Treason's Spring

by Robert Wilton

  Jean the Dog didn’t move. Instead he began to consider the head of the hammer, and the wedge he would use to secure it in its new place.

  After half a minute, Marinus said, ‘Monsieur?’

  ‘Wait.’

  Marinus waited.

  Out of the silence, and the cloth wall behind Jean the Dog, someone coughed twice.

  Jean the Dog looked up. ‘Walk back to the end of this row, go to the next, and walk down it halfway. Blood-red cloth in the door.’

  Two minutes later Marinus was contemplating a rough shack of boards and cloths, the doorway hung with a dark red cloth. He glanced around himself once again, crossed the path and reached for the cloth.

  It pulled away in front of him. Kinnaird welcomed him in. ‘My dear sir. I give you welcome; you honour me with your visit.’

  ‘The honour is mine. You are truly an Englishman?’

  ‘I am anything on earth before that. But everyone keeps calling me so, and if I’m to be a fugitive and a criminal I’ll go the whole way and be a damned English one.’

  A candle helped Marinus see around the single space: a palliasse, on twigs to try to keep it dry; books and maps spread on a cloth. ‘And to complete your damnation you take refuge among these, the most cursed people in France – the outcasts of Europe.’

  ‘I’m an outcast.’ Kinnaird smiled. ‘In France I’ve met every nationality, I’ve met aristocrats and revolutionaries, diplomats and dandies, and I’ve learned I can’t trust a one. These? These are trading men, sir. These are my people.’

  Marinus nodded at the point. ‘How wonderful it would be: a world governed entirely by trade, and not by these political factions and fevers.’

  Kinnaird blinked a few times, considered it. ‘For our trade we rely on relative differences of value. No factions and fevers: no differences between men: no trade.’

  ‘I have a proposal for you.’ Kinnaird’s eyes were immediately blank. ‘A proposal between men of differences, who may yet find useful matter for exchange.’

  ‘Whom do you represent?’

  ‘Myself; I.’

  Kinnaird blinked once. ‘And?’

  ‘And one other party.’

  ‘May I meet the man or men?’

  ‘He is a man of excessive prudence, and he has cause to be. You may equally feel that it serves both of your interests to remain anonymous.’

  ‘I understand.’ Kinnaird considered it, and Marinus stayed silent. ‘Given your own character and background, and certain political realities, I think I may hazard a presumption.’

  ‘I hoped so.’

  ‘But as you say, it would be unnecessarily indiscreet to haggle with names.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘The proposal?’

  ‘That in these disrupted times, your individual and potentially rival interests are less important than your shared interest that France spread as little instability as possible beyond her borders.’

  Kinnaird considered it, and nodded. ‘Do you require a definite answer on the point, or any particular token of commitment?’

  ‘No. The offer remains open for as long as the politics of your respective interests render it relevant. I shall remain at your disposal as intermediary.’

  ‘I am glad of it.’

  Marinus made to go; hesitated. ‘Something more; proof of good faith, if you will. You are still interested in the circumstances of the death of your friend Mr Greene?’ Kinnaird nodded. ‘I think he was involved in some little act of provocation or obstruction around the time of his death.’

  ‘The surveyors of the meridian, yes.’

  ‘Indeed. I was walking in St-Denis the day that the expedition was passing through, and I understand that they had greater difficulties that evening.’

  ‘But Hal was going for the southern party; not the northern party passing St-Denis.’

  ‘I could not say what he was doing that night. But I can tell you where he spent the previous night.’

  In the doorway, their handshake still clasped, Kinnaird said, ‘You were followed here.’

  ‘I took pains to avoid it. I saw no one here who had been near me earlier in the journey.’

  ‘In the camp at least, you were watched: soldier’s coat, bandage over one eye, bent-backed.’

  ‘I would be most embarrassed if I had caused you any inconvenience.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. In this place they would not risk anything even if they had a regiment.’ The handshake ended. Kinnaird started to turn, but then said, ‘I hear he is a titan, this partner of yours. If my presumption of his nationality is the right one. For a long time the most hunted man in France, and still the most brilliant agent of espionage.’

  Marinus smiled. ‘He is indeed a phenomenon, sir. A man truly to be wondered at. By the sheer brilliance of his mind, and the certainty of a suicide draught on his finger, he scorns any possible threat they may offer, and rules supreme over himself. The complete man, and you have his reputation rightly.’

  Kinnaird considered it. ‘He has the character that I am only rumoured to have. I hope that one day circumstances allow us to overcome our prudence and meet.’ A slight bow. ‘I give you good-day, sir.’

  The soldier did not follow Marinus away, and nor did anyone else. Kinnaird let the cloth fall back over the doorway, and returned to his books and his maps.

  Karl Arnim – his soldier coat in a knapsack, the bandage become a neckcloth, and a hat low over his eyes – watched Marinus disappear round the corner, and looked back to the blood-red cloth, and began to consider an alternative vantage point from which to observe the movements of the Britisher.

  At this time, the workshop of François Gamain, locksmith, is easily found. Today the Revolution has found it.

  Two policemen in the street in front. Two policemen in the alley behind. A thumping on the door and it’s only just opened in time before a musket butt does the job.

  In the lodging downstairs, Madame Gamain stands in her cramped parlour, at bay. It’s a terrible assault on all the laws of privacy and decency – the mechanism smashed – and she’s told them so. She’s boiling angry, and the policemen can see it. She’s afraid, and they can see that too.

  She’s told them about the letter he received – nothing unusual – a sudden commission. No, he didn’t say where. Yes, that was typical. He’d had her pack a bag for him, which meant the possibility of a night or two away. Yes, often he might be a night or two away. He’s a craftsman of distinction – as always, she repeats his practised phrase with care – and people who value quality and discretion summon him considerable distances. Within her fear, a brief warm flicker of pride. Once, the Count of –

  She’s cut off, by a single raised hand.

  She’s always said she wants to move somewhere where they don’t have to hide, a home befitting his supposed success. Now, more than ever, home broken open, she wants to move.

  In the centre of the room, gently turning himself on the stool, foot by foot, one man sits silent. His hand falls to his lap again.

  Guilbert is aware of Madame Gamain, but only as much as he’s aware of the tidiness of the kitchen space, of the discreet prosperity of the craftsman’s parlour, of the absence of any disorder in the few rooms.

  Gamain has slipped him today; but it’s not flight. The locksmith will be back.

  Kinnaird’s grasp of Lucie Gérard had changed and grown over the weeks. He understood better now her resourcefulness. He appreciated that behind her blank facade there could be wit and, occasionally, just possibly, sympathy. He had started to see the factors and experiences that had nurtured her inhuman indifference to life.

  So her face now, as she hurried in, was a surprise.

  Her eyes were wide. They engaged with him; they wanted something; for once they actually looked. Her mouth was struggling to expel something.

  Lucie Gérard was showing emotion. ‘She’s – she’s dead. Madame. Madame Emma. She’s dead, M’sieur.’

  Already rattled by her distress,
Kinnaird felt it like a punch.

  This could not be. The essence of Emma Lavalier – the meaning of her – was that there could be a kind of life greater than the mob’s madness.

  A kind of hatred began to burn in Kinnaird, a hatred he had not previously felt despite all that had been inflicted on him in these mad weeks.

  He sat. Slowly, and stiffly, and poised, he sat.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  He felt something dying in one part of him, and becoming rekindled elsewhere as the hate.

  ‘She – she killed herself.’

  Kinnaird’s eyes closed, clenched. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘She had invited guests. Two men – Americans. No – two men and a woman. They were seen arriving – and leaving. When they arrived, they knocked but got no answer. No servants. The door was open and they went in. And they found her. They say she took poison.’

  It was so understandable, that Emma Lavalier of all creatures should have found life under the Revolution impossible; and still Kinnaird hated it. ‘The funeral. I must be there.’ Why was he so sentimental? Surely he wasn’t –

  ‘No. You shouldn’t. And you can’t. It’s done. It was done – it was done’ – she started to lose control of her lips – ‘cheaply.’ Now the tears came.

  Kinnaird growled. ‘Look at us, Lucie. Look what she has made us.’ He took a breath. ‘This damned age. The greatest souls are drowning in it. With her, something truly beautiful, something . . . defiant, goes out of the world. She was something too splendid for this mayhem, and I’d have hoped that she endured rather than it.’

  He remembered his conversation with the London man. And I have in some way betrayed her.

  ‘It was all a dream, M’sieur. The house wasn’t even hers any more. Rented, from some old widow.’ The tears were thick under her eyes and she was angry. ‘Some vicious grasping old crone in Rouen named Philemon; it all goes back to her and her daughter. That’s what they say; ugly, grasping women.’ Amusement flickered in Kinnaird – wonder even – at Lucie’s spite. ‘In the end Madame Emma had nothing herself at all.’

  With a mighty sniff, Lucie sucked all of the emotion back inside her.

  She made to leave. He had been allowed to glimpse another Lucie, and Lucie wanted to leave that other one behind.

  ‘Oh. There’s this. Left at the house for me, but it’s marked for you.’ Two-handed, she held out a cloth-wrapped package.

  She heaved in a wavering breath. ‘She had nothing herself at all!’

  ‘But Lucie – ’ Kinnaird reached for her, gripped her hand, and she winced. ‘Emma Lavalier had herself. And that was more extraordinary than anything.’

  To Fouché, the news of Emma Lavalier’s death came as a shock. He was not emotionally disturbed by it in the least; another unreliable human more or less. But it was ... a surprise. He had not expected it.

  More irritating was the paper that reached him shortly after the news of the death. A coincidence, and ill-timed. It had been intercepted as part of the selective watch on correspondence at the apothecary’s in St-Denis. As had been ordered, the original had been resealed and replaced, so that it should be harder for the correspondents to know of interruption. But the need to make a copy had further delayed its journey to Fouché. At least a day or two old now, and he wondered if he could have altered events had it somehow reached him sooner.

  The letter had been sent using the old arrangement of the Friends of Magnetism, but to one member of the circle only.

  To the office of Franklin, United States of America

  I find that the power of the Revolution grows unstoppable, and I can no longer endure it. Monsieur Fouché is all-seeing, and grows all-powerful. He has by the heels one Gamain, a locksmith, and Gamain will reveal the secret correspondence of the King. It is predicted that the King’s credibility will be destroyed, and that Paris and all Europe shall shake.

  Unaided, I find no way out of my own predicament, and it seems that Europe’s troubles are too great to afford a moment to care for mine. I wonder, would you find an hour during the afternoon of tomorrow, the 15., when two or three persons of your legation might call at the house of Lavalier? The servants shall be absent for the day. And pray, if it is possible let them be someones of my acquaintance. They shall serve fitly enough to see what this life has done to me, and why it is become impossible.

  Such was the nearest thing to a suicide note that Lavalier had produced. In the end, rather a pathetic acknowledgement of the new realities of life. He had thought, from the interview, that she aspired to a kind of collaboration with him. Instead he had proved too imposing, and she had broken.

  And so the Americans had called at the house, and found her dead. The letter’s melancholy became, with hindsight, clear intent. He wondered what poison she had used. He assumed poison. Or . . . Lavalier might have been strong enough for a knife.

  Of course, the letter would not have gone immediately to Franklin himself, across the Atlantic; and she must have known this. Some official in the American entourage in Paris had received it first – such, presumably, were the current arrangements according to the Friends of Magnetism – and it had been acted on in Paris; the original, perhaps then forwarded to Philadelphia.

  Had she corresponded with the Americans before? Fouché found the idea disappointing. If she was going to turn servant of espionage, why should she not do it for France? For him?

  Ironic, perhaps, that after all the suspicions of her intimacies with the European powers, it should be the Americans chosen as her mourners. Another sign of the emptiness of her life by the end. All the superficial attachments fallen away, and only strangers left.

  But her death was a convenience, in many ways. She was unreliable in the extreme: too inter-connected, too unpredictable. With her death, there was a small but significant simplification. It was neat.

  Only one irritation; one concern. By the note, someone else knew about the hunt for Gamain. Guilbert must work faster. That was the significance of the letter; and the little human melodrama, one more over-fragile animal, fell away.

  Still, the news of Lavalier’s death was a kind of shock to Fouché. Somehow, he had miscalculated her.

  Kinnaird waited until Lucie had left, before he unwrapped the cloth package.

  He was still trying to understand why Emma Lavalier’s death had affected him.

  The package felt solid, but slightly flexible. The cloth fell away to reveal a card folder, filled with papers.

  His name was on the cover.

  Sitting on his palliasse in the gypsy hut, he held the folder a moment. Emma Lavalier had been the one clearly impressive thing he had seen in France. She had shown that it was possible for control to defeat chaos.

  He opened the folder.

  Except that she hadn’t.

  Dear Kinnaird,

  I address you thus as an equal, and that revelation is the last and greatest of many surprises that recent times have shown me.

  You entered my life as the personification of strangeness. Perhaps it is natural that my own alienation from this world should have started at the same moment. We thought you ridiculous. But your discordance only showed how out of harmony we were with the times.

  You were a better man than any of them. Not morally better – of that I know little and care less – but more capable. I came to understand why it is natural that you should survive Raph Benjamin and the rest. I begin to understand that it is natural that you should survive me.

  You have the strength of the tree that bends in the wind and does not break. You learn; you adapt; you endure.

  I have prided myself that I have some of the certainty and force of a man. You will endure because you have the flexibility and resilience of a woman.

  With your stubbornness and your funny prickly wisdom you gained something of my affection; but that was always cheap won. Much rarer, you gained my respect. It would honour and amuse me if you would have some such regard for me after I am gone.

 
I did not at first give you the courtesy your qualities deserve, and I have played games with your character for petty advantages. My gift to you now is not an apology, for that means little to either of us, but it is the tribute that I owe for not recognizing your qualities and for not recognizing that you are the future rather than I.

  I give you you.

  I give you you as France knows you; the Kinnaird of the Revolution.

  Enclosed is the private dossier of Fouché, embodiment of all that is most dangerous and vile about the new France, on Keith Kinnaird. You will find much that is unfamiliar in here, for this is the Kinnaird that has been created by Fouché’s cross-referencing and speculating, and by the games that Raph Benjamin – and I – played, and by the chaos of recent times. Depriving Fouché of the few truths in here may give you some advantage; showing you the many falsehoods may give you more.

  Perhaps it is a credit to you that yours is one of the thickest of Fouché’s many dossiers. When he left me in the company of his minister I had but a moment, via the pretence of a lost glove, to re-enter his office and snatch up the dossier. But men understand so little of women’s show, and the modern fashion allows a looser bodice than it used to. Thus I smuggled the more exotic Kinnaird out of the ministry, clasped to my bosom as neither of us would, I think, have expected.

  Fouché is everything and everywhere. Soon he will have the royal documents, secure in a cell next to poor Hal.

  I have all my life thrived on ambiguity. Now I am pushed instead for a slave’s certainty, and even that may not save me.

  I reject this mean life utterly. Rather than submit a false self to this life, I shall take my true self out of it quite.

  Breathe life back into my flower. In your pinching calculating scheming, try once a little flamboyance, will you? Try the impossible and do it. Think the unthinkable, and think of me.

  You cannot fight the chaos. Instead you must learn to thrive in it. Kinnaird, you must become part of the chaos.

  Lavalier

  ‘Do you know what loyalty means, little girl?’ In truth, Arnim despised women, and trusted little and cared less about their loyalty. They were useful only as points of vulnerability in a man’s defence of his knowledge or his dignity; or sometimes an alternative to money as a temptation. But so much effort to manage, and in the end it was always cheaper to rely on money. A man’s relationship with money was always more simple than his relationship with a woman; more dependable.