The Red Necklace (20 page)

Yann watched as she seemed to fade and then become whole again.

“Come here,” she called out to him.

Then the strangest thing happened. Without moving, without taking a step, he left his body. He could see himself still standing next to Tobias. The old woman held her hands out and he took them. He was being lifted off his feet, up into the night sky, whirling around and around, higher and higher until he was above the treetops, almost touching the moon.

Then, without a word, the old woman let go of his hands and he fell back down to earth. He felt the two parts of himself collide, become one again. So great was the blow that he remembered nothing more.

He woke the next day to find Tobias Cooper sitting at the opening of his tent, filling his clay pipe, talking to Orlenda and Talo. They greeted Yann with warm smiles, Orlenda showing him her little baby before they set off to the fair.

Had last night been a dream? Yann wondered.

“I have been thinking. Have you a talisman?” asked Tobias.

“No,” said Yann, feeling strangely different, as if some great burden had been lifted from him.

“Every tawny boy needs a talisman. You need one more than most,” said Tobias, and he took from his pocket a small bag and brought out a perfect seashell.

“
Baro seroeske sharkuni,
the very shell of the shells,” he said, handing it to Yann. Yann examined it closely. He had never seen one like it.

“It is the shell of a sea snail, and holds great magic. I have been waiting a long time to hand on this talisman. It is meant for you.”

"No,” said Yann firmly. “It is too precious. I cannot take it.”

"You must, for you are alone. But you have a friend, Têtu, and I believe he meant you to find us. He wouldn’t have wanted you to return until you had learned to accept your powers without fear, until you stopped hiding from what Orlenda saw in your hand.”

Yann knew then how foolish he had been. “I had hoped that the
S
might have stood for Sophie Padden.”

“And it didn’t, did it?” chuckled Tobias.

“No. No, indeed, it did not. Nor did it stand for Sarah Hinds.”

“Though both, no doubt, taught you a lot.”

"Maybe,” said Yann with a mischievous smile.

“You are a king amongst the Gypsies, Yann Margoza. Take the talisman, wear it with pride and it will keep you safe.”

That night they returned to the heart of the forest. This time the old woman was seated in the middle of the clearing. A fire was now burning away with a kettle above it. In amongst the trees hovered the ghostlike figures Yann had seen earlier.

“Go to her,” said Tobias, standing on the edge of the clearing.

The old woman patted the ground next to her and Yann sat down.

Close up, her face looked as wise as the earth is broad. In her eyes he could see all that was known and all that was still to be learned. It felt as though she were looking straight through him. A pain struck him in the middle of his forehead as if she were pressing a finger through his skull.

"Give me your hand,” said the old woman. Yann felt her papery skin. Her fingers looked like twigs, all twisted and gnarled, her nails like seashells. He flinched, for there was such power in her grip, and suddenly everything disappeared and he was walking across a field, toward a road lined with tall poplars. He could see the wheels of an upturned carriage spinning around and around in a ditch, and started to run toward it. The wind rustled in the trees. A young woman was lying by the roadside, all broken like a china doll. A man was holding her, his horse grazing a little way off; a flurry of autumn leaves swept across the field and there, in a furrow, he could see an infant, her leg broken, her little face contorted with pain. He knelt down beside her, wondering if she too was dead.

With a jolt he was aware of being back in the clearing. The fire and the old woman had disappeared. Yann looked around and for the first time he saw spider threads of light streaming from all the ghostly figures, over-arching him like a huge cat’s cradle, until with the sound of a violin string snapping they were gone.

Yann turned to look at Tobias. He too had threads of light coming from his fingers. And he watched, astounded, as the old man flicked them as a fisherman might cast his line to catch a fish.

“I can see,” shouted Yann, “I can see!”

“At last,” said Tobias. “Now we can start.”

It was a week later, early on a bright and sunny morning, that Yann, having made his farewells to the Laxtons and the Trippens, caught the Paris-bound coach from the strand, the perfect picture of a young English gentleman misguidedly off to visit Paris for the first time. On him were papers and passports and enough money to get out the Marquis de Villeduval and his daughter, Sido.

chapter twenty-two

On the eleventh of August, the Duchesse de Lamantes, worried for the Marquis de Villeduval’s safety, sent a messenger to inform the marquis of the serious situation in Paris, and to tell him that the throne of France had been demolished, the Swiss Guards massacred, and the royal family arrested. It was the Duchesse de Lamantes’s opinion that they were no longer safe. She also thought the marquis should know that Count Kalliovski was calling for the execution of the king.

In the light of all these developments, the Duchesse de Lamantes was sure that her friend could not now countenance his daughter marrying such a man, and she advised him to leave France at the first possible opportunity.

The Marquis de Villeduval refused to receive the duchess’s messenger. He no longer trusted the written word, for he saw it as the sword of Damocles hanging over him.The trouble was that since Kalliovski’s last visit, reality had become a stranger to him. While the frayed edges of his sanity daily unwound, he chose to remain locked away in his suite of rooms studying his collection of shoe buckles and remembering which balls, banquets, and fêtes they had been worn at. Nightly now, he walked through the château’s empty salons while ghosts danced before him, dressed in all their finery and tall powdered wigs.

It was left to Sido to read the letter, and after that she knew that it was all too late for herself and her father. France, like a pan of milk left too long on a hot stove, was about to boil over.

She slipped downstairs to join the servants in the kitchen, where they crowded around the duchess’s messenger. He was a man with things to tell.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Why, the very air in the city was electric! At midnight the church bells rang out from steeple to steeple—that’s the tocsin that alerts you to danger—followed by a thousand drums and the boom of guns. I’ll wager not one person slept, for the terror those bells awoke in them.”

“Oh dear Lord, what will become of us?” said Agathe.

“Quiet,” said Jean. “Go on. What happened then?”

“Yesterday morning, at dawn, the citizens rose up and marched to the Tuileries Gardens. They were shouting, ‘Down with the veto, down with the tyrant.’ The troops from the south sang the Marseillaise. They were armed to the teeth—guns, knives, bayonets, swords, you name it. They hacked the Swiss Guard to death. They didn’t stand a chance—the king just abandoned them. Only interested in his own skin.”

“Oh, lordy Lord!” wept Agathe.

Jean sighed. “A bonfire of hate has been ignited. God alone knows what earthly force can put it out now.”

“Did you see anything else?” asked Luc, putting his arm around Lucille’s waist.

“Did I see anything else? What these eyes didn’t see! All the waters of France won’t wash these images away. They’re burned into me with a red-hot branding iron.”

“Tell us, then.”

“Well, when I arrived at the Tuileries by the Palais Royal entrance, the walls were pockmarked with gun- and cannon-fire. I could hear the sound of crashing plates and dishes coming from the royal kitchens—pots and pans thrown all over the place, everybody snatching what they could, either to break or more likely to keep as souvenirs. In the wine cellars I saw a sea of outstretched hands, all fumbling in the sand to pull out bottles of the king’s fine wine. They broke the bottles open in their haste to drink and the wine spilled on the floor, mingling with the blood of the corpses. What a shambles! In the chapel, oh Lord, what I saw! All that blood, all them bodies, all them flies, and the smell! The sound of the rabble as it trampled on thousands of fragments of priceless porcelain.”

Sido listened silently. Lucille began to weep.

“And the rest of Paris?” asked Bernard.

“There are fires burning all over the city. The citizens are breaking into the aristocrats’ houses, looting, killing their servants, smashing their furniture, and burning and destroying anything of value.”

“Will they do the same here?” asked Lucille. She was almost beside herself with fear.

“Who knows? When I left they were calling for the blood of the nobility to wash the streets of Paris clean, and they’d started to tear down buildings where aristocrats had taken refuge.”

“Enough,” interrupted Jean. “You’re frightening everyone.”

“Well, you asked. I’m only telling you how things stand.”

By the time the messenger had left, Sido could see what would happen next.

“I have a wife and children,” said Michel Floret, the gardener. “I’m afraid to be found here.”

This seemed to go for all the servants, who sorrowfully and apologetically made their excuses and filed out of the kitchen. Even Lucille, who, clasping Sido’s hands and with tears rolling down her face, said, “I’m so sorry to leave you, I really am sorry, but I can’t stay. I don’t want to die. I’m too young.”

“I know,” said Sido. “Don’t worry. You go home with Luc.”

Only two stayed sitting at the kitchen table, Jean and Bernard.

“Eh bien,”
said Jean, getting out a bottle of wine. “There is nothing more for it. We’ll just have to sit it out and make plans for our escape if the château is attacked.”

“I agree,” said Bernard.

“No,” said Sido, “you must go too. I shall stay with my father.”

“But mademoiselle, it’s not safe for you here. You must get him to understand.”

Sido tried to look calm. “As you know, the marquis has put all his hope for our survival in the wall. He will not leave.”

Bernard raised his hands to the air and let out a whistle. “That wall is a farce,” he said.

“What do you mean?” asked Sido.

“His laborers hated him for putting the rents so high and taking them away from the land. Their revenge was to use more sand in the mix than they should have.”

“I don’t understand,” said Sido.

“It means the wall will collapse if it’s attacked,” said Bernard.

Sido felt weak and sat down. “Even more reason for you to go, then.”

“No,” said Jean firmly, “we’re not leaving you. Someone has to stay and help.” He poured her a glass of wine. “Though I think I speak for both of us when I say that we are staying out of respect for the late and great marquis, your uncle Armand de Villeduval, and your beloved mother.”

Bernard lifted his glass. “Tell you this much—if your uncle were still here, his servants would have fought to the bitter end to protect you all.”

“I thank you,” said Sido.

That evening the marquis, unaware that anything was wrong, sat down as usual to supper. Annoyed to find that it was late, he rang the bell angrily.

With a heavy heart, Sido opened the door to the dining chamber.

“It is quite intolerable to be kept waiting at my own table,” he snapped. “I have guests.”

“Papa, all but two of your servants left this morning.”

“Did I give you permission to speak?” asked the marquis.

“No, Papa, but I think it might be wise to make plans just—”

“You think,” he interrupted sarcastically. “You think? And of what significance are your miserable thoughts? You are just about bearable when silent. When you speak I find your presence quite insupportable.”

Sido could take it no longer. She felt overwhelmed by all that she had been told, and by the knowledge that the wall, like her father’s mind, appeared to be crumbling. Tears welled up, and the color rushed to her face.

“What have I done that you should hate me so much?” she cried.

The marquis looked up at an invisible point just above her head and rang the bell again with force.

“Please tell me,” said Sido.

He still refused to look at her. “Been born, and once born, been a mere girl.”

“Is that my only crime?”

“How dare you ask such impertinent questions in front of such distinguished company? Leave the room. I wish to see no more of you.”

“Why?” said Sido. “Why, when we should stand together, do you treat me so?”

“Be quiet. I will not be spoken to in this way. You moan and groan like some peasant.”

The marquis got up and walked toward the door. “Tell my valet that I shall be dining in my apartment.”

“He has left, like the rest of the servants,” said Sido.

“Out of my way,” said the marquis as he pushed past her, his head held high. “My guests are waiting.”

After he had gone Sido slid miserably down onto the floor. Who could save them now? Kalliovski?

She went back down to the kitchen to find Jean still sitting at the table.

“I take it he didn’t like what he was told?”

“He wouldn’t listen. He loathes me. He said it would have been better if I’d never been born. I should have died along with my mother, then he would have been rid of me.”

“Don’t say that, mademoiselle. It would have been a terrible waste.”

“If I had been a son, would he have loved me? And if I didn’t limp? Everything I do is wrong.”

Jean looked at Sido. “If it is of any comfort, mademoiselle, I don’t think the marquis cares for anyone or anything, apart from his possessions. He is like an actor who needs the whole stage to himself. There is no room for anyone else, not even his daughter.”