Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  “When will this end?” André panted.

  Murat strode forward, stalking him slowly, his eyes still intent on violence. “It will end, André de Valière, when I’ve killed you. Like I killed your brother before you. He took down three of my men, but I gutted him in the end. I saw the life leave his eyes—as I will now with you.”

  André cried out in agony, emotional as well as physical pain, and he hoisted his sword, though his body was drained of all strength.

  Murat growled, parrying André’s blow, his face coming close as their swords locked in a stalemate. “You shall be my last,” Murat snarled.

  “Why?” André demanded, rasping for breath, stepping back from the man, his sword still lifted protectively. “How many have you taken? My brother, my father. Your friend Kellermann. The countless others condemned to death. Why must you do this?”

  Murat laughed now, a mirthless laugh that brought no joy to his features. “ ‘Why me?’ You’re all the same, all of you spoiled noblemen. ‘Who could possibly hate me?’ Kellermann was the same way. You believe that anyone can be bought with your purse, charmed with your smiles. You act the humble hero, even as you allow the people to worship you.”

  “Please.” André stumbled. There was no reasoning with this man. André limped out of the entryway now, and his eyes were flooded by the blinding desert light. The heat enfolded him and made him even dizzier, but he forced himself to focus on the man standing in front of him. “Hasn’t there been enough death?” His voice was hoarse, his leg throbbed, and he felt increasingly light-headed from the pain and loss of blood.

  “Soon it will be enough. But before I kill you, André de Valière, there is one more thing you should know.” Murat and André were hugging the base of the pyramid. From a quick glance, André saw that they remained alone. “Something about…Sophie.”

  André’s frame froze at the maniacal smile on his superior’s lips.

  “You’ll never see Sophie again. You’ll never have her!” Murat laughed, the cackle of a madman. “I’ve found a punishment far worse—for both of you—than beheading by the guillotine.”

  André lowered his sword, feeling his body slacken. He was so tired, weighed down by a fatigue that seeped beyond his limbs and throbbed into the depths of his very soul. But then he thought of her. Sophie. She loved him. She waited for him. He raised his sword once more.

  “You see, my sweet little So-So is never going to be yours,” Murat continued, his features writhing and covered in sweat as they stepped, in unison, along the side of the pyramid’s base. “I’ve given my blessing for her to be married to my old friend.”

  “Who?” André asked, his voice faint, his throat choked by dryness.

  “Guillaume Lazare.”

  André remembered the man: The lawyer who had tried to have him killed. The man who had convicted Kellermann and his father.

  André stopped edging backward. Now, as he raised his sword, he lunged forward. He cried out in pain as he did so, and Murat easily sidestepped. Seeing the weakness in André’s legs, Murat turned and shuffled back a few paces. The blocks of the building beside them were broad, like steps, and Murat climbed a few so that he had the high ground.

  André was undeterred, driven mad by his will to be rid of this man and carry on living, or else die in the attempt. He stepped forward, ignoring the pain as he lifted his sword and tried to hack into the general’s legs. Murat, on the high ground, parried the blow.

  Murat answered by hammering down on him. André kept his gaze upward toward his enemy, but the midday sun shone directly behind Murat, blindingly bright. André parried several blows but knew he could not hold this position much longer.

  Murat lifted his sword, his arm perfectly framed by stark sunlight, and André blinked. Just then, a gust of wind picked up, whipping the sand like a cloud around them. Murat, facing outward while André was sheltered by the pyramid, paused momentarily, shielding his face. As he did so, André took his sword and slashed at the man’s shins, cutting through leather boots and breeches until he reached flesh and bone. Murat cried out in pain, buckling forward. André raised his sword and slashed a second time, this time tearing across the man’s kneecaps.

  Murat, doubled over now, limped backward but his boots slipped on the sand-slicked stone. He fell to all fours, his knees buckling beneath him. He cried out in torturous pain as his wounded legs broke the full weight of his body against the sand and stone.

  Unbelievably, however, Murat lifted himself to stand. Disarmed, and with both his shoulder and knees bleeding, he used his last weapon: his body. He threw himself down from the ledge, jumping onto André, his face bent on destruction, determined to destroy André, even if all he had left were his bare hands. As Murat flew down onto him, André lifted his sword so that the flesh of his attacker’s stomach met his steel blade. Murat fell onto André, knocking both of them backward. The sand broke André’s fall; André’s body and upturned sword broke Murat’s.

  Stunned, André rolled the general off of him. He clambered to his knees, pulling his sword from Murat’s abdomen. André wiped the red blade clean on his pants and looked down at the general, the man’s mustache twitching as his features contorted in pain. It sounded as if he were trying to speak.

  And then, after a few moments of tortured gurgling, the noises stopped issuing from the throat of Nicolai Murat. Those eyes, so cold and determined in life, looked back at André now with no hint of the hatred they had so long held; their gray, the color of the sea, seemed entirely out of place in this parched desert.

  André collapsed, breathless, beside Murat. His entire body ached with exhaustion, and his leg throbbed as he tried to stand. Failing at that, he reached for his waterskin, but it had been torn off in the fight. His eyes watered and his vision began to blur. His body was oppressively heavy, and he felt an overwhelming desire to close his eyes and rest. He stared up at the sun and thought of home. As he slipped out of consciousness, he heard the rumble of hoofbeats; they sounded distant, as if in a dream. He could make out voices, unintelligible, but speaking his language all the same.

  When André blinked his eyes open, he saw a familiar face hovering over him. “I always seem to appear when something important is about to happen—isn’t that what you said?” Ashar waved over two dragoons, and together they lifted André onto his friend’s horse, racing back toward the French lines, splashing water on him to keep him conscious.

  As he bounced in the saddle, his body racked with pain and his mind as battered as the sandy battlefield, André carried one thought: Murat’s final words about Sophie. He cried out, and his companions assumed it to be the pain from his wounds. In truth, it was a pain much worse than any physical ache; was he too late to save not himself, but Sophie?

  July 1798

  “Answer me!” Jean-Luc paced the small prison hallway, his tone frantic. “Did you see which way the coach carrying Sophie de Vincennes went?”

  The guard stared back at Jean-Luc, mute and unobliging.

  Driven mad by frustration, Jean-Luc grabbed the guard by the collar of his coat. The man, stunned at this rough treatment, shut his eyes. “I don’t know,” he answered, his voice like a whimper. “Looked like they headed south, in the direction of the Hôtel de Ville, is my guess? But I didn’t get much of a look.”

  Jean-Luc released his grip on the man, stepping out of the prison. Outside, the evening was warm. He felt a drop of moisture on his forehead, instinctively looking up. Just the time for the rain to start. He had taken several steps toward Rue Réaumur when a woman in a threadbare gown that barely covered her shoulders approached from the side alley. “All I ask is for enough to get a little something to eat, monsieur. I’ll make it worth your time, I will.”

  Jean-Luc shook the woman’s hands away and wove down the narrow street toward the river. He sped up his pace, scowling, as the drizzle grew heavier.

  The letter—the wicked, taunting letter—had implied that, whatever Lazare was planning to do to Sop
hie, he would orchestrate things in such a way that it appeared to be Jean-Luc’s doing. Would he take her from the city? Would he force her to marry him? Would he go as far as to harm her? Jean-Luc did not have any answers, nor did he know how much time he had. Enough time to check one, perhaps two locations. After that, he might be too late.

  But how could he be sure where Lazare would go? The old Jacobin Club, that building on Rue Saint-Honoré where he had first met the old man? Or La Place de la Révolution? Or perhaps someplace closer to the city’s barrier? But there was one other place—a place that suddenly made sense to him. Jean-Luc recalled the warning words of his friend Gavreau: whatever you do, keep him out of your office. With an instinctive gamble, Jean-Luc made up his mind and ran toward his office in the administrative building next to the Palais de Justice.

  The old man knew where Jean-Luc worked. He would also know that, this late in the evening, the building would be empty of clerks and administrators. He would have the privacy he needed to torment the poor woman, and in a location where Jean-Luc could be made to look responsible. Jean-Luc sprinted until he reached the building, climbing the front steps at a leap.

  “Damn!” The front door was locked. As hard as he yanked, he could gain no entry. He knocked like a madman, but of course there was no one to let him in; if there had been, Lazare would not have chosen the location.

  Jean-Luc was struck by an idea. Running to the side of the building, he arrived at the entrance of the narrow, covered alleyway. There, he froze in his tracks; the archangel Michael, the same oversized statue he’d first found so arresting with Gavreau, loomed in the shadows. Too heavy to move without several strong horses and too tall to fit through the doors into the office building, the angel had been left in this lane. His fierce gaze burned, unseen, as the walls of the surrounding buildings cast their darkness onto this angel of war. Jean-Luc stood, mesmerized, staring at this imposing figure—the arms raised high, one offering a blessing, the other, eternal damnation. Michael held aloft a spear of light, ready to be hurled toward some celestial nemesis.

  Jean-Luc forced himself to peel his eyes from the fierce, righteous angel and found the side door at the bottom of several steps. This entrance was locked, too, so he cracked the glass of the door and turned the lock from the inside. He took a breath and stepped into the darkness of the interior.

  He was in the cellar—the cold storeroom where the plundered treasure of the victims of the Revolution sat, forgotten. He blinked his eyes, his vision patchy in the darkness. He blinked again, as the outline of a large open space cluttered with objects began to take shape. The hall was filled, nearly every inch of it, with the spoils of noble and Catholic dynasties, the objects’ decorative splendor now obsolete and appearing ridiculous as the cache sat collecting dust. Jean-Luc thought he heard a whimper from some unseen corner of the massive warehouse, as if one of the statues had called out. There it was again, another muffled cry. His heartbeat quickened.

  Rows of seized goods—marble statues, furniture shrouded in sheets, cracked mirrors, smaller items of a personal nature such as ivory combs and satin shoes—all obstructed his sight and slowed his movement as he cautiously made his way closer to where he had heard the cry.

  “Sophie?” he called out, wincing as his voice echoed loudly off the cold walls of the dark, damp storeroom. Another whimper sounded as his reply. “Sophie!” Jean-Luc cried out again, his heart smacking against his rib cage now. “Sophie, it’s Jean-Luc! Where are you?”

  A shriek, muffled, followed by the sound of china tableware crashing to the ground. Jean-Luc darted up the row of statues, glancing from left to right, but her whimpers seemed to be receding from him. “Sophie!” He sped up. At the end of one row of goods he paused, debating which way to turn in the shadowy maze of wasted splendor. He wheeled left and nearly tripped over a footrest covered in plush red velvet, before racing down another row. Why did it have to be so damned dark in here?

  A shrill cry, like that of an animal caught in a trap, sounded from his right, and Jean-Luc clambered over a pile of rugs to move toward the noise. “Sophie, I’m here!” He rounded the corner past a tall candelabra and saw her at the end of a long row of statues.

  Sophie was on the floor, a heap of disheveled hair and a ripped dress. Bound and gagged, her blue eyes wide in terror. A line of crimson trickled down her left cheek, matched by another wound on the opposite shoulder. And what was that on the white flesh of her bare forearm, Jean-Luc wondered—a bite mark? Clenching his jaw, a growling sound escaping from his lips, he sped toward her, unsure of where her tormenter lurked.

  And then a dark object came flying at him, just barely missing his temple as Jean-Luc ducked his head instinctively. When he turned, he saw Lazare, his yellow hair wild and his light eyes illuminated by a savage glow. In his left hand he held a fire poker, which he now lifted to swing once more. He missed Jean-Luc again, the poker smashing violently against a bust of a plump-faced nobleman, shattering the plaster. Shards of statue rained down over both Jean-Luc and Lazare, showering them with a cloud of white dust. Lazare lifted the poker again, and this time its point found the flesh of Jean-Luc’s thigh.

  Jean-Luc roared as the pain ripped across his thigh, causing him to keel forward to clutch the bleeding wound. Lazare, seizing on his target’s momentary shock, let go of the poker and ran forward. He pulled a knife out of his coat. Brandishing this weapon, he approached Sophie. “Stand up! Stand up now, you slut, or I’ll slit your throat!”

  Sophie struggled, faltering for a moment as she tripped on the folds of her torn dress, but she obeyed. Pressing the knife to her belly, applying enough pressure to make its presence known, Lazare snarled. “With me. Now!”

  The old man dragged Sophie away with a quickness that surprised Jean-Luc. He craned his neck to follow their movement, but they hurried along the confiscated furnishings, disappearing from his sight. Jean-Luc was still bent over, pressing his palm to the mangled flesh of his leg. Pushing back against his agony, he seized what looked to be the coat of a small child and tore off a small strip of fabric, tying it around the top of his thigh. He had no training in medicine but knew enough to try to slow the bleeding in his leg.

  He looked back up, listening for any sign of Sophie, but they were gone. He could not even hear their receding footsteps. Clutching the discarded fire poker in his hand, Jean-Luc rose, limping in the same direction that Lazare had run off. Each step was fresh agony—like a new gash to his leg—but he forced himself onward.

  Now he heard Sophie. Her voice, high-pitched with pain or terror, or both, was shrieking, but she was slipping farther and farther away. Jean-Luc forced himself to quicken his pace as he hurried up the stairs from the cellar.

  He stumbled into the front hall of the building, its shuttered windows admitting only a pallid, muddled light from the outside. There, across the hall on the second floor, were the two figures Jean-Luc sought. Glancing over his shoulder and spotting his pursuer, Lazare cursed and sped up his pace, half-dragging Sophie toward a corridor that was lined with empty administrative offices.

  Jean-Luc, growling in response to the burning in his leg and his anger at the sight of that old man, forced himself into a run. Lazare tried to quicken his pace, but Sophie was stumbling, tripping over her ripped dress as he practically dragged her by her bound arms.

  Sophie was slowing him down, deliberately so, but Lazare refused to release her. He flashed the dagger, holding it before her face as a menacing threat. Jean-Luc, still lumbering forward, had closed the gap now and extended the poker, hooking its curved end around the old man’s legs. Lazare tripped and fell to the ground, his grip releasing both the knife and Sophie as his face cracked against the hard marble floor. His body lay prone, lifeless.

  “Sophie.” Jean-Luc knelt down beside her, pulling the rag loose from her gagged mouth.

  “Is he…is he?” Sophie, eyes wide, stared at the motionless frame of her captor.

  “Not dead. Unconscious.” Jean-Luc stood
over the man, eyeing the pale face. Holding the poker aloft, his entire body trembling with the pain of his wound, with the rage he felt for this sadistic tormenter, Jean-Luc groaned. This was his chance. He could kill Lazare now and be done with it all. As Sophie looked on, Jean-Luc lifted the poker, preparing to bring it down with a fatal blow. But in that moment of hesitation, Marie’s face flashed before his mind—then Mathieu’s. André’s. Kellermann’s. Even the image of his unborn child, swaddled in his wife’s arms. The better angels of this mad nation. What was he fighting for, if not for justice over lawlessness? Reason over rage? He lowered the poker.

  “Come, we must run.” Jean-Luc took a firm grip of her hand and helped her up. “Are you terribly hurt?” But even as he asked, he saw the multiple places her skin had been torn and her blood had been shed.

  “I can run,” Sophie said, her tone resolute. “Where?”

  “To the prefect of the National Guard. Let this madman face a trial and die in La Place de la Révolution, like so many others he’s sent there. Come.” They took off at a sprint across the hall, Jean-Luc guiding Sophie toward the front entrance. But when he pulled on the door, the same door through which he had tried to enter, it didn’t budge. He remembered: it had been locked. And he had no idea where the guard’s key would be kept. Behind him, the figure of Guillaume Lazare began to stir, a snake uncoiling from its slumber. They couldn’t get out this way, nor could they stay where they were.

  “Come with me,” Jean-Luc whispered, still gripping Sophie’s arm. He had an idea, and he guided her back through the hall and toward the central staircase. He didn’t know if Lazare had seen them run past, but he could hear the old man stirring, his shoes clicking on the marble floor of the hallway. Jean-Luc quickened the pace.