Treason's Spring

by Robert Wilton

  Emma Lavalier chose her guests like her decor. There was little money in this room, but there was much style; and for an evening with her these personalities would summon the finery, and the energy, that wouldn’t otherwise be used in a week and they would come together and live a little. She wanted brilliance and desperation; she wanted perfect taste and utter abandon. She wanted great lovers, and great betrayers – and one tended naturally to be the other.

  She watched them move, and mingle: temptations, and treacheries, and all hers.

  This was her playful haven, a gleaming joy safe from the madness of the world outside, its brilliance hidden in the darkness, a highwayman’s eye glittering in a mask.

  And in this haven such games! Games of hearts and games of souls. Games, both, of loyalties.

  In earlier life – in another life – she had travelled once to the south of France, near Spain, and seen the fighting of the bulls in the arena. Supposedly a forbidden spectacle for a genteel woman; an illicit pleasure, an erotic thrill in the thundering beast and the roars of the men. A controlled spectacle; a game with limits. She was in her arena now, pirouetting and dancing, in and away.

  Raph, of course. She loved to watch him across a room. He was more resistible at a distance; somehow vulnerable when she could look at him without him breathing close by. But what a magnificent beast, far or near . . . The meat of the man, in his tight-cut elegance, and the movement. Graceful movement; and thrilling because she knew he could do it with a sword, or a horse, or a woman.

  With a Severine Vial, for example? A lovely creature, rather too girlish of form for Lavalier’s preference – though Raph would think her an easier, fresher challenge. She watched them bobbing and swaying together, corners of eyes and murmuring lips. But Emma could see Vial’s eyes, which Raph could not – does he ever see a woman straight in the eye? – and knew that she would not be a conquest unless she set out to be most deliberately. Emma watched her a moment longer: the pale slender face, the neck, the suggestion of her breasts, the way she swayed from her waist in the conversation. A shrewd invitation after all: a woman needed her men to have distractions, and sometimes a woman needed a distraction herself.

  Ned Pinsent had given up on the other side of La Vial, and was standing stiffly looking at a nearby group.

  Poor wrecked Ned. Near him, glancing at him – it is not only I who sees your solitude, dear Ned – the Dutchman . . . Marinus. Good to have a serious man – easier to flirt, and much more satisfying, in a discussion about revolution than a gossip about lace. Though it seemed highly unlikely that the Dutchman himself was of the conventional erotic taste.

  A glimpsed dream of girls and of unnatural men and then the world seemed to close in on her again: someone had clapped and called for music and someone else had called for a game and the bodies were hurrying into the adjoining room and the servant was walking silently towards her.

  Benjamin was following the charming Madame Vial through the doorway when he saw the servant leaning towards his mistress, saw her frown. Benjamin murmured an unheard excuse and stepped back and towards Emma. Pinsent saw this and followed.

  ‘Does either of you,’ Lavalier said quietly, ‘know a British called Kinnaird?’ The vowels were uncomfortable.

  Shakes of the head. But then a sort of growl from Pinsent, which meant he was thinking, and the others waited. ‘I think . . . yes, I think that was the name – fellow called on me the other day.’ His eyes came up. ‘You were there, Raph. Fellow you booted out.’

  Benjamin nodded slowly, and turned to his hostess. ‘Why d’you ask?’

  Emma looked towards the hall. ‘Because he’s calling on me now.’

  She commanded a chair, and sat, and faced the door. Benjamin stood at her shoulder; Pinsent was somewhere to the side. This was the view that faced the stranger when he entered.

  He stopped, and considered it. Then he stepped forwards, and bowed slightly from the waist.

  ‘I ask pardon for the interruption, Madame,’ he began in plodding French. ‘If I knew you are with guests – ’

  ‘It is endless,’ she said in English. ‘I cannot seem to keep them away.’

  The stranger said stiffly: ‘That is surely understandable, Madame.’ Three pairs of eyes considered this, albeit from different perspectives.

  Sir Raphael Benjamin said quietly: ‘And you, dear sir, seem equally hard to keep away.’

  Lavalier half-turned to the interruption, then back to the stranger. His eyes were still on her. A plain man in every respect, surely; somehow contained. His eyes very dark and still.

  ‘I am in the district visiting a friend,’ he said to her. ‘Mr Henry Greene, who I was told was an habitué of your circle, Madame. An acquaintance’ – his eyes flicked to Pinsent, who looked uncomfortable – ‘suggested that I might pay my respects.’

  The eyes moved to Benjamin, then back down to her. ‘That is if you permit, Madame.’ The defiance, the dare, was for Benjamin as well as her, and they both felt it. Emma smiled faintly; no easy triumphs for Raph tonight, neither the lovely Severine nor this implacable visitor.

  She lifted her hand slowly towards the stranger. ‘I am become the oasis for the lost souls of Britain,’ she said. ‘I bid you welcome.’

  He didn’t seem to have seen a Frenchwoman’s hand before. He considered it, then her face, then advanced towards it, took the fingers uneasily, and bowed over them. Still in the bow he stared into her face – it unsettled her a moment – what does he look for? what does he see? – and then he’d dropped the fingers and stood quickly. ‘Keith Kinnaird: your humble servant, Madame.’

  ‘I am glad of it, Mr Kinnaird. You will find music and more lost souls through that door.’ She nodded to it, and he looked between it and her, and bowed stiffly again, and walked carefully towards whatever fate lay within.

  Emma Lavalier watched him go, and then her eyes moved up to Raph Benjamin and she suppressed a chuckle. ‘Your friends, Raph. Such curiosities. Is this the real Revolution?’

  ‘What an object!’ Benjamin said. More seriously: ‘Ned, did you actually suggest he come here, as he implied?’

  Pinsent hesitated, and Benjamin sighed at him. ‘Don’t recall so,’ Pinsent said quickly. ‘Anyway, a fellow doesn’t invite strangers to ladies’ houses; and certainly not strangers like that.’

  ‘Yet here he is,’ Emma said to the closed door.

  ‘Next question, Ned: did – ’

  ‘Easy with your damned interrogation, Benjamin.’

  ‘Did he ever explain how he came to fix on you as a route to old Henry?’

  ‘He said . . . No. No, he didn’t say.’

  ‘I’ll bet. And did you mention Emma to him?’

  ‘A lady’s name to a stranger?’

  Emma was still talking to the space the stranger had left. ‘Perhaps he really is just looking for his friend.’

  ‘Dear Emma . . . ’ Benjamin was earnest rather than sneering.

  ‘I don’t like his being here.’ Pinsent, affronted.

  Emma Lavalier looked up at him. ‘Then you shouldn’t have enabled it, Ned.’ Again she looked to the closed door. ‘Because he’s here now.’

  (RECEIVED IN THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK’S CAMP, NEAR VERDUN, 15. SEPTEMBER 1792)

  From No. 1

  Your Serene Highness, Paris is chaos. The mob passionate for France and against Prussia, but uncontrollable. Assaults on men of status and privilege have devastated the quality, commitment and morale at the higher levels of the army. Sources report indiscipline and problems of supply: grain and horses scarce. General Dumouriez with his forces is hurrying to attempt to block you, and must struggle to co-operate with Kellermann, isolated with his forces to your east. The new ‘National Convention’ has yet to meet, and its elected members have neither coherence nor a clear centre. The leaders of the Revolution have their weaknesses (to wit money and legitimacy), their worries (to wit money and legitimacy and you) and their divisions – these even within the so-called Club of the Jacob
ins, between passionate theorists such as Brissot and Roland, and the calculating mob-stirrers such as Marat, Danton and Robespierre; the attitudes of men like General Dumouriez, necessary to France’s survival but surely not revolutionaries in character, must be reckoned different again. But though brittle as a body, they are resolute, ruthless, and in some cases brilliant, and have nothing to lose. They are sustained by the momentum of their madness. Culpable for great treasons, complicit, and trapped in the machinery of their schemes, they can only go forwards – looking sometime sidelong to perceive potential treachery and make sure to inflict it first. Your Serene Highness’s instincts on this were of course right. There are some who do seek to reinsure themselves against a fall, and who begin to calculate that private accommodation with Prussia may be a surer path than trusting to the faith of their confederates. At the same time it is rumoured that Dumouriez, with Talleyrand still in London, seeks accommodation with Britain. Your package was passed precisely according to your instructions, and you are promised a satisfactory return. Your Grace’s servant closes with gratitude for the honour of serving you.

  [DECYPHERED TEXT IN BUNDESARKIV BERLIN-LICHTERFELDE, RESERVE COLLECTION (AUTHOR TRANSLATION)]

  The encyphered message slipped into its hiding place, Karl Arnim had gazed at his original draft for a full minute before placing it deliberately in the centre of the fire. He was uncomfortable as the messenger of messages he did not read: the package from the Duke of Brunswick that he had forwarded unopened to his contact, and whatever that remarkable man would want forwarded to the Duke in return. And so for a moment he had considered keeping the unencyphered draft, as sign of his neutral obedience and ignorance should it become necessary. But when the game, if there was a game, went wrong – and if there were a game, it would sooner or later go wrong – this would serve him little.

  So into the fire it went, and he watched to see it burn: a possible change of wind in Berlin was merely one among many prudent speculations about the distant future; the revolutionaries could break his door down within the hour and his draft message would get him torn apart.

  It writhed and shrivelled black among the flames, and crumbled into ash and dropped through the grate; and he bent and checked that it really was all ash.

  He wondered, as every time, if the men he dealt with here in Paris were as careful. As every time, he feared not. So full of games and treacheries, these political men. So proud of their clevernesses.

  And their fallen King would be the worst of them, for stupid pride.

  So where, now – in this vast Paris, in this chaos – where were his papers?

  Fouché was back in Paris. He’d not been able to keep away, even in the middle of his election campaign. One was supposed to carry the Revolution to the provinces – even, the good God help us, to Nantes – but getting down from the coach in the capital, taking one’s first steps in the street after just a short absence, was to feel like Lazarus brought back to life. The future was being made in the streets of Paris – and in certain private rooms in the city – and anywhere outside its walls was obscurity and oblivion.

  The two men considered each other with a kind – with different kinds – of hunger.

  Joseph Fouché’s was a nervous appetite, as he considered Guilbert; an appetite for the sinful, for forbidden fruit, a prurient enjoyment of something bloody. He checked himself, remembered that it was late, acknowledged that no one would have seen Guilbert slipping through back alleys to this office, glanced instinctively beyond the man to the door. A smile; an open palm. ‘Sit.’

  Saint-Jean Guilbert’s was a workman’s appetite, as he considered Fouché; an appetite for the sustenance needed to get through the next half-day. And in this office the nourishment was rich indeed. Prompted by Fouché’s concern, he checked over his own shoulder, and closed the door before he sat.

  Another thin smile from Fouché. ‘The door open again, if you please. I do not wish to seem to have secrets. And I wish to hear the approach of any man who comes to check the point.’

  Guilbert’s eyes hardened. He stood, opened the door a crack, and sat again.

  Fouché had quill and ink and paper poised. ‘Begin.’

  Guilbert licked his lips. ‘Pierre Maupuy.’ A glance of interest from Fouché, then the scratching of the pen. ‘Found dead in a cat-house; the House Under The Clock.’

  The quill continued to flap over the page, a scrawny bird. Fouché’s eyes were up while his hand continued to write. ‘Confirm the facts to me: first, this is Maupuy who was courier for the late La Porte?’

  ‘He. I knew him by sight and I saw the body.’

  ‘In this brothel?’ Fouché winced inside at the word, the thought of public admission of lack of self-control.

  ‘In the rubbish on the riverbank nearby. Stabbed in the throat. I asked around, spent some coin, traced it back to the Clock fast enough. Old Jeanette denied everything at first, but I shoved her around a bit and she opened up.’ Fouché’s eyes flickered wider a moment, his tongue cleaned his teeth. ‘Found dead in one of her rooms. Says she doesn’t know who or how, and I think she’s telling the truth.’

  ‘No trail?’

  Guilbert shook his head. ‘I’ll have another go, but I doubt it anyway. The district’s a sewer, and no one notices one more shit.’

  A superior smile from Fouché. ‘Someone seems desirous of eradicating La Porte’s network – the King’s network.’

  Guilbert nodded.

  ‘And one wonders why.’ Guilbert nodded. Fouché would wonder why.

  Fouché realized he was expected to give direction. ‘I . . . I assume it would be hard to identify a murderer in such a situation.’ Guilbert didn’t disagree. ‘Have we means to look for the people Maupuy contacted?’ Nod.

  Guilbert continued to recite: sins and violences, and Fouché took it all in with restless lips and always the pen scratching over the page.

  The stranger was crossing the yard towards the steps, and from the shadows Lucie watched him.

  ‘You learn anything?’

  He stopped; he turned towards the shadow, and peered at her. Lucie didn’t move, and he walked nearer.

  ‘Your British. You learn anything?’

  ‘Nothing to the purpose. Pardon me, Mademoiselle: an indelicate question.’ She felt herself stiffen. The stranger’s face was darkness against the sky. ‘Does Henry have a . . . a woman – friend?’

  ‘No one special.’ She dared herself to look at him. ‘There is a house in St-Denis. You understand . . .’ The stranger nodded. ‘And also . . . The foreigners. Madame Emma Lavalier and her circle. Perhaps there he has a woman.’

  He was silent a moment, remembering the woman Lavalier and her salon, the sense of possibility, and transgression – and hostility. Then he was uncomfortable: she could see it in his mouth and his sudden shifting. ‘Surprising – that . . . that a man should look elsewhere for . . . for beauty, when he could . . . ’ – again the shifting – ‘see it much nearer.’

  She felt herself blushing faintly. ‘No. No he is never. He is . . . he is correct.’ He frowned, still uncomfortable. ‘And Monsieur Greene is a gentleman and I am not good enough for him.’ Still uncomfortable. It was almost funny; foolish, certainly. Lucie said, ‘You and him . . . You’re not like him.’

  The stranger smiled – it looked weak, she thought. ‘No. No we are not alike.’

  ‘But you were friends.’

  ‘Partners, time by time.’ He smiled faintly at her thought. ‘Sometimes perhaps opposite characters may be complementary.’

  ‘You make friends with the other British?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘I’m afraid I found them rather foolish. Charming company, I’m sure, but foolish.’

  She considered this. Then she shrugged, and looked away into the yard.

  He stepped closer. She felt him near. ‘My French is limited, Mademoiselle. But I’m learning to read your face nicely. Your silences are worth a whole speech.’

  She looked up i
nto his face. Read this, she was thinking. ‘I think they are dangerous, Monsieur.’

  ‘Those dandies? Dangerous – dangerous to Henry?’

  She watched the stable-boy carrying a saddle into the yard. ‘France is . . . There is no peace. There is no safety. In Paris they kill each other in the streets. Soon the Prussian soldiers will be here and they will kill many people.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s not that life is so wonderful anyway.’

  He watched this silently.

  ‘And in this dangerous time, your friend Henry Greene talks to many people. To French people. To English. To others. To anyone.’

  He said, carefully, ‘You mean that he is . . . spying, Mademoiselle.’

  Lucie looked at him, felt her eyebrows lift as she considered him, suppressed her scorn. ‘Come, Monsieur. You’re simple maybe, but you’re not so stupid.’ She shrugged. ‘Good money, I guess.’

  He nodded, slowly. ‘Tension. Rivalry. Competition.’ He looked at her. ‘Many good opportunities to do business.’

  She considered him again. Perhaps he was stupid. ‘Many good opportunities to die, Monsieur.’

  Throughout the meeting of the Committee of Supply, Fouché watched Danton. There are times when the whole Revolution seems to depend on Danton’s drive, on his word. If one is concerned for the Revolution, one must watch Danton.

  At that moment, Danton was silent. While other voices chirped and fluttered around him, the room seemed to be drawn in towards the glowering face. The eyebrows were pressed down in a frown, all the troubles of the Revolution weighing on that mighty forehead.

  ‘Can France really be tha-’

  ‘An appeal to citi-’

  ‘A tax on – ’

  ‘The rich – ’

  ‘A sou – ’

  ‘A sou?’ From Danton’s overcast face, thunder. ‘A sou!’ And like creatures shrinking before the storm, the others withdrew into their collars. ‘The Revolution was not built on your sous, sir; it was not bought like crusts! It’s not bankers and clerks who will save us, but the simplest citizens of the street.’ Now Fouché was frowning faintly. What game is this? What happened to Danton’s money worries? ‘We have no need of money. Were the Revolution poorer than the poorest beggar, it would endure, because it is believed – in the heart of that beggar and ten millions like him.’