by Kester Grant
He drops Ettie. She lands in a heap and I rush to her, taking her by the arm and pulling her away; she doesn’t need to see what will happen. The Ghosts part for me, flowing back into place like water once we’ve passed.
“Please!” The man’s eyes are white and wild with fear, his hands raised to fend them off. “Please, don’t hurt me.”
There was once a war between the Guilds. And among those who wrought death and destruction, it was the Ghosts that were the most feared. For theirs is the most populous of all the Guilds, and carries with it a burning belief in the Law. Once roused, their wrath is more terrible than that of all of the other Guilds put together. The stories of how they claimed their victims forever haunt the minds of every child of the Miracle Court.
Loup smiles a wicked smile, and a shiver runs down my spine. “Take him.”
The Ghosts tumble over themselves to lift the nearest grate in the street, and they descend into the darkness and stink of the city’s sewers. With reluctant hearts, Ettie and I follow.
The city’s great stone-walled sewers are darkness and rot, stained with layers of waste. I breathe in deeply. Most Thieves have had to hide in these slime-covered corridors on bad nights when a burglary went wrong. I’ve learned it’s easier to let the smell burn your throat and bring tears to your eyes than to try to shut it out.
My eyes adjust quickly to the darkness. Eventually we come to a platform of sorts, and spilling off every part of it are the Ghosts. They’re packed into the tunnel, some knee-deep in the stinking waters, waiting.
With a hiss, a lantern is lit, revealing Orso, Loup, and a hundred glittering black eyes staring at a broken thing that looks like a naked man tied to a wooden post. He’s already a mass of bruises crisscrossed with streaks of blood. His right hand is a bleeding stub of raw flesh. I wince. They’ve taken his fingers for daring to touch Ettie. The Ghosts carry no weapons, nor are they schooled in combat. Any wound inflicted on this man was done with bare hands and teeth and slow, careful purpose. I almost feel sorry for him.
“Does he live?” Orso asks.
Loup nods.
“A Trial, then.” Orso smiles grimly. “You are invited to attend, little Cat.” He bends his head in mock respect.
I shudder. I’ve never seen a Dead Trial before. The stories are the stuff of nightmares, but I dare not refuse so direct an invitation; it would be an insult to the Ghosts.
I glance at Ettie, who was so overwrought she has fallen sound asleep in a nook, away from all of this. Good.
“He has no mark on him,” Loup whispers to Orso.
No mark or tattoo means he’s one of Those Who Walk by Day.
“My children,” Orso says. “We have been wronged. There must be justice.”
The Ghosts break into terrible, deafening cries as Orso approaches the man and looks him over.
“Why would you lay a hand on my child?” Orso asks.
The Ghosts repeat the accusation, echoing it again and again, till Loup barks at them to be silent. “Let him speak!”
“I w-was f-forced,” the man tries to say through swollen lips.
His answer is received by a hiss from the Ghosts.
“Forced?” Orso’s voice is laced with disbelief. “How were you forced? Speak the truth here and perhaps you’ll be shown mercy.”
The man looks at Orso through the slit of a ruined eye. “I—I had a debt,” he moans piteously. “He said he’d call it off….”
“Who is ‘he’?”
It’s a needless question. We all know who wants Ettie.
“I can’t tell you. They said he would kill me.”
“Do not fear, my friend.” Orso traces a finger along the man’s broken face. He smiles a devilish smile. “He will not kill you.”
And all around him the Ghosts cackle and whoop.
Orso looks at the Ghosts and spreads his hands wide. “What do you say, my children?”
Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Their voices roll and echo off the walls, a tangled mess of whispers.
Loup raises a hand, and the Ghosts move to engulf the man like a swarm of rats. His cries are muffled, there are so many upon him. I turn my head away.
Orso lumbers toward me.
“You know who did this,” I say, my voice hard.
Orso surveys me and murmurs under his breath. “The Tiger is no fool; if he were named, this act would force us to go to war. You heard the Day Walker; he would not give a name.”
Orso’s gaze wanders over his children as they taunt what’s left of the broken man.
“We can ill afford such a confrontation.” His voice is low and soft. “Not when we’re so weak from hunger and sickness.” He shakes his head.
The Dead Lord is silent for a moment, his eyebrows knotted.
“It has become much bigger now than just her,” he says, looking at Ettie. “You’ve publicly thwarted the Tiger, and he can’t allow that. If a mere kitten can stand up to him before the Court, anyone might follow. He will have his vengeance or lose the power he holds over us. She has become a symbol he must destroy. Nothing will stop him.”
“But you can protect her!” I insist.
“Can I? He had me thrown into the Châtelet, attempted to kidnap her in broad daylight. If he’s bold enough to try take to her once, he’ll do it again.”
My heart sinks. If Orso can’t protect Ettie, then who can?
“There are at least four Guild Lords who would aid the Tiger if he asked them, because they fear him too much to refuse,” Orso says.
“But the Law!” I cry. “Does it count for nothing? He’s not allowed to touch her. She’s one of your children!”
“He’s weakened the Law. He’s tested it and made it his plaything.”
He puts the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully and looks at me. “Do you know how the Assassins take names?”
I shake my head.
“If someone wants to end a life, he gives the Keeper of Records the victim’s name and pays for the death. Most of the time the Assassins carry out the task, especially if they’ve anything to gain from it. But every now and again, they go to the one marked for death, the dead wolf, and they tell him the price that’s been offered, letting him counter. If he can pay the price they ask, the Assassins will cancel the contract forever because they will be richer if he lives.”
I listen, confused.
Orso sees this and elaborates. “You must pay a price higher than any the Tiger can offer to any child of the Guild. And you must pay it to all the Lords. Or she’ll never be safe.”
My mind reels.
“How much gold do you think it would take?”
“Gold?” Orso throws back his head, laughing heartily. The sound booms across the sewer.
Ettie is startled and wakes. She looks around, bleary-eyed.
“Would you pay the Lord of Smugglers in gold? Would you pay Tomasis in gold? What is gold to them?” Orso’s eyes challenge me. “Come now, little kitten, where’s that sharp brain of yours?”
I don’t understand.
“What weight has gold to the dying? Of what worth is gold in a time of famine?” Orso says.
Then it comes to me: Gold has no value to the dying. It can’t stop the hands of death. What the dying want is to live. And to live they need to eat.
“Bread…,” I say as it dawns on me what the Dead Lord is saying. I must find a way to feed the entire Miracle Court. Dread fills the pit of my stomach.
There’s only one place in the city where there’s always bread, even during a famine. Bread enough to save Ettie, to save us all, though no Thief of the Miracle Court would dare steal from there: the Palace of the Tuileries, nest of viperous, lawless nobility, and home to the king and queen of France.
There are several ways to get into the Tuileries, the most heavily guarded building in the city. The last tim
e I slipped into the palace, I was smaller and more desperate—and unencumbered by Ettie, who is useless at most things that require any sort of stealth. But I can’t risk leaving her behind. It has been two days, and the Tiger will surely have heard that his plan to kidnap her failed. Ysengrim knows what he might do next.
Ettie and I make our way to the Faubourg Saint-Germain. He is there, as I knew he would be, sitting among the bodies of the dead, for the dying are everywhere.
“Nina!” Ettie says in a weary voice. “Isn’t that St. Juste? He is so beautiful.” Her deliriousness is clearly unhinging her brain.
St. Juste looks up at me and frowns.
I’ve often watched him from the shadows. Not—despite what Ettie thinks—because he’s handsome, nor because he’s good at giving rousing speeches, which he is. But because my debt to him weighs heavily on my shoulders. I owe him a blood debt, which I’ve yet to repay.
* * *
Trying hard not to blush, I sit Ettie down in a spot where I can watch her. She winks at me and shoos me toward him.
Several of St. Juste’s student cronies are milling around. A lot of them are crying.
Beside him, a young man with sandy hair and large round spectacles is drawing blood from a corpse with a wicked-looking needle.
“Stealing from the dead?” I ask.
The young man with the needle looks up at me, his face lined with tiredness.
“Taking samples,” he says.
“Feuilly is studying medicine. He will analyze the blood and look for any abnormalities,” St. Juste explains in a flat voice.
“What kind of abnormalities?”
“The kind caused by a water supply contaminated with waterborne disease,” says Feuilly, carefully wrapping the chamber of the syringe in cloth and leather.
“Death in the water,” slurs Grantaire, the drunkard who was with St. Juste the night they chased off the Fleshers. He is propped up against a wall nearby, watching the proceedings with an air of gravity. “I told you this when the bodies starting piling up,” he adds, “and you called me a drunk, St. Juste. Well, now you know. The only reason I drink spirits is to avoid poisoning.” He winks at me, taking a swig from his ever-present hip flask.
“Grantaire, it is not yet midday; can you not remain sober for even one morning?” St. Juste snaps.
“I don’t like corpses,” says Grantaire with a hiccup.
“It is certain that the water is contaminated,” Feuilly cautions. “We are now trying to isolate the sickness, discover its origin, so that we can work toward a cure. One need only look where the death toll is the highest to know that the contaminants are isolated to the water systems in the poorest parts of the city.”
“While the fountains of the nobility run pure,” St. Juste says in a flinty voice.
My insides freeze. I think of what Loup said about the plague doctors, and of the piles of bodies near the Fontaine du Diable; of the poor and the servants alike, lining up to draw water from the well.
I look at Ettie, who was snatched by the shadow before she was able to take a sip from the water pouch. But how many others have drunk of this water? How many of the ten dead Ghosts?
St. Juste leans over one of the smallest corpses. He gently takes the mottled blue hand and places it on the boy’s chest, closes his staring eyes. Then he turns.
“This is the world we live in, my friends,” he says, his voice hard. “How much longer shall we sit by and let this continue? How many more citizens shall we watch them cut down?”
His hands ball into fists at his side, and his words are greeted with subdued nods from his friends. As if noticing my complete lack of response to his speech, he turns blazing eyes toward me.
“The last time I saw you, you had me arrested by the gendarmes.”
“It is good to see you too, St. Juste.”
He frowns darkly at me, and taking my arm, he drags me down the street by my elbow. Ettie watches me from a distance with a look that says, Are you in danger, or is he getting romantic? The glint in her eye shows that she thinks it’s the latter. I sigh. Ettie is hopeless.
“Now, now, St. Juste,” I say, “there’s no need to get intimate—or do me grievous bodily harm.”
He ignores my quips and holds me pinned tight by both arms.
“And after they arrested me, I was questioned for hours. It was three days before they finally released me.”
I wince. I’d hoped they wouldn’t keep him quite so long.
“You said you were in my debt, but you stole my pistol the first time I met you and had me arrested the second.”
I loosen one of my arms from his grip and reach into my skirts. Reluctantly I pull out his pistol; it’s one of my favorite things, covered in intricate gold scrollwork. “I’m sorry?” I offer as I hand it to him.
His eyes burn into me as he takes it. “The only reason I’m speaking to you now is that I recognize that you are a young woman of considerable enterprise and skill.”
I frown, unused to his flattery.
“Do you know what I thought about for those three interminable days when I was stuck in the Châtelet? Aside from wondering if they were going to execute me for my name?”
He draws me to him until my face is inches from his. He licks his lips, which I find quite distracting, and I do my very best to focus on his words. Behind me, I sense Ettie positively squealing with delight.
“I thought that we could use someone like you in the Société des Droits de l’Homme.”
I blink at him.
“You have all the necessary links to, er, people who can provide us with arms, and information. And you have experience in evading the inquiries of the law. You and your Guild are our natural allies—you hate the nobility as much as we do. You can recruit those who will be willing to fight alongside us. We need people of skill and cunning if we are to succeed. What do you say? Will you join in our crusade? The cause needs you.”
“The cause needs me?”
“I need you,” he says, as tender as a lover. Then he smiles, a ferocious, terrifying smile. “Don’t you see, Black Cat? Together, we’re going to change the world.”
A thousand thoughts race through my mind, one of which is wondering why my heart is racing. Another is that I owe this young man a great deal. I would be dead had he not rescued me from the Tiger’s men. My answer is almost a foregone conclusion.
As if he can read my mind, he releases me.
“If you join us, Black Cat, my incarceration in the Châtelet will be forgiven.”
The idea of being in any way affiliated with one of Those Who Walk by Day is deeply unsettling. But by joining his cause, I will pay back my ever-deepening well of debt. I do not really have much choice.
I sigh. “All right, I’ll join you, St. Juste, but you must do something for me. I know you speak to Orso. You must tell him about the death in the water. Already ten of his children have died. He will be able to protect the rest, and can warn the others.”
St. Juste studies me intently. “It shall be done. But why are you not able to carry this message to him yourself?”
Because in a world of untrustworthy criminals, I don’t know whom to trust with this message, and because you are just so damned noble that I know I can trust you….But I’m not about to tell him that.
“Because we need to get into the Tuileries, my friend and I.” I wave vaguely toward Ettie, who waves back enthusiastically.
“The Tuileries? Why?”
I sigh again and try to rearrange the truth in the manner most likely to please him.
“I’m going to steal something from the king,” I say.
If St. Juste is shocked, he doesn’t show it. His eyes bore into me. “Treasure? Jewels?” he asks, something like judgment in his eyes.
“Bread,” I say.
It was the
right thing to do, sharing this truth with him.
He stops, his eyebrows knotted in a frown of deep thought. “I heard what you said that day in the Halls of the Dead, Black Cat. We are not so very different, you and I. We are both fighting monsters a hundred times more powerful than ourselves. We are both tiny and insignificant, and we both know that the odds say we cannot win.”
St. Juste reaches out his hand to me.
“But we also both know we’ll go down fighting,” he says.
I reluctantly take his hand, and behind me—far enough away that she is not able to make out our conversation—Ettie makes a noise of smothered delight.
It occurs to me that perhaps St. Juste can be of help getting us into the Tuileries if he is willing to do me just one more favor….
* * *
We arrive at the Pont Neuf, where, according to the tongues of Notre-Dame, the procession should be at this hour. The bridge was the first of its kind to be built: there are no houses on it, meaning that it has ample space for the cacophony of actors, vendors, quack doctors, and tooth-pullers who crowd it.
Today the traffic of coaches, wagons, omnibuses, cabs, and animals has slowed to a crawl. We have threaded our way through the clogged arteries of the city, avoiding seedy bouquinistes handing out illegal pamphlets denouncing the king, and colporteurs selling bawdy books from blue-papered trays. Around us, every inch of every wall is pasted over with bills bearing incendiary political gossip, historical essays, and an overflow of exclamation marks. Here, they cry, royal advisor Concini was roasted and eaten! Here, they claim, the king’s son was unhorsed by a runaway pig and died! And over and over, posters scream:
WANTED: ESCAPED CONVICT JEAN VALJEAN
NO. 24601
We weave through the ruck till we’re buried in the crowds jostling for a clear view of the procession. Every day since the start of the famine, the remains of Sainte-Geneviève have been paraded through the streets in an attempt to blackmail God into mercy.
It’s great sport for the poor, who love watching hungry priests and wild-eyed penitents in their bloodstained shifts whip themselves to a frenzy. At the head of the procession is General Jean Maximilien Lamarque, one of the country’s most beloved military men, who looks dismayed at having to take part in this farce when he could be abroad fighting the Austrians. He’s supported by a handful of soldiers and several members of the Sûreté, riding on horseback in their bright blue uniforms, their eyes constantly sweeping the crowd.
