The Forbidden Rose

Forty-three

WHEN THE OPENING WAS LARGE ENOUGH, SHE leaned into the well and twisted around to look upward to the coin-sized circle of light above. Only a sou-sized coin, but it dazzled. Contrast is everything.

They spoke in whispers. Every few minutes, the bucket came down the shaft and went up again, full.

She chose a spot away from the opening of the well so her candles would not spill light into the well shaft, in case someone should look down. There was a corner where a block wall met another wall. This was where she would wait.

“I want to say you can’t stay here.” Jean-Paul sighed. “But you’ll do exactly what you want.”

“There is nothing useful for me to accomplish above ground. Victor is on the hunt for me. I’m in danger from him every step I take on the street. I endanger anyone with me.” That wasn’t why she had to stay. Jean-Paul would know that.

“In La Flèche, we don’t make grand gestures, Marguerite.”

“This one, I will make.”

He knew the futility of arguing with her.

She settled in to wait. Poulet came and kissed her on both cheeks and left his coat behind for her to wrap herself in and sit upon. He unpacked candles and flint and tinder and set them next to her. Also his flask of wine and all the food they had not eaten.

Jean-Paul left his gold watch, his father’s watch, putting it into her hand as if it were a casual nothing. He unrolled a ball of twine, beginning at her feet, that would lead all the way out. “In case,” he said. He left his coat also and would not be talked into keeping it.

Papa gave her the sticky dates he had found in the bottom of his pocket, wrapped in a handkerchief. He had been struck by several interesting observations of the magnetic waves beneath the ground. He began to describe them to her.

But he proved perfectly willing to talk about his list of geniuses. The very one he gave Robespierre. Yes. There was a copy in the library at home. Not in his desk. He had left it in a book . . . He would find it for her.

She pointed out that Victor had tried to poison her. Victor was very likely the man who had set assassins on his trail. And Victor was currently encamped at Hôtel de Fleurignac.

“I see.” Papa absentmindedly ate one of the dates he’d given her.

Justine, wide-eyed and unafraid, small and competent, took charge of Papa and led him away.

Adrian stayed till last. “Don’t worry if we’re late.”

“I am not addicted to worrying. I have a number of candles to keep me company.”

“We have to fetch rope and the ladder rungs from the workshop in the Jardin des Plantes. Get them across town to the café. Bring everything all the way down here. It’ll take a while.”

“So I should think.”

“There might be gusts of wind coming out of that well shaft, the way it comes down a chimney sometimes. Set some of the candles where they can’t get blown out.” He pointed. “Over there.”

“That is wise. Thank you.”

“Don’t wander off and get lost. You need to piss, do it here.” Earthy, practical words in the lyric, slurring pronunciation of the South.

“That is good advice, Adrian. I am sufficiently afraid of this huge darkness that I will not be careless with it.”

“Put those coats over you before you feel the cold. You don’t notice it, but it’ll eat your strength up if you don’t cover up.”

“I will.”

“Probably not. I know I can’t make you.” His lips quirked. “Nobody tells you what to do but Doyle. And not him, much. I’ll let him know you’re here, waiting, keeping the gate. It’ll give him incentive. I’m leaving this coat behind because it’s got bloodstains inside. I can’t be seen in something like that. You want a knife? I got extras.”

“You are kind, Adrian, but it would be of no use to me.”

“My friends call me Hawker.”

“Then I will call you Hawker.”

He stayed an instant, looking at her closely, then followed the others, leaving her in this empire of dark and uneasy silences.

Sound travels a long way in the rock. She heard their footsteps for a long while before the quiet closed over everything and she was alone. Poulet’s coat was the warmest. It smelled strongly of the musky scent he wore, but she did not mind. She wrapped herself in it and put Jean-Paul’s coat and Adrian’s—Hawker’s—under her and lapped them around her legs and was comforted. Time passed slowly.

Sometimes the bucket fell with a splash, came up with the chain rattling, and fell again. It was a connection with the world above. Sometimes, when the bucket was quiet a while, there came a sudden, astonishing plink as a single drop fell all the way down to the water.

It wasn’t fear of Victor that kept her here, or common sense of any kind. She kept a vigil, as if she had lit candles in a church and waited beside them the night through. Guillaume was a hundred feet away. She sat on his doorstep, with leagues of dark around her, keeping him company.

From the brown cloth bag she had carried with her, she brought small matters to keep herself occupied. A book. Knitting. One does not need a great deal of light to knit stockings. One does it by feel and by counting. The sonnets were by the Englishman, Shakespeare, and so familiar she did not need to see the writing well.

She had also brought a small bottle of glue and two brushes and papers of gold leaf. She took off the boots and began the business of gilding her toenails. The small toe, she did first, since it required the most contortion. Then the next toe. This was an exacting process and long, since everything must dry thoroughly before she applied the next layer of gold. She went about it with great patience.

If Guillaume lived through the night and escaped, and she lived, she would surprise him with these gold toenails. It would drive him mad with passion. It would be very satisfying to be in bed with Guillaume when he was mad with passion. It was a thought to keep one warm even deep underground.