.’ His eyebrows rose. ‘Isn’t it?’

  He stayed silent.

  ‘Well, do you know what it’s talking about?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, Lucie, I don’t.’

  ‘Well then.’

  Kinnaird smiled. He looked, to Lucie, somehow hungry.

  ‘But if someone is trying to trap me, I cannot ignore it.’

  She stared again.

  Manon Roland and Emma Lavalier circled and nuzzled each other like cats. Discreetly across the tea-table, world-wise and toying with small talk, they sniffed at each other’s charm, felt each other’s influence, licked at each other’s style. Lavalier wondered at Roland’s salon, her power, her contacts; considered the modish revolutionary look she had started among women of her society, the hair worn shorter and loose cap and chemise, considered the seductiveness of a woman in the ill-fitting clothes of a man, of a clean woman with just a bit of dirt. Roland as ever wondered at Lavalier: the stories of her parties; the people she must know, the knowledge she must have. She considered the poise of the creature opposite her, the fresh lace and the faded satin, an artful preservation of an older style; considered the lure, for men, of new ideals and lost dreams.

  They spoke of Prussians; and parvenu lawyers and untrained soldiers; and Manon Roland’s fears about Roland in the Paris climate and the unpredictable winds of the Convention; and Camille Desmoulins and what men saw in him and what women saw in him; and what to believe in, without church or religion or king. Circled and nuzzled each other like cats.

  ‘I don’t believe I saw Robespierre at your last salon.’ Is he the future, and are you with him?

  ‘Have you seen Danton lately?’ Where is the Revolution, and do you know any more?

  ‘The faces of the women in the Tuileries mob!’ What role is our sex to play in this generation?

  ‘It is such a pleasure to be out of the crowd.’

  ‘Such a pleasure to spend time with you.’

  Together, intertwined, we might be more resilient than any of them.

  The door clicked open and they both looked up, interrupted, watchful.

  ‘My dear . . . ’ It was Roland. ‘Fouché takes his leave of us.’

  Fouché followed his host into the doorway – ‘My respects as ever Madame, to you.’ – made his little bow, kept his eyes on Madame Roland’s face and bust, a simple cap and a rough chemise – somehow sturdy, somehow vulnerable . . .

  . . . and saw that Emma Lavalier was across the table from her, watching him. Somehow startled? Somehow superior?

  Always you.

  Always you.

  ‘You know Madame Lavalier of course, dear Monsieur Fouché.’

  ‘No man would ever know as much as he would h
ope to, Madame.’

  ‘Monsieur Fouché knows more about me than I know myself.’

  ‘Always Madame Lavalier suggests some new question.’

  ‘Always Monsieur Fouché has the answer.’

  ‘Tonight perhaps, Madame!’ Adrenalin had got Fouché through the exchange, but now defiance replaced inspiration. ‘Tonight perhaps we may know more answers than for a long time.’

  Roland, floundering on the fringes of the exchange: ‘Fouché is tireless, dear ladies. Even as he is here, he is managing his operations. Tonight he will capture a dangerous enemy.’

  The ladies watched him, and Fouché enjoyed their regard.

  ‘The British known as Kinnaird. Tonight he enters my trap.’

  Emma Lavalier watched his satisfaction, while concentrating on the rigid muscles of her face.

  She had a vision of France as a desert, of Fouché and Kinnaird as lithe feral rodents hunting each other among the rocks.

  Was there a chance they might destroy each other, these lean uncomfortable men, and leave the world to Manon Roland and Emma Lavalier?

  A day’s riding from Paris, Sir Raphael Benjamin found the cathedral tower of Meaux rising out of the wheat fields. Towers, really: one monstrous square beast soaring up into the darkening sky, and a shorter thing with a pointed roof, and a gable end crowding between them for air, and buttresses and finials and whatnots; the whole thing more like a city itself, with different centuries of development jumbled together. Beside it, the roofs of Meaux were no more than foothills in the landscape.

  The evening turned purple, and black, and the colour of the cathedral turned with it, the yellow stone getting paler and colder until finally finally the great edifice rising out of the landscape was a ghostly thing under the moon.

  Benjamin had two men riding with him. Men for hire. Their task was simple enough, and probably unnecessary, but there was no need to be reckless. Their task probably wasn’t even risky. Nevertheless, for some reason he hadn’t wanted to put Ned to it; perhaps tonight he didn’t want Ned’s stolid chatter, or perhaps the old devil deserved a night off.