The only sound is that of hooves and shackles, and we all stand in silence, looking in the direction of their disappearing light. A full three minutes, I’d say—maybe more—the remaining soldiers staring at the darkness, the lieutenant staring at his soldiers, Bertrand staring at the lieutenant, and my vision consumed by the ground beneath me. Why did Marcel lie about our town? In all my days I’ve never heard of a place called Saint-Canus, though there are villages enough dotting the countryside surrounding Paris. Perhaps he wanted to protect the people of Mouton Blanc from seeing him in chains. Or worse. I prayed I’d given no reaction to make them doubt his word.
When the night fully engulfs the prisoner and his escort, the lieutenant turns around and somehow makes himself taller with an imperceptible rise of his feet. “What is your name, boy?”
“Bertrand Thiron, second in command of the queen’s personal guard.”
“Any experience as a soldier?”
“It’s not been my pleasure, sir.” It’s a thing to behold how Marcel’s absence brings these two men to a gentleman’s level of conversation, yet somehow Bertrand holds command. Without an exchange of salute or acknowledgment of any kind, the lieutenant and his soldiers mount their horses and ride off at a quick pace in the direction opposite of the previous dispatch. They take the light with them, leaving Bertrand and me without even a sliver of moonlight. Only stars, and they are not bright enough for us to make each other out clearly, and for that I am grateful.
“I’ll escort you back to your quarters,” he says with the formality of a total stranger, which, until this evening, he has been.
“I can find my way.”
“Your quarters are my quarters, mademoiselle. I’m just on the other side of the door.”
As we walk, he obviously alters his stride to meet mine. I don’t know if I should thank him, or apologize, or if I’m allowed to speak to him at all, now that our official business has concluded. If I have learned nothing else in my time here, it is to remain silent until spoken to. Soon enough, Bertrand complies, eerily matching my thoughts.
“How did you come to be acquainted with such a liar?”
“What makes you think he is a liar?”
“The name of the town is Saint-Cannat. So either your friend does not know the name of his own hometown, or he is lying.”
I say nothing, as neither choice would allay suspicion.
“And I am inclined to believe he is lying, because you are from Mouton Blanc.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard you mention it once or twice. You were telling the princess all about the white sheep on the green hillside. It sounds like a beautiful place.”
“It is.” Then I remember. “Rather, it was, when I left. I pray it is still.”
“Your family is still there?”
“They are.”
“And your friend?”
I smile—to myself, as Bertrand hasn’t looked at me once during all of our conversation. “As long as I’ve known Marcel Moreau, he’s never had a home. He drifts, you know? Nights here and there.”
“So his next night will be in an imaginary town?”
“Not so surprising if you know him.” I look up, keeping my step and holding my gaze until he is prompted to look down at me. “Why didn’t you say something before you sent him away?”
“Because I don’t care where he goes. Or if he goes anywhere beyond the first bend in the road. As long as he doesn’t come back here.”
PART III
L’Automne (Autumn) 1788—
Nouvel An et le Printemps
(the New Year and Spring) 1789
* * *
Accordez-moi le sommeil de rêves tranquilles. . . .
L’épisode 14
Laurette
* * *
MOUTON BLANC
* * *
Gagnon kept the underbellies of the sheep sheared clean throughout the summer that they might cool themselves on the ground when they lay down for the night. The boys had to take them beyond the stretches of his land, to that of neighbors who had no livestock left to graze. Days stretched endlessly under bone-dry skies and unrelenting heat. More than once, Laurette thought of the last day she spent with Renée, out in the field, staring into the sky, creating stories with the clouds. What clouds had she seen these past months? Nothing but wisps in the morning, gone long before the last spoonful of porridge was swallowed.
And autumn brought no hope.
Gagnon’s meager harvest was brought in with less than a week’s labor and hardly worth the effort of driving in to the mill. The fate of all of France’s fields could be no better. Laurette pulled from her garden, already rationing its yield in hoping to make it last through half the winter. Grain was siphoned from the sheep and given to the goats so they would stay healthy, giving good milk even in the leanest months.
For the first time since developing the curves of a woman’s figure, Laurette had evidence of a skeleton beneath her flesh. Even her arms lost their plumpness, and her body felt like a bundling of sticks within the volume of her dress. She felt the sharpness of her clavicle, and the pain with even the slightest collision of her bones if she knocked into a doorway or brushed a hip against the table. And the thirst. With well water drawn and drizzled along the rows of her garden, down the furrows of what was left of the wheat, the crock was filled twice a day when the boys were home with the sheep, only once when they were out to pasture, their skins full to bursting with the rest. Her throat dry, Laurette spoke little, as did they all, so the days lived and died not only with heat, but with arid silence as well.
It was mid-October when Laurette finally emerged from the house in the predawn light to meet a corner of chill in the air. Nothing near the crispness of autumn that usually came with the death of a healthy summer, but a hint, at least, of a respite to come. She crossed the hard-packed yard, sensing damp coolness there, too. Her steps quickened to the well, and she coaxed a tune out of her morning-dry throat as she began pumping the water. Soon, another sound came out of the lingering night shadows. A hiss—no, a psst. And her name, spoken like a long-held secret.
“Laurette.”
She paused, looking over her shoulder toward the barn, up at the loft’s window, though she knew the boys were afield.
“Laurette.”
And he emerged, as she knew he would, looking every bit the man she remembered in his gait and bearing, but hardly recognizable in his appearance. His chest stretched full and healthy beneath his open shirt, and she assumed his legs hidden beneath long, loose trousers boasted strength as well. Only his hair gave a moment’s doubt to his identity. Gone were the long, curling black locks that had been so prevalent in her dreams she’d awoken with contorted fingers. In their place, a tight black cap, much like the wool of the sheep in summer. The look aged him, and a certain fear stirred within her—a fear she liked to think she would have heeded that night when he urged her down in a bed of moss. But then her heart began to race, two beats to each of his steps, reminding her that her fear was useless to prompt resistance.
“Just like old days,” he said, close enough to pick up the battered cup from the wood block next to the pump and hold it out for a drink. “Slipping in for a night in Gagnon’s barn. Only this time with no pretty girls in the loft to tempt me.”
Not imagining any right to refuse, Laurette filled the cup and watched him drink it down in three swallows, with a waste of it dribbling down his unshaven face.
“You should go,” she said, even as she filled the cup again. “As far as I know, you are still not in his good graces, and I’m not exaggerating when I say we’ve nothing to offer you.”
He finished, wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, and cocked an eyebrow. “We? Sounds very domestic. I see the boys he took sleep in the loft. Does that mean you have taken residence in the house? In his bed?”
Were it not for the cool of the morning she might not have felt her cheeks flush at the suggestion, but she owe
d him nothing. And besides, there were more pressing matters.
“You heard from Renée.” It was a statement, not a question. A challenge for the truth.
He gave half a blink in surprise. “I did. She wrote to me.”
“But not to us? To Gagnon?”
“She sends her love.”
Laurette exhaled a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “So you saw her? In Paris?”
“Not Paris.”
“Where?”
“You’re not likely to find her. It was not easy for me to do so, and I’m a man of resources.”
Laurette snorted. “What resources? Those fools from Le Cochon Gros who hang on your words? That bald, silent stone that follows you?”
“I’ve made new friends since leaving this place. Friends that your man would be interested to meet.”
“He’s not my man. And he doesn’t know about Renée. That she wrote to you or that you went to her. Monsieur Dubois told me, but I kept it from Gagnon. So please—”
“It’s all right.” Marcel reached for her, touching her shoulder, frowning at the thinness he found within. “I’ve many secrets to keep. What’s one more? But do you think the man would welcome me to his table one more time? For whatever you can spare. I haven’t eaten in two days.”
She wasn’t sure she believed him. She’d seen plenty of starving men; none of them looked like Marcel. “I’ll see what I can send on with you.”
“I want to see him.”
“Marcel—”
“Then see me.” Gagnon’s voiced carried from the doorway. How long had he been standing there? What had he heard? Had she noticed, she would have stemmed the conversation, but Marcel’s mischievous grin gave no such assurance. Gagnon stepped out now, arms wide. “See me, drink my water, and leave. I’ve rarely turned any scoundrel away from my home, but you may need to be an exception.”
“Mon ami,” Marcel crooned, “you will still hold a grudge over such a small thing? You have never been tempted by a pretty girl in the moonlight? Come now—” he flicked his gaze between Laurette and Gagnon—“you surely have.”
“And there, mon ami, is why you will never be welcome in my home. Have you had your fill to drink? Then go.”
“I have news of Renée.”
Gagnon raised a brow in surprise. “What news?”
Now it was Marcel’s turn to hold his arms wide. “What breakfast?”
Laurette thinned the morning porridge with water and goat’s milk, stretching two servings to three, and turned the bread into lacy slices. At the table, she dutifully made the sign of the cross with Gagnon, but locked open eyes with Marcel throughout the prayer for God’s blessing on the meal, on the day, on the boys, and on France.
“You still pray?” Marcel asked before digging his spoon into his food in a way that testified to his hunger.
“What is a man without prayer?” Gagnon replied. “Or a nation without men who will turn to God on her behalf?”
“I don’t see that it’s doing much good.”
“Then perhaps more men should pray.” Gagnon pushed his bowl across the table toward Marcel and tore off a corner of his bread. “Tell us about Renée.”
“She wrote to me some time ago.” Marcel barely looked up from his food. “To let me—us—know that she was alive and well, but I did not want to share this news with you until I had a chance to see for myself. And so . . .” He spoke of his journey first to Paris, where he and Le Rocher prowled the streets, haunting pubs and shops.
“Why didn’t you go straight to her?” Laurette asked. “From her letter, didn’t you know where to find her?”
“Yes, but not how to find her. Before this, like you, I’ve never been more than a half day’s journey away from Mouton Blanc. Never to a city, and never to a palace. So I wanted to know—what does one do?” And it was during that time that he met like-minded men—and women, too, he made clear to Laurette—willing to share with him openly their frustrations and their hunger for justice. To see the wealth of the nobles transformed into bread for the people. “You would like these men, Gagnon. Men of great thoughts, yes, but soon of action.”
Gagnon waved off the idea saying simply, “Renée.”
“I went then to Versailles, as she indicated. It is a place for the public, you know? So I went wherever a man like me could go. Into the great hall, just looking and looking for her. You can’t imagine the beauty of this place. Gold in the walls, men and women of fortune milling around, jewels around their necks the size of duck eggs. I just started asking, ‘Have you seen la couturière?’ That is what they call her there. And at first, I got only puzzled looks. Or I was knocked off my feet, kicked like a dog. But as I am a citizen, I have a right to a certain space of marble tile. And then one day I asked a woman, and she looked thoughtful. Like she was thinking, trying to know, and then—as polite as you can imagine—she says, ‘Non. I have not seen her in some time.’ That’s when I knew, my first confirmation, that she existed in this place.”
Laurette listened, mesmerized, unable to imagine the sights Marcel described.
“So,” he continued, “I become a little more aggressive with my questions. Bolder might be a better word. And I learn she is not at the central palace of Versailles, but at the queen’s retreat, a place called the Petit Trianon. A place with no access for the poor. I will spare you the more lurid details, but say only that I was put under arrest and chained, held at the point of a sword of the king’s guard.”
Laurette was now at the edge of her seat, porridge cold and forgotten. She, like Gagnon, edged her bowl across the table, as if in payment for the end of the tale. “But you saw her?”
Marcel smiled indulgently. “Yes. She was escorted to me in the shadow of a mountain.”
“And she looked—” Gagnon had to pause to gather strength to his voice—“she looked well?”
“Plump as a Christmas goose, and dressed in the scraps of the queen. Still, no taller than this—” he held his hand to his shoulder, level with the back of the chair—“but with life in her eyes and flesh on her bones. Not like the rest of us.”
“Merci à Dieu,” Gagnon said, though not as a passing statement. His eyes were closed as he voiced a prayer of gratitude for her safety and provision. Laurette kept her eyes resolutely open and watched Marcel lick cold porridge off the back of his spoon.
“They keep her like a pet, you know,” he said, once Gagnon’s prayer ended. “Did you not hear? She is plumped up, ripe for slaughter, dressed in rags. Silk rags, but rags nonetheless.”
“Are you saying she wished to leave?” Gagnon asked, his concern tinged with hope.
“I’m saying they’ve cleansed her of any thought that she might.”
“But she is not ill-treated,” Laurette clarified. “What did she say? How long was your visit?”
Marcel made a bitter sound. “Not long, as—you’ll remember—I was in chains at the time. She sends her love, and with Gagnon’s permission, I’m to give you a kiss, Laurette. From her. And then I was escorted away, my chains removed after a promise given to never return.”
“It seems to be a promise that follows you,” Gagnon said.
“And see? Already I’ve broken it once.”
Silence followed as he mopped the sides of all three of his bowls with his single slice of bread—a silence during which he said nothing about the soldiers freeing him from his chains in the middle of a deserted road, with no village of any name in sight. Nothing about Le Rocher and his men, emerging from the surrounding trees, having followed his every move, prepared with their own knives and bludgeons to ensure his freedom. And nothing about the coins, once sewn tightly into his pocket, long since unbundled and traded for what he could buy. Food, clothing, loyalty.
Gagnon broke the silence. “That is it?”
Marcel nodded, his mouth too full of bread to speak.
“Then we have concluded our business. I wanted news; you wanted breakfast. You’re better fed than any of us, so you
’ll be on your way.”
“Can you really not go back?” Laurette asked. “Would they recognize you?”
“I would not go back alone, and I would not go back for Renée. I need to find like-minded brothers and go back as a force. Not every poor man can be absorbed the way Renée was absorbed. No, we remain slaves to the land—their land that they tax and take. And what do we do? Nothing. Nothing but starve in payment for our labor.”
“As long as I’ve known you,” Gagnon said, “I’ve not known you to do any kind of labor.”
Marcel was undeterred. “My labor is for you. To be a voice for you, if you won’t join me with your own. There are pockets of men in Paris, men of action. Actions for your benefit.”
“I need no action from you. I need nothing beyond my God, my land, and my home.”
“Well, mon vieux. It will not surprise you to hear that I have a favor to ask.”
“Nothing you do or say would ever surprise me, my friend.” His smile almost implied a begrudging affection.
“I need a home for the winter. For myself and my friends.”
“There’s no room for you here.”
“That, I understand. You know I’ve no roof, nor do the men who travel with me. But I thought we might be given shelter in the weighing shed. Dubois has no use for it until spring. There is more than enough room for us to bed down.”
“Eh bien?” He looked confused. “Go. What have I to say in it?”
“I need you to negotiate on my behalf with Dubois. He respects you more than he respects me.”
Gagnon laughed. “Why should I do such a thing for you?”
“Because I can do something for you in return. I may not be a man of means, but I am a man of resources. What do you need?”
Laurette wished she could jump up and speak for Gagnon. What would she say? What wouldn’t she say? Food, flour, meat, shoes, firewood—an endless list. But Gagnon did not consult her. He did not even look at her. Instead, he cast his eyes across the room to the empty hearth, as if an answer might appear in place of the winter’s flames.
The Seamstress Page 16
