The Forbidden Rose

Thirty-nine

MARGUERITE CLEARED A PATH IN THE LONG LOFT at the whorehouse so she could pace back and forth and think. She could not think sitting in one spot. “We have two days, maybe three, before Guillaume is taken to trial.”

Jean-Paul said, “Two days. Victor will make sure of that.”

No time. She walked and turned and walked again. “We have two days, then. The easy way, the obvious, is to bribe a guard. We enlist his aid. We provide some small excuse for a guard to walk Guillaume out the gate.”

Jean-Paul sat in the armchair at the end of the loft. He had been there a long grumpy hour. “Release orders.”

“They would send back to check such orders if they did not come with the regular messenger.”

“Transfer orders. That’s the next obvious choice. We wave some paper at the guards and hope they deliver Guillaume into our hands. We need a carriage. A horse. We can steal those. Two men to play guards and a driver. We’ve done this before. Many times.”

At the end of her path she confronted a stack of crates and a decrepit chair. She came back again. “We did that five years ago, in the first chaos of the Revolution. All was in disorder. We could have fooled prison guards with chalk scrawled on a schoolgirl’s slate. It’s not the same now.”

“The basic principle hasn’t changed. Men look at a paper and do what they’re told.”

“When we played that game, we were the first. Too many romantic fools have traipsed in and out of Paris since then and bragged to half of Europe when they succeeded. The easy subterfuges are known.”

“Then we will find something that is not known to everyone.”

“It is not known to me, either.” She walked again, letting her mind revisit each corner she had seen in the prison. The answer was there, somewhere.

A small child, no more than four, sat on a box, watching her. She belonged to one of the whores of the house, doubtless, and was left to run free in the stable yard during the day. It was good to see that the mother kept her close, clean and well fed. There was love in the carefully combed hair and the little necklace of coral beads. But it was sad to see a child who would grow to take up her mother’s profession.

“What do you think?” she asked the girl. Her name was Séverine. “Shall we knock on the front gate with forged papers and obvious ploys?”

The blond head shook gravely. “No.”

“You are right. We have not survived by being dashing heroes with colorful disguises. We are like mice. There is no one more unobtrusive than a mouse.” She began pacing again. “I must find a mouse hole into that prison. There has to be one.”

Jean-Paul rose to take another look at the sketches and plans and maps spread out across her bed. He did not approve of what she was doing. He would risk his life to help her. Was that not the definition of a friend? And he did not approve of her marriage. He called Guillaume “that great rack of muscle” and “that walking lump,” which lifted her heart utterly. After all, who would want an old lover to endorse one’s marriage?

He arranged the sketches into a new order. When she came near, he picked up one on the left. “The baker.”

“The baker.”

“The wall he shares with the convent is covered by his ovens. We’d have to take them apart to get through. He employs three boys, who sleep in the shop.”

“That is not promising.”

“Here,” he held up the next paper, “we have Citoyen Vilmorin who lives with his good wife and two children. His garden backs to the church. It’s all open space, overlooked by three houses. He has a cellar of beaten earth. If there’s a crypt beneath the church—and we don’t know that—it’s thirty feet from his basement wall.”

“We have dug tunnels. We have knocked holes in walls. It is not impossible.”

But there is no time to dig tunnels. We both know this.

I can think of nothing. This time, when it means so much, my mind is empty.

Jean-Paul took up the next sketch. “The Widow Desault. Lives alone with a dog of noble aspect. Shares a wall with the convent. Again, it’s the chapel wall. Some of the guards are sleeping in the chapel apparently. This next one . . .”

He went through them all, one after another. He had done masterful work, he and the others. A dozen members of La Flèche had been at it all night and all morning. Her own plan of the prison lay on the makeshift table. The corridors and the cloister and the cells were laid out, each with the distances she had counted off. Adrian’s contribution was exact and careful, adding rooms she had not seen.

It can’t be done. Not through the walls. Not tunneling under the earth. There is no time.

She would not let herself despair. She started walking. Jean-Paul went to sit in his chair, glaring out the window.

Séverine said, “Is your friend in very much trouble? The one who is a walking lump?”

“As much as can be.”

The child said, “The times are difficult. We must all be patient and clever.”

“You speak a great truth. I will not be patient, exactly, but I will try to be clever. If I were Sinbad and I did not have my roc handy—”

“What’s a roc?”

She stopped and knelt down. “That is a good question. A roc is a great white bird with wide wings. They would stretch from one side of the market square to the other if a roc landed there. They eat only elephants and ginger, and if you ask one nicely, he will give you a ride upon his back. They are especially fond of little girls who dress in blue. Did you know that? Is that why you wore a blue dress today?”

The child folded her giggle up inside herself and enjoyed it there. She was not shy, but she was careful and self-contained and did not laugh out loud. “I wore my blue dress because my green one is being washed.”

“That is also a very good reason. But as I say, if I were Sinbad, who was a sailor, and I did not have my roc at hand, I would fly out in a balloon, way up over Paris. I would look down and toss out my anchor . . .” She pantomimed tossing an anchor. “And let down a long, long ladder. My great lump of a man would climb up to me and we would sail away.”

Séverine approved this. Jean-Paul grunted and got up to sort through the sketches and plans again. He would not be blighting. He knew that her mind held a great deal of nonsense.

She got up to pace.

They could tunnel a foot an hour, in good soil. Shovels, boards, teams of men, burlap bags, bribery, silence . . . but it was never that easy. Thirty feet might take a day and a half. Or a week.

She had planned many rescues. She knew in her bones what was possible. What was impossible.

Jean-Paul put the sketches away. They’d be burned, now that they had both seen them.

She said, “We don’t have time to dig into the prison. None of the walls will work.”

“I know.”

Séverine also followed her with her eyes. “Will you tell me another—”

She had heard nothing in the storeroom below, but suddenly Adrian hauled himself up through the trapdoor.

He crawled out onto the loft floor, one-handed, his other arm wrapped in a fold of his jacket. When he opened that up, he was bloody.

“Adrian.” She pulled him the last of the way up. “What is this? Show me.”

She pulled open his coat so she could see. His sleeve was ripped in thin slashes. When she eased his coat down from his shoulders, the arm of his shirt was soaked red. He was bleeding, drop by drop onto the floor.

“You’ve left a trail,” Jean-Paul snapped. He swung past them out the trapdoor and down the ladder.

“I didn’t,” Adrian called after him. He grumbled the same thing to her. “I didn’t leave a trail. I’m not an idiot. I wrapped it up good half a mile before I got here. Not a drop. I wouldn’t lead them here.”

She said, “Of course. I’m sure you were careful.”

It was startling to turn and find Séverine holding the heavy water pitcher with both hands. Setting it down carefully. Running back for the basin and towels.

What kind of life does she live, this small child, that she knows immediately what must be done when a man is stabbed?

Adrian peeled his sleeve back and uncovered four long parallel slashes on the outside of his right forearm. Shallow, clean cuts. The coat had protected him from worse.

He was stoic and entirely adult while she examined the wounds. He didn’t wince when she washed and washed and made certain all was clean. Water trickled over him and fell red into the basin. His face was so studiously blank he might have been somewhere else entirely.

When she tried to rip a towel to make bandages, he produced a knife from behind his back and offered it to her. That was a clever trick. She tied pads over the worst of the cuts. “I won’t need to sew this, if you keep it bound tightly.”

There was boy in him still. She saw it in the way he accepted her words without a blink, trusting her to know these things.

“You are carrying a knife.” Séverine came closer, fascinated.

This wasn’t the sort of thing a child should be seeing. It was too late to do anything about it. She wrapped linen around everything and tied it in place.

With perfect gravity, Adrian said, “I have several knives, but Maggie only needs one at a time. So that’s all I gave her. Does Justine carry a knife?”

Séverine regarded him with a closed expression and said nothing.

“You’ve already learned the first rule. Say nothing.” Adrian tilted his head, watching. “You don’t answer any questions about Justine.”

Marguerite tied the last knot. “Justine?”

“She’s Justine’s sister. See the eyes. And her mouth. Can’t be a daughter. Has to be her sister.”

She could see it, now that he pointed it out. Séverine had more gold in her hair than Justine. Her eyes were green, not brown. But they were sisters.

There were two of them she must take away from this house. Both Justine and this beautiful child. When she had freed Guillaume, she would set about it.

The clatter and squeak was Jean-Paul, climbing the ladder. He boosted himself out, sat on the floor, and swung his legs around. “You’re right. You left no trail.”

Adrian showed his teeth and didn’t answer.

“We get these bloody rags out of here.” Jean-Paul was already gathering them up. “And make sure there’s nothing splattered on the floor. Why were you fighting?”

“Me? I’m innocent as an egg. I was trying not to fight. Not my fault somebody wants to poke holes in me.”

“Who?”

“He’s named Paxton.” There was a cold bleakness in the way the boy said that.

Another Englishman. The Englishmen in France seemed a bloodthirsty crew. “In a city of so many Frenchmen I would think it was one of them trying to kill you. Why is Citoyen Paxton poking holes in you?”

“Now that is something I didn’t get around to asking him, being busy jumping around and staying alive at the time.” He took his knife back from her, since she was no longer using it, and handed it, hilt first, to Séverine. “Here. You can play with this if you don’t cut yourself. It’s sharp. Make marks on the floor.”

Séverine proceeded to do exactly that, kneeling, using both hands to hold the knife. She cut slanting lines on the boards.

I should probably put a stop to that.

“Look. You want me to deliver this message from Doyle or not?” Adrian said it exactly as if she had been shushing him to silence for the last ten minutes.

“Speak, by all means.”

“He says, ‘Maggie. It’s done. I’ve played Cadmus with the boy’s papers. Stay off the streets.’ ”

Guillaume could send her such a message, knowing she would understand.

Adrian pulled the damp red sleeve down to cover the bandage she’d put on him. He didn’t look up from doing that while he said to Jean-Paul, “If you don’t keep your hand off Doyle’s woman, I’ll take that knife back and gut you with it.” He sounded perfectly friendly.

Jean-Paul, who should have known not to take this threat seriously, nonetheless removed his hand from her back. “What did you do with the body? Can it be traced here?”

Adrian did up the button on his sleeve, left-handed. “I didn’t kill anybody. I ran like a rabbit, is what I did. I have papers to deliver.” He lifted his coat from the floorboards, showing the slashed and bloody sleeve. “I can’t do it wearing this.”

“What papers?” Jean-Paul returned from pouring the basin of bloody water very carefully out the window, along the ivy and bricks. “What does Cadmus have to do with this? Marguerite?”

It took several minutes to explain.

“. . . drafts of the speech that Robespierre will deliver to the Convention, tomorrow or the next day. All of Paris is waiting for this speech, wondering who Robespierre will condemn next. Most especially, his enemies want to know this. Guillaume . . .” Even in prison, he is dangerous. “Guillaume has made copies of these papers and added a name or two that perhaps Robespierre did not exactly mention. He sends these to . . . How many?”

Adrian said, “Twenty copies. I’ve got six more to deliver. Who’s Cadmus?”

“He is in a story. The hero, Cadmus—I will tell you frankly this seems an unwise thing to do—Cadmus sowed the earth with the teeth of a dragon. From this seed, warriors sprang up.”

Adrian was patient, waiting for her to get to the point.

“Always before, Robespierre attacked his enemies one or two at a time, without warning. That is his plan again. But this time, there will be twenty men in fear of their lives. Those are the dragon teeth you carry. That is the battle Guillaume arranges.”

Jean-Paul let out a slow whistle. “I can imagine the names. They’ll see a draft in Robespierre’s hand. They’ll be desperate. If they work together . . .”

“Robespierre will fall. The Terror will end.”

But it will be too late to save Guillaume. He knows this. However many he saves, he will not save himself.

“It just might work.” Jean-Paul was a man of swift action, when it was needed. He pulled his coat off. Tossed it to Adrian. “Wear this. It’ll cover that shirt so the blood doesn’t show. I’ll send Justine to help you find the last six men.”

“I don’t need her.” The coat was too large, but a young messenger boy might buy such a garment in the market for used clothing. “This’ll do till I can get something that fits.”

“You are welcome.” Jean-Paul spoke ironically, but his eyes glowed. “Go. Deliver the papers. Change the course of history while I sit in my shirtsleeves and scrub your blood from the floor.” He knelt to be level with Séverine. “I will return this one inside, to her house. And I will collect this toy from her.” He took the knife and passed it to Adrian. “If your history is anything to go by, you’ll need it again.”

Adrian made the knife disappear. “I could have stayed in London if I’d wanted a pack of people trying to kill me. Didn’t have to come to Paris for that.” He grinned, and he was gone in an instant. A mere creak on the stairs. Utterly silent in the shed below.

Her Guillaume sowed dragons’ teeth today. They would see what came of it.

She stood in the middle of the broken and discarded furniture of the loft, feeling helpless. Useless. Guillaume was trapped behind guards and walls and she could not get him out. She couldn’t even visit the prison again. Victor would have set watch by now.

She would have gone into Hades, itself, like Orpheus seeking his Eurydice. There was nowhere she would not have gone to find Guillaume. No journey to the underworld she would not undertake.

Jean-Paul picked Séverine up, promising her that the boy with the cut arm would be perfectly safe. And yes, he would come back soon.

No journey to . . .

The large map of Paris was still spread across her pillow. She took it up, knowing it would not tell her what she needed to know. There was a map that did. “Wait.”

Jean-Paul turned back.

“There is a way.”

Jean-Paul looked from the map to her. “What? What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking about building stones and magnetism. About history and washing clothes.” She let the map go. “I never expected to say these words, but I need my father.”