The Silver Blade (29 page)
T
etu was talking to him, and yet he heard nothing. He felt Tetu put something in his jacket pocket … but he was falling, falling, and had a long way to go. Sick to his soul, he stumbled into the night, so lost he hardly knew where he was going. Sido’s death stripped Yann of his powers; the threads of light had gone, disappeared from his vision. He was blind.
etu was talking to him, and yet he heard nothing. He felt Tetu put something in his jacket pocket … but he was falling, falling, and had a long way to go. Sick to his soul, he stumbled into the night, so lost he hardly knew where he was going. Sido’s death stripped Yann of his powers; the threads of light had gone, disappeared from his vision. He was blind.
He went down to the Seine and sat on an upturned boat. Tonight they could arrest him, he didn’t care. They could guillotine him, he didn’t care. He would willingly lay his head on the block, as if it were a feather pillow. How could he go on living if there was no Sido? Without her, time had stopped. She would always remain in yesterday, and he felt Paris wrap itself around him, a city of the broken embracing a broken man.
I want Sido to be alive. I want to hold her. To love her, to tell her the truth. I want to have lain with her, to have been beloved of her, always. And in that I would have known I was blessed upon this earth. The luckiest of men.
At dawn, Paris was almost quiet as if she were holding her breath, the city trembling at what the new day might bring. In its watery light Yann found something in his pocket. It was an envelope.
He opened it, pulled out a letter and straightened it. The words danced away from him until he made them stay still long enough to read.
I have something that I wish to tell you.I couldn’t live like this all my life, a doll in a dolls’ house. I long for adventure, I long to be free, I want to ride with you across moors, through forests. I want to travel with you across the seas. I don’t want a painted ceiling in a bedroom, I want the stars, I want to lie with you on the mossy grass in fields of poppies, in haylofts of gold, to be with you always. I am not a marquis’s daughter, Yann. I was born the wrong side of an unhappy marriage. What use is a title? I give it away. There. Anyone can have this iron cage full of prejudice and privilege. I want to be plain Madame Margoza. That has a freedom to it, that has wind in its sails.Never, ever, Yann, tell me that your being a gypsy would stop me loving you. I too have a gypsy soul. I am yours and only yours.Sido
Yann felt as if he had been mortally wounded by his own hand, his own folly. This was the letter he’d given back to Tetu, unread. He thought of what Sido had received from him in return, his short letter cutting her off from him.
And now it was too late.
‘I must go to London,’ he said out loud, as if emerging from a fog. His words sounded awkward, his tongue heavy as lead. He never wanted to talk to anyone ever again if he couldn’t talk to Sido. And by the waters of the Seine he wept.
D
idier had been out since dawn looking for him. Now, having as good as scoured Paris, he decided to go back to the Circus of Follies.
idier had been out since dawn looking for him. Now, having as good as scoured Paris, he decided to go back to the Circus of Follies.
The barman at the cafe on the corner was sweeping out the sawdust, the tables and chairs stacked in the morning sunlight.
‘Citizen,’ he called to Didier, ‘have you found him?’
Didier shook his head. The barman brought him coffee.
Didier drank it and was about to leave when the barman said, ‘It looks as if Citizen Aulard has the inspectors in again.’
Didier, thinking nothing of it, entered the theatre by the stage door. He’d started up the stairs to Citizen Aulard’s office when, too late, he saw five National Guardsmen on the landing, their pistols cocked. He turned to run when two more armed guards stood up in the concierge’s sentry box, their weapons aimed straight at him. Didier was chained and taken on to the stage. The rest of the company, including Anselm, was there, surrounded by soldiers.
‘Is that everyone?’ said the sergeant, catching Anselm’s eye. The look that passed between them didn’t escape Didier’s notice.
Didier, a giant of a man and stronger by the power of ten when angry, rushed at Anselm and with one punch hit him halfway across the stage. The guards descended on him like wasps on jam, but even in chains, Didier knocked three of them unconscious before the sergeant restored order by firing his pistol at the ceiling.
‘You’ve broken my nose,’ whined Anselm. Then seeing everyone’s sharp eyes on him, including Colombine’s, he said, ‘Don’t look at me, she’s in on it too.’
‘Quiet, not another word,’ said the sergeant.
While Anselm and Colombine were taken away separately, the sergeant said, ‘You are all under arrest. All of you are suspects. Things might go better if you tell us which of your company goes by the name of the Silver Blade.’
Silence.
‘I ask you again, and this will be the last time. Which of you is the Silver Blade?’
And again no one said a word.
‘To the Conciergerie with the lot of you.’
T
he barman at the corner cafe on the square stared open-mouthed in horror to see nearly all his regular customers from the Circus of Follies chained together and loaded on to the waiting wagons like sheep.
he barman at the corner cafe on the square stared open-mouthed in horror to see nearly all his regular customers from the Circus of Follies chained together and loaded on to the waiting wagons like sheep.
‘Oh, these are the days of murder and mourning,’ he muttered miserably to himself.
The only two persons missing from this sorry band were Tetu and Basco.
‘Where are they?’ asked Didier.
‘Tetu went to see Cordell,’ whispered Citizen Aulard. ‘Basco accompanied him.’ Iago was perched on his shoulder.
‘Good.’
‘Cordell wanted to see you, too. Oh, God, what’s going to happen to us?’
‘I would have thought,’ said Didier, avoiding the subject, ‘that you’d have left the parrot behind.’
‘So would I, but Iago was adamant.’
Didier looked at the cart carrying Anselm and Colombine. What we do for love, he thought. Still, he would have imagined Colombine to have had more sense than to fall for that thug. He turned his back on them and instead watched the city he loved roll slowly past, saying a long farewell to his freedom. By the time the turrets of the Conciergerie came into view the sky had turned ominously black, the air laden with the approaching storm.
In the past, when there was still justice in France, this palace had been its seat. But justice had long been banished, and the palace was home to the dreaded Revolutionary Tribunal and its tyrannical ruler, the hatchet-man of the Convention, Fouquier-Tinville. It contained within its weather-stained stone walls one of the most notorious prisons in Paris. The sight of those infamous gates sent a ripple of fear through the whole company. This was where Marie Antoinette had been imprisoned; through these gates Danton had been taken in a tumbril on his way to execution.The list was growing, day by day, of the great and the good who had been sacrificed to the pernicious new ruler of France - the guillotine.
It was not surprising, then, that the company was trembling as they stepped from the wagons. Pantalon was a sorry sight, make-up running, knees knocking, as he and the rest were unceremoniously prodded and pushed, unable to hear themselves think above the barking of the dogs. They were ushered through more gates and doors which clanged shut and locked behind them, then down a long stone corridor, to be left waiting on a bench in a sunless place whose walls seemed to sweat tears.
Opposite was a small room, and through the filthy glass they could see the prison governor seated in his armchair in front of a wooden table. Above and below, a tangle of sounds reverberated: the turn of a key, the echo of footsteps, the cries of a prisoner, laughter and the clang of a bell. All were separated by impenetrable silence, and still they waited. Tick … tock. Tick … tock. Time imprisoned here was thin and whispery, its beat almost lost in the dungeons.
The prison governor seemed not to have noticed the new arrivals, or that one of them had a parrot on his head, for never once did he bother to look in their direction. Only a rat appeared interested in them, sniffing the air before scurrying under the bench. Colombine let out a gasp.
‘Quiet,’ boomed the guard. His dog looked hungry and mean, ready to tear to pieces anyone who crossed him.
‘You there,’ said a turnkey, breaking the silence, pointing at Anselm, ‘the governor is waiting.’
A few minutes later Anselm came out, and avoiding all eye contact, walked to the end of the corridor where a door, unlit and unseen by those left seated, opened. Then he was gone.
Colombine was next to be summoned, followed by Pantalon, and after a short interview each was taken out through the door at the end of the corridor. This routine went on until only Citizen Aulard and Didier were left.
‘Do you think they betrayed us?’ asked Citizen Aulard gloomily.
W
hat had saved Yann from returning to the theatre that fateful morning was exhaustion. It had finally overcome him, and he had curled up and slept under a tarpaulin in the bottom of a broken boat. He had woken with a start around midday and for a moment, one blissful moment, all looked right with the world. Then he remembered.
hat had saved Yann from returning to the theatre that fateful morning was exhaustion. It had finally overcome him, and he had curled up and slept under a tarpaulin in the bottom of a broken boat. He had woken with a start around midday and for a moment, one blissful moment, all looked right with the world. Then he remembered.
Slowly he made his way back to the Place de Manon.
‘At least,’ said the barman, his hand on Yann’s sleeve, ‘you have been spared. I feel terrible.’
Yann looked at him, bewildered.
‘I mean, I didn’t know,’ continued the barman, making no sense whatsoever.
‘Know what?’ asked Yann.
The barman pulled him inside the cafe.
‘I didn’t know the National Guards were in there waiting to arrest everyone. Early this morning they took all the members of the Circus of Follies away in tumbrils to the Conciergerie.’
What have I done? thought Yann. I have let so many people down.
‘I heard,’ said the barman, ‘that they think they’ve caught the Silver Blade.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
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