The Bastille Spy

by C. S. Quinn

  Jemmy returns to my side, sweat pouring from his face. The teardrop blemish by his eye is livid from exertion. He hands me my knife.

  ‘Ready for your foolish plan?’ he says.

  I look up to the precipitous walls of the Bastille. At the very top, swinging gently in the breeze, is the iron gibbet with its cautionary corpse.

  I nod to Danton. He sweeps a thick hand in the air.

  ‘Those that have ammunition and guns, open fire!’

  A cluster of men take up the cry. They point their muskets at the Bastille door and begin to discharge. We watch as gunshot peppers the centuries-old wood and nails embed themselves, crossing the void to lodge in the ancient entrance.

  I turn to Jemmy. ‘There’s our distraction. Time to break the unbreakable prison.’

  CHAPTER 86

  FROM THE MARSHY BASE OF THE MOAT, I LOOK UP AT THE high heavy walls. Five centuries of tyranny, broadened and deepened over time. It’s a fortress in the oldest sense.

  I take out my catapult, an iron barb and a thick skein of silk, twisted into a strong rope.

  It feels good to have it in my hand, despite my misgivings that Atherton has grown tired of my defying orders. I bring it to my lips and kiss it. I see Jemmy watching me. He rolls his eyes. I tie the projectile.

  Fitting it to my catapult, I take aim and fire. The barb goes whistling through an upper-storey window taking my silk with it. I pull back, hooking the iron prongs tight against the bars. The rope flutters down, like Rapunzel letting out her hair.

  I turn my head to check that Jemmy is in his position, crouched low at the outer wall, then I give him a nod.

  Jemmy readies his pistol and eyes the ramparts. ‘So far, your fool plan is holding water. Can’t see any guards defending this part.’

  I wrap the rope around my wrists, lean back and begin to climb. I winch myself up to the first set of bars, fixed with rusting bolts to the ancient stonework. Pausing for breath, I secure my feet then tie off the silk and let it fall.

  Below I see Jemmy seize hold and start his own ascent. I wait until he appears next to me and we both climb together.

  ‘You were right,’ he says. ‘It’s like a ladder. Easier than ship’s rigging.’

  At the top of the bars, we’re able to reach up and pull ourselves on to the next sill.

  The summer air feels muggy, like the beginnings of a thunderstorm. But as we get higher, the closeness lifts. Now I’m above ground, the climb is less arduous. The square-barred iron is simple enough to assail and, in between them, window ledges provide helpful platforms. I’m almost to the third storey when the grille comes away in my hand.

  I go swinging out, wide over the dry moat. Beneath me is the half-lowered drawbridge.

  ‘Hold on, Attica!’ shouts Jemmy. I feel the grating swing back into place and slowly, by welcome inches, I return to the relative safety of the wall.

  ‘Thanks,’ I gasp.

  ‘You’re sure you want to go on?’ says Jemmy. ‘The ironwork will be rustier the higher we go. If you fall, you’ll break a limb.’

  ‘I broke my arm in India,’ I say. ‘I was on my back for six weeks, strapped to a fracture box. I’ve never forgotten the lesson.’

  I can still remember the crunching as the bone-setter tried to straighten it. I was only semi-conscious when my father arrived at my bedside. He sent the surgeon away and set the arm himself.

  I start to climb.

  ‘You were lucky,’ says Jemmy, following. ‘Break a limb aboard ship, and if it starts changing colour they’ll saw it off. And there’s no laudanum to float you through it.’

  ‘I never take laudanum,’ I say, putting one careful hand above another. ‘I’ve seen bad things from excess.’

  ‘You and I have a different idea of bad things,’ gasps Jemmy through the exertion of pulling himself up.

  We climb stoically, gaining height, sweating with the effort. I hear Jemmy stop climbing.

  ‘Attica.’ There’s a warning in his voice I don’t like at all. I look down to see his attention is towards the Bastille. We’re high enough now to see something that couldn’t be seen from the moat.

  ‘So now we know why the Bastille is impenetrable,’ says Jemmy. ‘It has a false entrance.’

  Cold fear grips me. I take in the vision of warfare.

  The door to the Bastille opens to an interior courtyard. Anyone who breaches it will find themselves not inside the prison, but in a stone-walled space just outside the true fortress.

  The three tall walls are lined with cannons and musket barrels.

  ‘It’s worse than that,’ I say, calling to mind my study of forts. ‘If the second drawbridge is lowered and the crowd enters that courtyard they’ll be utterly defenceless. Those cannons will rip them to shreds in minutes.’

  I swallow, looking to where the people heft their raided muskets. They’ve no idea what lies on the other side of the door.

  I look down at Jemmy. ‘If those people cross the second drawbridge they walk into a killing jar.’

  CHAPTER 87

  DE LAUNAY HAS REMOVED HIS CURLED WIG. HE LOOKS even older without it. There are wig-sores on his shaved grey scalp.

  ‘I’ve called in the men from the upper towers,’ he says. ‘One of the traitors has got on to the central bridge by way of a plank. He has lowered the first drawbridge. Our security is compromised. We’ll need to make a start now.’

  He says it as if he’s hosting a dinner party and some guests are late. He addresses the nearest guard. ‘Lower the second drawbridge.’

  The guard opens and shuts his mouth a few times. ‘You mean to surrender?’ he says finally, relief in his voice evident. ‘Give the people the gunpowder?’

  ‘We would think no less of you,’ ventures another guard. ‘A lot of your people are dying.’

  A nasty expression forms on de Launay’s face.

  ‘Those are not my people,’ he says. ‘My people are in Versailles. Those filthy creatures out there are traitors against their King.’ There is the slightest shake in his hands as he adjusts the jewelled sword at his belt. ‘We will lower the second drawbridge,’ he says. ‘The mob will flood over the bridge like rats off a sinking ship. Into the courtyard ...’ He pauses to let the image sink in.

  No one answers, uncertain as to what response is expected. They are all picturing the courtyard: a broad enclosure, studded on every side by cannon holes, slots for muskets.

  ‘You will take up arms behind the courtyard walls,’ concludes de Launay. ‘We shall have them all slain within an hour.’

  One guard appears to be working up the confidence to ask something.

  ‘What is it, man?’ de Launay demands.

  ‘You want us,’ says a guard, ‘to lower the bridge so we might lure them into a dead end to be slaughtered?’

  ‘You have it exactly right,’ says de Launay grandly. He privately wonders at how long it took the guards to understand his clever strategy. But that is the way with commoners, he muses. God appointed Kings and nobles to decide things for them.

  CHAPTER 88

  JEMMY AND I ARE HANGING HALFWAY UP THE BASTILLE, reeling from the discovery of the courtyard trap.

  ‘We can still execute the plan,’ I say. ‘The courtyard stands between the drawbridge and the prison. If we open the door to the Bastille, people can flow through.’

  ‘It’s still a gauntlet,’ says Jemmy uncertainly. ‘Many more lives will be lost.’

  I look up at the tower, defeat gnawing at me. The top window is within reach. I see it, glinting on the windowsill.

  A tiny diamond. It takes only a few moments for me to work out what this means.

  Grace! Grace was here.

  I begin climbing sideways, heading for the jewel.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I hear Jemmy’s voice.

  ‘I think Grace was imprisoned in that cell.’ I’m almost on it. ‘Perhaps is still.’

  I heave myself on to the edge of the bars, level with the open window.


  If Grace is in that room, there might be some way to pull away the rusty iron, I decide, my heart racing.

  We can get back down to Danton and explain the Bastille is deadlier than we thought. The armed courtyard might risk too many innocent lives.

  Below us, Danton’s men are on the half-lowered drawbridge keeping a steady attack on the entrance.

  I concentrate on moving my feet carefully, passing one hand across one bar to the next.

  A rush of wind blows a terrible waft of the rotting corpse, which swings still in the gibbet on the ramparts.

  Gunfire starts up again from the front of the prison just as I reach the window. The little diamond winks at me.

  I grasp the bars.

  ‘Grace?’

  The cell is dark and fear spirals though me. Surely they give the prisoners candlelight?

  Unexpectedly, a figure emerges from the depths. A bloodshot eye appears inches behind the bars. In horror, I take in the battered musketeer’s hat, the silver hand.

  Oliver Janssen.

  His face is set with dark intention. In his hand is a silver pistol. It’s pointed directly at my chest.

  Far beneath us, there’s a sudden huge sound, loud like metal on metal, then a great thud of wood on stone resounds like a thunderclap.

  The second drawbridge.

  An icy chill running though my veins. Unless Danton can keep them back, those citizens will run straight into the enclosed courtyard to be slaughtered.

  ‘Mademoiselle Morgan,’ says Janssen, ‘you didn’t heed my warning.’

  And he pulls the trigger.

  CHAPTER 89

  GRACE IS BEING HERDED ALONG THE BROAD CORRIDORS and down steep steps. All natural light has fled now and only torches show the way. Grace assumes they cannot possibly go any deeper. The air down here is so wet she can feel it on her skin. The walls are slick with slime and run with water in places.

  She feels she has walked for miles. The guard leading her has kept a stoic silence at her increasingly desperate questioning.

  ‘Please,’ she manages, ‘why are we in the dungeon?’

  To her surprise, this elicits an answer. The gaoler, a broken-toothed man with dead eyes, gives her a lopsided smile.

  ‘You’re not there yet.’ He grins.

  They turn a corner and approach a vast circular chasm in the ground, a black shaft to oblivion, with a round brick-lined mouth like a Roman sewer.

  At first Grace assumes it’s a massive well, since there is a heavy chain dangling through its centre. The guard pulls a lever and with a deafening turning sound that rings around the stone walls, a contraption is hauled up. She finds herself standing on tiptoe to peer over the edge as a large swinging something is wrenched from the depths.

  Not a water bucket. Grace tries not to panic, swallowing hard.

  A cage: vast, metal, with a floor of bars, like a giant aviary.

  The guard opens the door and gestures they step inside.

  Fear is flowering in Grace’s belly. She shuts her eyes. It plays with her conscience, telling her to give up the diamonds.

  You could buy yourself protection, whispers a traitorous voice.

  But Grace knows enough about the revolution to understand the consequences. In the wrong hands the necklace would mean certain victory for the King. She remembers the thin people on the streets of Paris. Women clutching paper-skinned babies.

  She can’t do it.

  Grace steps inside, the cage swaying beneath her. The guard bangs on the bars. Someone beneath them releases the chain with a jerk. They descend fast through the gloom and with every foot, Grace feels sunlight and freedom slipping further and further away. And as the cage slams against the stone floor, sending her staggering, she knows in her heart there can be no escape from this underworld.

  She is buried in a maze, beneath a hundred feet of solid rock and earth.

  Her thoughts fly upwards, birdlike, to Godwin. Grace wonders whom he will marry when he eventually accepts she has vanished for ever. She feels as though she can see her former life branching away; causes she intended to champion, the children she hoped to raise. This dark prison has sucked it all away.

  She realizes with a kind of numbness that it was never quite her life in any case. Things had been decided for her, chosen, picked out. She had just done what she was told.

  Grace calls to mind the wild girl she had been growing up in Bristol. The one she has been trying to remodel into a well-behaved young intellectual. It was the dockside girl, Grace sees now, who stuck that man with a hairpin, who fought, who ran, who survived.

  They reach a low door with a grille. The guard raps a complicated knock. Grace tries to remember it, but she is too frightened to hold it in her head.

  An awful inhuman stink is rolling out from behind the door, the kind of fetid human filth that Grace knows from the docks.

  The door opens to reveal a gaoler on the other side, a squat man who looks to have been out of the sun for many years. He has greenish skin and a slice of greasy hair across his balding head.

  ‘The final prisoner for you,’ says the guard. The gaoler looks at Grace for a little too long.

  Behind him, Grace sees movement. She feels sick. Someone is chained to the wall. More than one person.

  ‘What’s happening upstairs, then?’ he asks.

  ‘De Launay wants ’em all down here.’ The guard shrugs. ‘Says someone will come. A musketeer. You’re to let him in. No one else.’

  No. Thinks Grace. No.

  ‘De Launay’s got plans to massacre all the people,’ adds the guard nonchalantly. ‘You’re to be sure the gunpowder is kept safe, under lock and key.’

  ‘Yes. Think he’ll capture any alive?’ he says hopefully. ‘I’ve been working on some new tools. De Launay can be sure I’ll have ’em bloodied and trembling so I might show them off to His Majesty.’

  Grace never meant to do what she does next. It comes from nowhere. Her hand moves of its own accord. She reaches out and slaps the gaoler hard across the face. It is only after she’s done it that the heavy feeling of regret settles on her.

  She later considers, had the guard not looked so amused, the gaoler might have forgiven it.

  He stares at Grace like a crow assessing carrion.

  ‘This one,’ he says, ‘I might keep in the oubliette.’

  Grace’s French is deserting her. She has never heard of an oubliette. Sifting her memory, it translates as something like ‘place of memories’.

  This sounds very much like a torture chamber.

  CHAPTER 90

  AS JANSSEN’S GUN HAMMER LOOSES, I MOVE MY HAND fast through the bars. As I expected, the musketeer is used to heavier rifles. It’s easy enough to slam his arm upwards as the blast of gunpowder ignites. The rebound from the weapon does the rest.

  He staggers back, shot discharging into the ancient Bastille ceiling, releasing a spray of mortar and dust on to his wide hat.

  I momentarily let go of the bars so I might drop a few feet.

  ‘Mind me head!’ Jemmy’s accent is notably more Irish than American when he’s annoyed. I look down to see he has narrowly dodged my falling feet.

  ‘Janssen,’ I say breathlessly, indicating with my eyes in the direction of the prison window. ‘With a pistol. Fortunately, he does that thing musketeers do when they’ve battled with older guns.’

  ‘This thing?’ Jemmy tightens his eyes in a wincing expression.

  ‘Exactly that.’ I glance up. ‘We need to go down,’ I say. ‘We’re easy targets out here. He’s likely looking for us.’

  We start climbing down the bars.

  ‘I heard the second drawbridge,’ says Jemmy. ‘The protestors are nowhere near the mechanism. Someone inside must have lowered it.’

  ‘Danton might be able to keep them back—’ I begin.

  There’s a roar of cheers. Tramping feet and cries of victory.

  I glance down. People are spilling over the second drawbridge, straight into the confined court
yard.

  ‘There’s no way out of that courtyard,’ I murmur. ‘And it’s lined every side with guns and cannons. They’ll all be massacred.’

  ‘You think someone is deliberately setting a trap for the crowd?’ says Jemmy. ‘Luring them into the courtyard?’

  I look down at Jemmy.

  ‘De Launay isn’t inviting them to breakfast,’ I say. ‘We need to get down there. The courtyard is joined to the main prison by a large door. If we can open it, the people will have an escape route. And I can get inside to look for Grace.’

  ‘Open the door,’ mutters Jemmy, shaking his head. ‘You make it sound as though we simply turn the handle.’

  ‘If my plans are so very bad, you might venture one of your own.’

  ‘Maybe I do have a plan,’ says Jemmy with a frown.

  ‘Does it involve my taking my clothes off?’

  Jemmy hesitates. ‘No.’

  ‘Then tell me.’

  He’s stopped descending now and has come to a halt around two storeys from the ground.

  A line of thick wooden flag posts and flags have been driven into the wall here. Jemmy hops on to one, bouncing slightly on his heels, testing the strength. It’s strong enough to take his weight.

  The wind whips through my hair.

  ‘The flag posts?’ I say. ‘You’re certain they’ll hold?’

  ‘Those posts are hammered deep into the stone,’ says Jemmy. ‘They’re wide enough to stand on and they run right above the courtyard.’

  Jemmy points. Set into the inner courtyard wall at second-storey height are the flags, continuing in an unbroken line. The solid wooden flagpoles point out horizontally at intervals, royalist colours hanging down.

  Jemmy jumps from one post to the next.

  ‘Easier than climbing rigging,’ he concludes. ‘And even better,’ he adds, jumping again and landing gracefully, ‘they’re out of range of the cannons.’

  ‘If we can get to the courtyard door,’ I say, ‘there’s a chance I could pick the lock.’

  I follow Jemmy, springing across to the first flagpole. I teeter as I land, but it’s broad and the solid post doesn’t rebound even slightly under my weight. I leap to the next and the next, with Jemmy setting a fast pace in front.