Part 27 (1/2)
Arabella wrinkled her nose. ”There'll be fleas in the beds, mark my words.”
”Then we'll sleep on the floor.” He dismounted, handing his reins to Arabella. The scruffy dog, as Arabella knew it would, began fawning over him the minute his feet touched the ground. Jack ignored the animal but it pranced around his ankles as he strode into the inn, dropping his head below the low lintel.
Jack emerged in a few minutes. ”It's not much, but it'll do.”
”Fleas?” she asked with a quirked eyebrow.
”Doubtless.” He reached up and lifted her down, holding her for a minute between his hands. ”There's a cauldron of soup, however, a loaf of barley bread, and a deep tankard of home brew. I'll bully some clean quilts out of the lady of the house. She's slatternly but pleasant enough.”
Arabella in truth was too bone-tired to care if she made a banquet for fleas and bedbugs. The prospect of soup was appealing, and there would be a well or a pump. She reeked of sweat and horseflesh and longed for cold water and a sponge.
Jack made good on his promise and the landlady produced a pile of blankets and quilts that, while none too clean, had been kept in a cedar chest and were at least flea-free. Arabella declared the straw mattress on the rickety bed frame unspeakable and spread the bedding on the floor of the small chamber under the eaves. It was a cool night and she huddled against Jack under blankets that they piled on top of their own cloaks. To her relief Jack fell asleep even before she did and she turned on her side, clasping him in her arms, feeling the rhythmic movements of his chest as he slept.
They left before dawn the next morning and as they grew closer to Paris the atmosphere in the countryside changed. Where before they had aroused a pa.s.sing curiosity if at all, now suspicious eyes watched them when they rode through the villages and small towns. When they changed horses they were met with surly responses and high prices. Arabella grew uneasy but was rea.s.sured to see that Jack took it all in his stride. He responded to rudeness with rudeness, glowers with the same, and it seemed that this deflected suspicion.
They approached the St. Denis gate into Paris just as the bells for closing the city gates were ringing. Jack spurred his horse forward to the gatehouse and Arabella followed suit.
The gendarme regarded the travelers with narrowed eyes filled with mistrust. ”Gates are closing.”
”But they are not yet closed,” Jack pointed out evenly. ”I ask leave for my wife and me to pa.s.s. We're visiting her sick mother in Maubert. She might not last until morning.” Silver glinted in his gloved hand as he half opened it against his thigh.
Arabella gave a deep mournful sigh and said plaintively, ”I beg you, sir, let me pa.s.s. My mother is sick unto death.”
Jack let his hand fall to lie alongside his booted foot in the stirrup. Again silver flashed as his fingers twitched. The gendarme approached. ”Maubert, you say?”
”Rue de Bievre,” Jack responded, allowing his hand to fall open as the other's slid beside it. The exchange was completed so quickly and so silently that no one in the guardhouse would guess that their colleague was now in possession of a considerable sum of livres.
”You've but half an hour to get off the streets before curfew,” the gendarme growled as he stepped back.
They walked their horses through the gates and they clanged shut behind them. Arabella swallowed a thickening lump in her throat. They were locked in this city of h.e.l.l and terror. People moved along the streets and lanes, keeping to the shadows close to the walls. There was fear everywhere, on every face, in the sound of every footstep.
Jack leaned sideways and laid a hand on her bridle above the bit. ”I think it would be best if I lead your horse. I know where we're going and we mustn't get separated.”
”No,” she agreed, ”but I need my reins in my own hands. I won't lose sight of you. Where are we going, by the way?”
”To Maubert, of course,” he said. ”One mustn't lie to the gendarmes.” A smile touched his lips, a humorless smile, and the gray eyes held a cold and reckless glint.
Arabella had been to Paris some years before the revolution but she knew little of the city's geography outside the palaces of the Louvre and the Tuilleries, and the grand mansions of the n.o.bles that surrounded them. Now they were riding through narrow streets whose high walls threw them into semidarkness. The cobbles were slimy and her horse slipped and would have gone down if she hadn't hauled back on the reins, steadying him. It was a good job she had the reins in her own hands, she reflected a little grimly. They were having to ride in single file along some of the narrower streets and her mount needed little encouragement to keep his nose up against the backside of his leader.
They emerged into a large cobbled square across the river from the fearsome turreted edifice of the Conciergerie, its blank gray stone walls towering above the water. Arabella gazed at the structure in the center of the square. She had only ever seen pictures of it before, this supremely efficient instrument of execution. The blade hung at the top of a long post. The block with a neat indentation for the neck was on the dais immediately below. Even in the dim light of dusk, the rusty stains on the blade and the wooden block were visible.
This was where the queen had met her death. She had been brought from the prison of the Conciergerie in a tumbrel to this place. The city was still redolent of the stench of blood and death. Close by, she knew, lay the prison of Le Chatelet.
They rode over the bridge across the Seine, hurrying now as the bells for the street curfew began to toll from every church steeple. Jack turned through a bewildering series of alleyways running up from the river and she kept pace behind him as it grew ever darker, then he drew rein outside a tall building and looked up at the facade. Windows were all shuttered and the house looked unoccupied. He moved his horse close to the door and rapped with his knuckles in a curious repet.i.tive series of knocks. Then he waited. He seemed to be counting, Arabella thought. Then he repeated the series. Three times this happened, and when he had fallen silent for the third time the door opened a crack.
Jack turned to Arabella, gesturing urgently that she should dismount and go inside. She fumbled with her cloak bag and he hissed, ”Leave it.” She jumped down, staggering for an instant. She had been in the saddle for so many hours, her legs were unaccustomed to carrying her. She recovered quickly and edged her way through the crack in the door, glancing over her shoulder, but Jack and the horses had disappeared.
A woman, tall and gaunt, with white hair caught up under a kerchief, surveyed her with a suspicion that Arabella sensed was habitual rather than personal. ”Who are you?”
”Jack's wife.” Arabella pressed her hands into the small of her back to ease the crick. It seemed best to keep things simple.
At that the woman merely nodded and gestured towards the rear of the pa.s.sageway. Arabella obeyed the gesture and found herself in a large, crowded kitchen-mostly men, but a few women bustling over pots and skillets, one rolling out pastry at the long, flour-strewn table. ”Who's this, then, Therese?”
”Jack's back,” the woman announced. ”This is his wife.”
There was no chorus of exclamations, no questions, merely calm scrutiny and nods of comprehension. ”Come to the fire, Jack's wife,” an elderly man said, gesturing to a stool. ”Had a long ride, have you?”
”Two days,” she said, taking the stool. ”From Calais.”
There were appreciative nods at this feat of endurance. Someone thrust a cup of wine into her hand and she sipped gratefully.
A door opened somewhere behind her and she felt rather than saw Jack come in. She a.s.sumed he'd been taking care of the horses. She turned her head, saw him drop their bags on the floor, and then saw him no more as he was engulfed in the crowd, who surrounded him, soft-voiced questions pouring forth so quickly that he was hard-put to answer them.
At the mention of Charlotte, a sudden absolute silence fell. Arabella gazed into the fire, letting the wine warm her, wondering how well these people had known Jack's sister. She guessed that they were not all born of the n.o.bility, but they were brought together in a common cause and she had the sense that they had been together fighting for this cause for a long time. How many of them had been lost? she wondered. She felt a little like an intruder and stayed on the stool by the fire, waiting for Jack to give her a lead.
At last he came over to her, resting his hand on the top of her head in a proprietorial gesture. ”Arabella, will you explain what's brought us here?”
She told the story that Claude Flamand had told her. Jack's hand remained on top of her head. She kept her voice even, without emotion, concealing the upsurge of joy that Jack in front of his friends had acknowledged the part she had played, had declared her his partner.
”We heard nothing, Jack. Little information comes out of Chatelet at the best of times, but not a word of Charlotte.” Therese came over and put her hand on Jack's shoulder. ”The ma.s.sacre at La Force was so . . . so complete.”
”I know,” he said, his voice a harsh rasp. His hand dropped away from Arabella and he reached to refill a goblet from the carafe on the table. ”We know that Charlotte was part of the ma.s.sacre. If by some miracle she survived, none of us could have known, my friends.”
Arabella, to her surprise, broke in strongly, ”There's little point in repining. If she is there, we have to get her out. I'm told money will do it.”
No one took offense at her interjection. Therese said, ”If it's directed in the right way, it can work. But if it goes to the wrong person, then it brings disaster. Men have been executed for trying to bribe the securite.” She gave a short laugh. ”They are not all corrupt, astonis.h.i.+ngly enough.”
”We must first discover if the comtesse is indeed in Le Chatelet.” A brawny man who looked like a stevedore spoke up as he hefted a ma.s.sive log into the hearth. The roasting pig turning on the spit dropped grease onto the flames and the fire flared.
”Aye, Jean Marc. Someone needs to go in,” Therese said. ”A woman. They don't let men into the women's quarters.” She looked around the a.s.sembled group. ”Our faces are known on the streets. The jailers come from these parts. There's a great risk that one of us will be recognized.”
”I will go,” Arabella said. ”If you tell me how.”
”No,” Jack said definitely.
”Yes,” she said as definitely.
There was another silence, broken only by the sound of spitting fat, the gurgle of wine streaming from a flagon into a cup, the thump of the rolling pin against the table. Arabella held Jack's gaze.
”It makes sense for madame to go,” Therese said eventually. ”We'll dress her right, tell her where to go. It's easy enough to get in if you're selling something and can give the jailers a bit of a smile.”
”No,” Jack stated.
”Yes,” Arabella responded. ”I can smile at a jailer as well as the next woman. My French will pa.s.s muster, particularly if I keep it simple. My accent is perhaps not quite convincing, but if I speak low . . .”