Fires of Delight (39 page)

They must have walked for at least a mile, avoiding groups of ragged citizens that moved through the city in surly directionlessness, shouting threats and slogans and oaths.

“They haven’t gotten the bread they were led to believe was forthcoming,” said Royce. “And I doubt that they will. All France is at a standstill. Commerce and industry lie dormant. No one knows what will happen. Farmers are not selling their grain today, because the price might go up tomorrow. The King can do nothing, and meanwhile people here in the city grow more desperate.”

“What
will
happen? Something must.”

“I think the revolution here in the city will grow ever more feverish. We should attempt to leave at first opportunity.”

“Where would we go?”

“Scotland, of course,” he said.

Selena felt sad. “Yes, of course. But sooner or later, we’d be found out. I have no home to go to. Coldstream is in the hands of the King.”

“Oh, I should think a cave in the Highlands would do us just as well…”

Suddenly, he grabbed her around the shoulders and pulled her into and along a dim passageway, through an opening in a wall, and down a long flight of stone stairs. For a moment, Selena thought they were descending into the sewers, but then she heard the muted sound of voices somewhere ahead, saw a tiny light flickering behind drawn curtains.

“We are going to the Tavern Richelieu,” Royce told her. “All manner of people come here. Talk flows like wine. Perhaps we may learn the exact nature of the present situation. I should not
like to try and flee Paris if the roads are blocked. We’d be taken as Royalist fugitives and imprisoned, or worse.”

“I’ve had enough of prisons for the rest of my life,” said Selena.

The Tavern Richelieu surprised her. Royce had been correct. There were still places in Paris where one could eat and eat well, if one had the money.

Royce had eschewed his splendid uniform and wore a common pair of breeches and an old shirt. Selena still wore the nondescript dress she’d chosen at Versailles that morning. They might have been notable in physical appearance, the svelte, blond beauty and her tall, saturnine escort, but they were inconspicuous as to attire When they entered the tavern and found seats at a table toward the back. It was dark there, and Royce did not light the candle on the table. All around them, people were eating and drinking and talking. So much talk, and argument, and debate.

“Language is the fuel of revolution,” Royce said, ordering a pot of rabbit stew, potato biscuits, and a bottle of red wine.

Selena looked at him, seated there with her at the little table, thinking of all that had happened to them in life thus far, and wondering what would yet befall. How darkly, how gloriously intertwined were their lives, but what was the resolution to which they sped? What was the
meaning?
Her love was so great that she trembled as she lifted the glass of wine to her lips. Yet in spite of such joy, she was troubled by the insouciance with which he assumed and discarded ideas and beliefs as if they were suits of clothing, or horses, or…women?

I’ll tell him about Jean now
, she thought, when the rabbit stew had arrived and they’d begun to eat.
I have to do it anyway, and after all, he was pretty damn casual about his association with Marie Antoinette!

“Darling,” she said, her spoon midway between bowl and mouth, “there’s something—”

“Just a second,” he replied, lifting his hand. “I want to hear this.”

Two men at an adjacent table, who had been speaking quietly with their heads together, now raised their voices in disagreement.

“The King must be executed forthwith as an enemy of the people,” said one. “We
know
he is planning to bring foreign troops into the country in order to end the revolution. We
know
he has a treasure chest with which he has been attempting to bribe
the members of the National Assembly. We
know
he is only pretending to support the reforms that have been wrought. I tell you, he must die!”

Selena made the mistake of turning toward the speaker, even as Royce touched her arm to discourage her from so doing. She turned quickly back to her own table, but not before she had seen—and been seen by—a fiery-eyed, foppishly dressed, yet oddly pedantic-looking young man. He looked out of place in silk stockings and powdered hair, particularly in this tavern, but his words left no doubt of his extreme revolutionary intensity.

His interlocutor, who sat with his back to Selena, responded with equal heat, although his words seemed more reasonable.

“Don’t you understand?” he asked. “Don’t you understand that if Louis XVI is executed, the British
will
invade, the Dutch
will
invade, the Germans
will
invade? By killing the King, you will be accomplishing exactly what you most fear. Besides, the National Assembly has been successful on all fronts. Serfdom has been abolished. Tithes and all sorts of ecclesiastical privileges have been renounced. Offices must no longer be sold. Land in the provinces has been given to peasants. And His Majesty has agreed to all these things!”

“Yes, but he cannot be trusted. When the foreigners come and destroy you and me and our compatriots, how long do you think Louis will keep his word? Hah! How long? And as for the peasants, land given is land easily taken back by the nobles.”

“You’re wrong, my friend.”

There was a crash and clatter as the firebrand stood up, knocking over his chair.

“You are not my friend, sir!” he declared, and stormed out of the tavern, but not before giving Royce and Selena a penetrating look of hatred.

“What was that all about?” Selena asked cautiously, when things had quieted down a bit.

“That is the fate toward which the revolution is tending,” answered Royce, refilling their glasses with wine. “Things, unchecked, will proceed from the inevitable, such as the King’s departure from Versailles, to the pragmatic, such as the recent decrees of the National Assembly, to the self-destructive. That young man was Maximilien Robespierre. Mirabeau and Sorbante
are reactionaries compared to him. He will not be satisfied until the King is dead, and thousands of others, I’m afraid.”

“Darling,” she said, a bit worried, “he saw us. I think…I may have been mistaken, but it seemed as if he
knew
you.”

“Unfortunately, he does. I think it would be best if we left now.”

Selena, who had not even begun to sate her hunger, looked up in alarm. Royce was cool and self-controlled. Only the haste with which he drained his wineglass betrayed tension.

“I wanted to find out what was going on,” he told her, smiling slightly. “Things have been changing too fast. Even a week ago, men like Robespierre would not have spoken so freely, even here.”

“Exactly who is this Robespierre?” Selena asked, as they climbed back up toward the street.

“The worst sort of man for politics,” Royce answered, halting at the corner of the building and peering up and down the street. “He is an idealist and a dreamer. Such men misjudge human nature. First, they feel that people are more noble than is really the case. Then, when they become disillusioned, they turn against the very humanity in which they originally placed such great hopes.”

It was now quite late and the streets, while not deserted, seemed less threatening than they had earlier. Royce and Selena, hand in hand, began their walk back to his home. The thought of being alone with him again re-ignited physical need, and she forgot the other, lesser hunger of her stomach. But they had not gone more than halfway to his apartments when he squeezed her hand and whispered, “Don’t turn around, but I think we’re being followed.”

“By whom?”

“Robespierre. You were right. He did recognize me. I cannot let him find out where I am staying. It would be the end of us both.”

“What will we do?”

“Do you think you can find the way back by yourself?”

“Oh, darling, no. We can’t become separated again—”

“It’s the only way. I’ll lead him on a chase and lose him.”

“What if you don’t?”

“I shall.”

“I’m not sure I can find the way back.”

They continued to walk for a short while more.

“Selena, we have to do something,” he said. “We’ll leave Paris as soon as possible, but we have to keep Robespierre from learning where we’re staying. Trust me when I say that. It’s very important.”

“All right. What do you want me to do?”

“We are coming to a hotel that I know,” he said. “We’ll both go inside. You go straight through and exit in the back. Wait in the alley there. I’ll have a glass of wine at the bar. If he comes in, he may assume we’re staying there, and that you’re in our room. I don’t know if he’ll wait or be content to have found our lodgings and leave until another time. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

She agreed, with some trepidation, to this plan.

They turned off the street and entered the dingy, lamplit lobby of a down-at-the-heels establishment. A small taproom was at one side of the lobby, where a handful of men and several apparent prostitutes were drinking. An old concierge dozed behind a desk near the door, her thinning hair wrapped in a bandana to which the cockade had been attached. She reminded Selena of Senora Celeste.

“Yes? Yes?” she asked, peering at them as if trying to establish the precise degree of their carnal intent. “You want a room for the night?”

“No, just wine,” said Royce. He led Selena toward the taproom, then released her hand and said, “Go!”

She obeyed, noting that the concierge was nodding back into sleep, walked hurriedly through the lobby, down a greasy, closet-lined hallway, and out the back door. It was dark in the alley, and cold. She smelled garbage. Above her, in the narrow space between two buildings, she could see the stars.

After standing there for a few moments, it occurred to her that Robespierre—if, indeed, he’d been the one following them—might well have the wit to inspect this alley himself. She felt her way along the side of a building, walking slowly into the darkness. A cat hissed in protest; she’d disturbed its nighttime hunt. Then she pressed herself against the wall, and waited.

A long time passed, and although she tried to fight it, her tension mounted. Finally, Royce appeared in the doorway. She could see him outlined dimly in the faraway lobby light. The words
here, darling
rose to her lips, but at the last instant she choked them off. The man was not Royce, but Robespierre himself. He stood there for a minute, looking about, and took several steps toward her. The cat hissed again. He stopped. Selena held her breath. If he came nearer, should she fight? What?

But he turned and went back inside the hotel.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she relaxed slightly and continued to wait.

Finally, Royce came. “Selena?” His whisper was low and hoarse.

She raced to him and put her arms around him. He smelled of wine, and handed her half a loaf of bread.

“That was him?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“He watched me for a while. I pretended not to know him, and played up to one of the girls. This disgusted him, apparently. He went away. But he thinks we’re staying here. Let’s go now. I’m sure he’ll be back to try to have me arrested in the morning.”

She chewed on the bread as they walked, and by the time they reached his residence, one of her hungers had been satisfied.

Royce soon satisfied the other, but after he was asleep beside her, Selena got up and walked to the window. She pondered her own happiness, knowing that in spite of its magnitude she would not be wholly content until she could convince her lover to relinquish his—
face it, Selena, his
selfish—ways. She thought of Francesca too, whom she must go and see on the morrow. The poor girl, one lone person craving only her lover, while it seemed the whole earth was falling down about her ears.

Then, looking out upon Paris, she shuddered, sensing in the shadows there the frightening presence of this man, Robespierre, ruthless, fanatical, totally dedicated to a cause that he considered as pure as the grail.

Selena was reminded straightaway of her old nemesis, Clay Oakley.

When she awoke in the morning, Royce was up, dressed, and brewing a pot of tea. He poured her a cup and brought it over to the bed, sitting down beside her as he handed her the tea. She sat
up, leaning against the pillows, and sipped as he fondled her bare breasts. There was sugar in the tea.

“Sweet,” she said, appreciatively.

“Which?” he smiled.

“Both. Come back to bed.”

“I can’t. I have much to do today. If we plan to leave the city, I must see someone. There are arrangements that have to be made.”

Selena admitted to herself that this was true, but she had a sneaking suspicion that perhaps he would try to see the Queen one last time, or that he had some sort of a shady scheme in progress that required completion.

“Well, I hope you are able to turn a profit,” she said, just a bit sourly.

“Always the main thing in my mind,” he shot back, grinning.

“I’ll bet.”

“And you are determined to go to the Tuileries?”

“I promised Francesca. She’s expecting me. Also, I must go back to Madame LaRouche’s to collect my things, and I should leave a message for Jean.”

“Forget about that. If you go out at all, you must dress as if you were the poorest of the poor. Please, why don’t you just stay here? It will be much safer, and I’ll be sure of where you are. Look, I’ll bring some suitable garments back with—”

“No, I can’t. I’m worried about the princess. She’s so young, and with what’s been happening—”

“My dear, the princess will be perfectly all right.”

“
You
don’t have any sympathy for people who are sick and yearning with love.
You
were always a Campbell, calculating everything like so many numbers on a bill of lading, even
emotions.”

She wasn’t truly angry, just complaining a little, and he took it in that light. “I should think that after yesterday and last night, you’d feel somewhat differently about my emotionlessness.”