Time of Terror

by Hunter, Seth

“Let me do that,” he said, as if embarrassed for her.

  “Just pass me a log from the basket,” she told him. She had raked enough fires in her time. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “No. But please do not trouble yourself . . .”

  “It is no trouble. Sit.”

  She pointed at the table. Why did he make her feel like such an old dame—and why did she act like one? And what was she going to give him for breakfast? Gruel? They had some bread somewhere; a bit stale but she could toast it—and perhaps some cheese. Toasted cheese. The juices stirred at the thought of it and her stomach rumbled. She started grinding coffee beans to hide the noise. Her precious hoard.

  She glanced sideways at him while she worked the grinder. He was resting his chin in his hands, gazing into space and looking worried. Not at all as she remembered him. She had made several sketches of him after they last met but she saw now that she had not got him quite right. She had made him too . . . Like something out of a fairy tale with high cheekbones and a wide mouth: a Puck or an Ariel, playing on his tin whistle. But he was not so fantastical. Beautiful, like a woman almost, but his features were stronger and his eyes more slanted; she had made them too big and round.

  She had not thought to see him again. She still could not believe it was him and that he was sitting here in her kitchen. She caught his eye and felt herself blush.

  “So you are back in Paris,” she said to cover her confusion.

  “I arrived last night from Le Havre. They said Imlay was in Paris and we have some business to attend to.”

  “He is probably with Mary in Neuilly.”

  “Neuilly?”

  “A little village just outside the barrière. She rents a house there. You probably came through it on the way in from Le Havre.”

  “Maman?”

  Alex stood at the door. Still in his nightdress.

  “Little one, I said you were to stay in bed. Come over to the stove, then, to keep warm. This is my son Alex,” she introduced them. “Monsieur Turner. Monsieur is a friend of Monsieur and Madame Imlay.”

  She really must learn to say Citoyen and Citoyenne but it seemed so ridiculous. Pretentious even. Everyone was forever pretending to be something they were not. But she did not want Alex saying the wrong thing in public and being denounced to the authorities. She had heard of children being taken away for little more than that and their parents thrown in prison.

  “Alex, will you set the table for us?” she asked him. “We are having breakfast in the kitchen.”

  As if they were accustomed to dine in state with footmen to serve them.

  She watched him as he set out the dishes, wondering what their visitor would make of him. He was a pretty child; people said he had her looks and not his father’s. He looked so thin though. He caught her eye and she smiled. At least he had good manners. He was growing up in a very different world from his father—but that was not so very bad a thing. She filled the kettle and set it on the hob.

  “Is it very urgent that you see Imlay?”

  He nodded. “One of his friends has been arrested. Well, he is Mary’s friend, really. They came for him at the hotel this morning.”

  She shook her head reprovingly, though it was not the most surprising event in Paris.

  “What is his name?”

  “Thomas Paine.”

  “Oh, but I know Mr. Paine!” Her hand flew to her cheek. “And they have arrested him? Oh, but how shocking. And he is a representative of the people. What are we come to? Assassins! Do you know where they have taken him?”

  He frowned. “I thought they said Luxembourg, but I may have misheard . . .”

  “No, you heard right. The Luxembourg. It is a prison—where they take most of the foreigners. All the English are there. Is that why they arrested him—even though he is American—because they say he is English?”

  He looked puzzled. “I have no idea. They would not state the charge. Is it far from here, the prison?”

  “Not far. It is the old palace of the Medici. Half the neighbourhood is in there.”

  She glanced towards the window as if they could see it from here and blinked in surprise.

  “My goodness,” she said, “it is snowing.”

  They made their way to the window, all three, and peered up at the snowflakes drifting down from the grey and purple sky. Great beautiful snowflakes. They were already sticking on the rooftops opposite, transforming the city into something different, something almost magical instead of the cruel, dangerous place it had become. Sara looked down at Alex and saw the wonder in his eyes and she knelt down to his level and put her arm round him and raised her face again to the window and the falling snow. But her eyes met Nathan’s looking down at her and there was an expression in them that caused her some agitation. Too many feelings, they were upon her in a rush, like the mob, and as impossible to separate or control.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said and he grinned down at her and she saw him then as she had seen him with the mob, with the tin whistle to his lips and his eyes dancing with mischief and a kind of delight in the danger of it all.

  “We could be snowed in,” he said. “We could be trapped here for days.”

  She stood up, feeling shaky, disorientated. She did not know what to say but what came out surprised her.

  “My husband died. In Germany. A fever of the blood.”

  He stared at her, the smile fading from his lips and his eyes.

  “We only heard a month ago.” She gathered her robe at her neck. “We are in mourning, officially.”

  “I am sorry,” he said. His eyes said, what are you telling me?

  She put her hand on Alex’s head. It steadied her.

  “So there is just me and Alex,” she said, smiling down at the child.

  “And Hélène,” he reminded her, looking up at them both with his grave countenance.

  “Oh, and Hélène,” she confirmed, adding for the benefit of their guest, “our maid, though she has become more like a friend.”

  “And Marie-Eloise,” the boy persisted.

  “And Marie-Eloise,” Sara confirmed—and to Nathan: “The cook.”

  “And Figaro.”

  “The cat.” She silently indicated the creature, sleeping in his basket near the stove, or pretending to.

  The kettle was boiling.

  “Let us have coffee,” she said.

  They had coffee with toast and cheese, the three of them at the table and the cat wrapping itself around their legs, hoping for a share.

  “Our affairs are in a muddle,” she told him, a masterly understatement. “The Republic has confiscated my husband’s property in the south. I have some land of my father’s in Provence but it is poor and so are the tenants and the rents are not paid since the Revolution. I am not against the Revolution. But we are not rich and they make it very difficult for people like ourselves.”

  She wondered why she was telling him all this. Some compulsion to be open with him. To eschew pretence. You see me as I am, with no make up, thirty-two years old, the mother of a young child, and no money.

  They had barely met.

  He looked towards the window. The snow seemed to have eased a little.

  “I should find Imlay,” he said.

  Chapter 16

  a Thief in the Night

  It was snowing hard now. Nathan pulled up the collar of his greatcoat and bent his head into the blizzard as he set off in the direction of the river where he might find a cab. The whirling snowflakes mirrored his thoughts. Searching for a nautical analogy, he felt as if he was sailing off a lee shore with an unpredictable wind, no compass and a crew he could not rely upon.

  But he did not know Paris as he knew the sea. He did not know its winds and its tides, its moods and shifting currents. He did n
ot know where the rocks were, or where to shelter from the storms. And its storms were formidable, manic, terrifying . . . What he did know, even after so brief an acquaintance, was that Paris itself had become the central character in the drama that was engulfing France. Like the Dionysian chorus in the Bacchae: a frenzied, menacing madness that could and did engulf all the other characters. This was partly a matter of geography: the filthy, narrow streets with their workshops and wine shops and overcrowded tenements and dark courtyards . . . A breeding ground of riot and rebellion. Every neighbourhood, every Faubourg, a labyrinthine fortress with a core of agitators who could muster thousands of insurgents with the ringing of the tocsin.

  Suddenly—and appropriately—Nathan realised he was lost. And not just in the metaphysical sense. He was not unduly concerned for although there was no one about from whom he could ask directions he knew he had only to walk downhill and sooner or later he would come to the river. He was trudging on with his head down and his thoughts far away when he became aware of a figure in his path. He looked up and was not entirely amazed to see a pistol aimed at his head.

  “Stand,” said the man who was holding it. “And give me your purse.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Nathan, with a frown.

  “Make haste,” the brigand insisted. “I am a desperate man.”

  This, Nathan concluded, was probably an accurate representation. His voice was high, verging on the hysterical, and his appearance, too, smacked of desperation, if not despair. He wore an old-fashioned tricorn hat and a scarf pulled over the lower part of his face—which was the accepted apparel for a footpad—but he had neither cape nor greatcoat and his jacket was thin and threadbare. Nor was he sturdy. Indeed he looked as if a sudden increase in the power of the wind would blow him over. He was shaking, either from cold or trepidation or a combination of both.

  Nathan observed that the pistol was cocked but he could not tell if it was loaded. It seemed to him that if there was any powder in the pan it must almost certainly be damp. Since the incident with the mob and the lanterne, Nathan had taken the precaution of carrying his sword with him but it was hard to get at through his greatcoat and besides it did not seem necessary. He knocked the pistol aside with his left hand and struck out with the right, landing a blow high up on the side of the man’s jaw. He staggered back and—with a completeness that rather surprised Nathan—measured his length in the snow.

  Nathan stooped to pick up the pistol. The hammer had fallen but it had not exploded. No powder. He put it in his pocket and continued on his way.

  After a few yards he stopped and thought for a moment. Then with a sigh he retraced his steps to where the man lay and prodded him with his boot.

  “Come, sir,” he commanded sternly, “do not lie there prevaricating or you will catch your death.”

  He did not stir. Nathan bent down and observed him more closely. He appeared to be breathing but if he were left to lie there in the falling snow Nathan’s prediction would almost certainly be realised. But what was to be done with him? Nathan supposed he might cover him with his coat but he was not sure he was that much of a Samaritan. Besides, the Samaritan had saved a man who had been left for dead by footpads; whether his charity would have extended to the footpads themselves must remain in doubt.

  He looked about him. No one in sight. He could try knocking upon one of the doors of the houses but it did not seem likely they would let him in, much less take a stranger into their care. It was possible he might carry him back to Sara Seton’s house but he was still not entirely sure of the way and she might well regard it as an imposition.

  With another sigh he stooped again and lifted the man up on to his shoulder. He was not quite as light as he had looked. Staggering a little, Nathan resumed his journey towards the waterfront.

  Fortunately it was not far. And there was a tavern—or at least a wine shop—immediately to his right. It was not one he might have chosen in other circumstances but the clientele barely spared him a glance despite the body over his shoulder and by the time he had kicked the door shut behind him they had resumed their discourse, such as it was. Presumably they assumed the man was drunk and were accustomed to such an event. Nathan deposited his burden at an empty table and crossed to the bar.

  “Hot punch?” he inquired with no great expectation. Mine host almost laughed in his face. “Brandy then. Two glasses.”

  He carried the tumblers back to the table and set one down in front of his comatose companion. Either from coincidence or some deep mental stimulus he came immediately to his senses. He stared at Nathan and then rolled his eyes around the room, clearly confused.

  Nathan reminded him of the circumstances that had delivered him here.

  The villain put his hand to the side of his head and winced.

  “You hit me,” he recalled.

  “I did,” agreed Nathan, offering the brandy.

  The villain drank and was immediately seized by a fit of coughing that threatened to carry him off entirely.

  “That’s good,” he said, still choking but reaching a trembling hand once more for the tumbler. He paused however as his fingers closed around the glass and glanced suspiciously about the room.

  “You did not send for the police?”

  “It would surely have been easier for me to leave you in the snow,” Nathan pointed out, “and let them find your body in the morning.”

  The villain appeared to see the logic in this. He attempted to say thank you and was wracked by another fit of violent coughing.

  “Well, if you’re feeling more yourself,” said Nathan, “I’ll be on my way.”

  But the creature was waving at him helplessly, still hacking, but clearly wishful that he should stay.

  “I am not a violent man,” he managed to impart. “But I am desperate.”

  “So you informed me upon our first acquaintance.”

  “I am not a professional brigand.” Nathan inclined his head in polite agreement, having seen nothing that might cause him to dispute the claim. “I am an égoutier.”

  This was an unfamiliar word to Nathan but on further inquiry it transpired that his new companion was one of that rare breed of creatures that maintained the Paris sewers. Rarer still since the Revolution, by his account, for the Commune was less punctilious in its payments than the old City Provost appointed by the King. Kings being more offended by smells, perhaps, than commoners.

  “And I have a wife and child to support,” the fellow concluded miserably.

  Nathan nodded, not without sympathy, but wondered where the conversation might be leading.

  “What I am saying is—I am sorry.” He lowered his head in shame.

  “Think nothing of it,” said Nathan, kindly, “though you would be well advised not to repeat the attempt on another. You have not the voice for it, nor if I may make so personal an observation, the build.”

  He rose to leave but the fellow had not quite finished with him.

  “I wonder,” he began, hesitantly, “if you have my pistol.”

  “I have,” said Nathan, frowning.

  “Well, I wonder if I might have it back.”

  “No you may not, you rogue.”

  “It was only borrowed,” said the fellow, “and if I do not return it there will be a price to pay.”

  Nathan sighed. He sat down once more, took the pistol from his pocket and slid it across the table. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he took out the folder where he kept his paper money and placed a hundred livre note next to the pistol on the table.

  “Get something to eat,” he said, “and a coat, if that is enough.” He frowned. “Is it enough?”

  The fellow was staring at the note on the table as though mesmerised. “I do not know what to say,” he began.

  Nathan rose to his feet but a claw-like hand seized him by the
coat sleeve.

  “If you are in need of a service, ask for me at the Café de Carthage in the Rue Saint-Antoine.”

  “Assuredly,” Nathan replied politely, though he did not consider the man’s undoubted knowledge of the Paris sewers would be of much use to him in his present predicament.

  “Ask for Philippe,” the man insisted. “The égoutier.”

  Chapter 17

  City of Death

  We must set off first thing in the morning,” Imlay insisted. “Before it snows again.”

  He appeared more interested in the fate of his cargo than in that of Thomas Paine. Perhaps this was not a surprise.

  Nathan glanced pointedly out of the window. They were in Mary’s house in Neuilly and the garden was deep in snow. He had ridden out of Paris because the cabs would not venture on the roads outside the city. It would be a nightmare journey to Le Havre and from the look of the sky there was more on the way.

  “We can go by river,” Imlay insisted, “if the roads are too bad.”

  “Gilbert,” Mary complained gently but he shot her a look and shook his head to quiet her.

  “The tobacco is safe enough in the hold of the Speedwell,” Nathan attempted to reassure him. “It will keep until the weather improves.”

  “I am not at all happy with the situation in Le Havre,” Imlay fretted.

  He paced restlessly about the small room. Mary had lit the candles though it was not yet dark and there was a cheerful fire. The remains of dinner were still on the table. Nathan wished he had stayed with Sara in Paris.

  “We can leave from here,” Imlay continued as he walked the room: like a captain, Nathan thought, pacing his quarterdeck or a prisoner his cell. He pounded his fist into his palm gently as if he was beating out a rhythm.

  “There are barges in Neuilly on their way down the Seine. You can stay the night. It is longer than by road but . . .”

  Nathan shook his head firmly.

  “I have business in Paris,” he said. “I cannot leave immediately.”

  “Business?” Imlay frowned. “What business?”