Alaric Longward - Cantiniére Tales) Read online

  PART II: KING OF THE RABBLE

  ‘If I find you alive, if my master here dupes me, I will be terrible, Jeanette, like a Greek monster in those stories we enjoyed. I’ll kill you, then string your corpse up for the crows to feast on.’ (Gilbert to Jeanette.)

  CHAPTER 5

  The convent was just one of the many fabulous old religious houses near our former home. I knew the way, for we had visited it that one time with Gilbert. It was placed in a curiously empty lot south of de la Odeon. On our first visit, I had missed most all of the fine details. It was a two-story stone building framing a central courtyard, sporting excellent galleries complete with pock marked colonnades. The central building, the old church, housed a large, dank meeting hall, decent rooms for us and others useful to the Cordeliers and the whole place looked sturdy and clean. We had a room on the second story of secondary building framing the courtyard. It was a nice room, and a few broken mirrors, a sturdy bed, a rough table and wide chairs adorned it, and it was warm, much warmer than our old room.

  At first, I spent many an hour at the crumbling fountain in the middle of the overgrown yard.

  The water was fetid and dirty, true, but there was peace there, unusual in Paris, and I needed peace. I was a child; I had killed, and seen people I should have been able to trust mistreat us cruelly, with little regard to blood-ties and humanity. I had lived with them for all my life. Now, they were dead, even if it was almost us who died. We should have died. So, I was fearful and suspicious and I needed space around me. I cried a lot, cursing out fate and shook in fear for what had passed and what could have passed, had it not been for luck. I praised luck and cursed it, but I did not understand it then, that few would have managed what I had done. Yet then, sitting at that moldering place amidst innocent frogs I was afraid and felt utterly helpless, wondering how we survived, and dead faces haunted my dreams and waking hours.

  I knew mother desperately needed privacy as well. She had much to think about, and so I sat by the fountain, until Camille Desmoulins spotted me the day after we arrived. He came forward awkwardly, sat next to me and patiently let me cry, and then he held me. I struggled, he let me go, but I let him stay close, and I took great comfort in his patient presence. He reminded me of Florian, the gangly, awkward boy who was my friend. That is how I spent some of the first days, and Camille helped me, for he was not judging, but not lying either. He wrote calmly, keeping me company.

  Then, long days after arriving, mother took ill, and a harried doctor fetched by urgent Danton tried to help her recover. He thought it was a strange sexual disease, a severe case of malnutrition, tiredness of the soul and ache of the heart that had worn her down, and I gathered myself and looked after the twins as the doctor administered various methods of letting her blood. Finally, Georges drove him away, and had a maid give her soup, bread, and wine, and she slept for two days straight. I took the twins, pushed my fears to the background, and looked around the convent.

  The convent housed the Club Cordeliers. It was a club devoted to more radical changes than the great Mirabeau, famous Villeneuve and others in the National Assembly were planning, and thus, housed also the most wretched and desperate souls of Paris, unlike the Jacobins Club, which was not at first as radical in it’s views, having been created to Breton house representatives for the Estates General. Danton’s club held few restrictions with a modest entry fee and here, in the hall they all met, you could see busts of the stern Brutus, of fierce Tell, Rousseau, Mirabeau and others, framing the newly penned version of the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. It was just a draft then, not the real one that was to follow, but impressive, nonetheless. I read it repeatedly, though I barely understood it, but that room, Marie, was like a conjuring chamber for the darkest of wizards, out to change the world.

  While mother was recovering and the siblings were asleep, I recovered enough to accept an invite by Camille to help them with various arrangements in the Club. I helped Georges and Camille place stools for the meetings, mainly, and served cheap wine. I stayed on to listen to them speak, sitting at the back of the room, looking on as people argued and let their passions loose. Danton was a formidable speaker. Just like he, a giant of a man, had charged to our rescue, he forced himself to people’s heart by his overpowering rhetoric, his thundering voice. He was a coming man, I saw. He was not ready, he was still testing his many limits and strengths, for I saw him glancing about, gauging his power, desperate for praise, knowing that one day he would either die, or rule men like this. This was his splendid place to spring forward; the place where he trained in famous oratory, in cruelly efficient management, and Camille was his nervous and zealous friend. There were others, dear, but I did not pay attention to them, though I knew Camille had a friend who would be famous, Maximillien Robespierre and his brother, Augustin. They were amongst the men who sometimes would come and listen to the Cordeliers speaking, though usually both sat still, quiet, as if sucking up influences, formulating their own severe thoughts, which would not match those of Cordeliers.

  One evening I was cleaning up, when Georges came to me. ‘How are you, Jeanette? Are you happy with us?’ He was tired, I saw it, but I appreciated his kind care.

  ‘I am, recovering? Mother? I do not know. I think she would be happy with our family? Can we leave soon?’

  He looked troubled, opening his cravat. ‘No. Sara, the woman your uncle was married to? She was not there.’

  I was confused. ‘I heard a shot,’ I said neutrally.

  ‘It was an accident,’ he told me, rumbling and waving his hand. ‘I shot at the floor as I forced open the door. No, she is alive and she told the police about you. They are looking for you. Even in Lyons. We have to think about it. Be happy here, for a while longer. Tell me, dear, how much did you know of Colbert’s life? His home, his ways?’

  ‘Not much more than you already know. Some, perhaps. Why?’ I asked. He smiled, his eyes gauging my honesty, trying to see if I lied, and I did not understand it. Finally he smiled while shaking his head and went to talk to others.

  So, we stayed and I helped.

  Often, when I returned to our room, having listened to the fantastic arguments in the club, I could not sleep and I feared the nightmares anyway. The hard to grasp dreams of liberté, égalité, and fraternité resounded in my mind, and when I told mother what they had argued about, she but shrugged as she returned to nonchalance. She would pat the twins in their sleep, staring at the wall, and she would look out of the window at nothing, not even reacting to a pretty birds staring back at her, her eyes devoid of life. We were both savagely hurt and I cried alone on my side of the bed, and mother did not notice.

  One day, she wrote a letter, looking fiercely determined and gave it to a man, who took it forward.

  Next day, Georges opened the door, grabbed the surprised twins, twirling them in the air, both of them shrieking with joy. Mother sat up, her face grave. ‘How are you, fair Henriette?’ said the large man, sitting next to her, letting the disappointed toddlers loose. She twitched at his proximity and he raised his hands. ‘I mean no harm! No harm at all. I just wanted to see how you are and I agree you both should start building a life again. Camille is also worried.’

  She shrugged. ‘We are… fine. Building one’s life means one is free to do so. We are fugitives, Jeanette tells me. Sara….’

  He took her face gently between two of his massive fingers. ‘In that case, you should smile more. There are worse fates out there that to be a fugitive with friends like us. At least your children have not starved, for many do, in your situation.’

  She opened her mouth, but closed it, for there was something ominous about his words. I perked up. ‘We are grateful, but she is no whore. If you mean, she should pay back…’

  Georges rolled his eyes. ‘She was a whore indeed, girl. She let men between her legs, and took money for it, and that, you know very well, defines that profession. Moreover, just for your knowledge, that is not something I hold against her. Sh
e survived, took care of you, sacrificed all, like we will all do, soon. She is like us, in spirit and mind, and we need people like that. If she joins us, she has a place here.’

  ‘And in your bed too, no doubt?’ Henriette asked, acidly, but not as angrily as she wanted to. Georges was both ugly and loud, but he was deceptively charming, and he had saved us, even if he also took Colbert’s money and our precious watch. I did not ask him about the watch, even if it bothered me greatly. I had given him back his pistols, minus the two shot after all, and he had no doubt made himself rich from Colbert’s estate.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Georges said playfully, holding his hands in the air, and then she was smiling at him, and her healing began, for first time in weeks and weeks, she was treated kindly, a seeming mistress of her own fate, appreciated and perhaps, even loved, and I took the twins out, cursing her and Georges both. I was afraid mother was protecting us again, and Georges was another Colbert. He was not, I thought and hoped, but I was afraid nonetheless.

  Later, we were playing in the courtyard, where Camille found us. He was reading intensely, making notes at some pamphlet of his. He saw us, smiled uncertainly, and strolled over like he was approaching a royal. ‘So, young vixen. You are not crying? This is a happy place? Hmm?’

  ‘Not crying presently,’ I told him. ‘I make no promises.’

  He smiled benignly as he sat down on the edge of the old fountain, rubble detaching from the cracks. ‘I heard you can shoot well,’ he said, pulling at his dirty neckerchief.

  ‘I hoped,’ I confided in him, ‘to hit the bastard in the balls.’

  ‘You missed?’ he asked, mischievously.

  ‘Too small a target, much smaller than I imagined,’ I told him lightly, trying to forget the sight of Adam shrieking his life away on the floor. He saw my face losing color and looked sheepish and apologetic. ‘Not your fault, I have nightmares,’ I confided in him. He nodded and scowled as he heard Georges laugh upstairs. His face clouded in anger as he located the source of the laughter to be our window.

  ‘He there?’ he asked, sourly. ‘With your willing mother?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I lied.

  ‘I will,’ he told me, softly hissing, ‘have to warn you that he is married. He is a goat, true, and a married one. And she is not the only one.’

  I nodded. I had seen Antoinette Gabrielle Danton, and at least two children around. ‘But he is a better man than any I have met lately.’

  He laughed bitterly. ‘I am insulted!’ His voice fell a few notes, trembling as if he had lost something precious. I saw his face betray real, raw emotion. He really was offended. Had he not sat with me here for two days? Did I not appreciate it? These were his thoughts, and I placed a hand on his.

  ‘You are a friend, too, and I thank you just as much as I do Georges,’ I comforted him, and again saw his face light up with happiness. It was easy to move him.

  He gestured towards the upstairs window. ‘I have seen her. Your mother. She is a beautiful woman, a dazzling one. Smart, gentle. Moreover, her voice is as pretty as her face. Her voice is like a beguiling poem. I like her laugh.’

  ‘She does not laugh much,’ I said acidly. ‘In fact she has not laughed while here. Perhaps you confuse her with someone else?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Of course I have not heard her laugh. It was just a compliment. I imagine she would laugh prettily, that is what I meant.’

  ‘She should laugh, one day. Now she is just miserable.’

  He nodded. ‘On account of her losing her husband, home, and being made a whore,’ he said. ‘Can you blame her?’

  I twitched in anger as I realized I was still angry with mother. ‘I will never do something like that. I thank her for it, but I will not let men touch me if I do not want them to. It is not right,’ I said venomously. ‘I doubt I could sacrifice all like that. I would fight! Or run!’

  ‘Right or wrong,’ Camille said, patiently ‘many things are forced on us. Perhaps you should not be so hasty.’ He looked up to the window again, angry. ‘Georges got her then? It is best she stays here. Police are looking for her. However, I think she also likes Georges. Most women do. He has some kind of an animal like scent to attract them, some trick of mind, for certainly they do not love his meaty face!’ He sounded like he had a rotten plum in his mouth.

  ‘Are you married, then?’ I asked him, and he shrugged.

  ‘Hopefully, one day soon, but her family does not like struggling journalists!’ he told me. ‘I like her, Lucile, just fine. But am I in love? I don’t know. Sometimes I think we are expected to marry women who are like Lucile, docile, plain, and pleasant, but I think, that a man’s heart is always pulled to women like your mother, not so docile, certainly not plain, but pleasant in so many ways. Excuse me for being so blunt.’ He had a dreamy look on his face. ‘A man is pulled to the gorgeous, goddess like ones, lulled by their smiles. Especially if they act like heroines.’

  ‘Lucile is a lucky woman,’ I said sarcastically. Camille was not very handsome, and a bit too nervous, and I was irritated by his over romantic musings and his general attitude, fatalistic and depressed, then suddenly full of energy, leaving one constantly one step behind while talking with him.

  He glanced at me, understanding his weaknesses and smiled. ‘Pardon me. I am a poet. Maybe I will wait for you to grow up, and it should not be long, since you seem like an adult in your thinking, and the looks is sure to follow soon? Hmm? I shall dazzle you with my insipid musings and you will love me with burning passion!’ I blushed and he laughed an odd, squealing laughter, mocking himself for a fool. He eyed his writings, and sighed to himself. ‘I am trying to fathom a way to hurt the queen. A safe, subtle way. One has to be careful when insulting royals, and she is the lioness in their family, with claws that actually maim and kill, while her husband is foppish and complacent fool.’

  I spat as I remembered Colbert and his cake as he entered our room, a sight that had haunted me, for we had been hungry. ‘Tell them she would have us eat cake when the bread runs out.’

  His eyes grew large; I could see him sweat as he scribbled. That sentence would be famous; though none knew I was the author and Camille the writer. He smiled as he eyed me appreciatively, but then he became deadly serious. ‘He is arranging to have you three transported out of here.’

  ‘Not mother?’ I asked, confused.

  ‘No, I told you; she is sought after by the police, and he enjoys her pleasant company. She is a strong woman, and witty. She has few rights, your mother, if the police catch her. She will die, perhaps, for Colbert is a corpse with many powerful patrons.’

  ‘I was not her fault!’

  He laughed. ‘They only have a dank cell to fill, dear, before the execution. They do not care who fills it, even if you shot Adam. It was Adam, yes?’

  ‘It was,’ I said, and grabbed Julie, who was eating a stone. While digging it out, I gave him an evil eye. ‘In the declaration of this and that, in your wall…’ I started, and he blushed.

  ‘This and that indeed! You can read?’

  I nodded.

  He took a scholarly tone and pose. ‘That paper, love, is a thing to guide this nation, perhaps other nations! The only thing the foolish fop of Lafayette and the rest are doing even moderately right! First step for a constitution!’ he insisted, getting up and avoiding Jean, who was single mindedly tottering towards him. ‘Rousseau said…’

  I scowled and interrupted him. ‘In that jargon of text, the gist of the matter is that every citizen are equal, all have equal rights, should have them, at least.’

  ‘Indeed!’ he said, smiling nervously, keeping Jean away with one hand. Jean did not like that, and tried to get around, scowling and complaining in gibberish. Camille looked at me, pleadingly, but I did not budge as Julie was putting up a fight.

  ‘And does that not mean women should have these rights?’ I asked. He recoiled, and Jean managed to grab his culottes and dark jacket, smothering them with spittle. He groaned, but turned an
eye towards me, holding his hands up, as if Jean was a rabid dog.

  ‘Citizens, not women, Jeanette,’ he said, and raised his hands as I was about to launch into an angry retort. ‘But I know what you are saying, I do. There are many women, many in our meetings, who ask the same. There is one from Il de la Cite, Pauline, Léon? Some others, Olympe de Gouges, forever talking about these things. They will have much to say, yet. So perhaps, dear, you will get to decide on your life, one day!’ he told me, handing Jean to me gingerly as Julie was free of the pebble. ‘And yes, women should not be toys, if that were what you meant. Not for Danton or for me, or the police. Or to men like your uncle and great uncle were.’

  I nodded vigorously. ‘Not for anyone. So why is she staying? We could hide in Lyons, just as well as we can hide here. In fact, here we might be arrested alongside your rebellious lot. If you believe in these rights of people, then you should not keep her here, where it is at least as dangerous as in Lyons. I don’t want to go without her, and I imagine she would not be parted from us.’ I was upset and kicked a stone so vigorously if flew away beyond the colonnades, rattling along the stone.

  He seemed to understand my mood, sighed, and gave me a push. ‘You are right. We are not holding her only to keep her safe. Georges needs her and likes her, I know. That is one reason. In fact, she wrote to Georges yesterday, before he came in today to seduce her, the bastard.’

  ‘She wrote him, then? Well, I can nearly accept he needs her company, nearly,’ I said, frowning. ‘And the others?’

  He struggled with himself, but gave up and waved his hand, as if to dispel a secret from between us. ‘We need something, Jeanette. She can provide it, perhaps. In addition, she had a reason of her own to stay, though she does not say what it is, she only hinted at it in the letter. She only tells us she has to be here. You must ask her. You will go,’ he said, trying to change the topic, ‘to Lyons. This evening. I will miss you. We need “citizens” like you, lovely one. And your mother.’ He glanced up to our window, scowling.