‘A penny for them,’ she said, looking at him in the mirror.
‘They ain’t worth that much, and I don’t think you will listen.’
‘Anselm, I love you. I know you never meant to hurt me.’
‘I can’t forgive myself,’ said Anselm. ‘I love you too and I’m just terrified of losing you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I have a bad feeling. I’ve heard rumours.’
‘What rumours?’
‘I don’t know … I shouldn’t say anything.’
‘Tell me,’ she said, putting her arms round him.
‘Well, I have heard that Yann Margoza is a gypsy and so is Tetu. Did you know that?’
Now he had Colombine’s full attention. ‘That would explain that funny language they talk together.’
‘What I’ve been told is, Yann works for a man who lives in the catacombs. They are all in it together, double-dealing the clients and selling them back to the Tribunal.’
‘No, that’s not true.’
‘Think about it.’
Colombine thought for a long time. Yann was becoming reckless. And there was that funny business with the keymaker. Looking up at the cherubic face of her husband, she said, ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
‘I know I am,’ said Anselm, with more passion than he had ever shown for her. ‘I think we’re all in grave danger. We’ve got to turn Yann Margoza in, let the Commune know he’s the Silver Blade. If you were to do that, we would be able to have a life together. Isn’t that what you want?’
‘I can’t, Anselm. I can’t do that, it’s—’
‘What?’ he said, feeling his rage rise again.
What Colombine saw, or thought she saw, was Anselm trembling with passion for her and it did her pride good. He truly loved her.
She went up to him and he turned and kissed her. She was taken aback by the strength of his longing. She felt shaken by that kiss. Love made her feel reckless.
Afterwards, as he escorted her to the theatre, he said, squeezing her hand tightly, ‘You’ve made the right decision, you won’t regret it. We will do it together.’
The shocking news that evening was that Citizeness Manou had been murdered. Yann was absent, on an assignment. Everyone else was cast into despair.
Pantalon said what the rest of the company was thinking. ‘Who would have done such a terrible thing? Isn’t there enough killing in this city?’
‘I think it was Yann who killed her,’ Anselm whispered to Colombine. ‘She knew too much.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
In Sido’s dream she hears her name being called. Walking down a woodland path she comes to a clearing. There sits an old gypsy woman who wears many skirts of moss, of mists, of snows. In front of her is a small fire on which a kettle bubbles, its lid chattering merrily to the boiling water.
The old woman speaks with a voice that is the rustling of leaves. She calls to the spirits of the forest and, down each of the seven paths which lead into the clearing, silvery ghosts appear.
The old woman says, ‘Yann Margoza, Sido de Villeduval is not a gypsy. Why is she here?’
Then she sees him standing beside the old woman, looking older than she remembers. A tiny silver thread begins spinning towards him from the shell hanging at her neck.
‘Because I love her. She is the key to my soul; without her I am powerless. She has the shell, the baro seroeske sharkuni, the shell of the shells. Only a true gypsy soul could benefit from its power. It will keep her safe.’
The old woman turns to face Sido. In those fathomless eyes Sido sees the road unfolding and knows her journey is about to begin.
When Sido woke, her limbs ached, her eyelids fluttered against sleep and she wondered if she were back in the Marquis’s chateau, for through blurry vision she saw a canary sitting in an elaborate birdcage, singing. Slowly the chamber came into focus and, to her horror, she saw that the walls were lined with bones overlaid with gold leaf. Was she dreaming? She sat up suddenly, her head throbbing. At the end of her bed were three women servants, dressed in black.
‘Where am I?’
They said nothing, but came forward and forcibly led Sido towards a bath in the middle of the room. She tried to pull free, but the women possessed uncanny strength.
‘Where am I?’ she asked again.
They took no notice of anything she said, just washed and dried her, then stood her naked before a long mirror while a fine powder was blown on her until her skin had turned china-doll white. A gown of watered silk was placed over a corset and petticoats. Her hair was dressed and decorated with flowers. She saw herself disappear in the mirror.
A man came in. His face was covered in scars, like a map of a city you would never wish to visit. He had one milky eye.
‘Come with me,’ he said.
She followed him down a corridor lined with brittle bones, still not certain if this were real or part of a kaleidoscope of dreams. She had the shell. What was the shell called? She thought if she could remember that she would be safe. It came to her: baro seroeske sharkuni, that was it, and walking down the haunted hall with its finger-bone lanterns blazing, she said the words over and over again, a prayer to keep her safe. Milkeye stopped at a large, imposing door on which was written:The dance to the hollow drum of time is done.
Here then be death’s domain.
The doors opened to reveal a long room. On one side were mirrors framed in bones. She saw chandeliers, also made of bones, candles burning, and skulls strung together and festooned across the ceiling. On the other side of the room, there were windows, blessed windows.
Outside, moonlight flickered on water. She turned away from the windows and caught her reflection in the many mirrors. She was unrecognisable, a ghost.
The doors at the other end of the room opened and in walked Count Kalliovski, followed by seven women. He was taller than she remembered and much changed, his skin cadaverous, like waxwork rather than flesh and blood, his hair black as tar. As always, he was immaculately dressed, in a fitted black cutaway coat. He wore white lace at his neck and red kid gloves.
A living nightmare, the sight of him revolted her. His raven-black, dead eyes stared straight through her. Nothing human was left in him. She felt that she was in the presence of great evil.
He took her hand and she tried to pull away, but it was held fast in his rigor mortis grip, and raising it to his frozen lips he kissed her palm.
‘I hope you find everything to your liking.’ He clicked his fingers and the seven women, whose feet appeared not to touch the ground, came forward. ‘May I introduce the Seven Sisters Macabre?’
They curtsied.
Sido stared at these horrendous apparitions and trembled. Their eyes were like glass, their skin stitched upon their faces, their mouths sewn tight shut.
When Sido had last found herself with this monster, silence had been her only power over him. Seeing the muted mouths of the Sisters Macabre, she understood that now her survival lay in words.
‘I have a gift for you, one that will complement your beauty,’ said Count Kalliovski, and he handed Sido a jewel case. She opened it, and saw rubies lying there on black velvet. They made her think of blood, and she was certain this was the prelude to her death.
‘Your chain first,’ said the Count. ‘Allow me.’
‘No,’ said Sido, her hand reaching up to her throat, touching the shell.
The Count leaned towards her, then, as if snagged on a thorn bush, he stepped back and indicated to Milkeye to remove the chain. Milkeye had no more success than his master.
Only at that moment did Sido comprehend the extraordinary nature of the talisman and, gathering her strength, she said, ‘This is worth more to me than all your rubies.’
‘It is a shell, a mere trinket. These rubies once belonged to Marie Antoinette.’
‘Your wealth is dust beside this shell.’ Every word she said made her feel a little less afraid.
Kalliovski’s expression chang
ed, or rather, since his face was incapable of such a thing, it was as if a thunderous cloud were passing overhead. His granite eyes glinted with pure malice.
‘Yann Margoza gave me this talisman,’ she said, as if his name itself were a magic spell that might ward off evil.
‘Have you wondered why Yann Margoza hasn’t come to rescue you? Could it be that he no longer loves you?’
Sido bit the inside of her lip. She mustn’t think about that.
‘You see, he is my son. Perhaps he has taken after his father, for love corrupts, destroys and ruins. I prefer evil. It is cleaner, has a certain honesty to it - and the devil is always so obliging.’
‘Your son,’ she said, and now she was falling, falling.
‘Yes, didn’t you know that? Oh dear, did he forget to mention it?’
‘Yann is of Romany blood. You cannot be his father.’
‘But I am - and he is.’
Sido instinctively clung to the shell, which glowed, warm and comforting. The light shining from it grew blindingly bright and filled the room.
Kalliovski turned away. ‘Take her back to her chamber, ‘ he said to Milkeye.
To the Seven Sisters Macabre he said, ‘You are all dismissed.’
Like a gaggle of geese they flew at the door, eager to be gone.
Once more in her chamber, Sido sat on her bed. What had Kalliovski said? That Yann was his son? It could not be. Not Yann, not her Yann.
The three harpies arrived to undress her. Exhausted, she sat in a plain linen shift, as if, having completed one dance with the devil, she were allowed to sit out the next.
In the long gallery, Kalliovski paced. How could he have been so weak as to let himself be caught off guard by a shell, a talisman? Did she know what she had round her neck? Had she any idea of the power of the baro seroeske sharkuni? His gambler’s instinct had been correct. Yann was in love with her. But to entrust to her such a talisman, the shell of the shells, given only to great shamans and gypsy kings … he would never have been parted from it.
No, he thought bitterly, because I was not worthy of the shell of the shells. I was only worth my mother’s curse. And the son I never wanted possesses what I would give my fortune for, the threads of light.
He could feel rage bubbling under the surface of his waxen skin, and another emotion, belonging to the living, so long foreign to him that it shocked him: jealousy. As he found the word he thought he heard laughter.
He looked down the long gallery. Nobody was there. He had convinced himself that his mind was playing tricks when Anis appeared, standing before him in all her beauty, the Madonna of the Road.
Emotions were other men’s seas; he could walk on water, never needing to plumb the depths. Anis threatened the perfect void of his being.
She came close, her hand outstretched, and touched his waxen face.
‘Dead man’s skin,’ she said. ‘Do you not know that the devil always keeps the high, wild cards for himself? You will never win at his table. Look, my murderer, at what lies at your feet.’
Kalliovski stared down to see that the floor had become transparent, like an enormous dragonfly wing, and from under its iridescent surface he could see the faces of his many victims, their eyes open, staring up at him. He may have silenced the Sisters Macabre, but nothing could quieten the bodies in the grave of his conscience. He tried to move away, but Anis held him fast, forcing him to look.
A crack in the nothingness of a hollow man is a very dangerous thing, for it lets in the past and the worm of memory.
‘Where is your companion?’ asked Anis. ‘Where is Balthazar? He who never judged you, who never found you wanting? Who accepted all you did … except for one thing.’
‘What thing?’
‘Forbidding him to go with the ferryman when Death came walking.’ She smiled. ‘A cruel trick, to make him live in limbo. He is another of your victims.’ She was in front of him, behind him, beside him, passing through him.
‘Stop it, stop it!’ shouted Kalliovski. The mirrors showed a multitude of his own reflections.
‘Do you remember the story of the devil’s dog? Tell me, how does it go, my killer?’
Giving way to a seething rage, Kalliovski picked up the jewel case and flung it at a mirror. It cracked so that he was reflected in many parts, and in none of them was he whole.
The splintered apparition of his other self spoke. ‘You are a dead man. I am the remains of any good that was ever in you. I am you the moment before you murdered Anis, when all roads were yours to travel, when you could have made the circle whole.’
‘You are nothing but a figment of my imagination!’
‘I am all there is left of you,’ continued the apparition. ‘I am a small part. You belong to the grave, you are made from a dead man’s bones.’
Kalliovski, holding tightly to his very being, saw the apparition fade as he heard Anis sing, ‘We are birds, we are free.’
‘No, no!’ he shouted.
When Milkeye returned to the chamber, he found his master bent double, his hands over his ears.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Citizen Frenet and his second-in-command, Citizen Gabet, were on guard that night at the St-Denis gate. They were not young and both, if they were honest, missed their beds. They’d managed to stay awake by playing cards and talking. Citizen Frenet was a fervent sans-culotte, passionate about the Revolution and the Republic. Citizen Gabet had been a little less so since the awful business of his wife’s niece, who two weeks previously had been taken to the guillotine on a trumped-up charge of conspiracy. It had frightened him, making him realise no one was safe. Frenet had little sympathy. In his eyes the Committee of Public Safety could do no wrong.
‘They would do me a great favour,’ he joked, ‘if they guillotined my wife. Now, that would be a service to the nation. I wouldn’t miss her.’
Their conversation switched to the news they had had of a colleague who had been tricked by the Silver Blade. He had had the audacity to rescue someone from the prison of La Plessis right under the guard’s nose. The guard had been sent to the guillotine for his carelessness, swearing he’d been shown all the correct papers.
‘Do you know what gave him away?’
‘No.’
‘A silver blade from a child’s toy guillotine. It was left hanging right above his head. I tell you,’ said Citizen Frenet, ‘if the Silver Blade were to come this way with a blank piece of paper and say it was a bona fide document, I would have him and no mistake.’
‘I agree,’ said Citizen Gabet. ‘I wonder if this Silver Blade ain’t a bit of a myth, made up to hide slovenly practices.’
‘You could have a point. And all that nonsense about how it’s always left hanging somewhere out of reach. I tell you, it sounds fishy.’
It was then that both men nearly jumped out of their skins. Peering through the yellowed window into the smoke-filled room was a ghastly, toothless old hag.
Citizen Frenet, seeing her, grabbed hold of his pistol and went outside. The old hag was not alone; she had a friend with her who looked in an even worse way than the toothless one.
‘What are you doing here? You know the penalty for being out after curfew. I’ll have you arrested. Now, push off!’
Gabet joined his colleague at the door.
‘We should arrest them. No messing around.’
The toothless one began to cough. She came closer and the smell of death on her made both guards back away.
‘We’ve been in the Place de la Revolution,’ she said, spitting out her words. ‘Watched the scum of France lose their heads. See this blood here on my petticoat? Fresh today, it is. That’s the blood of a nobleman.’
‘Enough,’ said Citizen Gabet, who knew full well what these ghastly old witches got up to, knitting at the foot of the guillotine.
‘Hear that, sister, they’re going to arrest us. That’s kind of them, ain’t it?’
Citizen Gabet noticed with alarm that her scrawny sister seemed to be
on the point of fainting. The old hag grabbed her and held her upright.
‘She’s been sick, that’s why we weren’t here earlier. Been throwing up all evening. Now she has a little rash. Go on, show these citizens that rash you’ve got.’ And the old hag made to lift her sister’s skirt.
That was enough for Citizen Frenet. He knew if she had smallpox she would be infectious. Gabet, thinking the same, went to open the gate.