by Sarah Rayne
‘How do we hide him, though? Where?’ Godefroy looked frantically around the cell, as if expecting to see a convenient place for the hiding of – or the complete disposal of – the body.
I started to say, ‘I don’t know,’ but even as I said it, I could see, through the cell window, the low brick buildings that constituted the privies. Privies, by their very nature, will always have a cesspit somewhere. My mind shuddered – my stomach did, as well – but I said, ‘I think there is a way we could do it. You’ll need my help, and I’ll give it. But in return you must promise to help me.’
He stared at me, then he said, ‘You want me to leave the door of your cell unlocked.’
‘Yes, I do, but more than that, I want you to take me to the cells holding the ladies who came in here with me.’
He said, ‘The nuns? The English sisters?’
‘Yes.’
‘That would be very dangerous indeed. They’re mostly imprisoned in one room, I’m told, except for one of them.’
‘Which one?’
‘She’s called Sister Cecilia. She’s being held in a separate cell on her own.’
‘Why?’
He moved nearer, glancing over his shoulder, almost in comedic fashion. In a low voice, he said, ‘She’s not just charged with refusing to take the oath of allegiance. She’s a member of a family who have caused incitement. They have an ancient piece of music that was used as part of a brutal old ritual – used by papists against non-papists. You understand my meaning?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘She’s accused of planning incitement against the Republic. Of travelling here to call together other nuns – monks and priests also. She’s a State prisoner, and she’s being held in a very secure part of The Conciergerie.’
‘Yes. I see. But you know where that is? And the cell of the other sisters?’
‘I could most likely find it,’ he said, and his eyes went nervously to the prone figure of the other turnkey. ‘They’re all under sentence of death – they all refused the oath.’ He frowned, as if weighing up the situation, then he said, ‘I’ll do it. If you help me to get rid of … to hide the murder, afterwards I’ll take you to the death cells.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘First of all, we’ll deal with the dead man. Help me lift him.’
‘But what about the clothes?’ said Godfrey. ‘He’s covered with blood and so am I. So are you. That will be noticed.’
‘I can put on his clothes,’ I said, indicating where the turnkey had left them in a corner of the cell before he donned the garments of the guillotined aristo. ‘And you can regain your own.’ These were in the other corner. ‘There’s no blood on those,’ I said. ‘And we’ll take the things you were wearing with us and throw them into the cess pit at the same time.’
‘But he’ll have to remain in those things he’s got on now,’ objected Godefroy. ‘And they’re wet with blood – we’ll get smothered in it.’ There was a note of panic in his voice.
I looked about me, then seized a blanket from my bed. ‘We’ll wrap this around him,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to be careful how we hold him, but as long as we only touch the actual blanket and not the bloodstained garments underneath it we should be all right.’
He grudgingly allowed this to be a solution, and we donned the discarded clothes. I had to force myself to put on the dead man’s garments, but once I had done so I thought I would pass for a turnkey well enough. We tucked the blanket around the man as tightly as we could, almost making a cloak of it, then we propped him up on his feet, holding him between us, his arms draped around our own shoulders. Then we half-dragged him across the yard below my window. Anyone watching us would have seen merely three gaolers, one of them considerably the worse for drink, wending an erratic way back to their quarters. To add to the picture, I began singing a bawdy song (it was one that the naughty Juliette had taught me, as a matter of fact). I thought this was rather an artistic touch, but I had only got as far as the first chorus when Godefroy told me very sharply to hush, because we did not want to attract attention.
The cesspit was behind the privy block. It had its own small building, and when Godefroy unlatched the door, the stench was appalling. At the centre of the building was what looked like a well with a massive slab of dark stone, or possibly even iron, covering it.
We propped the turnkey against one wall, and addressed ourselves to the task of pushing back the lid. It took considerable strength, and when finally it yielded, the stink that came up was like a blow to the face. I gasped and recoiled, one hand over my mouth, fighting not to be actually sick. Godefroy, unfortunately, was not so stoic, and there were several moments of what I can only describe as wet splatterings, followed by shuddering gasps.
At that point I almost abandoned the entire thing, but I could not think of a better plan and, even after such a long time, I still cannot. Between us, we lifted the turnkey onto the lip of the disgusting cesspit – what people say about dead weight proved true on that night. I muttered a prayer for the poor man, and then I muttered a second prayer that there would be no splash when the body hit what must lie down there.
We tumbled it over the edge, and stepped hastily back.
There was not a splash, but there was the sense of something having been churned up, and the stench was momentarily even worse. But thankfully, Godefroy was not sick a second time, and I managed to throw in the other bloodstained things, and then we dragged the cover back in place.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I have kept my part of the bargain. Now it is for you to keep your part.’ I confess I suffered several qualms, for it was entirely possible that he would simply force me back to my cell and deny everything. But I had judged him a man of honour, and I thought he would honour our arrangement.
And so he did, but it was a skewed honouring.
‘The death cell,’ he said, not looking at me, ‘is on the other side of the palace.’
‘I don’t care if it takes us the entire night to get to it.’
‘It probably wouldn’t make any difference if we could fly there within a few moments,’ he said. ‘Because you’re already too late to free them. At daybreak tomorrow they’re being guillotined.’
TWENTY-FOUR
Phin, reading this to the end of the page, was aware of an illogical stab of panic. Move quickly, he found himself saying to Chimaera. Run like the Furies to those cells, and get them to safety in time. All of them – romantic little Anne-Marie, and brisk, down-to-earth Agnes. Mother Superior who passed round brandy for seasickness. And Cecilia. Please rescue Cecilia.
He turned the page almost fearfully, not wanting to find that Chimaera, with his eye for dramatic effect, had ended his account there – or that Ernest Quilt had found an incomplete fragment of document, and that this was all there was. He did, though, spare a moment’s thought for the scene in which the two turnkeys had tried on victims’ clothes and pranced around the cell. It was the scene he had enjoyed in Gustav Tulliver’s opera, almost to the letter. Clearly Gustav had read this, and had taken that scene and dropped it into his opera. Phin thought he could not blame him. It was lively and as black humour went it was very good indeed. It was, in fact, one of the better scenes of The Martyrs.
He turned the page, and saw with relief that there was more to come.
Chimaera’s diary
Walking through the passages and stone rooms of The Conciergerie is an experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life. More – it will haunt me for the rest of my life.
I know now that there are many strange tales about The Conciergerie – some inspiring, some tragic, and some downright incredible. But on that night, all I knew and felt were layers of misery. All I saw were dank, dark dungeons in the bowels of that once-glittering royal palace – dungeons which housed hopeless, helpless prisoners and which stank to high heaven.
It felt as if we traversed miles of corridors and stairs and echoing halls for what was left of that night. Sometimes Godefroy’s own keys fitted
locks, at others he merely nodded to a turnkey and we were allowed through. I was not questioned, and I think that wearing the dead turnkey’s clothes allowed me to blend in well. I adopted a surly expression and a shambling walk, which I felt to be in character.
After a while I began to suspect that Godefroy did not know where the death cells were, and that he was simply trying one part of the palace after another. This was not so very surprising; the prison was vast and complex, and turnkeys each had their own individual sections to guard. But Cecilia and the others were to be executed at daybreak, and I began to feel as if a giant invisible clock was ticking away the minutes of their lives while we fumbled around in the shadows. Godefroy refused to ask any of the turnkeys for directions to the death cells for fear of discovery. I did not dare ask them for fear of being unmasked.
And then, just as we were walking along a passage that rippled with greenish light from the river below, we heard loud noises ahead of us. Godefroy stopped, then said, ‘I think we’ve found what we want. If we go to the end of this passageway and a little to the right, we will be at the death cells.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Listen,’ he said. And then I heard it. And, macabrely, it was a sound I had heard many times before – a sound that in the past had filled me with nervous delight and soaring energy, but that now brought only cold dread.
It was the sound of a crowd of people eagerly anticipating entertainment. But it was not the warm, affectionate, benign sounds of men and women awaiting a stage performance. These were shrill female screeches, shrieked jeers and raucous laughter. The tricoteuses – the street and market women who unfailingly gathered at the site of executions – were assembled, waiting to witness the latest guillotinings.
We went forward, and came out into a large inner courtyard. A faint light was starting to streak the sky, showing up the rows of rough wooden seats arranged in a semi-circle. People were already seated on them. They were mostly women, many of whom were sharing out items of food, and who were shouting to children (for there were actually children present!) to sit still and watch what happened to traitors and aristos and papists. There were men present as well – not as many, and in the main they were quieter, but somehow surly. They furtively passed bottles of what I assumed was wine to one another. Seeing all that, I felt a surge of such savage hatred I cannot write it down, even after so long.
At the centre of the courtyard was a monstrous shape. Two massive upright posts, surmounted by a crossbeam at the top. Steel within the crossbeam glinted as the sky lightened, indicating a cruelly sharp blade.
The guillotine.
As I started forward, Godefroy said, suddenly, ‘We’re too late.’
‘No, there’s still time to get to them—’
But even as I spoke, a bell chimed somewhere deep within the old palace, and massive double doors at the far side of the square were flung wide. Through them marched men in the scarlet and blue uniform of the National Guard of France. They stood along the walls, and then the prisoners were led out. They were all there, and they all walked defiantly. Cecilia was the last; she walked immediately behind the mother superior, and she was so pale her skin looked almost transparent. But her eyes glowed with fervour, and I saw she was determined to maintain a show of bravery to the very end. I wanted to sit down and weep. Then I wanted to sprint across the square and snatch her in my arms and take her – and the others – to peace and safety and comfort. To perfumed baths and silken robes and lavish food and wine …
There was a dreadful practised efficiency in the way the guards lined up the nuns. The sky was growing lighter almost by the minute, and the guillotine’s shadow fell sharply across them. The bell chimed a single, sonorous note, and the executioner made his entrance – as grandiose an entrance as ever I made myself. He wore the traditional black covering of his face, and he mounted the platform of the guillotine, and stood waiting.
They had placed little Anne-Marie first in the line. The youngest to go first – and perhaps there was a smidgeon of humanity in the action, in that it saved her the torment of watching the others die ahead of her.
I was frantic. I could think of nothing to do to help them, and the knowledge was like a spade in my bowels. Unless—
Unless I could create a diversion that might allow them to break free – to run from the courtyard, back into the palace, and try to hide from their killers. It was not as wild an idea as it might seem: the palace was an absolute maze, through which a person might wander for hours – perhaps even days – undiscovered.
But what diversion could I create? For a dreadful moment my mind was blank, and then it came to me. Of course! I ran forward, zigzagging across the courtyard, and leapt onto the edge of the scaffold itself. There was a stir of astonishment, and the guards made to seize me, but before they could do anything, at the top of my lungs I began to sing the ‘Ça Ira’, the emblematic anthem of the revolutionaries. I sang the aggressive lyrics the sans-culottes had written, and I hurled the words defiantly into the grim square.
Ah! It’ll be fine, It’ll be fine, It’ll be fine
Aristocrats to the lamp-post
Ah! It’ll be fine, It’ll be fine, It’ll be fine
The aristocrats, we’ll hang them!
There was a massive cheer, and the crowd leapt to their feet and joined in.
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira
Les aristocrates à la lanterne!
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira
Les aristocrates on les pendra!
Si on n’ les pend pas
On les rompra
Si on n’ les rompt pas
On les brûlera!
As the singing and the cheering reverberated around the square, I bounded across the guillotine’s platform, using it like a stage, and from the corner of my eye I saw Cecilia and Mother Superior grasp Anne-Marie’s arm and push her back through the still-open door, into the dimness of the palace. Could they get a second one out? Yes – Sister Agnes, dear, capable soul, had been pushed after Anne-Marie.
But the guards had slammed the immense doors shut now, and they had ranged themselves around the nuns, rifles at the ready. Across their heads, Cecilia looked at me very directly. She nodded, and even at that distance her eyes held such gratitude, it is with me to this day.
I was grabbed by two of the guards, and pulled from the guillotine, but it was almost comradely – one even sketched a half-salute to me. I was a man of the people, one of their own, a true revolutionary. I might be chastised, but I was as sure as I could be that I would not be executed.
But then they began to drag the nuns forward. As they did so, one of them – I could not see which one – began to sing. The others at once joined with her, their voices mingling. I recognized what they sang – how could I, an Italian, brought up as a Catholic, not recognize the ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ – ‘Come Creator Spirit’ – the heartbreakingly beautiful ninth-century Latin hymn that invokes the Holy Spirit.
For the second time, the guards were taken by surprise, and I realized that the nuns had seized on my action, and they were creating their own diversion. To give Anne-Marie and Agnes the chance to get away? Yes, for there was certainly no chance now of anyone else fleeing from the courtyard.
The nun who had been standing behind Anne-Marie was seized. It was Sister Gabrielle. She was pushed onto the guillotine’s platform, and her head was forced into the wooden section immediately below the monstrous blade. The executioner stepped forward, reaching for the chain that would operate the blade.
The watches fell silent, and through a welter of emotions I looked up and saw with deep thankfulness that the weights – the heavy appendages that would ensure the blade fell swiftly – were in place.
When the executioner released the blade it came down in a dizzying blur. There was the sickening sound of it striking home, and then the soft thud of the severed head dropping into the basket placed directly beneath. The crowd cheered like wild things, and I shuddered and
fought down a spasm of nausea.
But the incredible thing – the thing that still causes the hairs to rise on my arms and on the back of my neck, is that the remaining nuns continued the ‘Veni’.
I could not see the face of the next one to be pulled forward, but again there was the rapid, blurred descent of the blade, and again came the sickening sound of the head falling. And again the chant continued. But now it was quieter. Now there were fewer voices to sing.
One by one the nuns were pulled forward, and one by one they submitted to the blade. And each time, the voices singing the ‘Veni’ diminished.
I kept looking towards the doors through which Anne-Marie and Sister Agnes had fled, expecting with every moment to see them dragged out, but the doors stayed shut, and there was no sign of them.
And now there were only two voices ringing out – Mother Superior and Cecilia. I saw the two women embrace – I saw Mother Superior trace the sign of the cross on Cecilia’s brow.
Mother Superior ascended the scaffold slowly, waving aside the guards. She was calm and serene and, as she lay down beneath the blade, a lump formed in my throat. And again the blade came down.
Now there was only Cecilia’s lone voice ringing out across the courtyard. But as she was pulled forward, a small set of steps was carried out and placed on one side of the platform. The executioner climbed onto the steps, and reached up to the guillotine’s mechanism. A murmur of what might have been puzzlement went through the crowd. I stared at the hooded man, trying to understand what he was doing. Was something wrong with the mechanism? Was this another opportunity that might be seized and turned to advantage? And then I saw, with sick horror, that he was adjusting a particular part of the mechanism. He had removed two of the weights. What had Godefroy said happened in that instance? The blade would fall little by little – a series of jerks – at a snail’s pace. A slow beheading …