The Red Necklace (34 page)

The coach stopped at the inn at Pontoise, a low, timbered building that bustled with people and coaches, none heading in the direction of Paris, all relieved to be away from the city and all hoping to reach the coast. Inside, the rooms were packed with customers waiting to be served, elated that they were, so they believed, as good as free. Some spoke loudly and carelessly, their voices betraying their aristocratic roots.

Yann instinctively disliked the place. The innkeeper, a hard-looking man, appeared to be encouraging these unwise fools while others, more timid, stayed quiet, pressing themselves against the walls. All the comings and goings were overseen by the innkeeper’s wire-thin wife, whose tiny buttonlike eyes saw everything and missed nothing. The main room had tables and gnarled wooden beams that loomed oppressively over the diners as if they too were keen to hear what secrets were being told.

While Sido went to change her clothes, Yann found a table in the corner by the fireplace, where he could keep an eye on the door.

He looked around him, seeing frightened people who hoped that their passports would be good enough to take them through to London. Some, he was sure, were without even the money for food, having spent all they had just to get out of the city.

At the next table sat a group of men who had drunk more wine than was good for them, all talking loudly. Every time their glasses were empty the innkeeper kindly refilled them. Where was their driver? Yann wondered. He had a strong feeling that the man had taken their money and fled.

One of the men stood up, swaying slightly, and bowed when Sido came back into the room.

“Get up, you libertines,” he shouted to his friends. “Can’t you tell when a lady of breeding has entered the room?” With a clatter of chairs, all the men rose and bowed, so that those at the other tables looked curiously at her.

Yann whispered urgently to her as she sat down, “Don’t speak. We’re leaving. Just follow me.”

It was too late. At that moment the door to the inn was thrown open and three soldiers in National Guard uniform entered. Yann knew that escape was now impossible. He watched, certain that the innkeeper and his wife were well acquainted with these men. The customers all shifted in their seats like a shoal of fish that know sharks are near.

The man in charge, an officer of sorts, had a face that looked as if it had been chiseled from granite. His nose had a gobbet of snot hanging from it, which he wiped on his sleeve. He looked around the room, inspecting the customers.

“I see before me, if my eyes don’t deceive me, which they don’t, men who should be doing their duty for France and the Motherland instead of sneaking off to England like the aristocratic rats they are. Your papers, vermin!”

The other two soldiers started to go through the room, pushing and shoving the customers. One of the group at the next table, winking to his companions, held up a bag of coins and whispered something to one of the soldiers, who spat on the floor and slipped the purse into his pocket.

“Another charitable contribution to the war fund!” he shouted out, lifting the man’s arm up high above his head. “Thought he could bribe his way out of being a traitor.”

No doubt, thought Yann, this and everything else they gathered would be divided among the innkeeper, his wife, and the three soldiers.

The same soldier made a great show of examining the men’s passports.

“Look at this,” he guffawed. “Forgeries, every one of them.” He handed the passports to the officer.

The travelers started to protest. The officer ignored them. “Take them,” he ordered. “They’ll enjoy a night trip to Paris.”

More and more of the customers were dragged out. At last only the regulars and Yann and Sido were left.

Now all eyes turned to watch the last bit of sport until more coaches arrived from Paris and the whole show began over again.

“What have we got here?” said the officer, leering at Sido. “A pretty little aristo if ever I saw one.”

"Excuse me, sir,” said Yann in broken French. "Where are your manners? This is my sister you are speaking to. We are English.”

“English?” said the officer, snatching their passports. “You English? You’re too dark to be an Englishman.” He sniffed and wiped his nose.

Yann could feel Sido shaking beside him and he put his arm firmly around her.

“Pretty, pretty little bird, what have you to say about your brother?”

Sido said nothing.

“Here to learn French, eh? Bet you can speak it like a native.”

The officer studied their papers again, holding them up to the light. He handed them back. “Well, you can go.”

Yann felt Sido move but he held her fast, knowing that to do so would give the game away.

“Go then! Don’t you understand any French?” bellowed the officer. It wasn’t until he had gestured toward the door that Yann and Sido walked out. The sight of all those wretched men and women rounded up, standing roped together on tumbrels, made Sido feel weak-kneed. She knew exactly where they were being taken. Back to the prisons and certain death.

“Stop!” shouted the officer, coming to the door after them and spitting onto the ground. “What did you say your names were?”

Yann carried on walking toward the carriage.

“Hey, you lad,” shouted the officer. Yann turned and made a gesture with his hand as if to say: “Is it me you want?”

The officer waved them away and relit his pipe. Ten out of ten stupid fools fall for that one, he thought, saying their names out loud and clear in French, titles and all. Either that young man was honest or he was one of the best actors he’d come across for a long time.

chapter thirty-five

Sido sat back in the carriage, her heart racing.

“All those people, and like us they thought they had escaped,” she said. The enormity of what had just happened made her shiver. Then, looking at Yann, she asked, “Do you think my father’s been killed?”

Yann nodded.

“I just hope he kept his arms behind him. I could see that those who tried to protect themselves had the slowest of deaths. What am I saying? I’m talking about killing people! Why? What has happened to us?” A tear rolled down her face. “It’s madness. I left my father without a second thought because I’d grown tired of his hatred of me. Does that make me as bad as them?”

“No, Sido, it doesn’t.”

“And Kalliovski?”

"I can’t see how he could have survived that mob,” said Yann. “And it isn’t wrong to hope that today, when so many innocent people have been slaughtered, they might have found one guilty person who deserved it.”

“Is anyone truly innocent, I wonder. I thought I was, but look how I abandoned my father. I just left him to his fate.”

“Sido,” said Yann, “there was nothing you could have done. Today wasn’t about choice, it was about luck. You were one of the lucky ones.” He brought out a blanket and wrapped it around her. “You need to sleep, and then you’ll feel better.”

She curled up on the seat beside him with her head in his lap.

Yann sat staring out of the window. The sky was black and starless as they made their way with all haste toward Dieppe.

In the rocking motion of the carriage Sido fell fast asleep. Yann leaned back in the seat, lost in thought. He knew now what he was going to do. All those travelers tonight had needed help to escape. There must be better ways of getting people out of Paris than leaving them to the mercy of two-timing crooks like Mr. Tull and the innkeeper and his wife. The great hope of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, he thought sadly, that should have meant a better world for all, appeared to have been massacred by man’s own worst enemies: Stupidity, Greed, and Terror.

Looking back over the day’s events he realized that every time he had worked the threads of light he had become stronger at it, the pain in his head a little more bearable. What was he going to be capable of with practice? There was still so much to learn, so much Têtu had to teach him and tell him. He looked down at Sido and gently brushed a strand of hair from her face, remembering how she had looked when he had first seen her asleep on that huge four-poster bed.

If things were different, if there were no Revolution, no war, no threads of light, if he were rich, would he go back to London with her and ask for her hand in marriage? He smiled, for the answer was simple. Yes, yes, he would.

It was the times they lived in that complicated the matter. “One day I will make my fortune,” he said out loud to a silent carriage, “and then . . .”

He stroked Sido’s cheek and bent down to kiss her, whispering what his heart had always known, what he had never said before to anyone. “I love you. I always will.”

Sido didn’t stir. For the first time in days she had felt safe enough to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She woke just as they were coming into Dieppe and sat up dazed for a moment, not knowing where she was; then, remembering, she smiled and straightened herself out.

“You’ve slept through all the changes of horses and a lot of shouting, and you didn’t once stir,” said Yann. “Do you feel better?”

“I think so.”

Yann handed her a flask and she took a drink. Then he took from his knapsack a small package of letters tied with ribbon, and the letter the marquis had written to Kalliovski.

“What are these?” asked Sido.

“They are for you to read when we get to Dieppe, and then you will understand, and realize that you were very much loved by your mother and your father.”

“No,” said Sido. “You’re wrong, very wrong. My father hated me. He said he would have preferred me dead.”

“Why do you think he hated you?”

“How can you say one minute that he loved me and then the next ask me why he hated me? It was because of my limp. He liked things to be perfect.”

"It wasn’t because of your limp. What if the marquis were not your father?” Sido sat there thinking. It was an idea that had never occurred to her, yet it made more sense than anything else had. It explained her father’s hatred of her. It explained why he never mentioned her mother, and why she was not buried in the family tomb.

“Oh dear,” she said at last. “I thought it was just to do with his insanity, but I see now why he was bellowing at me. He thought I was my mother. No wonder he told me to take my bastard and be gone.”

She was quiet for some time.

“I have a strange memory of him, the only happy one I have,” she said at last. “It doesn’t fit with anything else. Maybe I dreamt it. I remember we were at the château, and he was with my mother.”

“That would have been your real father, Armand de Villeduval, the marquis’s younger brother.”

Sido gasped. “Are you sure?”

“Certain. When you’ve read the letters you’ll understand. The marquis wrote to Kalliovski, asking him to have you all murdered. Kalliovski obliged—but you survived. Your grandfather suspected foul play. He had his will changed and left you a large proportion of his estate, which will go to your husband on your wedding day. The marquis must have thought he would have control over your money if he chose a suitably stupid husband for you, someone he could manage. What he hadn’t bargained for was Kalliovski.”

It was very late when they finally arrived, exhausted. They were pleased to find that Charles Cordell had waited up for them.

“You made good time,” he said. “I got them to leave some food out.”

They sat over their supper talking about what had happened in Paris.

"The messenger from Têtu told me that they hadn’t stopped the killing, though they ran out of prisoners at L’Abbaye and made their way to the Conciergerie, among other places,” said Cordell.

“There would be no hope for the marquis,” said Sido. It was the first time she had not referred to him as her father. It was a great release, a heavy cloud lifted.

“No. I gather his mind had gone. I should think it would have been quick; he wouldn’t have been aware of what was happening. I am most terribly sorry that you have been through such a dreadful ordeal. Tomorrow, if the tide is right, we should be away from France by mid-morning.”

Sido said good night. On the stairs she turned and looked back at Yann. "Will you be here tomorrow?”

He said nothing, just smiled.

“Well,” said Cordell, “I suppose you are wanting your bed as well. Shall we talk in the morning?”

“No, sir, I shall be leaving early for Paris. Could we talk tonight?”

“How is your shoulder?”

“It throbs, but it is healing.”

“I have called for a surgeon to examine it.”

“There was no need.”

“You might think not, but I can assure you that Têtu would kill me if I didn’t ask someone to look at it.”

“It won’t stop me from going back.”

“You are still young and I thought that maybe . . .”

Yann took out Kalliovski’s Book of Tears. Cordell looked at it, stunned.

“What is this?”

“Open it and see.”

Tentatively Cordell opened it at the first page and read the words
The Red Necklace.

He sat down, and burst out laughing. “Yann, you are good and no mistake. Where did you find it?”

“Inside one of the automata. Kalliovski has a collection of them, the Sisters Macabre. One of them was the keeper of this book. She called it the Book of Tears.”

Cordell flicked through the pages of names. He looked up, and taking off his glasses, rubbed his temples.

“This is beyond anything I thought possible. All these people and the terrible sums they owe him! Many, I may say, the bank’s clients. You have indeed turned over a stone and found a deadly viper there. Tell me, has Kalliovski created a near-human machine, as he claimed?”

“No, he was not even halfway there. What knowledge he has he can’t use properly. Did you know that Mr. Tull works for him?”

“No, I didn’t, but I am afraid it doesn’t surprise me.”