Ramage's Devil (8 page)

With that he took out three sets of paper and put one down on the table as though dealing playing cards for a game of patience.

“The
passeports,
” he explained. “Foreigners need one type, and every Frenchman visiting another town needs a different sort: he has to get it from the local Committee of Public Safety, and it is valid only for the journeys there and back. Now, milady, will you examine yours.”

Sarah picked it up. The paper was coarse and greyish, and at the top was printed the arms of the Republic. The rest comprised a printed form, the blank spaces filled in with a pen. She was now Janine Ribère, born Thénaud in Falaise, wife of Charles, no children, hair blonde, complexion
jaunâtre.
(
Jaunâtre?
She thought for a few moments, combing her French vocabulary. Ah, yes, sallow. Well, certainly Gilbert was not trying to flatter her!) Purpose of journey: multiple visits to Brest to make purchases of food from the market. She nodded and put the page down again.

Gilbert gave her another which had a seal on it and a flourish of ink which was an unreadable signature. It was smaller, had a coat of arms she did not recognize, but bore the name of the department beneath it.

“This, madame, is a certificate issued in Falaise, and saying, as you can see, that you were born there, with the date. And beneath the
préfet
's signature is a note that you removed to the province of Brittany on your marriage. And beneath that the signature of the
préfet
of Brittany.”

“All these signatures!” Sarah exclaimed. “Supposing someone compares them with originals?”

Gilbert smiled and took the sheet of paper. “If he does he will find they are genuine.
Préfets
sign these papers by the dozen and leave them to underlings to fill in the details.”

“But how did you get them?”

“That's none of our business,” Ramage said. “Where did we get them from officially?”

“Madame had this issued to her by the
mairie
in Falaise and it was signed in Caen (the
préfet
gives the name). Then she had the addition made at the
préfecture
here. The
passeport,
too, comes from the
préfecture
in Brest. I shall point it out to you.”

He took a second set of papers. “These are yours, milord. The same kind of documents but you see there is one extra—your discharge from the navy of France. Dated, you will notice, one month before your wedding. The ship named here was damaged in a storm at Havre de Grâce and is still there. You were discharged and were making your way home when you met a young lady in Caen and you both fell in love …”

Gilbert tapped the paper which had the anchor symbol and the heading “Ministry of the Marine and Colonies” and, like the others, was a printed form with the blanks filled in. “You are of military age, so you will have to show this everywhere.”

“And you? Have you the correct documents?” Ramage asked. “You aren't taking any extra risks by coming with us?”

Gilbert shook his head. “No, because I have all the necessary papers to go shopping in Brest. I am well known at the
barrières.
You have told madame about the difference between foreigners, and French people passing the
barrières?
”

“No. We've been busy making these clothes fit and I would prefer you to explain. My experience in Republican France is now several years old: I'm sure much has changed.”

Gilbert sighed. “To leave the
ancien régime
and go to England … then to return to Republican France. Now it is the guillotine, the tree of liberty,
gendarmes
every few miles, documents signed and countersigned … no man can walk or ride to the next town to have a glass of wine with his brother without a
passeport
… few men dare quarrel with a neighbour for fear of being denounced out of spite, for here the courts listen to the charge, not the defence—”

“The
barrières,
” Ramage reminded him.

“Ah yes, sir. Well, first there is the curfew from sunset to sunrise: everyone must be in his own home during the hours of darkness. To travel—well, one has the documents you have seen. You need plenty of change—at every
barrière
there's a toll. The amount varies, depending on the distance from the last
barrière,
because they are not at regular intervals.”

“A large toll?” Ramage asked.

“No, usually between two and twenty
sous.
It wouldn't matter if the money was spent on the repair of the roads—which is what it is supposed to be for—but no one empties even a bucket of earth into a pothole. But luckily we have our own gig because travelling by postchaise is very expensive. Before the Revolution a postchaise from here to Paris was about two hundred and fifty
livres;
now it is five hundred. No highwaymen, though; that's one triumph of the Revolution!”

“Highwaymen!” Sarah exclaimed. “You mean that France now has none?”

“Very few, ma'am, and the reason is not particularly to our advantage. We now have many more mounted
gendarmes
stopping honest travellers, and instead of money and jewellery they demand documents. Truly ‘money or your life' has now become ‘documents or your life.' So as well as the
gendarmes
at the regular
barrières,
there are ones who appear unexpectedly on horseback, so no one dares move without papers. But,” he added, tapping the side of his nose, “there are so many different documents and so many signatures that forgery is not difficult and false papers unlikely to be discovered.”

“How many
barrières
are there between here and Brest?” Ramage asked.

“Three on the road, and then one at the Porte de Landerneau, the city gate on the Paris road. We could avoid it by going in along the side roads, but it is risky: if we were caught we would be arrested at once.”

“Whereas our documents are good enough to pass the Porte without trouble?”

“Exactly, sir. Now, if I may be allowed to remind you of a few things. As you know, the common form of address is ‘Citizen,' or ‘Citizeness.' Everyone is equal—at least in their lack of manners. ‘Please' and ‘thank you' are now relics of the
ancien régime.
Rudeness is usually a man's (or woman's) way of showing he or she is your equal—although they really mean your superior. Many
gendarmes
cannot read—they know certain signatures and have them written on pieces of paper for comparison. But don't be impatient if a
gendarme
holds a paper upside-down and “reads” it for five minutes—as if it has enormous importance. They are
gendarmes
because they have influence with someone in authority. Neither the Committees of Public Safety nor the
préfets
want illiterates, but often giving a job to such a man is repaying a political debt from the time of the Revolution.”

Gilbert paused and then apologized. “I am afraid I am talking too much …”

“No, no,” Ramage said quickly. “And you must get into the habit of giving orders to ‘Charles' and ‘Janine.' Lose your temper with me occasionally—I am a slow-thinking fellow. Poor Charles Ribère, he can read slowly and write after a fashion, but … even his wife loses her patience with him!”

A smiling Gilbert nodded. He found it impossible to toss aside the natural politeness by which he had led his life. Since he had been back in France, some Frenchmen had called it servility: why are you so servile, they had sneered: man is born free and equal. Yes, all that was true, but man also had to eat, which meant he had to work (or be a thief, or go into politics). Working for the Count was very equable: he lived in comfortable quarters, ate the same food as the Count and his guests, but in his own quarters without the need (as the Count often had) to let the food get cold as he listened to vapid gossip. But for these revolutionary fools he could have expected a comfortable old age with a good pension from the Count, and probably a cottage on the estate, here or in England.

“Servility”—yes, that was what these Republican fools called it. Elsewhere, particularly in England, it was called good manners. Please, thank you, good morning, good evening—according to the Republicans these were “servile phrases.” A true Republican never said please or thank you. But he had never listened to the Count, either: the Count
always
said please and thank you and the suitable greeting every time he spoke to one of his staff. In fact, a blind man would only know who was servant and who was master because the Count had an educated voice: his grammar, too, betrayed his background of Latin and Greek, and English and Italian. Gilbert had once heard him joking in Latin with a bishop who laughed so much he became nearly hysterical. No Committee of Public Safety would ever understand that normal good manners were like grease on axles—they helped things move more smoothly.

“I think Edouard will have the gig ready for us by now,” Gilbert said, making a conscious effort to avoid any “sir” or “milord.” “We are going to buy fruit—our apples have been stolen—and vegetables: the potatoes have rotted in the barn. And indeed they have. We need a bag of flour, a bag of rice if we can buy some, and any vegetables that catch your fancy. I am tired of cabbage and parsnip, which is all we seem to grow here. A lot of salt in the air from the sea makes the land barren, so Louis says, but I think it is laziness in the air from the Count's good nature.”

Gilbert gestured towards two wicker baskets as they reached the back door. “We take these to carry our purchases—you put them on your laps. I have all the documents here and will drive the gig, because your hands are occupied.” He winked and then looked startled at his temerity in winking at a milord and a milady. Ramage winked back and Sarah grinned: the grin, Ramage thought in a sudden surge of affection, of a lively and flirtatious serving wench being impertinent. Impudent. Adorable. And what a honeymoon—here they were setting off (in a gig!) at the beginning of an adventure which could end up with them all being strapped down on the guillotine. So far, the Committee of Public Safety (though perhaps the Ministry of Marine would step in, but more likely Bonaparte's secret police under that man Fouché would take over) could accuse Captain Ramage of disobeying the order to report to the local
préfet
as an
otage,
because to call them detainees and not hostages was polite nonsense. Then of course he was carrying false papers and dressed as a gardener—proof that he was a spy. And he was lurking around France's greatest naval base on the Atlantic coast … Yes, a tribunal would have only to hear the charges to return a verdict. And Sarah? A spy too—did she not carry false papers? Was she not assisting her husband? Was she not also an
aristo
by birth, as well as marriage?
Alors,
she can travel in the same tumbril, and that valet, too, who was a traitor as well as a spy.

As he helped Sarah up into the gig and heard a disapproving grunt from Gilbert (husbands might give wives a perfunctory push up, but they did not help them), he thought bitterly that their luck had been unbelievably bad. First, that the war had begun again while they were on their honeymoon—after all, the peace had held for a year and a half. Then that they should be staying with Jean-Jacques. Admittedly they would have been arrested if they had been staying at an inn, but the point was that they were now involved with
L'Espoir
and trying to think of a way of rescuing the Count of Rennes.
Noblesse oblige.
He was becoming tired of that phrase—his first love, the Marchesa di Volterra, was back in Italy because of it, and possibly already one of Bonaparte's
otages,
too. An
otage
if she had not yet been assassinated.

So, heavily involved with keeping himself and Sarah out of the hands of the local Committee of Public Safety, trying to rescue Jean-Jacques, and getting all of them (including the faithful and enterprising Gilbert) back to England, it was not just bad luck, it was damnable luck which brought the
Murex
through the Chenal du Four and into Brest with a mutinous crew on board.

Or, he allowed himself the thought and at once felt almost dizzy with guilt, why did the mutineers not put the officers and loyal seamen in a boat and let them sail back to England? Why keep them on board and bring them into Brest, where the French had anchored the ship, landed the mutineers and left the officers and loyal men on board the brig with an apparently small French guard? Now every
gendarme
in the port would be on the alert in case one of the loyal men escaped from the
Murex;
every fishing-boat would be guarded—perhaps by soldiers—so that the chance of stealing one and getting back to England would probably be nil. Damn and blast the mutineers—and her captain, for not preventing the mutiny! He was not being fair and he found he had no
wish
to be fair: he wanted only to find someone to blame for this mess.

Lord St Vincent! The name slid into his thoughts as Gilbert flipped the reins so that they slapped across the horse's flanks and started it moving. Yes, if Lord St Vincent had not given him, as his first peacetime orders, the task of finding a tiny island off the Brazilian coast and surveying it, he would never have met Sarah. If they had never met they would never have fallen in love and from that it followed they would never have married or be here on a prolonged honeymoon through France. Which, he admitted, was as disgraceful a thought as any man should have so near breakfast.

The country round the château was bleak. Or, rather, it was wild: it had the harsh wildness of parts of Cornwall, the thin layer of soil sprinkled on rock, rugged boulders jutting up as though scattered by an untidy giant. The small houses built of tightly-locked grey stone, some long ago whitewashed, roofed by slates, a small shelter for a horse or donkey, a low wall containing the midden. Life here was a struggle against nature: crops grew not with the wild profusion and vigour of the Tropics—to which he had become accustomed over the past few years—but because men and women hoed and dug and ploughed and weeded from dawn to dusk.