Fleur-de-Lis

by Isolde Martyn

  "You know it might not be Quettehou behind the threats," he said eventually. "The other restaurant owners along the Boulevard de Temple must be feeling the pinch."

  "Whoever it is, I wish I might deal with them. I hate such insidious warfare and I have this sense of being watched all the time."

  Raoul didn't tell her that he had an arrangement with Robinet to mind her whenever she ventured into the streets. This afternoon, however, he was playing her guardian angel. He strengthened his grasp on his swordstick and hummed.

  "Raoul! Something's happening. Bon Dieu!"

  She was right. The passers-by seemed to be consolidating. The click-clack of saboted feet behind them was suddenly ominous.

  "Don't look concerned. Keep walking."

  "Hoarder!" shouted someone.

  "Oh, my."

  "Whore! Filthy harlot!"

  The mob of some twenty or so grabbed the words and milled them out in a hideous chant: "Harlot, hoarder! Harlot, hoarder!"

  One workman held a lid, which he beat with a stick. The ugly clanging added venom.

  "Keep walking. See that next double gate on the right? If it opens, cross the courtyard! See if you can go through to the next street. If not, hide! Leave me to deal with this. Obey me, darling!" He squeezed her hand.

  "Hoarder-hoarder-hoarder!"

  Raoul shoved Fleur through the instant they reached the studded wooden gate and spun round to face the mob, his swordstick in his hands, ready for unsheathing.

  "Citizens, what's all this?"

  "Ohh, the gentleman's stirring for a fight, is he?" The cudgel tapped its owner's palm, mimicking Raoul's weapon. "We'll give him one, mes braves."

  "You want to die in someone else's dispute, do you, citizens?"

  Raoul asked pleasantly. Were they all hired or had some of them tagged along to relish the spectacle? "Go back to whoever's stirred you up with lies and tell them the mud wont stick."

  "How come that whore gets bread when our children go hungry?" bawled a young woman with an infant on her hip.

  "I've seen you breakfast for free outside her restaurant," retorted Raoul, and scanned their faces. "Come on, who's behind this?"

  "No one's behind this, citizen." A sans-culotte with a face like creased leather was cradling his cudgel. "An' why are you protecting the silly cow?"

  "Your fancy piece, is she?"That was the young woman again.

  The wheels of Raoul's mind whirred and halted. The fellow with the cudgel had been the rogue who had seized Fleur from the coach that day he and Hérault had come to her rescue.

  "And this young blade is some bloody former noble. I say we hang the pair of 'em. Got a nice set of lamps all ready for you, young sir."

  "And there's a tumbril waiting for you, citizen. Murder a deputy and you'll soon see the straw in the basket."

  "Ho, a deputy, are you?" Yes, I remember you from last time, the fellow's eyes told him. "Well, I'll murder any number of deputies if I lay hands on 'em, starting with the plump old Girondins. Now stand back, lad, and let us have her."

  Had Fleur escaped by now? Raoul was not sure how much more time he could buy her.

  "Is this your gratitude, good people?" he exclaimed."I was there when the Bastille fell, were you? Were you?" He fixed his stare on the agent provocateur. "I was at the Tennis Court the day they took the oath, were you? I signed the warrant for King Louis's death, did you? What have you done for France?"

  "What's she done?" A dirty forefinger stabbed the air. "Lain on her back for you?"

  There were too many of them. The crowd had swollen with onlookers and some other burlier troublemakers. A pair of national guard lurked at the rear, clearly too cowardly to make their presence felt. He could try demanding they arrest the troublemaker or he could—

  He was in the gate in an instant and slammed it shut, reluctantly jamming his swordstick across the old bar supports. What choice was there?

  "Raoul."

  Diable, the darling fool. She'd waited.

  "Come on!" Seizing her hand, they dashed across the courtyard, into the inner yard and up the stairs, as their pursuers beat at the gate."They'll be over it in seconds," he rasped out. "Upstairs. We might find ourselves some weapons." They raced through the succession of shabby, stately, empty bedrooms, locking door after door behind them where there was a key, while down below the mob split up, hounding through the lower floor.

  The mansion followed the inevitable quadrangle layout of a former era. If they stayed in here, they'd be trapped by their pursuers coming from both directions. And they found nothing useful for defence. Raoul eyed the curtain rods as they ran through. He could use one as a staff but how long would that last against a cudgel?

  "Out of practice," Fleur gasped, grimacing at the pain in her side as they reached the south-western corner, and turned into the next wing. A discarded dust sheet lay in one corner. Across the broken mirror, somone had daubed: Liberté ou Mort.

  Cursing, Fleur tried to unlatch the nearest window.

  "Let me." Raoul flung it up. "Too high to jump and there's no postern."

  "The tree. We can get across to the perimeter wall."

  Hardly, thought Raoul. The oak was at least four feet out of reach. A pity. One branch almost reached above the wall and another sturdy limb was a hand's grasp from the building. She surely didn't mean edge along the stone cornice? She did.

  Fleur scrambled out, silently cursing her skirt and, clasping his arm for support, straddled the window recess and set her left sole gingerly on the masonry, testing it.

  "It'll hold. Pull the curtain to. Quickly! Come on." She pressed her cheek sideways, squashing her breasts against the wall, one hand still clasping the window embrasure. Her free fingertips explored and found a minuscule ledge of masonry, sufficient to keep her balanced.

  Hell! He'd rather look down, keep his heels against the masonry, but then he hadn't a bustle.

  He joined her on the sill-like ledge. There was scarce eight inches width beneath his soles. Bon Dieu, he hoped it would bear them both.

  Beneath his spread-eagled fingers, the stone was hostile. Taller, he needed to find different purchase. If he flung himself outwards and jumped, could he lead the human dogs away from Fleur? The charge of sabots echoed beyond the wall. He felt the vibration of the joists and the pain of the panelled doors splintering beneath the blows.

  Fleur had miraculously reached the tree. Some fragment of his mind, the piece that wasn't scared or nerving him to inch along, suggested she'd done this before.

  "You grab the branch and swing yourself along like an ape," she whispered and launched herself off the ledge. One leather heel detached and fell. She toed off the other.

  The noise brought the human pack. The leader stuck his head out the window and saw them. In seconds a pike was thrust towards Raoul's ribs. Oh God, he moved fast. A second window was thrust up. They were trying to get him from both sides now.

  Fleur swung her body forwards as swiftly as she could with the twigs snagging her clothing. Her stupid hat caught and she painfully wrenched herself free. Arms aching with her body weight, every inch was a league and the courtyard swam beneath her stockinged feet. If she fell and broke her neck, it would save a lot of trouble.

  "Raoul?"The leaves blinded her. She grasped the trunk with relief and felt the branch groan with a second weight. Then she remembered his damaged hand. Oh God!

  Gasping, she struggled round the trunk and crawled along the other branch, praying that their pursuers had no firearms between them. Her petticoat caught and it took precious time to rip it free. Beyond the thick foliage, the shouts and snarls were terrifying. Where was Raoul?

  "Go on, love!" He had reached the trunk of the tree. "Go on!"

  "I'm above the wall." Now was the hardest part. She lowered herself and saw for the first time the furious faces jamming the lower windows like squashed fruit. The gleam of a gun barrel caught the sun. "Dear Jesu." Fumbling out with her feet, she tried to reach the top of the wall that fla
nked the Rue Pavée. It was at least a foot away and not beneath her.

  "Fling yourself." She did and missed the top, hanging like a sprawled cat by her fingertips on the inner side. Her arms were screaming silently. A shot smashed into the wall next to her elbow and she screamed.

  Raoul kept his nerve. He moved steadily along the second branch, swung and landed forwards, almost tumbling head over heels. But he was lithe enough to recover his balance and with a leg either side the wall he swiftly leant down and grabbed her by the waist, hauling her up until she was leaning over it.

  A second shot drove into her skirt, just missing her thigh.

  "Come on!" Raoul's arm across her, they fell together. Heavier, he hit the street cobbles first. Her bustle, the foolish wadge of stiffened canvas, saved her back.

  "What's going on?" bellowed a portly housewife, pausing over her broom. A sans-culotte, pushing an empty barrow, gaped.

  "Eloping, citizen, can't you tell?" muttered Raoul, clenching his fist in readiness against the pocket of his spoilt coat. "And a right dog's breakfast I made of it." Behind the wall, the mob bayed, seeking an exit.

  "Come on, mon cher." Looking like a ragged slop-seller, Fleur tugged Raoul's arm and flashed a tremulous smile at the sansculotte. She didn't expect to be hauled in the wrong direction. "But we're doubling back," she gasped and then recognised where he was making for. La Force Prison!

  "Stop 'em!" bawled someone from down the sidestreet as they hurtled past the narrow crossroads to hammer on the great arched doors of the men's prison.

  The turnkey was slow in coming. "Let us in!" shouted Raoul, smiting his fist against the gate. "Hurry, man, in the name of France, hurry!" They tumbled into the forecourt and the iron door clanged closed behind them.

  "Well," smirked the fat turnkey. "Ain't you a turn, Deputy. I've never had any salaud so desperate to come in 'ere before."

  * * *

  The smell of the print works was unmistakable: ink, paper and, mingling in the midst, the odour of beer from the corner tavern. Raoul, plumed and epauletted, with Robinet lurking behind his back like an eager cutthroat, turned into the alleyway from the Rue Saint-Michel. An aproned apprentice, his cheeks not yet settled for kissing girls, was heaving up a basket of agitated pigeons from a delivery cart. Scowling, he jabbed his black signpost of a finger towards a door off the cluttered flagstone passageway. Circumventing two barrows stacked with pamphlets ready to be wheeled out for distribution, Raoul entered the enragé's astoundingly neat realm.

  Illuminated by a western aspect, the spacious workroom contained a better press than most Parisian printers could boast of. This was a campaign headquarters par excellence. On trestle tables flanking the wall were the regiments that enforced their general's power: metal rows of alphabet in different fonts, Roman, italicised, serifed and shoeless; the headline characters; and horizontals, ems and dashes, commas, colons, semi and full. And exclusive and happy on their own, a row of shiny exclamation marks—much in demand for silent yelling at a hungry populace. Composing sticks of rumours, riots, victories and victims stood freshly primed. Paper sheets waited to lose their innocence; those ravished with blistering words were queuing for a far more modest guillotine.

  The lord of these reams was, busy outside in the tiny walled yard, but he must have heard footsteps different to his assistant's shuffling gait. The cheerful whistling of 'Au près de ma blonde' ceased in midcadence; there was an irate flutter of wings as though a pigeon was being shoved back into its coop, and Quettehou, bareheaded and with fresh birdshit streaking one boot cap, came in to do new business. If he was astonished to see Raoul still alive, he hid his disappointment.

  "Deputy." A grin a shark might envy welcomed them. "Want a job done?"

  "You get rid of people?"The accusation hit and was batted off court.

  "Words," Quettehou countered, blithely slapping the copy with the back of his hand. "The new arsenal. Cheaper, too. What sort of campaign do you want and how long? A week in the public pillory brings 'em to their knees better than the cat-o'-nine-tails."

  "Let's not waste each other's time."With a violence that had been suppressed too long, Raoul grabbed Quettehou by his stock and thrust him back against the press. "I've got your lackey under lock and key. He's confessed everything."

  "I... don't... know... what you're talking... about."

  "Your beloved Aunt Fleur." Raoul corkscrewed the neckcloth tighter.

  "So? Is she... OW!"

  "Alive? Oh yes. Another of your feckless schemes that failed to fire. Let's rehearse a little catechism, shall we? It goes like this: "I promise not to harm Fleur Bosanquet in any way." Say it!" He was being unreasonable considering he was half strangling the man, but when Robinet loomed up brandishing a knife, Quettehou squeaked out a promise and Raoul eased his grip. "And to be doubly sure, if you try any further tricks, I'll produce your minion in front of Fouquier-Tinville and send you to the guillotine faster than you can say Marie-Antoinette." He dragged Quettehou up from the press, loosed his hold and drove his gloved fist up into the weaselly jaw. The printer went crashing into a poster of a semiclad Liberty in a Phrygian bonnet and subsided in a surprised heap.

  Another fellow might have run at his gut. Raoul braced himself but Quettehou stayed put, shifting his gangly limbs lever-like to better order. "I've been doing some investigating myself, Deputy," he muttered, dabbing at his swelling, bloody lip. He watched Robinet's fidgety boot cap with respect and added, "Did you know you're protecting an aristocrat? My honest, theatrical aunt. She's the Duc de Montbulliou's youngest brat."

  "Oh yes, and I'm King George of England." Raoul folded his arms and leaned back languidly against the trestle table, but beside him Robinet tensed like a dog that had heard its name near suppertime. "You're a trifle off the bullseye, Quettehou." It was added with a calm he did not feel. "The girl's the daughter of a lady's maid who worked at Clerville."

  "Is she?" Robinet interrupted gruffly.

  Quettehou rose to his feet, smiling. "Puts you in the dung up to your neck, doesn't it, Deputy, if she isn't? Unfortunately, I can't turn the bitch in for that or the government will snatch what's rightfully mine, but I can denounce her for murder. You're screwing my uncle's murderess, deVillaret." He flashed a smirk at Robinet. "I'd be careful of the company you keep, friend. And there's a brother too. The émigré Duc de Montbulliou, as loathsome as his dear Papa. Or is he a servant's brat as well?"

  Robinet's profile skewed round to Raoul. "I thought you said—"

  "That he's dead. Yes, he is." Raoul's mouth tightened, his gaze pinioning the printer. "Your men attacked him instead of me, Quettehou, or we'd have finished the state funeral and I'd be comfortably interred beneath the Panthéon. Do you make mistakes with everything?" He picked up a pamphlet, glanced at it contemptuously as though expecting a baker's dozen of errors, and then crushed it in his palm.

  "Dead, Deputy? Is he?" Quettehou's sneer swung Raoul's world off its axis. "I wouldn't be sure of that if I were you. Marat reckons you should ask her, before you totally screw yourself."

  Marat! Merde!

  Smirking, Quettehou hobbled to the outside door and paused, squinting across his shoulder at his ruined shirt. Listen to Marat, People of France! was inked jaggedly across his backbone. "Started a new fashion, I shouldn't wonder. Then he looked pointedly at Raoul's breeches. "Screwing an aristocrat, eh? Is your little manikin down there doing all the thinking for you?"

  The room was silent. The ticking of the shelf clock flicked the seconds.

  Raoul recovered his control. "I know where to find you, Quettehou."

  "Of course, you do, Deputy." The rising star of the Paris Commune slid his gaze over Robinet like a pickpocket's greasy fingers before returning to Raoul. "Au revoir, citizens, we know where to find you."

  Chapter 23

  "He was threatening you." Robinet stated the obvious.

  "Yes." Raoul whammed his new swordstick at the churchyard railings and let it clonk against each one. Marat knew
. Marat! Perhaps that was the secret of the itchy bastard's power. Moral blackmail. Worming through every shadow from the past, opening the cupboards and the hidden drawers. What else could it be? The man's skin made all his associates flinch. His tongue flicked venom.

  And now Raoul de Villaret was a name in Marat's pocketbook as well. And what was Raoul going to do about it? What could he do about it? End the affaire with Fleur? Plead for a mission to President Washington? A pressing matter of cherry trees? Or to the King of Siam? Sell him hot-air balloons for a flight over the jungle? Now there was a thought for a fool.

  "I wouldn't underestimate Quettehou, citizen. The Commune reckons he's the latest thing since the guillotine an' I've seen him 'obnobbing with Robespierre."

  "Oh, to be sure. He's as useful as a dishcloth."

  "Well, you didn't wipe the floor with 'im!"

  "No, but I'm getting close."

  * * *

  Fleur discarded her mending next evening in disgust. The black skirt was snagged beyond redemption.

  "Now you know why apes wear nothing, love. Anyway, why bother?" Raoul, sitting with his head leaning against her knees, laid a tapestried bookmark in his volume and set it aside. He picked up the pink striped camisole from her mending basket and held it against his chest. "I'd much rather see this on the outside. Very charming. It's about time you gave up mourning. All of it!" He clambered to his feet and, bundling up her ruined skirt, tossed it into the empty grate behind the firescreen.

  "Raoul!"

  "Mourning is no longer à la mode." He met her defiant scowl. "It could be misconstrued, and in any case it's sheer hypocrisy, you don't mourn anyone."

  He had gone too far but Fleur was determined not to show her ruffled feathers. Yesterday still bruised the air between them. At La Force he had been ebullient, high on victory, but last night they had not made love. Supper had been a quiet meal. To be sure he had shared her bed but not his thoughts; his arms had held her lovingly but he had lain wakeful. The mob attack had worked its poison.