Alaric Longward - Cantiniére Tales) Read online

  Despite his rather obvious feelings for my mother, he knew how to make us happier. We were at loss on what to do. We had sealed father’s fate, dealing with it as best we could. Mother worried about me, but in truth, I was not sorry. What hurt us more was that we missed Julie and Jean. God, how we missed them. And I missed Florian. Camille knew this, and managed always to be the one to bring the letters from our relatives, with tales of the twins. He knew how to become welcome, he sat there smiling happily, as we read how they fared well, even if they missed us. We both cried, confused, happy and sad, and the fool of a Camille cried for he was like that.

  Finally, Henriette was blunt. Would Georges let us go? Camille, when confronted, looked agitated, pulling at his neckerchief. ‘The money. Georges still needs it. He is loath to let you go, and so am I, though not for the money. And the police are still looking into the murder of your great uncle. Sara, Georges says, is still alive, blaming you. Wait, patiently.’

  ‘But we do not know where the money is!’ I yelled at him. ‘And who cares about the police? Did we not just take a fort? Killing a bastard in self defense is hardly something…‘

  ‘Let him plan, love. Be patient, for my sakes.’

  We waited, impatiently seething.

  In August, Mirabeau crusaded like a mad man to keep the ailing king afloat and to create a constitutional monarchy. King was given a foolish veto right, and at the same time Lafayette’s famous American friend Jefferson helped create a French version of American Declaration of Independence, a more mature version I had seen in the Cordelier’s. So, France got the Declaration of Right of Man and Citizen, though without real checks and balances, making it worthless. New laws were passed, with nobles losing their feudal rights, but the king, the foolish king vetoed them. The king was hanging himself and Mirabeau must have wept bitter tears. The spendthrift Austrian queen became an object of universal hate for the people. Was it not her, who spent, spent, and told people to eat cake, if the moldy bread ran out? I did smile when I read that.

  I heard Camille and Georges argue bitterly one cold evening, both unreasonably angry. Finally, I saw Georges walk away to sit at the fountain, and Camille stalk away through a door. I looked at Georges, as he sat there, holding his hand forlornly with another, and I saw him gaze at our window. After an hour, he slapped his knee in agitation over some hard decision and left. He looked determined, but not happy. Camille took us to a café and stammering, addressed mother. ‘Would you, Henriette, help me with my printing? I have a cozy place, near the convent, and could use some much needed help,’ he stated, his eyes full of terror, of rejection or over what they had spoken with Georges, I did not know.

  ‘I can help, yes,’ Henriette said, happy to be away from the convent and vicinity of her former lover. ‘As long as we are safe.’

  ‘You are safe,’ Camille said quietly, eyeing his coffee. Then he pointed a quivering finger at me. ‘But you might be needed to run errands for Georges,’ he said, neutrally, glancing at Henriette. ‘She is safe,’ he said again. ‘And he has forgiven what you did, too.’

  ‘Generous of the man who said he loves me,’ she said acidly.

  ‘We need money, Henriette. It is a high calling for most of us, to topple the ancient regime. It eats money. Without money, you cannot buy loyalty, position.’

  ‘So what,’ Henriette said, leaning forward, ‘has really changed if you are as corrupt as a fat priest collecting church taxes?’

  ‘Priests will find it is not for them to do, soon!’ Camille snorted, not answering the real question, but then he sobered visibly, pulling at his poor, stretched neckerchief. ‘He has forgiven you, but you need a new man to protect you. He is too proud and he is married, but I wish to give us a chance. Come and help me, and we can get to know each other. I say no more about that now. I can make this happen, Georges has to listen. I have some saying in the matters of the Club. I was the one on the table before Bastille fell. Georges is afraid. He criticized my new work, and does not like how the workers call me now, the lamp post attorney.’ He looked smug over his fiery pamphlet, one that claimed all the nobles belonged to the lamppost at the execution square. He was enthusiastic about his role in the Bastille incident, and he had written things that made even Danton flinch.

  Henriette sighed. ‘You endorse terrible violence, you beg for it. Bastille was a fine, if a messy thing, but if you do not be cautious, the National Assembly and the king might find they have a common enemy. Be careful, Camille.’ She stroked his cheek, and he shuddered while blushing.

  ‘That is why I need help, I cannot help myself,’ he said coyly.

  ‘I won’t sleep with you,’ she said. ‘Perhaps never, you understand. I am tired.’

  He smiled happily, for Camille was a simpering romantic and needed the thought of fine love more than he needed the acts of lust. He nodded, agreeing and she agreed and we moved. I saw Georges stare after us with a vacant look on his eyes, his face glowering from his window, but we kept our heads down as we carried our few belongings from under his formerly protective wing to a small room on the attic of Camille’s press, but one block from the convent. Georges saw us go, and pulled the rich draperies in front of the window. I saw certain sneaky, unsavory men follow us and knew there would be other men making sure we did not wander too far, keeping an eye on our movements, for Georges did not let us go freely. Whether for his feelings or for a lingering chance to get the coin? We did not know.

  However, we were happier with Camille.

  Suddenly, our lives were busy and full of meaningful toil. Camille was writing furiously, at times seeming half mad in his internal arguments over some finer point in his scribbling’s and we helped him with the printing and much needed research. His finest masterpiece, I think so at least, were the fiery pamphlets that tore the mask conciliation off the king’s face. They told the people of the treacherous king who had recently summoned a professional army unit, the Flanders Regiment to beautiful Versailles to provide additional protection for the secluded royal family, adding to the Garde du Corps, and the hated Hundred Swiss, and how they had held a lavish banquet, while people starved. Camille brilliantly described how they had mocked the National Assembly for fools and had promised solemnly to hang the pretenders and bloody rebels for the king. I laughed as he spelled his eloquent words out aloud while writing how the drunken king had joined their merrymaking.

  Much of it flowed from his imaginative head, but simple people believe what is finely written. Georges and others were inflaming the situation and they did a fine job. They began to spread many such pamphlets and bitter rumors. Perhaps they held a vestige of truth, perhaps not. Camille had a way with words, and we were happy to have something else to think about.

  It was October, when irascible women, sweeping along many willing men, marched to Versailles. The riots had lacked focus, and the women gave it spontaneously, or as spontaneously, like a riot stoked by Cordeliers can be. I knew of Georges, and others who had been inciting many such riots, but this time, led by women, the fire caught. We heard mighty clamor near, and mother went to check it out. Hundreds of women were marching for the City Hall. However, we had a terrible amount of work to do, so we did not join them. I was cleaning Camille’s study, when someone knocked on the door.

  It was Marie-Louise.

  She grinned like an imp and we hugged fiercely. She looked better fed, relatively clean, save for her greasy hair, and she was decently clothed. She took my face between her hands as we danced around. I did not really know her, but God. I missed company. ‘I got a place at the Cordeliers, too. They were gathering orphans in the streets to help with this and that. Camille Desmoulins found me last week, and wanted especially me to help them at the convent, called me pretty and canny. Now that brute Danton has an errand for us.’

  ‘Us?’ I said uncertainly while grinning at her, and we sat down. I gave her some pilfered wine, and sipped some myself. Camille had sternly told me to keep my fingers off his spirits.

  Sh
e looked conspiratorially at me, winking with a mysterious, devious look. ‘Georges Danton himself needs this to be taken to captain Stainslas-Marie Maillard.’ She waved a sealed paper at me. Maillard. That man had been with Georges at Bastille. Henchman to Georges, or anyone clamoring for trouble, I was sure. He was a sans-culotte leader. Sans-culottes, Marie, were all the rabble that hated knee-breech wearing nobles, wearing full-length trousers themselves. Yet, funnily enough, most famous leaders of the revolution wore culottes. As Georges stated, the trash needed to respect their leader, and not feel equal to them. Marie-Louise continued. ‘You know the hell-raising women marched to Versailles today? The horrible looking Maillard led them there, and they practically invaded the National Assembly, and some will speak with the king. They want bread. Georges,’ she whispered the name laudably, ‘wants to make sure they don’t cave in, I think.’

  I nodded. ‘Why us? He has swift men and even canny women with fast horses serving his needs. Camille needs me.’

  She shrugged. ‘He said we are fleet and not suspicious, and I should not go alone. Also, the National Guard might arrest men on horses. So, will you help me? I think he feels sorry about something, something to do with you. Perhaps he wishes for you to come back?’

  ‘I…’

  ‘He is proud,’ Marie-Louise defended his benefactor as she grasped my hand. ‘The National Guard failed to stop the Parisian rabble from marching to Versailles, but they are to take after them. I am afraid to go alone.’

  She had helped me in my hour of terrible need, and I wanted to return the favor. Mother listened and argued stubbornly, but let me go. I saw Camille look after us from his kitchen, nodding at Marie-Louise, smiling at me. We needed a protector, and I liked Camille.

  We hitched a ride from a dung-smelling peasant and took the road out of Paris. It felt like a pleasant picnic as we sat on the rough wagon, speaking about things girls talk about, and the peasant, an old grizzled man was snorting to himself as he was smoking a foul smelling pipe. Other than the smell of dung and pipe, we enjoyed the cleaner air, the beautiful fields full of hay, inviting greenery of the small forests, and the blissful song of birds. I had not been out of the city, not ever and it was both unsettling and adventurous. When we got to Versailles, terrific chaos greeted us.

  Versailles was a town created exclusively to serve the opulent, corpulent court. The corrupt court, dear, used a huge chunk of the country’s budget. Here, the well-stocked shops were pretty, people fair and chubby-cheeked, well dressed. We saw the magnificent palace itself, a sprawling thing with fine balconies, decorative crenellations, beautiful walkways, and high, gilded gates. As the unruly Parisians had ransacked many unfortunate shops and private homes in the town, the grim Flanders Regiment was deployed behind the gates on the courtyard, warily eyeing the restless mob as it waited for the nervous envoys to come out of the palace. Mirabeau was walking with the Parisians, laughing, agreeing with the washerwomen and their simple opinions, and playing the crowd. The old noble was very good at what he did. I saw a nervous man, with fine clothes, and realized it was Maximillien Robespierre, the friend of Camille’s. He was listening to some drunk artisans complain, he was rocking his head, but not saying anything.

  Masses and masses of people were standing outside the gates. We hopped down from the cart, and began to look for Maillard. We toured the chaotic outer groups, asking for him, and entered some of the finer side buildings of the palace. One thing amazed Marie and me about the palace.

  Despite the finest marble and glittering metal etchings of the doors, it stank. Just like Paris. Versailles, the king’s abode smelled of rancid shit. The grand envy of all the other monarchs was a festering cesspit, rarely cleaned. Deathly cold at winters, sweltering with heat and annoying flies in the summer, we saw that the splendor was hard to upkeep, dirt, and grime covering unattended walls and floors.

  Thus, we came to see Maillard, standing lazily near the gates, and we went to him. He had a matted, dirty hair, brutish look on his face under his tall felt hat. He boasted a scar received in Bastille, and always wore a grey coat, no matter the weather. He looked down at us, as we gave him the letter. He casually opened it up, looking at the busy courtyard, where five women were walking back from a meeting with the king. They were carrying the sixth, who had fainted from ecstasy when confronted by the royals. Maillard was snickering at the sight. ‘They collapsed, no doubt,’ he grumbled, as he eyed the letter. He glanced at us, thinking. The crowd of thousands looked on in confusion, as the six flustered women who had met the glittering royals assured that much food was forthcoming, and then left in a hurry, for they had already received their portion. Maillard nodded. ‘I will make sure we stay here, and tomorrow, we raise hell. You two stay here this night. Over there, in that stable.’ He pointed out a white and red building. ‘I will send word tomorrow and you will take it to the man.’

  The six women left the crowd confused, but Maillard indeed made sure few left the place. King saw his promises had little effect, and gave grave words where he agreed to abolish the noble rights, and those of the church, and to agree on ratification of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Despite this, there was no bread.

  Marie and I lay next to each other, eyeing the crowds in the dark. The soldiers who had stood in the royal compound were relaxed, enough so that most withdrew, leaving only the night guards in place. By dark, Lafayette’s National Guard arrived with its lines of uniformed men, but soon left the general screaming as the men mingled freely with the crowd. By morning, they would all be on our side.

  We found it hard to sleep. I had my hand around Marie-Louise, and she snuggled closer to me. She was strangely familiar, like a sister, and we got along very well. She would say something, half drowsy, and I finished it and we giggled. Such a simple thing, friendship. Night went past, amidst the nervous noises, shrill laughter, and the unkind lice.

  Marie-Louis woke me up. It was very early, the sun painting a sliver on the horizon with pale, cold color. It had been raining; we noticed few small puddles on the pavement. We looked out from the door, where masses of people were still standing around, while many were sound asleep. Marie ran out to fetch bread, and how she managed it, I did not know. She whispered to me as she handed some over. ‘The women had been clamoring all night long. They do not trust the king and the rebellious soldiers who joined us, agreed. The Flanders Regiment had sent men to us in the dark night, promising support, and acting contrary to what their officers had sworn. Some people have gone to the palace through the many side buildings. Maillard sent them there. I saw where they went. Maybe we should go and see if there is anything to eat in the palace?’

  ‘Maillard wanted us to stay here.’ I said, nervous.

  ‘We will not go far. Perhaps we eat some of the queen’s famous cake?’

  I laughed and agreed. We entered the palace from a side building, and navigated long servant’s corridors that were empty. We saw we were far from first there, groups of scruffy women were already inside, some crude men too, and a few unruly soldiers. We had passed many tall doors and great hallways, shuffling over marble floors of rosy pink stone, but when we got to the actual palace, opening a door of carved wood, the sight of the painted rooms, decorated to the inch with gold, silver, expensive wood, well, Marie. That just stopped us cold. They were dirty places, but splendid at the same time. We hardly knew how to act, if we were indeed allowed to breath in the rooms so full of gold and glitter, and such high ceilings. We were appalled by the glory of it all, despite the dirt I mentioned. We walked on, hid from some finely liveried servants, and then took an empty stairway up, giggling at some statues that were entirely nude. Up there, things were even more opulent. We both glanced at our clothes, feeling unworthy at being there.

  Marie-Louise admired the spacious room we came to, one with ivory white marble and fine, tall doors closed. She curtsied my way and I did the same, and we danced clumsily, pretending to be high and noble.

  Then she died.

&nbs
p; Gilbert, fast as a snake, rushed behind Marie-Louise. The hilt of a dagger was bloody as he was wrenching it out of Marie-Louise’s painfully arched back. I backed off, uncomprehending, staring at the boy I used to know. Marie-Louise did not say anything, but pulled a table over her, and fell to the floor, her eyes betraying deep shock, her dirty blond hair getting soaked with her own blood. She was trying to draw ragged breaths. Gilbert turned on me, his eye covered with a black patch, his hair stiff with grime. He was my age, but now he seemed much more, like a foul demon from hell, a creature of pure evil, back from the dark lands of the dead and I was alone with it. ‘Are you alive?’ I whispered, fearing him a revenant, a vengeful ghost.

  He nodded, puzzled for a second. He echoed my voices softly, nodding again slowly, then more empathetically. Then he spoke, his voice grim. ‘You think I am dead man walking? Yes, that is appropriate. Thank you for naming me. The Revenant. Jeanette, my friend. My cousin. Marie-Louise there was the one who helped you that night, no? I knew Marie-Louise, and she did not like me, so I do not really blame her. Well, no more I don’t. I struck and kicked her on the street many times, you see, the beggar tramp.’ I was terrified to the bone. ‘Down there, in the dark?’ he said softly, walking closer to me, ‘there are ghosts. The water, you see, is not always dark, and the well you dropped me in, well, that had such a ghost glow. I freed my legs, because you don’t know how to tie a proper knot, and looked around with my one eye.’ He walked up to me, determined.

  I pushed him back, and made a desperate attempt at reasoning with the undead thing. ‘I regret the night, and your eye was an accident. But you were mad, out of your mind. You spoke harshly of my family, as if we were nothing more than filthy animals,’ I said, a spark of strength in my voice. ‘You tried to…’