by Kat Dunn
He hooked one hand around the edge of the hole. The force of the water was pushing him away, but he held on. Ada followed him and held onto the other side of the wall.
Al hesitated, then plunged into the water with a muttered, ‘Blaze of glory.’
‘Wait until the water has filled most of the room,’ said Ada as the water lapped her chin. ‘There should be less of a current to swim against then.’
They bobbed with the water as it rose, holding on to the wall, taking shallow, gulping breaths. Finally, when there was only a hand-span’s worth of air left in the room, Guil took a breath and ducked under the water. Al snapped a jaunty salute and followed him.
Ada was alone, struggling to tread water as the sodden skirts of her dress bunched around her legs. For a moment, she considered diving and searching for her pins. She could try the lock again – but she knew she wouldn’t be able to pull the door open against the weight of the water.
There was only one way out.
In the last moments of air, she ripped at her skirts, pulling them off so her legs were free to kick. She thought about Camille eating strawberries in the Jardin du Luxembourg, the juice staining her lips as red as the sunburn on her forehead. She thought about her father lining up all his fossils for her to play with. Her mother fanning herself on the porch of their house in Martinique, stretching her bare feet.
She’d survived the sickness that had taken her mother. Survived running away from her father. Survived the Revolution. She could survive this. They were the Battalion of the Dead. There was no fate, no destiny. Everything was a choice.
Gulping a lungful of air, Ada launched herself into the water and swam into the river.
Today she chose to live.
PART TWO
Who Shall Hang the Bell about the Cat’s Neck?
1
Headquarters of the Bataillon des Morts
15 Prairial Year II
The first fingers of dusk had swallowed the higgledy roofline of the city in a thick swathe of grey and pink, and still Camille had not come home from the Conciergerie job. Ada was curled in a window seat in the parlour, resting her forehead against the grimy glass to watch each figure passing through the street below. Outside, lamps were being lit and the ornate facade of the Palais du Luxembourg was sketched as several monolithic, featureless shadows speckled with light from the windows.
The Bataillon des Morts occupied a set of rooms above the café Au Petit Suisse on the corner where the Rue de Vaugirard and the Rue Corneille met. They had once been grand, with high ceilings, elaborate cornices and modern porcelain stoves, that they couldn’t afford to light, hunkering in the corner of each bedroom. Ada had done her best to make it homely, picking up paintings and bits of old furniture abandoned by fleeing aristocratic families. There was a Louis XIV dresser in their bedroom, a couple of moth-eaten chaise longues in the parlour and a set of shelves that served for both their supplies and her scant collection of books. The hand-painted wallpaper was peeling, and the parquet floor scuffed, but when the sunlight came streaming through the tall windows, it looked almost like a real home.
Ada had thought Camille must have chosen the café as their base in some moment of bitter humour. The Luxembourg had been taken over as a prison nearly a year ago, and Camille’s mother had been one of the first inmates. The mother who had taken Camille with her to political salons and clubs, to the viewing benches of the National Assembly and to revolutionary festivals. Then she’d been arrested on trumped-up charges of treason and lost her head to the guillotine. Only a few months later, Camille herself and her father were arrested too. Ada had always found Camille’s father intimidating, a tall, strident man who had no time for fools. But Camille had worshipped him. Where Camille’s mother had welcomed Ada into all aspects of her life, her father had no patience for anyone who couldn’t prove their worth in his eyes. After losing her mother, Camille had become even more fixated on gaining his approval.
But only Camille had made it out of the Luxembourg alive. Alone in a dangerous world, searching for anything to restore meaning to her life. The battalion was what she had found – or rather, what she had created to take control again. Nothing could bring back the parents she had idolised and lost. But that didn’t stop her trying to put things to rights in their name.
Al was with Ada in the gloomy parlour, stacking cards then letting them cascade across the table. He split them in half, balancing them precariously against each other. Then he meticulously drew out a card at a time from the inside of the arch, until they collapsed and scattered across the table again.
‘Will you stop that!’ she snapped.
He pushed the cards away, raising his hands in apology. He tipped a healthy measure of brandy into a glass and held up the bottle to offer her one. She shook her head. She wasn’t one to start on the liquor as early as Al. None of them were.
Ada pressed her hand to the windowpane, feeling the fine cracks spider-webbing under her palm.
‘You know, I thought Camille would leave after her father died. I thought we might leave Paris together. I don’t know where we would have gone, but I remember thinking: what’s left for us here?’
‘Half-decent career as a prison escapologist?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Chin up.’ Al put his feet on the table, hitching up his silk stockings. Their soaked clothes were hanging in front of the fire to dry, steaming up the room and filling it with the scent of sewer water and sweat. Al had changed immediately into a delicate mint green embroidered waistcoat, striped breeches and starched cravat. ‘The pay’s bad but you do get to almost die every week, so there’s that.’
‘You talk us down all the time, Al, but I remember who was at the front of the line ready to sign up when Camille got us our first job. You could have walked away.’
He preened. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I quite liked the idea of it. Dashing young gentleman with an arrest warrant against his name, defying the odds to save innocent people, undeterred by the terrible death that awaits if he’s ever caught. I think they should write a book about me after the Revolution is over.’
Ada looked back out of the window. The street was quiet. Only a barefoot girl selling wilted flowers and a man digging a dray cart out of the mud.
‘I’ll buy it. If there is an after. If we’re still alive.’
Al picked up a stale heel of bread and lobbed it at her head.
‘Stop that. Your beloved is coming back. Cam’s like a cockroach, no matter how many times you crush her, she springs up again to bite you in the face.’
Ada ducked the bread, smiling despite herself.
‘You’re all too worried about failure,’ he continued. ‘A little failure never hurt anyone. No one’s perfect, not even your precious Camille.’
‘I know that. She knows that.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘The battalion has been a success, that’s for sure. How many people have we saved in the past eight months?’ Ada totted them up on her fingers. ‘Fifteen? Twenty? But she failed her parents, Al. Her parents. She wasn’t able to save them, and now she’s making up for it.’
He pretended to be violently sick into the fireplace. ‘Excuse me. That was just too clichéd, it upset my delicate constitution.’
‘Oh, sod off.’ She fished the heel of bread from where it had fallen on the floor and threw it back at him, making contact with his temple.
‘I mean it, though. Failure isn’t a bad thing. Look at the Nemours job—’
‘God, don’t bring up the Nemours job again—’
‘It was a complete disaster, but what happened? We managed to save a life even though we did accidentally set someone’s hair on fire.’
‘Camille’s hair.’
‘Camille’s wig. You’re ignoring my point: failure is important.’
She looked at him from under one arched eyebrow. ‘This sounds an awful lot like an excuse for always bringing us impossible jobs, like today’s. Can’t your contacts
ever find us anything easy?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t get to request the jobs that we want. If they were easy, no one would need us to do them.’
‘Yes, but maybe a few less involving rivers and sewers and cesspits? I’ll have no decent clothes left soon.’
‘This job wasn’t supposed to involve the river, that bit was your doing.’
She conceded that. ‘I think your family made a mistake disowning you. If they’d kept you around I’m sure you could have talked them out of all the charges and they wouldn’t have had to make a dash for Switzerland.’
His smile faded, and he hid his face taking a sip of brandy. ‘My family would happily die before acknowledging me. Inconvenient to have a son who likes boys. Not the “done thing”. Their endless affairs and scandals are fine, it’s just me who’s unacceptable.’
‘Oh, Al, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’ She crossed the room and gave his shoulder a squeeze.
‘Tough luck for them the law doesn’t care and my name’s on the arrest warrant next to theirs. Do you think they’ll request my head doesn’t get put on the family pike?’
‘Your head’s not going on any pike. We’re the Bataillon des Morts, we cheat death. We don’t lose to it.’
Her words lacked conviction. The memory of their escape was still too fresh. They had somehow managed to swim through the thundering currents of the Seine and haul themselves out, dripping and exhausted onto the far bank of the river – only to see Camille jump from the roof hand in hand with a figure they hoped was Olympe Marie de l’Aubespine. Ada had wanted to dive straight in after them, but Guil had stopped her. He was the strongest swimmer, and the one in a soldier’s uniform who could blend in with the manhunt for the escaping prisoner. So she and Al left, hightailing it back to safety. She knew it was what Camille would have wanted her to do.
But she couldn’t get the image of Camille’s head, a brown and pink speck in the vast river, out of her mind. Ada was a capable swimmer, her mother had taught her in the warm Martinique sea. Camille, not so much. Ada had once seen her fall into a fountain and panic. A hundred horrible ends lined themselves up like the results of a morbid experiment. Camille drowning in the middle of the city, so close and yet impossible to help. Camille injured, fighting to stay afloat, nearly reaching safety but succumbing at the last moment. Camille swept right out of Paris, through farmland and to the Channel.
But before Al could say anything else, the creak of the stairs had Ada snapping to attention. The door clattered open and she was flying to meet Camille, Guil and a bedraggled, hooded stranger as they tumbled into the room. Ada pulled Camille out of Guil’s grip and kissed her hard on the mouth, gave her a shake, then burst into tears and wrapped her arms around her.
‘Welcome back,’ said Al laconically.
‘What took you so long?’ sniffled Ada into Camille’s shoulder.
‘We had to hide in the Saints-Innocents safe house,’ explained Guil, peeling off his filthy uniform jacket. ‘The city is crawling with soldiers.’
‘Don’t you ever do that again.’
‘I should be saying that to you.’ Camille’s voice was raspy, and colour was high in her cheeks. ‘I told you to create a distraction, not crash into the damn prison.’
She broke off, coughing, spasms wracking her chest. Ada wrapped an arm round her waist to hold her up, rubbing her back as her wheezing slowed to steady breaths.
‘Do we need to send for the doctor?’
Camille’s chest had never been strong, but lately it seemed to be getting worse and worse – and half-drowning wasn’t going to help.
Camille brushed her off. ‘I’m fine. Just full of water.’
‘Hate to break up this charming display of affection,’ said Al, sliding from behind the table and pouring himself another measure of brandy, ‘but what the bloody hell is that?’
He gestured with his glass to the bedraggled girl.
Ada looked over Camille’s shoulder – Olympe Marie de l’Aubespine, she presumed. Only, the girl had pushed back her hood now to reveal a strange grey bruise coiling across her face and hands and neck. Across every bit of exposed skin. And her eyes … they had no whites. They were all inky pupil.
Ada let out an involuntary gasp.
Under their horrified scrutiny, Olympe shrank against the door frame. ‘Where have you taken me? Who are these people?’
Camille disentangled herself from Ada’s arms and led Olympe to one of the threadbare chairs.
‘This is my battalion, they help me rescue people from prison. They’re safe.’
Olympe let herself be led, still watching Ada and Al warily, and perched on the edge of the chair.
‘How—?’ Ada crossed over to get a better look at her skin. ‘What—?’ She looked up at Cam, then back at Olympe. ‘Who—?’
Al took a sip of his brandy. ‘I think I had it summed up with “what the bloody hell is that?”’
‘This is Olympe,’ said Camille.
Ada frowned as she examined Olympe. She’d thought the girl had some strange skin condition or had been marked by a childhood illness like so many pox-scarred survivors she saw in the streets. But the bruise-like markings seemed to move and shift as Ada watched her, which was impossible. Ada blinked and looked again. A bruise blossomed around Olympe’s ear and disappeared under her hair. She pulled her cloak closer, retreating into the hood.
Ada swallowed. ‘Did the duc mention … this?’
‘No,’ said Camille curtly. ‘It seems that the duc was creative with the truth. He’s not her father – she’s never even heard him. The duc said this was a normal family rescue. He lied.’
‘But why bother?’
‘Perhaps they thought we might turn down the job if we knew what kind of risk we were really running,’ said Guil, crouching by the fire to warm his hands.
‘Risk?’ asked Ada.
‘Tell them what you told me.’ Guil shot Camille a look.
Camille’s expression darkened. ‘They had her locked up like an animal. There was this … mask. A metal mask, completely covering her head. As if they were trying to hide her. As if she is dangerous.’
Ada felt all too aware of Olympe studying them silently.
‘I don’t understand. If she’s not the duc’s daughter, then who is she? And why did he hire us to rescue her?’
Camille rolled her shoulders, joints cracking audibly.
‘Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that we were lied to. Used. We’re trying to put things right in this chaos and the Royalists treated us as though we’re their servants. They made me take you all into a situation far more dangerous than I was led to believe. They wanted us to do their dirty work.’
She paused to twist her hair into a rope to wring the water out.
Ada swallowed. She knew the expression on Camille’s face only too well.
‘They shouldn’t have done that. I don’t like being used.’
2
The Restaurant Downstairs
The ‘restaurant’ craze had swept Paris at the same speed as the Revolution and now the Au Petit Suisse sold meals in the evenings, pulling in stragglers from the pleasure gardens and students from the Sorbonne University. Camille and the battalion trooped downstairs for a sorely needed meal, folding themselves into a cramped table at the back as a waiter began bringing baskets of bread and bottles of oil. They’d kept Olympe hidden under her hood, and stashed her into the deepest, darkest corner.
By the empty fireplace, a pair of musicians sawed at a fiddle and an accordion; a particularly drunk group of students were making up new words to the revolutionary anthem, ‘Ça Ira’. Half the café seemed to be discussing the forthcoming Festival of the Supreme Being, the grand parades planned throughout the city and the giant mountain being constructed on the Champs de Mars.
A simple dinner of roast guinea fowl, pottage, a dish of anchovies and a plate of pickled greens was presented along with several bottles of terrible wine and they s
et to.
‘Are you sure no one followed you back from the prison?’ Ada asked Guil.
‘I’m sure,’ he replied. ‘The soldiers should still be following two floating heads downriver.’
‘How—?’
‘There have been many beheadings recently. Many spare heads. Trust me when I tell you that you do not wish to know the rest of the story.’
‘Beheadings?’ asked Olympe, tensing.
‘One or two,’ snorted Al. ‘If you’d not noticed.’
At Olympe’s look of horror, Ada realised she really hadn’t known.
‘Because of the Revolution,’ she explained. ‘The government passed the Law of Suspects that makes it easier for them to sentence to death people they think are conspiring against them.’
‘I don’t understand – what revolution?’
Al paused, pouring coffee. ‘Are you serious?’
Olympe glanced between them and nodded.
Al flopped back into his chair. ‘Someone else has got to field that one, I’m out.’
Ada hesitated, then set down her fork.
‘Five years ago there was a crisis. The country was bankrupt and the old government wouldn’t work with the king any more. Things were … unfair.’ Ada hesitated again. ‘I’m not trying to patronise you, but I don’t know how to explain this simply.’
Guil gathered up some of the pamphlets that littered the tables in the café and handed them to Olympe. ‘Read these, it will go some way to explain things.’
Before she could take them, Al dived across the table and picked out the news-sheets. He looked up to find them all staring at him.
‘What? She can’t have these ones. I’m, uh, still reading them.’ He blushed beetroot red.
Guil put the remaining pamphlets in front of Olympe. ‘Before the Revolutionary government gained control, the aristocracy and the king had too much power, and everyone else had too little. The poorest people paid the most taxes and were starving. So the people abolished the Ancien Régime and a new government announced the Declaration of the Rights of Man – a document that said we were all equal.’