by Baird Wells
“Le Emperuer enjoys his shows of force,” bit Ty.
His words reminded her of the night Philipe had been taken, and she wondered if he was thinking the same thing. She had fought the memories of her past for so long, putting them in a little box in the attic of her mind and pushing it to the corner. Letting in even a little had been dangerous. They shattered the dam, flooding her.
Drowning her.
* * *
Shaking.
Movement pierced the first sleep she'd had in days. Groaning, she rolled farther over.
It came again.
“Olivie, wake up,” her mother whispered, a desperate quaver to her voice. “Madame has brought your coat. Put it on.”
Her eyes burned, refusing to open fully in the light of even a single candle. Mother's thick brown hair was wild, unbrushed, her beautiful face red and swollen from crying. “Sit up. You must put on your coat,” she pleaded.
Olivia didn't want to put on a coat. Her warm quilt and exhausted limbs begged her to stay put.
“Please, Olivie! I cannot...” Mother sobbed, dropping her arm as if it weighed a ton. “Madame, please...”
“Move your hands, Charlotte. Let me do it.” It was Madame Toulon's voice, her firm grip and stern tone, which finally brought Olivia awake. “You cannot be useless at a time like this, girl.”
Shouting sounded from somewhere farther off in the house.
Until now, it hadn't entirely occurred to her that anything was wrong. Mother cried all the time since she'd lost the baby. Since she'd fallen ill. But people in the house didn't yell, and Madame had never stuffed her into her pelisse like a rag doll.
“What's wrong? What has happened?” Raking hair from her face, she looked from her mother to Madame's stiff expression, the woman's mouth set in an uncharacteristically grim line.
Madame Toulon shook her head, not a hair standing out of place from a wiry brown bun. Did she ever sleep, or was she perpetually waiting to be called on?
“We shan't worry about that. For now, we shall be expedient, obedient and –”
“And quiet,” Olivia grumbled, finishing Toulon's favorite phrase. Something crashed on the landing, followed by a scream. She was off the bed, standing, trembling before she knew it. “What is that?” she whispered.
Lip trembling, Mother only stared at the door while Madame Toulon grasped her hand.
Pointing to the door, the source of everyone's attention, Olivia hissed again. “What is out there?” Even as the words were spoken, she realized that she didn't need an answer. Her parents had been paralyzed for two days waiting for some fallout since Papa's release.
Mother struggled up from the bed, her frail body nearly tangled in a brown satin coat that had once fit her perfectly. Shaking arms circled her, and Olivia rested her head against her mother's bosom, hardly breathing. Her heart ached, her chest ached. Why would they not answer her, tell her it would be all right?
Fingers tangled in her hair. “I love you, Olivie. So much. I –”
Splintering wood half deafened her, and she swallowed a scream. Their chamber door swung open, rattling off of the wall. A soldier filled the opening, dressed in black and red from head to toe. His leather hat and boots and wide bandolier cast a dull reflection like snake skin. He was terror incarnate.
She would be sick. Olivia felt it. Her stomach constricted once, then again, harder. Desperate, she sucked breaths in through her nose until her head swam.
The specter multiplied. Two appeared behind him, and another behind them. There were more footsteps out of sight, boots hammering a staircase or a hallway.
“Out,” he barked in clipped French. “Move. Get out.”
She looked to Madame Toulon, who nodded and slipped an arm around mother's waist.
“Let go of her!” another soldier demanded, this one with more plumes in his helmet. An officer, she guessed. “She can manage on her own.”
“She cannot!” Madame shot back. “She’s in a delicate state and –”
His advance was swift, cutting off the rest of her plea. He crossed the room and buried a rifle butt in her belly before she could move, before mother even had a chance to cry out.
To her credit, Madame stumbled and groaned, but kept her footing. The officer grasped her bun, pulling. Olivia dodged clear when he tried to jab her with the muzzle. “Out,” he demanded again, even though she was moving for the door.
“Mama?” She craned her neck, trying to see past Madame's captor. “Mama!”
Another black-clad demon rushed past on some unspoken command and tried to stand Mama up. When her legs wouldn't steady, he clutched a fistful of her coat and pulled, dragging her along the ground like garbage.
Their descent was dark and silent except for vulgar swearing from the soldiers and her mother's cries as they dragged her over each stair. Cold air rushed over her face, its dampness piercing the wool of her pelisse and mingling with her sweat.
Papa. He would know what to do. No one would hurt them in his presence.
When she reached the last step before the main hall, a fist jabbed at her back, forcing her toward the formal parlor. That filled her with a strange sort of hope. It was her parents’ favorite room, filled with happy memories. Mother had decorated it with velvet drapes in her father's favorite shade of blue, and he had hung a beautiful portrait of her over the mantle.
She could hardly see any of it now. A lamp burned on a stand in the corner, its wick sputtering from a lack of oil. Her mother's maid, a cook's boy, and the valet huddled close as though its glow would protect them. A shadow farther back hovering near a silhouette couch took a hesitant step forward, revealing her father.
“Papa!” she gasped, covering the room in two long-legged strides. When she grabbed his waist, he cried out, flinching. “What's the matter? What's happening?”
Thin light caught his face. Blood clung sticky and half dried to a crescent shaped wound beneath his eye. His lip was split, his cheek swollen, and fresh bruises mingled with his older ones.
Something behind her ribs gave, and Olivia swore her heart tore. No one could help them. Mama was too sick. Madame Toulon could not intimidate the men. And her last hope, her father, had been beaten along with the rest of them.
His handsome face drooped. He bent and pressed a kiss to her forehead, wrapping her hand in his larger one. “Do you remember,” he managed, trembling, breaking apart his words, “When I took you to Bordeaux to get your pony?”
She could only nod, tears filling her eyes, her throat closed like a vice. They'd had to give the pony up when the estate had been confiscated, but she remembered the trip like it was yesterday.
“You delighted me the whole way. You didn't sleep a wink, and I don't believe you stopped chatting long enough to take a breath.”
“We had a picnic on the green,” she whispered, feeling the grass on her stockinged legs, the warm sun of that day burning through closed eyes.
“You wanted to feed him everything.” He let out the ghost of a laugh. “I was certain you would make him too sick to travel.” A heavy edge to his words crushed her, making it hard to breathe. Why was he recalling this now? Olivia shook her head, trying to shut up the voice in her mind whispering that she knew why.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I love you, Olivie. So much.”
Madame Toulon, acting as a crutch, was struggling to settle mother onto the sofa. Charlotte wasn't crying anymore. She wasn't really doing anything, her eyes closed, her breathing slow enough that Olivia almost believed she was sleeping.
She was dying. Father was going to be killed. And madame. Something inside her softened, weakened, and began to pool. Olivia felt her will run like melted wax. They couldn't protect her. No one could protect her. They couldn't even protect themselves.
There was a rumble from outside, then the clatter of hooves along the drive out front. It laced the room with new tension, cutting even whispered conversation to nothing.
“Bring them out.” The vo
ice from outside was square-edged and efficient, issuing an instruction without concern for its result. It terrified her more than if he had been enraged.
A sentry at the parlor door snapped a salute, then turned and stomped in, followed by his partner. Everyone received a blow, a crack from the rifle. Even her mother took several blows to the ribs before father lunged to intervene. He earned a swing to the face that spattered blood across his shirt.
Mother moaned, then was silent.
I’m dying. Olivia's knees shook. Her fingers tingled. They weren't getting enough blood because her heart was stopping. She could feel it, seizing up. Why hadn't she said 'I love you'? Why hadn't she answered her mother?
It was too late, now.
It was too far into spring for the nights to feel so much like winter. Rain mocked her as they passed out into the door yard, insult on top of injury that stung her cheeks and dampened her clothes. Three wagons lined the drive. She had seen them before, in the city. She had peered curiously at the dirty, leering men who gripped the iron bars from inside them as they yelled and swore. Prison wagons.
“Line them up!” The officer shouted again, on horseback now and more frightening, if that were possible.
Soldiers prodded them into a row, manipulating by force as though her family were no more than chess pieces. Mother stumbled up at her right, not looking any more well than she had inside, braced by the frigid air. She closed her eyes, head rolling back like she was near fainting.
Olivia swallowed, determined not to miss her chance. “I love you, Mama,” she whispered. In her heart, it felt like saying goodbye.
Fingers squeezed her left hand. Papa.
“Captain,” called the mounted officer, “take names!”
Once that was over, she expected they would be herded into wagons. The torture was only beginning. She understood this, on some level, even if everything beyond the wagon was a mystery. There was no way of knowing if her imaginings were worse than the truth.
While rain soaked deeper into their clothes, the slit-eyed captain rolled his moustache, stopping at random intervals. He yelled for their first names, their surnames, and then the other way around. Sometimes he asked for the same one again and again, striking them with a fist if they stumbled.
By the time he moved left down the line for what she thought must be his twentieth parade, Olivia counted two throbbing cheeks and a swollen lip. At the first blow, she had stood in mute shock, too surprised even to cry. No one had ever struck her; it would be unthinkable. The second blow was not so terrible, almost as though it had been visited upon someone else. She wondered if that should frighten her.
Fingers tugging at her shoulder cut off the thought. She glanced up at her father. He faced straight ahead, but his eyes were on her. His lips formed something she couldn't make out in the semi-darkness.
Giving her head the barest shake, she watched him carefully as his mouth worked again.
Run.
The idea shocked her, snapped her terrified mind into motion. She glanced from the commander, to the captain's back. The bluff above the road was not far, just beyond a wall of trees off of her right shoulder. On foot, with a head start, she could outpace them, and even though they would catch up, by then she could hide herself in places only a thirteen-year-old girl could reach. And then she could go for help. The villagers would not allow the soldiers to treat Mama and Papa so roughly.
“Olivie!” her father rasped. “Now! Run!”
She sucked in a breath, tensed her knees and drew back ready to spring. Before she could move, she became aware of her mother's fingers gripping her shoulder, leaning on her, and Olivia realized she bore all of her mother's weight in that moment. She was fading, and Olivia was her bulwark.
If she ran, her mother would be alone, and Olivia had no doubt that she would die that way.
Knees relaxed, and she exhaled. The captain spun around.
“Olivie,” her father whispered, anguish and disappointment creasing his face. “No.”
She hung her head, glad for the warmth of tears on her frozen cheeks.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Olivia wished she could summon up those tears now. Anything to relieve the throbbing in her chest. Instead, the memory was a horrible wound, and she was too frightened to lift the bandage and look. Frightened of herself, of the girl who shrugged at being hit, and of the woman who shrugged at nearly decapitating her foe. Ashamed that she hadn’t had the guts to run when her father had begged any more than she had when it was Ty. Perhaps the worst was yet to come, and she braced for what Ty would think of her when her tale was done.
They came into a series of wider caves, the floor worn smooth and the arrangements more elaborate. This part of the crypt was obviously more frequented, and she guessed they were nearing the exit. She pressed on, feeling the need to finish her story before they reached the world above.
“I was packed into one of those shabby wagons with my mother and Madame Toulon. We were not permitted…” She swallowed. “We never saw my father again, not before –” She stopped and tried to summon up his face with its broad forehead and long, regal nose crisscrossed by cuts, the tears running over the blue bruise painting his cheek bone. “That was the last time I saw him, until the day he and my mother were massacred.”
Ty’s sigh was ragged, a ghostly echo off the rough walls. “I have no idea how much you know about your father, during the time you were all imprisoned. He never stopped fighting for France, Olivia. He did a lot of good, even from a cell. He was a great man, a hero.”
There was a note of pride in Ty's voice that was strange and deeply touching. “My uncle, though he disapproved of my mother's affair, has never withheld anecdotes or information about my parents. If he were not needed so desperately now in England, I know he would come and help me try to find them.”
They were quiet together. She lost herself in the memories, but after a moment Ty cleared his throat, reminding her that she had left her story unfinished. “That night, the road into the city was pitted, muddy, and I swear the journey took three times as long as it ever had before. Mama winced and groaned; her body was still swollen and tender. Madame Toulon wriggled her bony body in between us, wrapped us both with her arms and pulled our heads to her shoulders. I slept a little then, not waking until Madame jostled me and a soldier jabbed my arm. When I climbed down and saw the high stone arch, the heavy iron gate… I panicked for the first time. I only remember begging, and it all came out as blubbering nonsense.”
“I know the building well. And how nearly impossible it is to get in, to say nothing of getting out.”
Ty had been in and out of La Force. Why did that not surprise her? If anyone could escape from that cursed place, it was him.
After a moment, she nodded at his words. “Something about walking inside made it feel final in a way it hadn’t before that. Once we were actually taken inside, my first thought was that my baby brother's death had been a blessing. He would have suffered in that place, and died anyhow. Until then, the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen were the Paris gutters. La Force was so much worse. I was horrified by the absolute filth, the stench of old urine, rotting food, the mud and dead rats.” She shuddered, unconsciously breathing faster to clear her nose of the memory.
“My mother was hardly pampered or spoiled, but she’d never had to live that way. La Force was used mostly for prostitutes and other women of ill repute, so I think Fouche put her there intentionally, for added torment. The vulgarity and coarseness unnerved her, not to mention the unending filth. Toulon was doubly offended, I think, being of an older generation.”
“A child, an invalid, and a spinster at the mercy of La Force.” He shuddered. “I can imagine few things more cruel.” Ty’s words were quiet, measured, completely lacking the cheerful irreverence she so associated with him. In that moment, she loved him for it.
“Nearly as cruel as the way the women treated one another. There was no sisterhood, no mutual support. In the
common area at midday, we had our hair pulled, our faces slapped. Some of the larger, meaner women pinched at my breasts or tried to get a hand up my skirts. Their misery, it was made very clear, would be shared by all of us. Eventually, my mother refused to leave our cell. She was sick enough that the guards stopped trying to force her. And Madame Toulon stayed with her, claiming advanced years and protesting that my mother needed a caretaker. But me...”
Ty's smile was no more than a grim line. “I know you well enough to know that you did not make it easy on them.”
She squeezed his hand absently. “I was a wiry thing at fourteen. A little fit from riding and walking, but I had no more muscle than a pond reed. Observing some of the tougher women when we were herded through the corridors, I watched how they beat fists into the stone for toughness, or used the window lip high overhead to raise and lower themselves. Against Madame's protests, I followed their example. So when the guards came to take me out at midday, I fought. I fought them for sometimes half an hour, until the women were being filed back and there was no point in their taking me out. They made me suffer for my stubbornness, but it was worth it.”
He glanced her way, and Olivia caught his eye moving head to toe. “I wonder you survived. You weren't exactly incarcerated in the Temple, with all the courtesies of a state detention.”
“I suffered more than one snapped rib. An infected lip from being struck again and again. My jaw swelled up after one particularly vicious blow, and I couldn't eat for the rest of the week. But I learned to duck, to dodge, where to hit with a small fist in order to do the most harm. After a few months, some of the younger guards refused to tend my cell. And every bruise was a victory, every cut a medal.”
“By God, Olivia! It's a wonder you're not dead.” He gestured so forcefully that the torch sputtered, and for a moment she was afraid they would be left in the dark. Ty caught himself, and shook his head. “The wardens have no patience for anarchy.”