Life without Fleur would be unbearable, but it was his duty to return to Paris without her. What had Robespierre written—"The soul of a republic is virtue—that is, love of one's country, and a high-minded devotion which subverts all private interests."
France! France! He longed to see its people literate, industrious, well fed, an example of wise, compassionate government for the entire world. Only by sacrifice could this dream become reality.
As the breeze dried the evidence of his sorrow, he lifted his face to the southern sky, watching the thunderclouds strengthening into a mighty anvil—another gift of violence from the south! Enemies without, enemies within! But he didn't want to haul men and women to the scaffold in the Place Saint-Sauveur—people with loved ones who needed them. He didn't want to rule with terror.
Did soldiers, weary from war, ache the way he did now, yearning to slide their arms around their wives' aproned waists and feel the swell of babies ripening beneath the skirts? Would he ever know the pleasure of swinging his son into the air, telling a story to his sleepy daughter?
No, I must be strong, he told himself. The Revolution is everything. And yet I love Fleur. I love her so much. I want to wake with her in my arms every day of the rest of my life. And here I am, forcing her to make this same sacrifice.
He frowned at the mob of unruly jackdaws circling the spire of Saint-Pierre and felt taunted by their indifference. It is possible to change the world, he shouted silently to the uncomprehending sky. And then he shielded his eyes. A buzzard soared above the Conqueror's castle, eyes and talons intent upon a kill. A Roman might have seen it for a portent but Raoul belonged to the Age of Reason. It is possible to change the world!
And if it wasn't?
* * *
His pocket watch was showing eight o'clock when Raoul galloped back into Caen that evening, having brandished the republican flag, so to speak, to the unsurprised townsfolk of Ouistreham. The mistake had been to suppose that the obligingly disloyal fisherman dwelt beyond the town, and to forget that rivers like coins had two sides to them. Raoul had commandeered a boatman to row him to the other side. No gypsies decorated any of his horizons but he did discover a single creamy dwelling, quite distant from its fellow cottages along the road, with a rowing boat drawn up on the nearby mudflat. The owner, Pierre Birrot, had been as closed as an unthumbed pea pod, but with a well-judged mixture of threats and advance payment, Raoul had secured a promise from him to take Fleur to safety. So it was with great satisfaction that he eventually strolled back into his temporary office in the courthouse only to halt abruptly as he sensed—
"De Villaret," growled Deputy Carrier's voice. "At last."
* * *
Two days later, hidden Cleopatra-like on the roof of a gypsy caravan in a roll of canvas, Fleur was unable to join in the singing as the Roma left the grassy upper reach of the Orne and journeyed towards the prospect of fish and samphire at their traditional summer camp. It had been so providential that she should find Paco and his troop near the quarry, especially as her particular Caesar had not arrived with a chariot and some spare horses to escort her himself. She had tried to ignore the anxiety tugging at her, hoping that he might turn up to farewell her with a few ave atque vales and a warning not to trust the English, but now she was past laughter.
Perhaps it would hurt less if Raoul did not say goodbye. In fact, Fleur had half a mind not to leave France, maybe find somewhere else to hide until things got better and he would welcome her out of the woodwork. England frightened her. She did not want to die like her sister, forgotten, unloved, alone. Maybe Charlotte's uncle would help her, yes, she would seek him out and tell him—Oh, Mother of God, what would she tell him? Fleur's tears flowed into the rough cloth beneath her and gathered, wetting her shirt. Noble, infamous Charlotte. She was probably dead now, beheaded while the mob spat abuse and Marat lay decomposing on a plinth. And the gypsies said that Deputy Carrier had arrived from Paris, thundering that he and de Villaret would fill the cemeteries with any who had shared Charlotte's sentiments. How could Raoul disobey and survive?
Oh, ambitious dreamers, what have you done to us?
* * *
At least he had escaped from his bedchamber without the world knowing. With either leg astride the tiled roof before dawn the next day, Raoul tried not to imagine the swift slide and hurtle to an ignominious end but he was damned if he was going to let Carrier's presence tether him in Caen. Today he would farewell Fleur even if it killed him. Last night he had made complaint of feeling ill and this morning had left a note on his door.
Shielding his eyes with his arm, for the newly risen morning was dazzlingly bright like a perfect Easter Sunday, he considered the possibilities. The hurly-burly of roofs, even the white stork's nest on top the summer chimneypot, failed to please. He edged forward uncomfortably, determined that there had to be some way down from this alien angled world, and then he saw the ladder propped against the dormer window.
For the moment, God was on his side.
Chapter 26
Fleur made her way alone across the marsh of rye-grass and samphire, following the furrowed path that would have been too narrow for two. Behind her the bridle-track, bristled by thistles and nettles on either side, skirted the meadows that sprawled down from the straggle of cottages. Across the river mouth, a row of sparsely limbed trees frayed the horizon and only a church turret offered a hint of the small port of Ouistreham. There was little evidence of the flow of the tide. The earlier wind had dropped and the estuary was placid beneath the hazy sky. Her last small journey in France, and it was taking too long; the path was deceptive, making long meanders around claypans, sunbaked and fractured like aged glaze. No human footsteps had crossed these, only a dog's prints showed a venture and a turning back. Fleur wanted to leave no trace of her passing and stoically pressed on, keeping to where the fishermen always trudged, knowing that the whispering rye-grass, golden-tipped with seeds, hid pits and ruts that would slow her more.
Pausing, she shielded her eyes against the bright sunlight, watching for the rowboat that would carry her to the larger vessel, but she was early. Deliberately early to avoid the pain of parting from Raoul, though to leave without seeing him again was wrenching her soul in two. She had left a letter at the gypsy camp—a few poor lines that could never achieve the love she felt. Better to go alone, unkissed, than put his life in jeopardy. God forgive her, she could wish her own brief life over now, dreading the months of true mourning that lay ahead.
Almost as she glimpsed the oarsman, she heard Raoul's voice and whirled round, in delight and dread, to see him urging his horse along the edge of the salt marsh, his sleeve a frantic flash of white as he sought her attention. Discerning the way she had taken from the height of horseback, he dismounted where the path began, shouting to her to wait, and without even tethering his horse, began running towards her. Fleur could have leapt with joy for he was not in uniform but in shirt and riding breeches, then in dismay she saw he carried no satchel or bag, only his jacket. So he was not coming with her. Of course, but at least he was here to—
Some instinct sent an icy shimmer of uncertainty through her. She hesitated, knowing she should hasten to the shoreline first, but longing to feel his loving arms about her and to say the words she could not trust to paper. Raoul had almost reached her when she saw the blue uniforms rise up from the hedgerow hemming the track and the swift flowers of smoke.
Oh God! The shots struck the ground well short of her. It was still far to the water, the boat too distant on the estuary. She ran for her life, glad she was not hampered by skirts, praying that the man behind her would fling himself down out of danger, but Raoul was heedless of the gunfire, closing the distance between them easily, the thud of his boots behind her now.
And suddenly her trust fled. She didn't know the answers any more. In panic, she left the path, blundering her way, her breath ragged, struggling to reach the river, but the boatman was holding off, his oars hovering above the water
. And then a heavy hand threw her face down on the samphire as a shot ripped past her ear. The air was whooshed from her lungs.
"Christ, Fleur. I'm sorry." Raoul's words stirred her hair as he hauled himself forward, shielding her. Her body juddered against his as she gasped for air. Sorry? So this was due to him. More shot skimmed terrifyingly past her shoulders. Hoarse voices shouted at her to surrender. Bon Dieu, she could only resolve that Raoul must not be killed defending her. The soldiers must not assume him a traitor. The actress in her broke to the surface.
"You mustn't do this!" She squirmed round, struggling, raining blows against him.
"Come on!" He swore, trying to grab her fists.
"It's too late," she panted, hearing the heavy feet closing in. "The final curtain." Drawing in a deep breath, she shrieked loudly, "You bastard!"
"Run, damn you!" He shoved her up and gave chase, close on her heels. But the boat was still in midchannel as she sprang down onto the mud and stumbled, gasping, into the river.
"Go on!" Raoul growled, halting on the jut of grass.
"I-I can't swim."
He winced as though she'd slapped him and swung round to face the bluecoats. "Halt your fire!" he roared and, drawing a pistol, pointed it at Fleur. "The final curtain, my darling? Best make it the greatest performance of your life."
Confused, she faced him with the muddy water swirling round her ankles. Had she been wrong? Was he acting? Had he brought the military to arrest her? There was no time to ask, to understand. The sweating soldiers arrived to find her speechless, disturbing the mud like a lonely, purposeless stake. Their astonished expressions flicked from the pistol to the face of its owner and a half-dozen arms rose in salute. Leather heels smacked together.
"Deputy," they chorused.
His handsome mouth a thin line of cruelty, Raoul gestured her to climb up the bank. Denied help, the process was ungainly. Squelching onto the tussocks, she spat at his sandy boot caps as she passed, and, in punishment, a vicious prod from a soldier's musket butt thwacked her between the shoulderblades.
Two men—civilians—were approaching. The closest—his top hat plumed and cockaded—wore a dark blue uniform shouldered with braid. Marat's unpleasant friend, the deputy from the Auvergne, Carrier.
Incredibly, the second, to her horror, was Quettehou, his face as scarlet as his trousers from exertion.
"Trying to escape, Aunt Fleur?"
"From marriage with you, Felix?" she whipped back like a reflex. "I'd walk on water!"
"Thought you might need some support, de Villaret." Although Carrier tossed the remark at his fellow deputy, he was studying Fleur's body with a hangman's interest.
If silences hurt, this one was damnable. Had this been planned? Had the man she loved betrayed her? He was either proving a wondrous actor or a superlative bastard and the trouble was Fleur just didn't know which.
"Good morning, Carrier, and Quettehou, all the way from Paris," Raoul drawled, housing his pistol in his belt and slinging his jacket across his shoulders. "Did the pigeons fly you in, citizen?" The obscure question had their attention; even Quettehou managed to look surprised.
"I don't know about pigeons, de Villaret," he replied, mopping his bony brow. "I'm here with the authority of the Commune and the Committee of Public Safety." Fleur's flesh crawled at the smug stare he gave her from behind Carrier's shoulder, but it was the latter's face that made her blood run cold. Intensity and anticipation—a boy who had caught a butterfly and was about to rip off its wings.
"Françoise-Antoinette, daughter of the former Duc de Montbulliou," Carrier began as though it were a litany, "also known as the Widow Bosanq—"
"And the actress La Coquette," threw in Quettehou nastily, lowering her from the salon to the gutter.
One of the soldiers whistled beneath his breath and the almost imperceptible crease of Raoul's forehead augmented Fleur's fear. A bayonet stroked lewdly down the back of her breeches and she flinched and twisted round to give the lout a scathing glare, while beyond his shoulder, she searched the horizon for the boat. Oars resting, Birrot was innocently fiddling with a net out in the channel, and watching events on shore with detached curiosity. Only a fool would intervene.
Did these uniformed beasts surrounding her torment their victims first? Fleur's jaw tensed. She darted another glance at her erstwhile lover. Would he be able to stand by and let these dogs devour her like a leftover from a rich man's table? Or did the note in his pocketbook suggesting a conspiracy brewing in Caen suddenly make dreadful sense?
Had the suppers and seduction all been calculated? Raoul was looking at her now with that same dangerous meld of sensuality and suspicion which had first fired her blood. Even here in the midst of terror, she still desired him. Poison, pleasure, wonderful, beautiful, sensuous; were the kindnesses now the forgotten means to a despicable end?
Aloud, she said: "Well, go on, Deputy Carrier, this is, after all, your moment of fame."
"By the power vested in me by the Convention and the people of France, I am arresting you as a conspirator in the murders of Matthieu Bosanquet and Jean-Paul Marat."
The rattle of shifted muskets answered amen, as the soldiers, realising why they were really here, tightened their hold with disagreeable menace.
"That's not true," Fleur answered calmly, and then slapped the palm of her heel to her forehead. "But how stupid of me, Citizen Quettehou, I quite forgot you inherit a successful enterprise and an apartment if I am guillotined."
"You shall have a fair trial, citizeness. The Republic of France will see that justice is done." Raoul, wearing duplicity blatantly now like a comfortable coat, turned to bestow a charming smile upon his colleagues. "Are we going to stay out in this waste all day while the Girondins crawl out from under our noses? Let's get her back to Caen."
If it was acting, he was very good.
"Search her!" Carrier ordered the soldiers.
Two soldiers pinioned her arms brutally behind her back while a third slapped his hands down her, feeling for more than a concealed knife. It was not the crude fumbling that concerned her but her lover's studied indifference. He swung his gaze round the desolate marsh, observing the thickening haze seawards beyond the distracted fisherman and, landwards, the scamper of colour as a gypsy child moved.
"Not your day, eh, aunt," Quettehou quipped, revelling in Fleur's predicament. "Unfortunately, there's not going to be any trial in Caen." He grinned at Raoul with the glee of a salivating dog certain of a feed. "I have orders from the Committee of Public Safety to hold a tribunal wherever I see fit. We'll do it now. Two members of the Convention and a representative of the Commune, it meets the requirements."
"How do you plead, citizeness?"
"Since one of you is my nephew and suitor, and the other my erstwhile lover," purred Fleur sarcastically, "how could I possibly protest? Undiluted republican justice, Citizen Carrier? Oh, it makes my heart thud. What an achievement!" Oh, Raoul de Villaret, whether you are treacherous or true, how in hell do we get out of this?
Standing at Carrier's shoulder, Raoul's face had drained of blood, but he recovered quickly, striding forward. "Fall back!" he ordered the soldiers and raised a questioning eyebrow at his colleague.
"Do as he says!" Carrier shrugged. The military let go of Fleur and spread out into a watchful, wolfish cordon.
"My former mistress has a point, Carrier. This won't look good, and, in any case, I was going to suggest we try the two charges separately since Quettehou can hardly sit as a judge when he is also a suspect."
The older deputy's perplexed expression at least gave Fleur some hope of delaying matters. "On what grounds, Deputy?"
"Quite straightforward ones. I have a man already in detention in Paris for twice provoking the mob to attack the mademoiselle here on the orders of Citizen Quettehou. On the second occasion I was a victim as well, I might add. This scoundrel also commissioned an assassin to kill her at the balloon ascent, not to mention organised the murderous attack on my coa
ch outside Caen."
"This is ridiculous, deVillaret!" countered Quettehou. "Attack your coach? Are you so demented with lust for this trollop that you can't see the wood for the trees? How could I possibly organise such a thing from Paris?"
"You use carrier pigeons."
"Quettehou?" Carrier was on his guard now.
"Yes, I keep pigeons, citizen, as you've seen for yourself. For the journal. It gives me the edge on news. I admit I do use informers as well. Perhaps the man in custody is one of those. But it's Beugneux, her boarder, who killed my uncle, and she," he jabbed the air at Fleur, "was in league with him."
Fleur was too shocked to answer.
"Beugneux?" Even Raoul was astounded.
"He keeps pigeons too. Not at the Rue des Bonnes Soeurs, of course, but as part of his criminal activities. He smuggles royalists out using the Chat Rouge, doesn't he, deVillaret, and you've been turning a blind eye to safeguard her."
"And you never informed the authorities?" Raoul countered smoothly.
"No, too lucrative milking old de Beugneux, hein?" Quettehou chuckled. It was rather an ugly sound. "My pretty aunt looks rather faint. Are you going to play the gallant, de Villaret? But how about we relieve you of these first?" Pushing aside Raoul's jacket, he tugged the pistol free. "Your rapier too, eh, just to be sure we know where your loyalties lie."
With an insouciant shrug, Raoul unbuckled his sword-belt.
"I'll take that." Carrier held out a hand for the pistol and scowled at Fleur as though she was a piece of dung he had trodden on. "A private word with you, de Villaret," he suggested grimly and, taking Raoul's arm, led him out of earshot but still within the range of fire. A pity there was no stout piece of wood lying around, thought Fleur, wondering if she could brain this nephew before the soldiers martyred her.
"You really do lie beautifully, Felix Quettehou," she exclaimed and turned nonchalantly seawards. The boatman was minding his own business but it was the wall of fog moving steadily in that suddenly lifted her courage.
Fleur-de-Lis Page 49
