Revolution (32 page)

55

I
’m trying to play “Norwegian Wood.” But it’s not working. I’m fumbling the chords. It’s a total mess. I give it up and try some Bach. But that doesn’t go well, either.

I’m playing to keep from thinking about things. Such as—Why did I think Virgil didn’t have a girlfriend? Two? Five? A dozen? Him, a hot hip-hop god? I thought there was something special between us. I was sure there was. But I guess I was wrong. Impaired judgment—another fabulous side effect of Qwellify.

I bungle the passacaille I’m trying to play. I tell myself it’s because my hands are cold. It’s windy out here on the Pont Neuf. There’s snow on the air. A few flakes are already swirling down. But I know the cold’s not the reason I’m playing badly. It’s the Qwell. I took more after Rémy’s. And now I’m slow and numb. I can’t feel a thing. I know it’s cold, but I can’t feel it. I know I’m heartbroken, but I can’t feel that, either.

I’m far away from Rémy’s now. Far away from G’s. After I saw Virgil, I didn’t want to go back to G’s. Lili might’ve returned from dinner. Dad might be back from the lab. And I don’t want to talk. Not to them. Not to anyone. All I want to do is play. To find that one note like Nathan told me to.

The wind blows my hair into my face. I brush it away and feel something on my cheeks. I wipe at it. My palm comes away covered with tiny frozen crystals. I think it’s tears.

My phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket and look at the number. It’s Virgil. I put it back. He returned my iPod. I don’t need anything else from him. Boys let you down, but music never does.

I take a deep breath, and try once more to play the passacaille without mangling it. One note, just one note. That’s all I need. But it’s hard tonight. So hard that I stop playing. And look up at the sky instead. It’s black. No moon. No stars.

Hello, darkness, my old friend.

56

I
t’s late, I think. Past noon on Monday. Maybe one or two o’clock. I’ve slept for a long time. It’s quiet in the apartment. Dad and Lili must be out.

I open my eyes, stare at the gray light coming in through my bedroom window, then close them again as the sadness slams into me—no stalking, no circling, just a full-on attack. I stumble out of bed and scrabble through my bag for my pills.

But they’re not there. Panic shoots through me. I turn around in circles in the middle of the room until I see them. Right where I left them. On my night table. On top of the diary.

I swallow four, lie back down on my bed, and will myself to fall asleep again. But I can’t. All I can think of is Virgil. How could I have been so wrong about him? I wish I’d never met him. Wish we’d never had those phone calls. Wish my heart didn’t feel like it was shattering inside of me.

The Qwells always take a little while to kick in. I grab the diary and start reading, desperate for a distraction.

27 May 1795

I will never forget July 14, and not because it’s Bastille Day. July 14, 1793, was my last day in service to the royal family. I’d been told I was no longer needed. The king was dead, guillotined in January of the new year. Louis-Charles was in the hands of a man named Antoine Simon. A man selected by the Assembly. A man of the people. A good Republican. A stupid, vicious drunkard.

I was trying to say goodbye to the queen. Majesty, I said to her. Majesty, please.

But she did not hear me. She heard only him, her child, crying for days on end from his new room, on the floor beneath hers. She would not speak. She would not eat. She would only stare at the wall and rock.

You must be strong, Madame Elizabeth told her. You must endure. God, too, heard his son’s cries as he lay upon the cross.

Speak not to me of God, the queen said.

There was a sound like a slap—sharp and sudden—a howl of pain, more weeping. The queen rose. She stumbled across the room and picked up a case. There was a guitar inside it. It was the king’s. I had often played it for Louis-Charles.

Take it. Play it for him, the queen said, holding it out to me.

The guard was watching us.

But Majesty, no one is allowed to see him, I said.

Open it. Play it, she said. You turn the key once to unlock it.

But as she said once, she held up three fingers. In such a way that the guard could not see her.

I cannot, I said.

She started to cry. Please, she sobbed. Play for him. Keep his poor heart merry. Then she sank to the floor, wrapped her arms around her knees, and keened.

Take it! the guard barked. Take it and stop her noise!

He was a decent man, a father himself, and wished to be kind, but he was afraid. I could see it in his eyes. We were all afraid. We had seen the tumbrels.

I did as he bade me. Outside of her room, he opened the case. He cut the guitar’s strings with a knife and felt around inside it. Then he ripped out the case’s lining, checking for ciphers. Only when he was satisfied the queen had hidden nothing in it could I take it.

Later, in my room, I found what she meant me to find. I turned the key three times because she held up three fingers. And I found a hidden compartment. In it was a picture of Louis-Charles—a miniature painted on ivory, and a sack of coins. Twenty gold Louis. She’d known those things were in there. Looking at them, I felt a fury inside me.

Why had she given it to me, damn her? What was I to do with them? I was not a marquis with an army, I was but one small and powerless person.

But the fury soon ebbed and sadness took its place, for I saw how desperate she must’ve been to entrust me with her son’s life. Me, of all people. Not an emperor. Not a king. Just a lowly servant. I was her best hope. Her last hope. I was the only chance her little son had. The portrait, the money—they were a plea not to abandon him.

I held the bright coins in my hand, let them fall through my fingers. I was at war with myself. With twenty gold Louis I could run away. Away from Paris and all its death. I could start over again in some new city. Maybe find my way to the stage. Wasn’t that what I had always wanted?

With twenty gold Louis, I might be able to help the dauphin. I might be able to bribe Simon to treat him well, to allow him toys and books. I might be able to see him. I might be able to make up for the damage I’d done, for the spying, the lies. I might be able to get him out.

Such things had been talked about. The warden was ever on guard for plots, and indeed he claimed to have foiled more than one intended to liberate the queen and her children. The warden was careful and the guards were vigilant. But everyone has his price.

I picked up a coin, turned it over in my hand. The king’s head was on one side. His crown was on the other. I flipped it into the air. Caught it. Closed my hand around it.

Heads or tails. Stay or go. Redemption or freedom, I said to myself, pretending I had a choice.

I take a deep breath. For courage. I’m hoping again. Even though I know better.

Because Alex had twenty gold Louis. And they might’ve been enough. Enough to bribe a gravedigger to wheel a small, lifeless body to the Temple in the dead of night. Enough to convince a couple of guards to turn their backs. Enough to set him free.

57

29 May 1795

Orléans went to the guillotine a few weeks after the queen did, in November of 1793.

His eldest son, the Duc de Chartres, together with General Dumouriez, had defected from the revolutionary army to support the royalist cause. Orléans denounced his son, but then letters were found between the two, showing the denunciation false. He was accused of being an accomplice to Chartres and Dumouriez and of trying to overthrow the revolution.

I left the room above his apartments and went to see him in his prison cell. I was playing in the courts of the Palais again for money and went back to that room every night after I’d finished.

Orléans had been arrested some months ago. I had not gone to visit him for I had not wished to see him, but then came his trial and the verdict and I knew he would go to the guillotine soon, and I was determined to have some answers from him before he did.

Ah, a little sparrow comes to visit, he said when he saw me. Why are you still here? Why haven’t you flown away? It’s over for me. You are free.

You hoped to be king, I said.

He raised an eyebrow. Perhaps you are not as stupid as I thought, he said.

You voted for the king’s death with the others in the Assembly because you wished to rule in his place.

I did it because I had no choice. I was the king’s cousin, and as such, I was always under suspicion. I had to show my loyalty to the revolution. To not vote for the king’s death was to vote for my own.

You are saying you did not wish to rule? I do not believe you.

Of course I did. I’d hoped to rule France wisely and well. I’d hoped to free Louis-Charles and rule for him as regent after his father’s death. But that will not happen now. France is finished with kings, though I fear she is not done with tyrants.

You paid the mob to attack Versailles. And you paid them again last September, I said. The iron bars between us made me brave.

Did I, now? I must be more powerful, and far richer, than I thought.

Do not mock me. What of Louis-Charles? What was he? Merely an obstacle to your ambitions?

No. More of a stepping-stone. As he was to yours.

I faltered at that but only for a second. He is an orphan now, I said. A wretched, unhappy child. Did you vote for his imprisonment? For his abuse at Simon’s hands? You did, yes, and I helped you. With my spying. With all the information I gave you. You are a devil!

Orléans’ black eyes flashed with anger. I ask you, sparrow, who let his only child die upon a cross, taunted by thieves? Was it the devil? No. Call me devil if you will. I think it an honor.

A spider scuttled across the floor. Orléans stooped down, picked it up, lifted it to the bars of his window, and watched it crawl to freedom.

Why do they still hold him? Why will they not let him go? How can he harm them? He is only a boy, I said.

He is much more than a boy. You know that. Robespierre will never let him go. He will die in that prison, Orléans said.

But there are others besides Robespierre. Powerful men, great men. Danton. Desmoulins. They could help him.

They will do nothing for him. As they do nothing for me now. Because it does not benefit them. Have you learned nothing during your time with me? Do you still not know that great men are seldom good?

But I would not hear him. Like one demented, I would not give up. There must be others who plot as you did, others who want to see him free, I said, hoping that if he knew of any, he would tell me.

But Orléans made no reply. Instead, he pulled off his rings, reached through the bars, and tumbled them into my hand. These, plus all that you have stolen from me—oh, yes, I know all about it—will pay your way out of Paris, he said.

Then he went to the small wooden table standing in the far corner of his cell, scribbled a note, sealed it, and handed it to me.

What is this? I asked him.

A letter of introduction. It was supposed to be for the Paris stage, but you must not stay here. Go to London. To Drury Lane. Give it to the man at Garrick’s. He is a friend of mine and will help you.

I will not! I shouted. I have money from the queen—twenty gold Louis—and now these rings of yours. I will get him out, if no one else will. I myself!

He gave me a look then I had never seen him give anyone, a look of unimaginable sadness. Forget about the boy, sparrow, he said. There is nothing you can do for him. You would have to fight the whole world to free him, and the world always wins.

They came for him moments later. He rode to the scaffold in an open cart, jeered by the bloodthirsty crowd. He was magnificent, right to the end. He gave them nothing. Not a grimace. Not a tear. Not a word.

I cried when he died.

Like a dog who howls for the master who beat him.

30 May 1795

I tried to run away. Once. In June of 1794. Some months after Orléans was guillotined.

I was in despair, for I had failed. For weeks and weeks I had worked feverishly to put into motion a plan to smuggle Louis-Charles out of the prison.

I had found a gravedigger, ragged and poor, who would do as I asked—bring a dead boy’s body, fresh, not stinking, to the house of the prison’s laundress. I’d got the laundress and her daughter to agree to put the body in the bottom of a large willow basket, cover it with clean linens, bring it inside the prison, and hide it in the linen press.

After that, I would need Louis-Charles’ guard to go down to the linen press, get the body, bring it up to the cell, and switch the dead child for the living one. Then he would take Louis-Charles to the scullery and hide him in another of the laundress’s baskets—this one filled with dirty linen. The laundress and her daughter would come the next morning, pick up the basket, put it on their cart, and make their way home. None would question them. They were known and trusted. I would be waiting for them. I would wash him, change his clothes, and black his hair. We would wait until nightfall, then make our way out of the city. The barriers are locked after dark, but there are holes in the walls if you know where to look.

It was a daring plan, and dangerous, but I believed it would work. I’d got the gravedigger’s help for only two of my gold Louis. The laundress and her daughter wanted six. I knew that the most difficult one to convince would be Louis-Charles’ night guard. I went to him only when I had the others in place. I met him as he was walking home from the prison and offered him the remaining twelve Louis, plus Orléans’ rings. The rest of my loot—things I’d stolen from Orléans—I would need to live upon after I’d got myself and Louis-Charles out of the city.

He did not smile as I approached him, but let me speak my piece then laughed out loud as I offered him the coins and rings.

Do you think you are the first to hatch this plan? he asked me. Not a week goes by that someone does not try to involve me in some foolish plot, and for a good deal more than the pittance you are offering. I am watched closely. I assure you someone has followed us from the prison this very night and now beetles off to tell Fouquier-Tinville that we have spoken. I will be questioned about it tomorrow and I will say you are a friend, and in need of work, and came only to ask if I knew of any.

I knew that name, Fouquier-Tinville. After Robespierre’s, it was the most dreaded name in Paris. Fouquier-Tinville was head of the Revolutionary Tribunal, the body responsible for trying those accused of crimes against the republic. He sent scores to the guillotine every day.

Yet the fear did not stop me. Please, I said to the man, you must help him or he will die. I will get more money for you. I will—

He smiled, then clapped me warmly on the back—all for the benefit of whoever was watching us, I am certain. Still smiling, he leaned in close to me and with a voice low and menacing, said, Come to me again and I will drag you to the Tribunal myself. I have a wife and five children and I am no good to them dead. Believe me when I tell you that I will put your head in the basket before you ever put mine there. Then he kissed my cheeks, loudly told me he would see what he could do for me, and set off for his home, whistling.

I watched him go, then turned away myself. As I walked through the night streets I saw that I would never free Louis-Charles, that there was nothing I could do. I loved him, yes, but what could love do in a world as black as this one?

I walked to the barrier that very night, to an old and ill-attended section. I hoped to go through the hole in the wall there and be well on my way to Calais by dawn. I would use my ill-gotten treasure to get to London and to keep myself once I was there. I would use Orléans’ letter to get myself hired at the Garrick. At long last, I would be on a stage. The thought should have made me happy.

I knelt down at the base of the barrier wall and shoved the guitar the queen had given me, and my satchel, through a hole in the stones. I was just about to climb through myself, when I heard an explosion, monstrous loud.

Do not shoot! I cried, certain it was the guard.

I turned around, expecting to see men with rifles, but there was no one there. I heard another explosion, and another, and I realized the noise was not coming from a rifle, but from the sky. It was fireworks. Someone was setting them off over Paris. I could not imagine why. And then I remembered—they were for the Festival of the Supreme Being. The revolutionaries were through with kings, and that included God. After some deliberation, Robespierre had relented and decreed that God could remain in Paris but only if he behaved like a good patriot and called himself Republican. They were staging a pageant in the city tonight to honor their remade deity.

I looked up at the fireworks. They were so beautiful. I had not seen the like since I’d left Versailles. Watching them shimmer across the night sky, I heard Louis-Charles’ voice again, sweet and sad.

They look like Mama’s diamonds.

Like stars shattering.

Like all the souls in heaven.

Could he hear them at the Tower? I wondered. Did he look up at his window to see them? Did their light shine in his anguished eyes?

The world was black, yes, but still the fireworks glowed above it.

I pulled my satchel and guitar back through the wall and began the long walk back to my room. I knew then what I would do. And that I would never make it to London.

31 May 1795

A bracelet made of brilliants. The last of the queen’s gold coins. It is almost all I have left now.