‘There is no such person,’ said Yann. ‘It’s a myth.’
‘I agree. I wouldn’t have believed it unless I’d been told,’ said the governor, leaning back in the armchair. ‘I always imagined the Silver Blade to be older and to be an Englishman.’
Yann stayed silent. He didn’t feel that anything he had to say would make the situation any better.
The prisoner governor laughed. ‘There I was, fishing for trout, when I went and caught myself the biggest pike in the river.’
He turned to the theatre manager. ‘You have never heard of the Silver Blade either?’
Citizen Aulard shook his head, hoping to goodness Iago would keep quiet. Lord knows what Tetu had taught him to say.
‘I would make the most of all that head-shaking while you still have one,’ the governor said, pen in hand.
Yann concentrated hard on him; the pain was like burning rods pushing through his eyes. He knew his powers were nearly too weak to catch the governer’s mind, full as it was with confused indictments.
The governor signed the paper before him and called for a turnkey. ‘This one is to be taken to the Luxembourg prison.’
Citizen Aulard was completely baffled by what had just happened. The Luxembourg meant a chance of survival, whereas to remain at the Conciergerie was certain death. He was about to say something when the parrot squawked, ‘Vive la Nation!’
‘That’s a very talented bird you have there,’ said the prison governor, indicating to the turnkey to take Citizen Aulard away.
He returned to the matter in hand. ‘As for you, Citizen Margoza, and you, Citizen Didier, you two are under arrest on the serious charge of being counter-revolutionaries and working against this great and glorious Republic. Both of you will be sent for trial.’ He nodded to the guard. ‘Take them away.’
They walked along the dimly lit corridor, passing rows of cells where the cries of anguished men could be heard.
In the last glimpse that Yann had of the outside world, the skies opened and rain splashed upon the cobbles, puffs of dust rising with the water. Citizen Aulard was standing in a wagon, soaking wet, looking more like a martyred saint than ever. Iago, on the other hand, his head held high, looked like a hero of the cause.
Yann was separated from Didier and escorted by three guards into a small cubicle, the floor of which was covered in hair. The barber, obviously drunk, stood swaying, a filthy leather apron tied round his waist. Yann struggled as he was pushed down in the chair, knowing what was to come.
‘Cut it off,’ said his guard.
‘Will all the ladies be weeping?’ the barber enquired, as he went to work.
Still Yann said nothing as the scissors cut irregular chunks off his hair. Chop, chop, chop. A foretaste of the blade to come.
‘Makes it easier,’ said the barber. He took a swig of wine from the bottle next to his instruments on the table. ‘As I was saying, it makes it easier for the blade of the guillotine to cut through the flesh and bone.’
Yann was locked in a small cell containing a bed and a pail, which smelled as if it hadn’t been emptied since the last occupant left.
Thunder started to rumble and lightning illuminated his cell. Lying on the hard wooden bed, he thought, tonight is my last night on earth, tomorrow my life will be over and I care little.
Yet he felt uneasy, not about his own death, no … and in one flash of lightning it came to him. What if the body found in a Hampstead pond wasn’t Sido’s? Where was she? He sat upright. It was as if Sido were with him, beside him, giving him the answer. He was a fool not to have thought of it before, a dunce, a numbskull! And now he was caught, locked away in one of the most notorious prisons in France.
If she were alive, the only man who would have taken her was Count Kalliovski.
At about three in the morning, the grille in the iron door to Yann’s cell slid open. He heard a guard ask, ‘Is this the one?’ Then, ‘How do you want to do it?’
The door opened and Yann tried to see the threads of light. If he could make them work again he could escape. He looked from one prison guard to the other, but could only read their thoughts, a jumble which gave him no clues. Two more burst into the cell, pinning him down while his mouth was wrenched open and foul-tasting liquid was poured down his throat. Yann’s eyes felt heavy and almost immediately his limbs seemed to fill with lead, his vision dissolved like ink in water, and he heard a crash, a curse, and smelled what must have been the spilled contents of the pail. The stench, as good as smelling salts, revived him, before more liquid was forced down his throat. He gagged. Lightning lit up the cell, and Milkeye’s face loomed monster large over him, then all went black.
Yann woke. His mouth was dry, his head hurt, his face was cut and bruised. He was lying on a damp stone floor in a vaulted chamber, the walls lined with human bones. It took a moment for the room to stop spinning, for him to find his feet. Now he was wide awake and, like a cat sensing danger, he took in his surroundings, looking for a way out. At one end of the chamber there was a door, while at the other side were two smaller doors under a wooden gantry. He could smell a familiar mustiness, which no amount of incense could hide. He knew he was under the city. Suddenly the chamber became ice cold.
He turned to face his fear and understood then that there is no greater devil than the fiend we invent for ourselves.
Had he really lost his powers because of this living waxwork? Let a man that was neither of the grave nor of life ruin his future? He thought back to when he had seen Kalliovski on the Pont Neuf before the mob claimed him. At least then he was made of flesh and blood. Now he bore merely a passing resemblance to the man he had once been. He was still immaculately dressed, his face waxen smooth, his hair powdered, and his eyes shining with an insect intensity. But they were the eyes of a dead man.
Yann watched Kalliovski pull off one of his red kid gloves to reveal a skeleton hand. From his waistcoat pocket he took out a long silver chain at the end of which was a key. Idly he began to swing it back and forth.
‘This is the key I commissioned Remon Quint to make. Do you know what it is the key to?’
‘No,’ said Yann.
‘It is the key to your soul.’
Yann’s laughter sounded like fresh water in a desert. ‘You’re mad if you think such a thing is possible! Quite mad, deluded by your own desire.’
‘No,’ said Kalliovski quietly. ‘I am in earnest. If you show me the secret of the threads of light, I will give you back your soul.’
‘I don’t need your key to own my soul.’
‘Don’t you understand? I have Sido de Villeduval. I will give her her freedom, let you take her out of the catacombs, if you give me the secret of the threads of light.’
Yann felt a surge of strength. At last he was close to her. He would not fail. His words were measured. ‘You, more than I, should know it is not mine to give away. It is within me, as is my heart and soul. The devil duped you. You are the one in chains.’
Kalliovski pointed his skeleton finger at Yann. For a moment Yann could not think what he was doing: then he saw dark sticky threads snake their way towards him. They wrapped themselves round his waist, lifting him towards the vaulted bare-boned ceiling.
Kalliovski released the dark threads and Yann tumbled like a falling star on to the unforgiving floor.
‘So, you have lost your powers,’ said the Count. ‘I should have known as much. What a pity. I was looking forward to a duel. My powers will never leave me. Unlike yours, they don’t toss and turn on a sea of emotions. And there I was thinking that they might be something to master. You are not worthy to be my son.’
Yann became aware of a figure in the chamber, the woman he had seen in the field, all golden. He heard her laughing and knew Kalliovski heard her too.
‘You are not my father,’ said Yann, knowing that he was at last speaking the truth and feeling freedom in that knowledge. ‘I am a ghost child. Listen, my mother is still laughing. Take me to Sido.’
‘Certainly, but she is dead. You see, I asked her courteously for the talisman, but, as I said, she has a wilful streak. Or perhaps it was for love of you that she refused to relinquish it. I offered her Marie Antoinette’s ruby necklace in exchange and still … There was no alternative. I had to put Balthazar in with her, and he has an insatiable appetite for human flesh. No doubt he is licking her bones clean as we speak.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Yann, knowing that if he showed any emotion all would be lost.
‘It doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not. If she’s dead I will make her whole again. I have that power. She will be my finest automaton yet.’
Kalliovski clapped his hands.
‘You shall see for yourself.’
Milkeye appeared and led Yann along a corridor, lined with skeleton hands holding dripping candles.
At the door to Sido’s chamber, the dog’s barking, wild and furious, was deafening. Once more Kalliovski sent out the dark threads, turning the key slowly in the lock. Yann, his heart beating fast, felt he was standing on the very edge of his existence. If she was dead, he knew he had no soul to fight for.
He didn’t flinch as the door creaked open. At first, all he could see was Balthazar, his troubled eyes all too human. The rest of the room was hidden by his bulk.
Yann could hear his thoughts: I have waited. Where have you been? I called for you and you didn’t come, I followed you and you didn’t see me.
It wasn’t Yann who backed away, it was the master and his servant. Count Kalliovski, with a rattle and a clang, slammed the door shut. Yann was in the room with Balthazar.
And then there was silence except for Balthazar’s panting. He stayed where he was until, hearing his master’s red heels retreat down the corridor, he moved further into the chamber towards a bed where he lay down at Sido’s feet.
She stood there, the tamer of wolves, in a white linen shift, her dark hair curled around her shoulders, her blue eyes shining like a cloudless day. Yann was filled with a wondrous relief. She was alive, unharmed. From the shell at her neck threads of light danced, spinning towards him, reeling him in. She shimmered as her hand touched his and, as he wrapped her in his arms, he felt the softness of her skin and the warmth of her body, made of the flesh and blood of mortality. He found her sweet mouth; her kiss sent a jolt right through him. The threads of light had returned to their master.
He whispered, ‘Sido, if we get out of this, will you forgive … ?’
She kissed him. ‘Balthazar and I have been waiting for you. He has been waiting a long, long time.’
Yann looked into the face of the great beast and began to talk to him as once, long ago, he had talked to him in the library at the Marquis de Villeduval’s chateau.
And the great dog listened. The great dog spoke. Yann understood.
Standing, he held Sido once more to him. She smelled of the future, a perfume filled with the promise of life and days to come.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was the dog’s size that undid Kalliovski. He could ignore Balthazar’s human eyes, but this … this tore at the worn fabric of his sanity. Memories, butchered and disjointed, came back to him: of a caravan, a baby crying, of Balthazar, his brown eyes devoted, of Anis telling him of the two roads she’d seen on his palm. He knew all too well the danger of letting light into rooms where no light has been. It illuminated images from a life he would rather not revisit. A grief was engulfing him, finding the cracks and fissures, tearing at the seams of his existence.
What was happening to him? A story, fragments of an old gypsy tale, jostled in his head: The day the devil went walking, looking for one irredeemable soul to blow his fiery life into. How did it go? He should remember. ‘And he called to the devil’s dog and the devil’s dog said, “Master, I am here to take you …” ‘
‘Stop it, stop it! Silence! Why isn’t there silence?’
Milkeye looked at his master. He’d never seen him like this before. Kalliovski pulled off his red glove and stared at his skeleton hand as if expecting it to turn to dust.
‘If I had the threads of light I would be whole again, complete. I must have the threads of light.’
Balthazar’s howl, low and long, rumbled like thunder through the echo-less chambers. A warning from the mouth of hell.
‘He’s coming for me. He’s coming for me. I must stop him.’
There was a deafening sound as if a battering ram were knocking down the door. Kalliovski did his best to concentrate on the dark threads and nothing else, but still there was the endless noise in his head, like the chattering teeth of the keymaker before he was killed.
Then all was eerily quiet and Kalliovski knew Yann’s threads of light had defeated the keymaker’s masterpiece. He heard the iron claws approach and Balthazar, magnificent, majestic, walked in, head held high, Sido and Yann in his wake. Kalliovski stood straight, determined that this must be his victory. He had planned it all and this hour had been purchased by him. As Balthazar stared at his master, unblinking, he threw out the dark threads.
‘Stop it, stop it,’ shouted Kalliovski. ‘Quiet! Silence! Don’t look at me!’
The threads snaked towards Balthazar and plaiting themselves together, formed a hangman’s knot round his neck. The great dog’s gaze never left his master. Kalliovski’s laughter filled the chamber and he pulled with all his might, tighter and tighter, forcing open the monstrous mouth. No more would men be killed by those jaws. Still the dog stared with knowing eyes while the dark threads cut into his coal-black fur. Then his huge paws slid, and he lay on the ground, his countenance ghastly, his tongue lolling, his blank eyes accusing the master who had slain him. Inky liquid oozed from between his steely teeth. The enormous beast was no more.
‘You thought you could outwit me,’ said Kalliovski, his reason teetering on the brink of madness. ‘I will be all powerful, I will have the light and the dark, I will have my revenge. Take off the talisman.’
As Yann took the shell from Sido’s neck he was illuminated, made radiant by the power of the baro seroeske sharkuni. He held it out to Kalliovski.
‘No!’ Kalliovski bellowed, nearly blinded as the light grew stronger, encompassing Sido. ‘Stand away from her or I will kill her, like I killed …’ He stopped, pierced by the sharp bee sting of a memory. How did the story go? The devil’s dog … what was it Anis had told him when she had seen his future, all those years ago? Two roads, one light, one dark …
‘Like you killed my mother? You will not take Sido from me.’
‘You cannot stop me. You do not have the power or the intelligence. I see nothing of myself in you.’
‘And I thank Anis for that. You have no hold over me. I am certain of my powers. I will not be dragged into your darkness.’ Then Yann said, in Romany, ‘You know your end.’
He walked towards Kalliovski holding the shell as he would a shield. He stopped, and kneeling, laid the shell on Balthazar’s body. As it touched him, the floor began to ripple, the centre became a whirling vortex. Yann caught hold of Sido as the great dog was sucked down, down, down into the abyss.
Breaking the doom-filled silence that followed, Yann said, ‘Shall I tell you the story of the devil’s dog?’
‘What use have I for stories?’
‘Every man who is foolish enough to do a deal with the devil is given a dog,’ said Yann, as the threads of light began to dance from him. ‘The dog at first is his companion, but it grows with every evil deed his master does until it’s of a size to take him down to meet the lord of the underworld.’
Once again came a flicker on the flintstone of Kalliovski’s mind, igniting a memory so bright, so intense that it seemed to wound him fatally.
‘She told me that story,’ he said. ‘I thought she loved me. Anis told me that story.’
Suddenly filled with rage, he threw the threads of darkness towards Yann. They fell, impotent, to the floor.
Thunder rolled from the bottom of the earth, as if Hell’s orch
estra was tuning up, shaking the great chamber and rattling the walls of bone.
The floor began to ripple beneath Kalliovski as from the vortex rose the distant sound of Lucifer’s anvil, and the panting of a great beast. Balthazar reappeared, quite transformed. His coat was burning flames of fury, his eyes the colour of hot coals, his mouth dripping with molten saliva, scorching the ground.
Too late, Kalliovski remembered. ‘No, go back,’ he screamed, ‘I didn’t call for you!’
‘But the devil did,’ said Yann.
Again Kalliovski threw the dark threads but they were no defence against such a force as this. Balthazar clamped his jaws on the screaming figure of Kalliovski. In the intense heat Kalliovski’s face began to melt, the dark threads, flowing like Medusa’s hair, trailed behind him as he was dragged down.