The Silver Blade

  Chapter Eighteen

  The grand chateau of Chantilly purported to be one of the finest specimens of Renaissance architecture. In the moonlight it looked like an enchanted castle, surrounded on all sides by a silvery moat, but its wrought-iron gates had been boarded up to stop any prisoner talking to the outside world. Yann arrived as he had planned, at midnight.

  On the journey he had been thinking about how he was going to free the Duchess. He planned to use his new trick, one Tetu had taught him. Yann had spent months perfecting it.

  Now he was here, he realised that only audacity would save him. He started shouting at the top of his lungs.

  The old turnkey, gnarled like applewood and pickled in cider, came running, woken from a drunkard’s dream, and with great effort pushed the gate open far enough to see who was causing such a rumpus.

  What the turnkey saw, or thought he saw, standing at the gate were several young men on horseback, all rather oddly dressed.

  ‘I am here from Paris. Take me to the governor. What’s wrong with you, man? Stand straight when you talk to me.’

  Yann handed him a letter, knowing the man couldn’t read, which made him considerably easier to deal with. The turnkey saw on the paper a lot of squiggly lines that looked like the kind of official squiggly lines one might need to see the prison governor.

  The gate ground open all the way and Yann was in.

  ‘My horse needs feeding and watering. Did you hear me? Jump to it!’

  Yann’s voice was very loud, loud enough to waken the dead. It worked. Lights appeared at windows. Half-dressed, the guards came running.

  ‘I want to see the governor of the prison now,’ he demanded.

  He was taken to see Citizen Notte.

  The prison governor came reluctantly from his bedchamber, wearing a dressing gown quite inferior to the one worn by this very handsome and assured young man.

  Yann handed him the papers. He examined them carefully and all the while Yann’s eyes never left him.

  Citizen Notte put them down. ‘All seems above aboard. Just the one prisoner, I see.’

  ‘That is correct.’

  The governor was staring at Yann.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Socrates,’ Yann replied.

  ‘And what was it, citizen, before this new fashion to have Greek names?’

  ‘The name of a saint that stinks of the old regime.’

  Citizen Notte could see this earnest young man took his job very seriously indeed, and without an ounce of humour to lighten his load.

  ‘Quite. Will you be wanting a bed for the night?’

  ‘The Public Prosecutor’s office never sleeps. This woman is wanted in court tomorrow in Paris. My duty is to get her there. I shall need a carriage.’

  This came as a real blow. Carriages were valuable and scarce.

  ‘You mean you didn’t bring one?’ said Citizen Notte, beginning to wake up. ‘We are very short of such things. A farm cart, maybe?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t get there fast enough.’

  ‘I should tell you that we are understaffed. I suppose you will need a prison guard to accompany you as well?’

  ‘Why? She is just one miserable woman.’

  There was a knock on the door and a man entered. His eyes, too wide apart, had the look of a zealot, burning with fanatical passion. It was clear that mercy was not high on his list of priorities.

  ‘This is my right-hand man, Citizen Marchand of the Revolutionary Army.’

  Yann had seen his name in secret reports which Cordell had shown him. He knew that Marchand worked in confidence for the Committee of Public Safety and his ambition was to be transferred to Paris to work with Robespierre. Yann was more wary of Citizen Marchand than he was of the governor. For a start, he was stone-cold sober. And he took the papers from Citizen Notte before Yann had had a chance to work on him.

  ‘What are these?’ he demanded. ‘There’s nothing written here. What’s your game? Who are you?’

  Yann puffed himself up like a great cockerel. ‘I am here on business for the Public Prosecutor’s office.’ He spoke slowly, concentrating on getting a hold on Marchand’s mind.

  Citizen Notte looked flustered and took back the papers to study them again. Visible relief spread over his face as he handed them to Yann.

  ‘I hope there’s nothing wrong with your eyes, citizen, for this is all correct. I am about to give orders for the woman to be brought down to the courtyard.’

  Marchand snatched the papers from Yann and saw quite clearly the name of the prisoner. He looked momentarily uncertain; and yet there could be no denying this letter was from Fouquier-Tinville’s office.

  Yann could see how he was battling with his reason, as if doubt still threatened to get the better of him.

  ‘Strange,’ he murmured.

  Yann knew he had him.

  ‘No, what’s strange, citizen, is that you questioned my word. I think certain friends at the Hotel de Ville should know that.’

  ‘I meant no offence,’ said Marchand.

  ‘Just get me the prisoner. I haven’t got all night for these bourgeois pleasantries.’

  Citizen Notte looked genuinely worried as he rang the bell, longing for this to be over, and for the young man and his prisoner to be gone.

  A guard entered and spoke to Citizen Notte in a whisper.

  ‘What is it?’ said Marchand.

  ‘There is a problem. The prisoner says she won’t leave without the young girl who is sharing her cell.’

  He looked at Yann, who knew exactly what he was expected to say: that they were to drag her out by her hair if necessary, he cared nothing for any attachment the traitor might have formed.

  Instead he said, ‘How old is she, citizen?’

  The governor looked at the list. ‘She is sixteen, sir. The whole family was arrested for hiding a priest. Her parents and older brother were guillotined last week.’

  ‘Sounds to me as if she’s guilty as hell. Better bring her along. They like all different ages on the scaffold.’

  Ten minutes later a battered old carriage that looked and smelled as if it had been used as a henhouse was pulled into the courtyard, together with a tired-looking horse. Keeping his head low, Yann opened the carriage door to make sure he had the right prisoners.

  ‘What’s this?’ shouted Yann, seeing the horse. ‘This nag’s good for nothing but glue. I have to be in Paris by the morning, not next week.’

  There was a panic among the guards. Marchand suggested he should use his own horse.

  ‘What?’ said Yann. ‘My horse is employed by the Republic to take me wherever I’m needed. It’s not meant for pulling henhouses.’

  Reluctantly Marchand led out a fine dapple grey.

  ‘It’s mine, I—’

  Yann interrupted. ‘What’s yours is mine, citizen. Remember we are all one now.’

  He waited as the old horse was unharnessed and Marchand’s grey put in its place, then climbed up and took the reins. He had set off towards the gates with the Duke’s horse tied to the back of the rickety vehicle when he heard Marchand call.

  ‘Wait!’

  Yann’s heart sank. He could see the open road, he could smell freedom. He was so nearly there. He had a mad impulse to make a dash for it, to get away. That, he knew, would be suicide.

  Marchand ran up to him. ‘You will put in a good word for me?’ he said. ‘I am hoping to be transferred to Paris.’

  ‘Again you waste my valuable time. Good morning to you, citizen,’ said Yann, and he cracked his whip and set off.

  The day had dawned by the time they came to a crossroads in the forest, and he took the carriage down an overgrown path as far as he could so that they were well hidden.

  He opened the carriage door. The interior was coated with feathers, and perched on one of the upholstered seats was a hen that had obstinately refused to leave.

  The Duchess was sitting in the opposite corner, the girl fast asleep, resting her
head on her shoulder. Both had had their hair cut off so that what was left stuck up in tufts.

  The hen seemed the most vocal of the three occupants. Yann grabbed it.

  ‘May I ask why we have stopped?’ said the Duchess, only glancing at her jailer. She was painfully thin.

  ‘Maybe I wanted an egg for breakfast,’ Yann said kindly. Still she refused to look at him.

  The girl woke, sleepily taking in this apparition. Before her was a young man, extraordinarily dressed, with a hen under his arm.

  ‘Are you going to kill it?’

  Yann studied the hen. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It looks like a good layer.’ And he went off to put it in his saddlebag.

  The two women climbed uncertainly out of the carriage. The Duchess looked around, wondering if this was going to be her end, to be slaughtered here in this wood. Seeing the girl was terrified, she said calmly, ‘It is all right, Celeste.’

  Yann came back with bread and a bottle of wine.

  ‘This is for you, madame. Do you not recognise me?’

  The Duchess finally looked at him, catching the smile in his dark eyes. Her face lit up with joy.

  ‘Tell me I am not dreaming!’

  She put her arms round the girl. ‘There is no need to be frightened. This young gentleman is an old friend of mine.’

  Yann bowed.

  And the girl, looking at him, said, ‘Does that mean we are saved?’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Yann arrived in Paris the day before The Harlequinade was due to re-open. He’d gone straight to the Hotel de Ville. There was one more thing he had to do.

  The clerk whose business it was to draw up the names of the guillotined had had a busy morning. The previous day there had been a record harvest of heads, and in the enthusiasm to rid France of traitors and aristocrats names had become muddled. Now, his finger black with ink, he looked up wearily at the sans-culotte before him.

  ‘Where are the documents?’

  He peered over his smudged glasses and added three more names to the list, a thin smile curling like smoke across his face. Head bowed, tongue protruding, he wrote down the names, each one gloriously misspelled. Yann only bothered to correct him on one: the Duchesse de Bourcy. Her best chance of survival was to be dead to the authorities. The clerk dusted the ink and handed the paper to an officer to be posted outside.

  ‘Good work, citizen,’ said the clerk.

  Only when that was done did Yann return to the Circus of Follies.

  Citizeness Manou, seeing a sans-culotte with a three-cornered hat at the stage door, emerged from her sentry box in a cloud of smoky thunder and was taken aback to realise it was none other than Yann.

  ‘Citizen Aulard is waiting in his office and I’m under strict instructions to send you up the minute I see you.’

  Yann climbed the stairs to Citizen Aulard’s office to find the theatre manager, Tetu and a young man he had never seen before. He was a year or two older than himself, had dark blond hair and a pleasing, handsome face, though Yann thought he looked as if he hadn’t slept for days.

  ‘There you are,’ said Citizen Aulard, as Yann entered the room. ‘Thank the Lord above, you’re back. The Harlequinade opens tomorrow.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Yann.

  Tetu knew from one look at Yann that he was, in part, forgiven.

  ‘This is the Vicomte de Reignac,’ he said. ‘He was about to tell us how he came here. Please continue, Viscount.’

  ‘Wait,’ Yann interrupted, ‘surely you were sent to us?’

  ‘No,’ said Tetu, ‘the Viscount came to us through an unusual channel.’

  ‘Yes, the priest who was hiding me made enquiries as to the whereabouts of the Silver Blade, and was told they might know of him at the Circus of Follies,’ said the Viscount.

  ‘That’s the part I don’t like,’ said Citizen Aulard. ‘Not one little bit.’

  ‘It’s not important,’ said Yann, recognising in this young man a sadness all too familiar, one he had seen so often in those who had lost loved ones. So much heartbreak. Paris was broken by grief.

  The Vicomte de Reignac spoke quietly with a slight stammer. He had lost his father, his mother and his beloved fifteen-year-old sister. His father and sister had been taken to the guillotine three days previously.

  ‘My mother and I escaped arrest. She insisted on going to the Place de la Revolution to be near them.

  I tried to stop her, but nothing would hold her back. She wanted to get as close to the tumbril as she could to touch the hem of my sister’s dress.’

  He stopped, fighting back tears.

  ‘I watched my sister go up to the scaffold. One of the executioner’s assistants pulled off the cap she wore and she flinched with the pain. They had cut off her long blonde hair. My mother let out a gasp and my sister, looking frantically into the crowd, called “Maman!” I knew there was nothing that could be done. I begged my mother to be quiet, but she was inconsolable. When my father went to the guillotine, she rushed towards the scaffold. I tried to stop her, but was held back by a man in the crowd. He said, “Monsieur, if you do anything you too will be caught. Get out of here while you can.” I took no notice, but tried to get free. Again this stranger restrained me.’

  ‘Who was he?’ asked Tetu.

  ‘I found out that he had known my parents. He was a priest who had taken Holy Communion with them and had listened to their confessions.’

  ‘What happened next?’ asked Citizen Aulard.

  ‘They sentenced my mother then and there, without the inconvenience of a trial, for showing emotion for a traitor to liberty. They bound her hands, they cut off her hair. She looked almost happy. I think it was that that riled them. They tied her to the plank and then lifted the blade of the guillotine, leaving it suspended. The blood of my sister and my father fell like rain upon her and the crowd shouted abuse.’

  He stopped, wiped his eyes and took a shuddering breath.

  ‘After an hour, mercifully, the blade fell. I was saved that day by the priest. He hid me and told me about the legend of the Silver Blade. I can’t stay with him; it’s too dangerous. I need to get out of France.’

  Citizen Aulard was shaken. ‘What has happened? When did people become this cruel?’

  ‘When Pandora opened her box,’ said Tetu.

  Yann put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘You will be leaving very soon. You must rest now.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Vicomte de Reignac. ‘May I ask when I will meet the Silver Blade?’

  ‘You have met him.’

  Tetu followed Yann outside and asked, ‘Are you mad?

  That was unwise, telling him who you are. Supposing—’

  ‘Tetu,’ said Yann, ‘I am not sure who I am. Why shouldn’t I be the Silver Blade? If I were you, I would say nothing more on the subject.’

  Tetu shrugged his shoulders.

  At the stage door Citizeness Manou said, ‘Have you heard about Colombine, then?’

  ‘No,’ said Yann, stopping.

  ‘She is now Citizeness Loup. Got married two days ago. Ah, they make a fine couple, but mind you, I don’t call it proper. I mean, it wasn’t done in a church and in my humble opinion, that doesn’t count. Still, he looks like an angel, lucky girl.’

  ‘Looks can be deceptive,’ said Yann.

  Colombine turned up for rehearsal that afternoon. ‘I hear congratulations are in order,’ said Yann.

  ‘Yes. Thanks,’ she said, her voice sounding strained.

  ‘It was very sudden.’

  Colombine did her best to avoid looking at Yann.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course. Never happier.’

  ‘Good. Well, I wish you both the best.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said again, eager to be gone.

  Pantalon came rushing up and caught Colombine by the arm. Yann noticed her wince.

  ‘Pardon,’ said Pantalon, ‘I haven’t hurt you, hav
e I?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘Good. There is an hour of bliss before the curtain rises. Who wishes to join me at the cafe on the corner? Colombine, come on, let me buy you a drink.’