The Silver Blade (33 page)

Authors: Sally Gardner

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BOOK: The Silver Blade

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The floor started to whirl again.

Yann held on tightly to Sido as the bony walls began to crumble. He knew they had to escape before the whole edifice collapsed.

One of the Sisters put a hand out to stop him. ‘Only you can free us,’ she whispered. ‘Your survival depends on it.’

‘What must I do?’

‘Call Balthazar.’

Yann whistled for the dog, fearful that he was too late.

Then Balthazer emerged, no longer a monster, but the ghost of the puppy he had once been. Wagging his tail, he leaped up at Yann, and then jumped with joy at each of the Seven Sisters Macabre. Out of their battered and tortured carcasses emerged the ghosts of seven beautiful women, at long last set free, at long last at peace.

‘Come with us,’ they beckoned.

Yann was conscious of a blinding light. Then he and Sido were in a meadow full of poppies, the Seven Sisters running through the tall grasses, laughing, chasing Balthazar towards the poplar trees.

Their voices sang out ‘We are birds, we are free …’

Y
ann had no memory of how he got back to the theatre. It was Basco, who seeing what he thought were two ghosts, raised the alarm. Tetu came running down the stairs, a sword in his hand, to see Yann and Sido, covered in dust. At Sido’s neck was the shell of the shells.

T
hat July morning a building in the rue des Couteaux collapsed into the catacombs. It had happened before; no doubt it would happen again. This time the disaster took only one shop. No one was quite sure how many were buried in the rubble. It was days later that they found the body of Serreto.

Chapter Thirty

D
idier couldn’t stand the noise of the prison. All night long it sounded like some grotesque engine fuelled by fear. It gurgled, its belly rumbling, as if it were by degrees digesting its inmates. Just when he felt he had the measure of the infernal racket he was wrong-footed by the voice of a woman singing. Her song rose, to be caught like a butterfly in an iron net.

In his windowless cell with no light, all Didier had for company were these voices. He sat upright on the edge of his wooden bed refusing sleep. It wasn’t worth it; after all he would be sent to his eternal rest soon enough.

At six in the morning, his cell was beginning to feel hot and airless. The iron grille in the door slid open and a clerk with ink-stained fingers pushed through a piece of paper with his indictment.

‘Your trial’s this afternoon.’

Didier didn’t bother to try to read it. He knew it was his death sentence.

The grille in the door still being open, he shouted for a guard. A man came limping, dragging his leg behind him. He had a kinder face than his fellow jailers.

‘What is it, citizen?’

Didier handed him some money.

‘Can you find out what’s happened to a young man by the name of Yann Margoza? He was arrested with me last night.’

‘Keep your money,’ said the guard, and Didier thought he was going to walk away. Instead he said, ‘Yann Margoza? That name rings a bell. I once came across a lad with that name, working with a dwarf, if I remember correctly?’

‘Perhaps. Why?’ replied Didier, seeing a ray of hope. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Yes and no. He never said his name, but afterwards, I made enquiries.’

‘After what?’

‘It was in the great winter of ‘eighty-nine. Back then I was a coachman. I worked for the Vicomtesse de Lisle. I gave a lad and a dwarf a lift back to Paris from the old de Villeduval estate. Saved my life, that boy did. I often wonder what happened to them two. Honourable. Not a word you can use much these days, but that’s what those two gypsies were. Honourable.’

‘That’s Yann Margoza all right. How did he save your life?’

‘The horses took fright on an icy road. Fireworks made them bolt. I thought we’d had it. The lad climbed down from the carriage, as bold as brass, and managed to mount one of the horses. He whispered into their ears, and blow me down if they didn’t come to a halt. Yes, I tell you, I’d be a dead man if it weren’t for Yann Margoza.’

‘Will you find out if he’s here?’ asked Didier.

‘Leave it with me. My name’s Dufort.’

At half-past two the door to Didier’s cell was opened. He was taken through the wicket gates to a courtyard where fourteen prisoners were already walking up and down, a rag, tag and bobtail collection of men. Ten were young wags, well dressed and well fed. They swanked around, bolstering themselves with fighting talk, each telling the other that he was innocent.

‘I am a true revolutionary,’ said one.

‘We’ll be in Moet’s Tavern before the day is done,’ said another.

‘I shall be in my mistress’s arms before the night is through,’ said a third.

Didier, always an observer, watched as one of their party boasted of what he would do when called before the Public Prosecutor.

‘After all,’ he added, ‘it was I who designed the playing cards for the Republic.’

The three priests took no notice of the young dilettantes. Neither did a man who looked mad, his beard white, almost down to his feet, with bits of straw and food in it, his clothes torn and tattered.

Didier breathed in the fresh air, tilting up his head, drawing down the sky. The prison courtyard was surrounded on all sides by the Conciergerie walls and the gothic towers of the Palace of Justice, yet he could see a cockade of white sky high above, and he watched the swallows swooping, wishing with all his being that he too might sprout wings and fly.

L
ater that morning Didier, chained to his fellow prisoners, waited in the corridor. Fifteen prisoners in all, to be seen by the judge in small groups. Didier, his back against the stone wall, waited for the first five to come out.

Dufort sidled up to him. ‘He’s not here.’

‘But he must be,’ said Didier.

‘A man took him away last night. Where to, they wouldn’t say.’

Dufort was interrupted by the sergeant. ‘What are you doing, talking to the prisoner?’

Dufort stood to attention. He sighed, looking along the line of men left waiting to be sent for trial. Were any of them guilty? He thought back to the days when he had worked for the Viscountess. She would turn in her grave if she could see her old Dufort a guard in this most notorious of prisons. True, she was mean, stingy, and her monkey had been a pest, yet for all that, when she died, just after the fall of the Bastille, she had left him her house to look after. As long as her monkey lived longer than four years the house would be his. That was almost five years ago and the monkey was still alive.

Dufort was a decent man. He wondered if Yann had been transferred to another prison, or already sent to the guillotine. If that were the case he could at least do something to help the lad’s friend.

Watching the sergeant walk away, he once more went up to Didier. ‘Where’s the dwarf?’

‘At the Circus of Follies in the Place de Manon.’

D
ufort had managed to get an hour off a day, pleading the needs of a child in his care. What he didn’t say was that the child was a monkey. He liked to keep an eye on the Viscount, as he called him, even though his wife was just as capable. He made a detour to the Place de Manon, arriving at the theatre, out of breath, to find it apparently abandoned. He knocked on the stage door anyway. At last it was opened by Tetu, a huge sword in his hand.

‘I’m a friend. I mean you no harm. I come from the Conciergerie. Didier told me where to find you. Please, we need to talk. My name is Dufort. I was a coachman for the Vicomtesse de Lisle.’

Tetu looked at him, uncertain.

‘Do you remember? I gave you a lift to Paris from the de Villeduval chateau, in the winter before the fall of the Bastille?’

Tetu was still studying him. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I remember you.’

‘Yann Margoza saved my life that night and I want to repay the debt. Is there anything I can do to help you?’

‘We need somewhere to hide.’

‘I have a house that no one will search and is safe.’ He leaned forward. ‘It’s the residence of the late Viscountess.’

Tetu put down the sword and shook Dufort’s hand.

Yann appeared at the top of the stairs.

Dufort nodded. ‘Come with me,’ he said.